Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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Thanks to some fortuitous scheduling at work, I have today off. I wish to thank the person who made that schedule. Hey, that was me! Why do I have today off? I had to work Sunday.
So on this day, which was originally reserved for doing laundry and going to the dry cleaners and has been turned into the Day of Guilt-Free Daytime Sports TV watching. This day may go down as the second best day in my life, behind only this day.
Starting at 9 am PT will be the US Open 18 hole playoff between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate at Torrey Pines. Golf is one of the few sports where it seems that fans don't root for the underdog. Go figure.
Then at 11 am PT, Miami and Florida State play each other and the loser will unexpectedly be the first team to go home from the College World Series. The loser will be, as the locals say, "Oh and two and barbecue."
At 11:45 am PT, there are a pair of Group B games in Euro 2008. Croatia, which has clinched first place and will play Turkey in the quarterfinals, plays Poland in Klagenfurt, Austria. Germany will play Austria at the same time in Vienna. Germany moves on to the second round with a draw unless Poland beats Croatia by four goals (or enough to make up the goal difference edge that Austria has). Austria would likely move on to the next round if they can do a reverse Anschluss or if a helpful nun takes the starter out of the German team bus. I will not be wearing the checkerboard shirt today as I want to save that for the knockout round.
Then at 4 pm PT, the two winners from the first day of the College World Series, Georgia and Stanford face off. The winner of that game then has to win just one more game to make it to the championship series.
So feel free to chime in on whatever grabs your interest. I'll be keeping you updated on the status of my laundry throughout the day. And the possibility of going to the dry cleaners AND the post office AND the supermarket. ALL IN THE SAME DAY!!! That was the little known 13th Labor of Hercules, which he did on his off day.
You can tell how riveted I was that I didn't bother to check the result.
I think with Tiger's knee progressively getting worse, and Mediate not being as good as he's played the last 4 days, we could see a +4 round defeating a +5 round for the US Open.
Tuncay was already the in-joke du jour in a chat room I frequent /before/ the match and has only grown in mythical proportions since.
Congratulations on finding the thread amidst the Juiciness of the sidebar!
I'm afraid we can't maintain radio silence for you.
Will Rocco co-star in the most exciting playoff since Constantino Rocca?
Zing!!!
Plus your TV presumably doesn't freeze every other hole or so.
ESPN didn't have any sound for an interview between Jimmy Roberts and Rocco Mediate at first. Then they replayed it with the sound.
That was not worth the wait.
In other news, the clothes are in the washer.
Tiger, I'm sure could get a new outfit sent from Beaverton by super-sonic jet to his hotel room. Rocco could, presumably, pick something up with a Torrey Pines logo at the pro shop.
Not that I've ever played with anyone who insisted I take stroke and distance for a tee shot out of bounds.
Because they want to finish!
So, how long should two guys take to play this course with nobody else on it?
A friend of someone at my work apparently rents out their house in Del Mar every summer, and this summer happen to be renting to Jeff Oglivy. I guess these homeowners are a nice older couple and always write a bunch of notes around the house explaining where things are, etc.
Anyway, apparently they left a note saying to their tenant (I'm not sure they knew he was a pro golfer) he could borrow their set of (old) golf clubs if needed.
I thought that story was charming.
I'm guessing a little over 3 hours.
I wouldn't know; I'm in freeze up mode. I retract my earlier praise of usopen.com.
It'd be more fun if they squeezed the playoff in between five-somes and took some singles off the waiting list.
I would love to see the beer cart stroll by around the 6th hole or so.
"Timmermann"
"Timmermann"
"Please report to the starter."
"Timmermann"
40 minutes to the Promised Land!
4 Masters
3 US Open
2 British Open
2 PGA
Tiger is sitting on 13 during his age 32 season:
4 Masters
2 US Open (and counting)
3 British Open (coming up July 17-20)
4 PGA (August 7-10)
The PGA will be at Oakland Hills.
I like the British Open because by the time I wake up Sunday they're already on the back 9. It's quite convenient.
