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6412. wabbit - 8/25/2009 12:11:59 AM 
Eric Bruntlett became the second player in major league history to get the final three outs on one play without any help, preserving Philadelphia's 9-7 win over the Mets and making Pedro Martinez a winner in his return to New York on Sunday. It was just the culmination of a game of crazy occurrences. Making his first start against the Mets since signing with Philadelphia on July 15, Martinez made his first appearance on the field — as a batter. The Citi Field crowd of 39,038 stood and cheered as Martinez walked to the plate in the Phillies' road gray-and-red uniform, a jarring sight for sure after he spent the previous four years with the Mets. Martinez worked the count to 3-0 and Mets manager Jerry Manuel came out to remove Perez, bothered recently by a tender right knee that sidelined him earlier this season. The move got a loud ovation, and Perez (3-4) was soundly booed as he walked off the field having thrown 47 pitches — 20 strikes — and getting just two outs. The Phillies scored six times in the first inning off Oliver Perez on three-run homers by Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz. Perez didn't get his first out until he threw his 29th pitch.
CC Sabathia against Josh Beckett loomed as a low-scoring duel between two of baseball's best pitchers. Neither lived up to the hype, especially Beckett. The Boston Red Sox ace gave up a homer to Derek Jeter on the first pitch of the game, served up four more fence-clearing hits and lost to the New York Yankees 8-4 Sunday night. Sabathia became baseball's first 15-game winner despite allowing three earned runs in 6 2-3 innings, matching his total for his three previous starts. Sabathia (15-7) allowed two runs in the second inning, one in the fourth and one in the sixth. But Beckett gave up runs in each of the first five innings, then settled down before Hideki Matsui hit his second homer of the game and 23rd of the season in the eighth. Beckett (14-5) allowed eight runs on nine hits after yielding seven runs in his previous start. The Yankees' 16th win in 20 games increased their AL East lead over the Red Sox to 7 1/2 games.
Billy Wagner wants to be a closer next season, regardless of which team he's on. That's why the New York Mets reliever says Boston must guarantee it will decline his contract option for 2010 before he would approve a potential trade this week to the Red Sox, who already have an All-Star closer in Jonathan Papelbon. "I don't want to end my career as a setup man," Wagner said. "I'd like to have that option."
MLB news
6413. wabbit - 8/25/2009 12:18:52 AM I hate doing this, but I don't archive the Cafe and this is a fun conversation, so apologies in advance, but imho this conversation fits nicely in Sports. I'm taking the initial post by Dubai that got things rolling and posting the pertinent bit here: 25589. Dubai Vol - 8/24/2009 12:21:21 PM
...It's like my experience engineering race cars. You change one variable at a time. If you change two things and go faster, which change did it? ... 6414. iiibbb - 8/24/2009 5:52:25 PM Race cars? Cool.
I autocross. I actually have a knack for driving fast. I wish I'd discovered that when I was younger. 6415. Dubai Vol - 8/24/2009 6:25:39 PM Autocross is the real deal. I started out there, and vividly remember my first time back at it after years of karting. On my last run I didn't get one corner quite right and thought "I can push harder there next lap," before I realised I didn't GET a next lap.
Autocross experience also made me faster in opening laps, as I was used to pushing hard from lap one, while others were getting up to speed. Same goes for rallying, though the application is somewhat different.
For those wondering, autocross is a race through a course set up with cones in a parking lot. Each car goes through alone, against the clock, and fastest time wins. You only get three or four attempts, or "runs," so you have to get down to a fast time in a hurry. The course is open for walk-throughs before the event. If you have a remotely suitable car (almost anything but a truck or SUV) you could go racing this weekend somehwere near home, probably.
http://www.scca.com/hub.aspx?hub=3 6416. iiibbb - 8/24/2009 6:52:02 PM I love it. I can't afford track. I race stock because I can't really afford much of anything (or I should say justify).
I'm pretty good at it though... I'm frequently in the top 3 PAX times at any given race, and I almost never fail to be in the top 10.
Funny story.
