sports talk--this day in history
Today in Sports History:
1910-- Dodgers and Pirates play to an 8-8 tie; both have 38 at bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, 2 errors, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 passed ball, and 1 hit by pitch. SPOOKY!!
1934-- Making a farewell appearance in Boston, Babe Ruth draws a record 46,766 fans, with an estimated 20,000 turned away, at Fenway Park, the place where he began his career as a pitcher 20 years before.
1963-- Stan Musial announces he will retire at the end of the year.
1964-- Mickey Mantle homers from each side of the plate in the same game for the 10th and final time, a major league record, as NY beats the White Sox 7-3 at Yankee Stadium.
1974-- Nolan Ryan strikes out 19 and walks only 2 as the California Angels defeat the Boston Red Sox 4-2.
1977-- For the second straight day, Manny Sanguillien foils a no-hit bid. Today's single is off the Oriole's Jim Palmer, who settles for a two-hit 6-0 shutout. Yesterday's hit was off Mike Torrez, who finished with a two-hit 3-0 victory for the Yankees.
1986-- Don Baylor of the Boston Red Sox set an American League record when he was hit by a pitch for the 25th time of the season. That season was also the first of 3 consecutive seasons-with 3 different teams-that Baylor made it to the World Series. (The Red Sox in 1986, the Twins in 1987, and the A's in 1988. His A's were the only one of the 3 to win)
1990-- The US beats Jamaica 5-1 in the World Soccer Cup. Truthfully, I could care less (soccer is nothing more than cross country with a ball, and about half as exciting watching paint dry) but it did give me the opportunity to insult a sport I couldn't give two hoots about. (I wonder---Do they play soccer in Austrailia? If dingos steal my soccer ball, is there a penalty? Will there be any movies about the whole tragic affair? Will the dingo be awarded a cap? Just wondering.)
1910-- Dodgers and Pirates play to an 8-8 tie; both have 38 at bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, 2 errors, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 passed ball, and 1 hit by pitch. SPOOKY!!
1934-- Making a farewell appearance in Boston, Babe Ruth draws a record 46,766 fans, with an estimated 20,000 turned away, at Fenway Park, the place where he began his career as a pitcher 20 years before.
1963-- Stan Musial announces he will retire at the end of the year.
1964-- Mickey Mantle homers from each side of the plate in the same game for the 10th and final time, a major league record, as NY beats the White Sox 7-3 at Yankee Stadium.
1974-- Nolan Ryan strikes out 19 and walks only 2 as the California Angels defeat the Boston Red Sox 4-2.
1977-- For the second straight day, Manny Sanguillien foils a no-hit bid. Today's single is off the Oriole's Jim Palmer, who settles for a two-hit 6-0 shutout. Yesterday's hit was off Mike Torrez, who finished with a two-hit 3-0 victory for the Yankees.
1986-- Don Baylor of the Boston Red Sox set an American League record when he was hit by a pitch for the 25th time of the season. That season was also the first of 3 consecutive seasons-with 3 different teams-that Baylor made it to the World Series. (The Red Sox in 1986, the Twins in 1987, and the A's in 1988. His A's were the only one of the 3 to win)
1990-- The US beats Jamaica 5-1 in the World Soccer Cup. Truthfully, I could care less (soccer is nothing more than cross country with a ball, and about half as exciting watching paint dry) but it did give me the opportunity to insult a sport I couldn't give two hoots about. (I wonder---Do they play soccer in Austrailia? If dingos steal my soccer ball, is there a penalty? Will there be any movies about the whole tragic affair? Will the dingo be awarded a cap? Just wondering.)
posted by hondo at 1:17 AM
1 Comments:
Oh Hondo! Is the Aussie reference for me? How touching...
Now we have a teachable moment (I'm using your phrase sarcastically) because you don't know much about Australia. It's easier to fill a vacuum than overturn a prejudice.
First thing, Ozzies LOOOOOVE this thing called "Australian Rules Football." It's played with an ovid ball, and the point is to kick it through goalposts. Other than that, it's like non-stop anarchy. They don't wear pads like U.S. footballers, and the form of play is almost as rough as rugby. Lots of running, smashing into each other, jumping up in crowds to catch the ball in front of the goalposts, forward kicks but passes not allowed. No lines of scrimmage, defensive or offensive teams and no scrums like rugby. Quite fun to watch, real free-flowing.
BTW, I grew up in the Maryland suburbs and rooted for the Colts from the Johnny Unitas days. I stopped liking American football in 1985 when Robert Irsay snuck the Colts out of town in the middle of the night for, where was it? Oh yeah -- Indianapolis! The only reason I would look at the football scores in the U.S. was to hope that the Colts lost. Which they did quite well for years, barring that one recent fluke season.
As for soccer, it was big here during the World Cup. Australia actually got in and did better than the U.S. after all. There are so many immigrants here, especially Italians, that it was a case of divided loyalties when they played. But normally, Aussies sneer at soccer too.
As for your remarks about dingos, that's just further evidence of how you actually don't know a lot about the world. Coyotes have more of a presence in the U.S. than dingos do in Oz. They're here, but mostly in the bush waaaay out. They're not protected or anything because they're just a mongrel species of dog that came over with the aborigines when they settled the continent 40,000 years ago. But maybe you don't believe the earth is more than 6,500 years old, so that's irrelevant to you.
I have never seen a dingo. Most Australians have not. That's because most Aussies live in cities. The country's population is far more urbanised than America's. Once you get outside the metropolitan areas, it's practically vacant. The Outback, to which you refer, is not really part of the life of 85% of Australians. So Outback cracks are off-kilter, like calling an American a "plainsman." Yeah, there were plainsmen in the 1870s, but it's so out-of-date. Crocodile Dundee was a movie. No more applicable to everyday Australian life than a John Wayne movie is to everyday American life.
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