Medal watch

Olympics continue to bring dazzling finishes and big upsets and I continue to watch. I think it has been too long since my last update to cover everything so I wont go over what has happened except for one thing. The women's softball team. In my last Olympics oriented blog I brought up an article that stated that the team was much too good for their own good, and yes they are yet they couldn't reach gold. The Japanese team played a great game and overcame the US powerhouse team 3-1. Wow, just wow. Hats off to them. It is just like team USA basketball all over again, yet there will be no chance for a redemption team in the near future because softball is not an Olympic event after the Beijing games.




Isn't it crazy that USA and China have nearly the same medal count (95 vs 83)? I still have trouble viewing China as an international powerhouse. They have some great athletes and they will only get better. Thanks to archery and Judo, South Korea had vaulted into the top 5 early on. However there was some slippage and are currently in 8th place. Not bad for half of an appendix of Asia.


My Oakland A's stink. I admit that. Beginning in the year I expected the worst from my Athletics, yet they suprised many playing really efficient baseball. The pitching staff was excellent, the players were squeezing out runs to bring up the A's into 1st place in the American League division. That is all history now. After trading Blanton and Haren, we haven't been the same. The pitching is still good, but checkout the lineup. A whole bunch of scrubs. Nobody can hit! Sad. One bright spot, a very bright one at that is sidearm wielding and current closer Brad Ziegler. He broke a record for consecutive scoreless innings to start a career that was held by a George McQuillan in 1907. It's good to see something like this coming from a struggling team. I had a chance to see this wonder make magic on a game versus the Tampa Bay Rays, thanks to my friend who had box seats at McAfee Collesium. Suprisingly we got a win and Ziegler closed off the game for us. Awesome. I was not expecting much but got to see a great game including a 2 run homer by Bobby Crosby. Good job BOBBAY!