When I first met my mother in law (federal judge and New Yorker) all she knew about me was 1)North Carolinian 2) Forestry Major 3) Likes guns 4) Likes car racing 5) PhD
So I met her and my father in law for breakfast and she was trying to make conversation. Obviously the only palatable discussion point was the racing. She was asking me all sorts of questions, and I was giving the usual pitch about how it is the lowest form of organized racing, and all the things that makes it fun and interesting
She said "It seems like such a rural (redneck) thing".
I went on to talk about how you can do it every weekend almost anywhere in the US if you'll drive 2 hrs.
She said "Well, how come I don't know anyone who does this" (mind you this is a person who's a Clinton appointee, knows many famous people and world leaders personally).
I looked her in the eye and told her "Maybe you need to meet more people."
My father in law almost had coffee come out his nose.
My mother in law has loved me ever since. I think showing a little humor and backbone was a good thing. 6417. iiibbb - 8/24/2009 6:54:37 PM My dream autox car right now is a stock 99 Miata (I don't think I'll ever own an SP, P, or M). I turned a FTD in a friend's the first time I ever drove it that stood until his and some others last runs. That car fits me like a glove. 6418. Dubai Vol - 8/24/2009 8:11:22 PM Here's my last autoX car:
It won the 2003 Emirates Autocross Championship, B Stock, a class populated with 3-series Bimmers except M3, and FWD hot hatches. It was the oldest car in the entire series, a 1988 GTI 16V. Three of my wins were by 0.1s or less. Proudest moment: the night I got bumped to A Stock and handed my friend Matias his only loss of the season.
It was also the only race he didn't beat my time by 2 seconds. The clerk of the course pulled a nasty trick: on a 5 cone slalom, the spacing to the last cone was shorter than the rest. He learned that trick from me, and I learned it in the '70s. I actually walked the course with Matias and, as always, counted paces between cones and pointed out the trick to him. Maybe it psyched him out a bit. He did a courtesy run afterwards and was the usual 2s faster than me.... Akram, in 3rd was another B Stock bump, and he was fairly good, usually with 1/2s of me. I was just on fire that night. 6419. iiibbb - 8/24/2009 10:05:11 PM We do irregular spacing slaloms in my old region all the time.
My second car was an 83 Rabbit GTI that I drove from 89 to 1996. I miss that car immensely. I wish I'd known about autocross when I had that car.
My autox car was a 96 Saturn Sl2. It moved from ES to GS to HS over the years. Most people don't realize what a good autox car it is; I didn't until I started driving other people's cars. It is very compliant, but with good torque. With the right tire inflation it can be made to oversteer a little. The brakes seem to be it's biggest shortcoming. 6420. Dubai Vol - 8/25/2009 3:37:54 PM Brakes just slow you down! ; )
I've autocrossed some pretty unlikely cars myself, with surprising (to others) success. I rem turning up at a 1993 PCA (Porsche Club of America) meeting in my 1978 Ford Fiesta. One wag exclaimed "you're gonna race a YUGO!?!" Clearly, nobody was expecting much.
After my first run, complete with plenty of sound effects from the 155R12 Pirellis, I heard something I have never heard before or since after a run: applause! That was a real warm fuzzy moment.
And at the end of the day I was faster than the slowest Porsche. Result! 6421. iiibbb - 8/25/2009 3:54:58 PM I'll drive any car.
When I first started my friends and I did a lot of filming our races. At one particular race there were a couple of national champs in the field. Something about the course was hard that day and I was toward the back of the first set of runs. I uncorked one and there is an audible gasp from the spectators... and then someone saying "holy shit".
Of course the time didn't hold up, but it was pretty cool for a few minutes. 6422. Dubai Vol - 8/29/2009 2:33:37 PM Giancarlo Fisichella just put the Force India team on pole for the first time ever in qualifying for tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix. Run at the legenday Spa-Francorchamps circuit, it's worth tuning in at 8 AM Eastern to see the start at least. Especially if it rains. Here's the 1998 start; no one was hurt.
