XM MLB Chat

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

NY Yankees and Texas Rangers at Yankee Stadium have moment of silence for victims of Istanbul terror attack
























6/29/16, "The Yankees and Rangers had a moment of silence for the victims of the Istanbul terror attacks during pregame." ESPN Baseball Tonight twitter. Final, 9-7 NY Yankees over Texas Rangers, Yankees have 6 run 9th inning


Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

Saturday, June 25, 2016

First Cardinals-Mariners game in Seattle since 2002 is filled with St. Louis fans, 6/24/16

















6/24/16, "First Cardinals-Mariners game in Seattle since 2002 is filled with St. Louis fans." Jim Caple, ESPN. Final 4-3 Mariners, Adam Lind 3 run home run in 9th

Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

First night baseball game in NY City at Ebbets Field, 6/15/1938





















6/15/16, "On this date in 1938, Johnny Vander Meer pitched a no-hitter in the first night game ever played in New York City." Baseball Tonight twitter. Final score 6-0, Reds over Brooklyn Dodgers

Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Three straight days of soccer fan violence in Marseille, France-AP














Above image caption: "Fans clashed with one another and the police in Marseille on Saturday. By the Associated Press on Publish Date June 11, 2016. Photo by Guillaume Horcajuelo/European Pressphoto Agency." 
 
6/11/16, "Russia and England Fans Clash Repeatedly at European Championships," AP via NY Times

"Fights broke out Saturday before and soon after Russia earned a 1-1 draw against England with a stoppage-time goal in a Group B match at the European Championships in Marseille, France.

Fans of the two teams rioted before the game in Marseille’s Old Port district and briefly outside the nearby Stade Vélodrome in a third straight day of violence in the city. The police fired tear gas and water cannons at the fighting fans.

















Above image caption: "Russia backers, left, fighting with an England fan. Credit Peter Powell/European Pressphoto Agency"
 
The clashes started again moments after the final whistle when a large group of Russia fans in a stand behind one of the goals advanced on England supporters in a neighboring area, throwing objects and breaking through a line of stewards. England fans ran for the exits in panic.

UEFA, the governing body overseeing European soccer, will open disciplinary proceedings over the violence in Marseille, with Russia facing a stronger punishment after the events inside the stadium.

Vasily Berezutsky scored Russia’s equalizer with a looping header in the second minute of injury time, canceling out an Eric Dier goal from a free kick in the 73rd.

“It’s disappointing because we were so close to an important and big win in our first game,” said Dier, a defensive midfielder.

England failed to finish any of a flurry of chances in a dominant first-half performance and faded until Dier put it ahead.

However, what happened during the match was overshadowed by the fan violence. The police tried, largely unsuccessfully, to rein in the violence, which the authorities said had left at least five people injured. Some fans walked through the city bare-chested and with blood dripping from head wounds.

About two hours before the game, the police used water cannons on some fans at the Old Port. About an hour later, the police fired tear gas at a group of about 200 people heading from the Old Port area to Stade Vélodrome.

The trouble had largely died down by the time the match started, but it reignited just as the game finished. Shortly before the final whistle, Russian fans appeared to have seized a power cable running around the front of a stand before a group attacked nearby English supporters.

As England fans fled, Russia fans gave chase, snatching English flags that had been on display. Large numbers of stewards struggled to restore order.

In other games at the European Championships, Wales beat Slovakia, 2-1, in a Group B match in Bordeaux, France, and Switzerland defeated 10-man Albania, 1-0, in a Group A match in Lens, France.

Gareth Bale, who about two weeks ago won the Champions League with Real Madrid for the second time in three seasons, played a pivotal role as Wales made a triumphant return to a major competition after a 58-year absence. He put Wales ahead in the 10th minute with a curling free kick and was the driving force behind much of his team’s attack.

Still, although Bale was the focus of much of Slovakia’s planning, it was a substitute — Hal Robson-Kanu — who secured Wales’s victory. A Robson-Kanu shot in the 81st minute restored Wales’s lead after another substitute, Ondrej Duda, had equalized for Slovakia in the 61st.

Switzerland earned its win behind an early goal by defender Fabian Schär. Although it dominated for most of the game, Switzerland failed to increase its lead after Lorik Cana, the Albania captain, was sent off in the 37th minute following a second yellow card.

CONSOLATION FOR COSTA RICA Costa Rica benefited from an own goal by Colombia in a 3-2 upset victory in Houston that wrapped up Group A play in the Copa América.

Colombia had already advanced, having earned a berth in the quarterfinals with a win over Paraguay on Tuesday, and Costa Rica was eliminated from contention with the United States’ 1-0 victory over Paraguay earlier Saturday.

Still, this result made Colombia’s path in the tournament more difficult: The team will now probably have to face Brazil. Colombia could have drawn Ecuador or Peru with a win.

Playing in front of a crowd that overwhelmingly favored Colombia, Costa Rica took a 1-0 lead in the second minute with a 20-yard strike from Johan Venegas. The goal was the team’s first in Copa América play since it beat Bolivia, 2-0, in 2011."




Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

Monday, June 06, 2016

Rainbow in Detroit behind Comerica Park, 6/6/16

















 
Above, 6/6/2016, "Rainbow behind Comerica Park," ESPN, Katy Strang. Final, 11-0, Detroit over Toronto
http://espn.go.com/mlb/scoreboard/_/date/20160606

















Above, 4/21/2015, Rainbow in Detroit, ap

Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Ali and Cosell, 1960s power couple-NY Times, Sandomir

6/4/16, "Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell: Foils and Friends Bound by Mutual Respect," NY Times, Richard Sandomir

1966, NY Times
"They were a 1960s power couple, two hypertalkative showmen: Muhammad Ali, the African-American boxer born with a slave name, and Howard Cosell, the Jewish Brooklyn lawyer who found his calling in sportscasting.

Ali, who died Friday at 74, recited doggerel, danced in the ring, taunted his opponents and converted to Islam. And, as he told us, he was pretty.

Cosell was homely, with an adenoidal voice and a collection of toupees. But at his best, he could call a boxing match with dramatic brio, articulate complex issues, narrate football highlights with astonishing skill and little preparation, and, as he often said, “tell it like it is.”

ABC Sports, Cosell’s employer, carried a lot of Ali’s fights, so Cosell was at ringside, inside the ring interviewing Ali and his opponents after fights, or in the network’s studio interviewing Ali. Their camaraderie produced an entertaining union of spirited opposites and a well-suited black-white pairing for the times.

One man, Ali, understood racism; the other, Cosell, experienced anti-Semitism. And neither could stop talking.

Ali spoke to many other journalists, but he and Cosell seemed inseparable: teasing and challenging each other, and mock-sparring in suits and ties. Ali often threatened to strip off Cosell’s toupee du jour, and in their jokey back-and-forth, each man said the other would have been nothing without him.

Every time you open your mouth, you should be arrested for air pollution,” Ali once told Cosell, who responded, “You would still be in impoverished anonymity in this country if I hadn’t made you.”

Beneath the stagecraft of their relationship was Cosell’s support of Ali, whether by no longer calling him Cassius Clay when others, like his opponent Ernie Terrell, persisted, or by excoriating the New York State Athletic Commission for stripping him of his heavyweight title in 1967 after he refused induction into the Army.

They were so tied in the public mind that the columnist Dave Kindred wrote a dual biography of the men, “Sound and Fury,” in 2006.

“Had they been practitioners of traditional humility, their extraordinary talents alone would have demanded that attention be paid,” Kindred wrote. “But there was nothing traditional about Ali and Cosell. A thimble would have contained their humility with room left over for an elephant.”

One day in January 1974, shortly before Ali and Joe Frazier’s rematch of their epic bout three years earlier, they joined Cosell at the ABC Sports studio to review film of the first fight. Dennis Lewin, a longtime producer at the network, recalled: “Normally when we had two people for Howard to interview with contrasting views, we sat Howard between them, but I wanted the two of them together to have the byplay better. I didn’t realize it would lead to a fight.”

Indeed, when Ali brought up Frazier’s hospitalization after their first bout, Frazier grew enraged, rose to his feet and asked Ali why he called him ignorant.

Sit down, Joe,” Ali said, but Ali got to his feet and they began wrestling on the studio floor, as stagehands and the fighters’ entourages tried to restore order.

Cosell never got out of his chair, narrating the set-to as if it were a prizefight and trying to determine who was clowning and who was serious.

“It’s a bad and ugly scene,” he said, “and it’s unfortunate that it happened as we showed this extraordinary fight.”

Frazier left angrily, leaving Ali alone with Cosell.

Ali was petulant afterward and tried to rationalize why he had called Frazier ignorant. Cosell kept prodding Ali back to analyzing the first epic bout. Cosell sounded annoyed, yet paternal, as he tried to bring Ali back to the day’s goal.

“I’m going to represent Joe, as a devil’s advocate,” Cosell said.

“You have to be a devil to represent Joe,” Ali said.

Lewin witnessed many Ali-Cosell encounters and saw in them two “gifted and highly intelligent performers” who could “play off each other on any level.”

They had genuine respect for their mutual talents and what they could do for each other,” he said. “Clearly, they both enabled each other’s careers.”

Both men’s health declined, Ali from Parkinson’s disease, Cosell from multiple problems. In 1992, when Ali celebrated his 50th birthday on a television special, the ailing Cosell offered his greetings in a prerecorded segment that showed his emotional side, without bombast or gibes.

“Fifty years old,” he said, “I never thought that could happen, not to you. But it has, and you know something? You are exactly who you said you are. You never wavered. You are free to be who you want to be.”

Cosell paused, choking up, and added, “I love you.”"

Image caption: "In 1966, Muhammad Ali demonstrated to Howard Cosell how he had used the Ali Shuffle in his fight against Cleveland Williams. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times"



Stumbleupon StumbleUpon