The gravel in your sporting ice cream.
Harry Nilsson, of the great songs, magnificent voice and the going on the piss with John Lennon a lot in the 70s is a big fav here at sportreview.
Later in his career, he attempted to write a stadium chant (along the lines of creepy Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part Two)) for the LA Dodgers, who, like Harry, were originally from Brooklyn.
01 Yo Dodger Blue (L.A. Loves You) – Harry Nilsson (MP3, 6MB)
Assist of the decade, apparently – it IS a bit good
If you have kids, sick tomato is a great way to keep them entertained in the school holidays – you’ll treasure these special moments. Bored teenagers working in fast food outlets also enjoy super sick tomato
Cycling is serious business, team, especially if you aspire to be a 4 foot rake-like Euro cyclist racing up 45% gradients – check out all these rules
Moneyball is about a new approach to baseball, hiring Harvard statistics nerds to scout talent, going deep inside the stats to find the most effective players. Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane, portrayed as an obsessive perfectionist lead the A’s to the play offs several times early in the noughties with a fraction on the budget of most teams. Using number crunching to scout meant the A’s recruited players who were fat, old or just had weird technique who, crucially, got the job done – on paper.
Michael Lewis is one of the smartest writers around, and he brings this world of number crunching and hours alone with Excel to life. This book caused a storm in Baseball with theories that flew in the face of what ‘traditional baseball guys’ valued. It would be fascinating to see this approach applied to Cricket, another sport that lends itself to statistical obsession.
Recommended.
Michael Lewis article on Moneyball in Basketball (NY Times).
Cricket With Balls’ Jarrod Kimber has written his second book – Ashes 2009: When Freddie Became Jesus (links to bookdepository.com, for free delivery for most of the world).
Mostly, there’s too much Cricket in Cricket books – if we wanted to read a match report, we’d dial up CricInfo, you know. JRod skillfully runs through each test session by session, but throws in just enough jokes, offensive language and base innuendo to make it compelling reading.
On the NPower promotional girls: “Guys trying to pick up promotional girls is about the saddest thing you can see, like Hotel Rwanda followed by a news report on buring puppies.”
On ‘Random’ Rudi Koertzen: “Sometimes I think he gives himself extra time by raising his finger slowly just so he can surprise himself.”
For me, the book’s peak is around the Lord’s test, from the scene from the press box, to almost killing Richie Benaud using Swine Flu, to a hilarious conversation between Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden (Are you sure, or do we need to go upstairs, Billy? There are no stairs here, Rudi.), to the most sublime writing about mass vomit since Stand By Me.
It’s also the story of HIS Ashes, his first in England as a writer; what the series means to him, his impending wedding and going to the Oval with his family – this backstory makes the book richer, without getting all Nick Hornby about it.
It’s well documented that JRod’s mission to turn himself into a Proper Cricket Writer from a standing start impresses the fuck out of me – WFBJ is a big step up from his first book. Buy a copy now, so you can bore your kids about him when he’s editing Wisden or sticking his keys in a pitch on the telly. Highly recommended.
The Black Caps’ coaching-set up isn’t that clear – new coach Mark Greatbach gets to advise on team selection, while Dan has final say, and while Dan’s in charge on the field, Mark helps out with batting and gives interviews, but only if Dan’s not around… it’s more complicated than Tony Greig using his hotel swipe card after a hard evening’s awards ceremony.
In order to poll the Cricket public’s understanding, sportreview.net.nz presents a pop quiz, using 1977’s Star Wars as a model for a modern international Cricket coaching.
Is the Black Caps’ coaching set up more like:
Option A: C3PO and R2D2
C3PO is the kind of droid that emails Health & Safety to see if he’s allowed to use the Millenium Falcon’s toilet – you can trust his advice, but you really want to be wearing your ipod if you’re sat beside him waiting to bat.
R2 has a working relationship with C3PO, but he’s definitely his own droid. He thinks fast and gets results, and that’s what gets him loaded into an X-Wing to help blow up the fucking Death Star.
Option B: Ben ‘Obi Wan’ Kenobi and Luke Skywalker
Luke looks up to Ben, but concerns remain he might pick up bad habits from Han Solo, journeyman pro from the Corellia country scene.
Ben’s been pretty handy with a bat over the years, and has been on all the big tours. What he lacks in footwork these days, he makes up in mind games and getting in his opponent’s head. Superb facial hair. He’s keen to do some mentoring with the up and comers.
Option C: Darth Vader and Admiral Motti
Mark: Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vettori. Your sad devotion to backing away and cutting may have worked against a popgun Pakistan attack, but is it clairvoyance enough against the Australi….
Mark: *choking noises*
Dan: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Share your answer in the comments.
Inspired by Ben’s post:
We went to watch last night’s North Shore City Grand Prix, which took over downtown Takapuna (such as it is) for the night. Criteriums are fantastic to watch, as you can stand in one spot, eating a lovely Pizza, for example, and watch the riders come past you again and again.
Standing roughly a metre away from a group of 20-30 Cyclists head down in a big gear at 50ish KPH downhill, as close to the other riders as you are to your computer now makes you think of how brave you have to be to ride this kind of race – it’s not for wussy sports bloggers like myself.
We caught the Open Men’s race, featuring the legendary Olympian and PRO Graeme Miller, who bagged second place behind a rider whose name I don’t know, who made an early break and held on in an extremely gutsy ride in blustery conditions.
After watching the Elite Women race, we strolled down to see the Elite Men line up for their race. I kept an eye on Gordon McCauley, the ‘people’s champion’ as the MC called him about 37 times. He has a reputation for being an extremely hard rider, and sledger, we caught a little glimpse as he sharked up to the start / finish, muttering something to a young rider, breaking him out of his pre-race trance. McCauley set a hard and fast tempo in the little of the race we saw, bringing the peloton extremely close to the barriers early on – McCauley finished up third – turns out he’s on Twitter too.
“Bill’s preparation was meticulous and involved a lot of card-play. He would shuffle a deck and flash through the cards, matching a player with a number. Having memorised the names, he then liked to watch the players in training, listening to them. It hurt him just before his retirement in 2002 that he was once denied access to an Australian training session. Professional rugby has not always been kind to the romantics.”
Guardian obituary of Rugby commentary legend Bill MacLaren – some of his best work was on Jonah Lomu Rugby
