Monday, July 24, 2006
Weekend Sports Roundup: During the World Cup we heard a lot of yammer about how the US will never be a world power in soccer because it is a 'marginal sport' here. Setting aside, for the moment, the fact that the US is a world power in soccer (we qualify for the World Cup, didn't we? Try telling Belgium that it isn't a soccer power.), how does this argument square with the now eight year run of Americans winning the Tour de France? Could there be a sport more marginal to the US than cycling? It's on the Outdoor Life Network, for crissake! (Oh yeah. So's hockey.) Good profile of Floyd Landis here: I like the fact that when he discovered that lacked the "high-intensity intermittent component" and needed short (ten-second-to-two-minute) bursts of maximum-wattage power, he went out and got some: "At home in Murrieta, California, Landis began to finish each climb with a prolonged breakneck sprint. He called it Steep Hill Interval Training--a pleasing acronym--and by winter the numbers began to come. He found he could push 1,250 watts for five seconds, as opposed to 900 the previous year--a 39 percent improvement. Which means that on a steep, Tour-type climb, New Floyd will ride 3.7 miles per hour faster than Old Floyd for those five seconds, enough to open a gap of eight meters." What do you know-- it worked.
Watching A-Rod melt down is just miserable. It took me a few days to come up with the name, but I got it finally:Steve Sax, committed 30 errors in 1983. Rodriguez's mind is filled with spiders, and there's nothing to be done about it except to ride it out. Sure, he'd probably be right as rain if he were traded elsewhere, but there's nobody else that'll have him. He's priced out of the market for just about everybody but the Mets and the BoSox. Oddly, I never liked Sax until he started struggling. He always killed the Mets when he was with the Dodgers, but when he came to the Yanks he got more likable. Guess it doesn't work like that for everyone.
Finally, I'm loving my Metropolitans: first team in major league history to hit four grand slams in a five-game span.
Watching A-Rod melt down is just miserable. It took me a few days to come up with the name, but I got it finally:Steve Sax, committed 30 errors in 1983. Rodriguez's mind is filled with spiders, and there's nothing to be done about it except to ride it out. Sure, he'd probably be right as rain if he were traded elsewhere, but there's nobody else that'll have him. He's priced out of the market for just about everybody but the Mets and the BoSox. Oddly, I never liked Sax until he started struggling. He always killed the Mets when he was with the Dodgers, but when he came to the Yanks he got more likable. Guess it doesn't work like that for everyone.
Finally, I'm loving my Metropolitans: first team in major league history to hit four grand slams in a five-game span.