28 If Tiger could win at Carnoustie, he would have quite a threesome of course that he has won the Open Championship, St. Andrews, Muirfield and Carnoustie.
It also has the starter who reads off every name and never takes a break to go to the bathroom.
I believe the Open Championship is the only major tournament where all the golfers start on #1.
I always enjoy hearing the "inside" feed. At least there were no F-bombs.
That'll teach me to click on the link instead of just looking at the summary in Google.
Wasn't that Faldo v. Norman?
Or at least I thought it was.
Did we get an answer yet to Bob's question about whether the Turkish keeper has to sit today? I assume he does, with the red card.
Go to it Casey!
Casey, I said "Fold the laundry."
No, don't sit there staring at a bug in the window.
Fold the laundry.
Stupid cat.
The Turkish keeper is out for the Croatia match, according to my brother, America's foremost soccer expert.
Or at least the foremost one I can get in touch with easily.
The yellow cards from the first round won't carry over.
If Turkey had lost, the keeper would have been disqualified for the team's next international, which would have been a World Cup qualifier.
I have a blue Team Croatia t-shirt on today.
To quote Johnny Carson, "I did not know that." Ouch though, Zoeller shot 67; Norman 75 in 1984. Norman wasn't the best finisher ever.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldFootballNews/idUKL166187220080616
39 - I've trained my cat to sit on freshly laundered and folded clothing still warm from the dryer, in order to keep it nicely pressed and warm. If a bit furrier. He's very good at it.
The next task on the agenda: balancing the checkbook.
I guess they're saving the full checkerboard for a more important game.
http://www.torreypine.org/parks/torrey-pine.html
Also, I tried to ask the DT crew this once but I probably should have asked you...what is the average number of pitches per inning? Whenever they talk about pitch counts, short of knowing that ~100 = time for a starter to rest, I have no idea whether "## through three innings" is good or bad or what. If you know and can help me understand this better, I would sincerely appreciate it. Thanks.
The Austrians haven't beaten the Germans since 1985.
So I am one-quarter Polish. Does that mean I should root for Poland here? Knowing my family I probably have Croatian in there somewhere.
How's Latvia faring so far? (I'm 1/4 that, too.)
The last figures I found said the average number of pitches in a game was 285 for both sides. So if you divide that by say 17.5, you can get a rough estimate of about 16 pitches per inning.
The Latvian-Croatian-Polish trifecta is hard to pull off.
That was after the debacle in the 1982 World Cup in Spain when the Austrians, who had already clinched a spot in the second round, pretty much let Germany beat them 1-0 and eliminate Algeria.
The 1982 World Cup is when I became a soccer fan. You could only watch the matches on Spanish language TV. And I learned a lot of Spanish.
The France-Germany semifinal that year was intense.
It was a cellphone battery.
What am I supposed to say?
"Unlike the old one, this one works."
Woods in rough and bunkers. Mediate on fairways and greens.
You do the math.
I've never seen that before.
Yes, and you have to perform some grim calculus.
I assume the first sudden death hole would be 18.
Ordinarily, you take Tiger in a par 5 contest to decide it, but he's definitely grinding. Ordinarily you take Tiger in any sort of contest on a golf course.
I think you've got to be rooting for Mediate at this point. He could be the first U.S. Open champ whose name is a verb since Tom Kite in 1992. Unless you count Corey Pavin. Which you would have to spell Pavin'.
Or they could just go back to the 36-hole playoff!
It was good enough for Francis Ouimet!
And the NBC announcers aren't fawning over Woods like they normally do.
The Spanish language guy has no sense of humor.
That lake in front of the green is my nemesis.
That said, I doubt either guy will go in the water on this hole.
Poland is going home.
--
So coaches can not only be booted for "constant bickering" but red carded and held out of their next games as well? Crazy.
He looks to be between the grandstand and the cart path.
I could do that.
Well done by both men.
That's true on so many levels.
Croatia and Turkey were on the same side in World War I.
I'd rather not talk about Croatia in World War II.
The Seminoles strand a CWS record tying 17 runners in 9 innings.
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