It will be nice to be able to watch the Olympics and see someone the same age as I am. Congrats to Dara Torres!
41-year-old Swimmer makes the Olympic Team!
Go Hawks!
The Atlanta Hawks won their first playoff game in nine years last night. Josh Smith was amazing.
Suggestions from Rick
I can always count on my blogging buddy Rick for some good ideas. He suggested:
- It’s baseball season. You could discuss the chances of Oregon State once again beating North Carolina in the CWS in a couple of months.
- Go through your archives and re-publish some of the ones that stick out to you for one reason or another.
Okay, I realize it’s baseball season but I don’t watch a lot of college baseball. I could tell you about the problems that the Braves and A’s are having right now, but nothing about Oregon State and/or North Carolina.
But not knowing anything has never stopped me in the past, so I will unequivocally say that OSU will earn a three-peat by whipping the Tar Heels at Rosenblatt Stadium in June. Go Beavers!
I’ll start looking through the archives and see if I can find anything worty of a repost.
Thanks, Rick!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Baseball is Back!
I know there were a few games before today, but today was opening day for most teams. Hope you got to watch some games!
Go Braves!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 50 Great Things you Never Knew you Could do with Tennis Balls
I’ve played tennis for most of my life, and I had never thought of many of these.
- When packing something for shipping in a box that’s too large, use tennis balls as shock-absorbing cushions that will hold the item steady in the box.
- Tennis balls can also help any laundry load dry faster - just throw two or three in the dryer and your clothes will be done quicker.
- Put tennis balls on the tops of poles to mark the edges of your driveway or drainage ditch. The bright yellow balls will be visible in the dark and help you avoid driving into the ditch or over the grass in the dark.
- Prevent your bike’s kick stand from sinking into soft dirt by cutting a small slit in a tennis ball and sliding it over the kick stand.
1912 World Series
I recently rediscovered the Shorpy Photo Blog. It has some of the best vintage American photos I’ve ever seen. Here is a shot of the crowd during game 1 of the 1912 World Series between the New York Giants and Boston Red Sox. This is the old Polo Grounds stadium in New York.
Here is a link to the full sized version.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Congrats to the Blazers!
The Valdosta State University Blazers won the Division II Football championship today. They won it by winning actual playoff games.
It would indeed be nice to see the big schools have such a championship.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Day Trip to Nashville
I went up to Nashville with a buddy to watch the Titans play the Chargers. (He is from San Diego originally). I had not been to Nashville in several years, and it was nice to see the city again. I’d like to go back when I have more time. It’s a beautiful area.
Oh, and the Chargers won in overtime.
Each photo is linked to a larger version. Click here for the entire set.
Shelby Street Bridge - It crosses the Cumberland River
Nashville Skyline
Pre-game warm-ups. The guy in the light blue in the center of the photo is Titans quarterback Vince Young.
View from our seats. Yes, we were in the top row!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite City Champs!
I’ve played in the ALTA tennis league for 10 years now, and I finally got to play on a team that won the city championship. We didn’t lose a single match in any of our four playoff wins!
ALTA has been around for 36 years and now has about 80,000 members.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Hmmmmm
I wonder if the Auburn fans know they have a new coach and color scheme.
College Football is here!
Yes!!!
Appalachian State is playing Michigan very close in Ann Arbor. Lots of great match-ups today.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 5 Years of Online Baseball
I started watching games in 2004, and I can’t imagine a baseball season without it now. I wonder if Mark Cuban is aware of this. 
And I can’t believe I’m doing two baseball posts in one day.
Start Slide Show with PicLens LiteIt was five years ago today that the Next Big Thing in baseball consumption was introduced, and once again it was the national pastime that paved the way for the technology and reshaped the average fan’s life. On Aug. 26, 2002, exactly 63 years after that first televised Major League game, the Yankees withstood an Alex Rodriguez homer and beat Kenny Rogers and the Rangers, 10-3, at Yankee Stadium. The YES Network’s full broadcast was streamed as a live Webcast for free exclusively at MLB.com, meeting immediate excitement, probably slowing worker productivity a bit and most definitely leading to the ultimate curtain call.
To commemorate that historic first and the five years of technology excitement that followed, MLB.com will provide a free live Webcast of today’s series finale between the Yankees and Tigers from Comerica Park in Detroit.
Since that inaugural Webcast, baseball fans have accessed more than 1.2 billion streams of live and on-demand multimedia offerings on MLB.com, representing more than 50 million hours of viewing time for baseball games on the Internet. In 2007, MLB.com will stream more than 12,000 live events, including every game on the Major League Baseball schedule as well as thousands of events for its various partners.
End of an Era - TBS and the Braves
I remember getting cable TV for the first time back in the early 1980s, and just about the best thing about it was being able to watch the Braves play practically every game. I know I can still see the Braves lots of other places now, but it always just felt “right” watching them on TBS.
Start Slide Show with PicLens LiteWhen Ted Turner purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976, one of the few things he knew about baseball was the fact that it would provide nightly programming for his television station WTCG — which appropriately stood for Watch This Channel Grow.
Turner’s vision to beam WTCG — which would grow into superstation TBS — across the country revolutionized the cable industry and, at the same time, reaffirmed the belief that baseball truly is America’s pastime.
Despite the fact that the Braves were one of the worst teams in baseball during the 1970s and throughout much of the 1980s, they appropriately became known as America’s Team. Fans far and wide knew they could come home most every night to find Pete Van Wieren and Skip Caray bringing the Braves into their living rooms.
“It was a national broadcast,” said Van Wieren, who, like Caray, has been a Braves broadcaster since 1976. “But it was a national broadcast about a local team from a local perspective. We weren’t trying to be neutral. We were Braves broadcasters, and, when the Braves did something good, we would react that way.”
For 30 years, TBS has showcased the Braves to a national audience and allowed fans in remote towns like Storm Lake, Iowa, to adopt the Braves as their team. But, like all good things, this revolutionizing programming is nearing its end.
With MLB.com and satellite providers providing the opportunity to watch any and all games throughout the course of a season, the Braves are no longer the only game being shown in nearly every town throughout the United States.
Looking to capitalize on the advertising dollars that they can gain by running old movies or “Seinfeld” re-runs, TBS has decided to end its affiliation with the Braves. The station will begin airing all Division Series games this year and beginning next year, their regular season broadcasts will consist solely of a Sunday Game of the Week package, which will feature all Major League teams, not just the Braves.
Great catch!
Willie Harris made an unbelievable catch to save a Braves’ victory over the evil Mets today. Willie played college baseball at Kennesaw State, where I work.
Go Braves!!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite More Smoke from South Georgia
I played in a tennis tournament up in Big Canoe this weekend, and the smoke had made its way all the way up to the mountains.
You’ll need to click each image for the larger size to get a real idea of how bad it was.
By the way…we lost in a 3rd set tiebreaker in the finals. We did have two good wins to get there, so it was a good weekend.
Smoke from a Distant Fire
I went to the Braves/Mets game on Tuesday, and took this photo from the stadium before the game. The reason it looks a little hazy is because of the smoke from the wildfires in south Georgia. It was much worse eariler in the day, and I’m glad it had mostly cleared up by the time we got downtown for the game. A lot of schools in the Atlanta area kept the kids inside for recess because it was so smoky.
Things did look much nicer in the stadium. The Braves won the game 8-1.
Homer Simpson’s Favorite Baseball Players
Very funny!
- Outfield - Ty Cobb.
- A great hitter, and he invented an awesome salad full of bacon and cheese.
- Designated Hitter: That guy from “The Natural”
- It was so cool when he broke that light and then ran in slow motion.
- Second Base: Billy Martin
- Only major league player to get in more drunken bar brawls than me.