6423. wabbit - 8/31/2009 1:37:54 AM 
Summer Bird isn't the other Bird anymore. The Belmont Stakes winner came charging off the far turn and splashed his way to victory in the $1 million Travers Stakes at rain-soaked Saratoga Race Course on Saturday, winning the same pair of races that his sire won. Now that Summer Bird is the only 3-year-old male with two Grade 1 wins, the son of Birdstone almost certainly moves to the head of his class. Of course, Rachel Alexandra is No. 1 3-year-old filly and leading contender for Horse of the Year. But Summer Bird is the word in the boy's world - ahead of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, who missed the Travers as he recovers from throat surgery, and ahead of Hold Me Back and Quality Road, who finished third in the slop as the 3-2 favorite, five lengths behind the winner. Charitable Man was fourth, followed by Warrior's Reward, Kensei and Our Edge. Jockeys who rode in the Travers pledged 10 percent of their earnings to establish a fund for 23-year-old apprentice rider Michael Straight, who suffered spinal injuries, including four broken vertebrae, in a spill during a race at Arlington Park on Aug. 26.
Capt. Candyman Can was declared the winner of the $300,000 King's Bishop Stakes after first-place finisher Vineyard Haven was disqualified by the stewards for interference in the stretch. Vineyard Haven, ridden by Alan Garcia, bumped Capt. Candyman Can several times as they dueled for the lead.
Rachel Alexandra will run next Saturday against older boys in the $750,000 Woodward Stakes.
6424. wabbit - 8/31/2009 1:38:18 AM  Mark Teixeira homered and drove in four runs, Johnny Damon also went deep and the New York Yankees polished off a three-game sweep of the struggling Chicago White Sox with an 8-3 victory Sunday. Alfredo Aceves (9-1) provided stellar relief pitching after Joba Chamberlain's abbreviated outing, and the streaking Yankees won for the 20th time in 26 games. Derek Jeter scored three times for the AL East leaders, who boosted baseball's best record to 82-48. They are 31-11 since the All-Star break, also the top mark in the majors. Teixeira is making a push for AL MVP honors. The switch-hitting slugger, in his first season with the Yankees after signing a $180 million, eight-year contract, has 32 homers and 101 RBIs. He has reached 30 home runs and 100 RBIs for six straight seasons, joining St. Louis star Albert Pujols as the only major leaguers to accomplish the feat.
Paul Byrd, making his first major league start since last September, pitched six shutout innings and the Boston Red Sox completed a three-game sweep with a 7-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. The win was the sixth in seven games for Boston, which opened the day 2 1/2 games ahead of Texas in the AL's wild-card race. Byrd (1-0), out of baseball after finishing last year with the Red Sox, signed a minor league contract on Aug. 5. He gave up three hits and walked three. Scoring single runs in each of the first four innings, the Red Sox sent Roy Halladay (13-8) to his third consecutive loss for the first time since last April.
Edgar Renteria hit a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning and the San Francisco Giants pulled even in the NL wild-card race with Colorado, beating the Rockies 9-5 Sunday for a three-game sweep. The Giants moved into a tie in the NL West with Colorado, six games behind first-place Los Angeles. The Rockies lost their season-high fifth in a row. San Francisco swept the Rockies at home for the first time since April 8-10, 2005. Last week, the Giants lost three of four at Coors Field despite leading every game. Renteria homered with two outs to overcome a 5-2 deficit, connecting two pitches after Rafael Betancourt (0-1) relieved Franklin Morales. Renteria hit his eighth career grand slam and second in two years against Betancourt.
MLB news
6425. wabbit - 8/31/2009 1:38:47 AM 
California came up big late to win the Little League World Series. Bulla Graft's sharp single scored the go-ahead run in the fourth inning and Kiko Garcia pitched three-plus scoreless innings of relief to lead Chula Vista to a 6-3 victory over Taoyuan, Taiwan to take the tournament title.
With the U.S.-partisan crowd on their feet, Garcia closed out the victory by striking out Yu Chieh Kao. The California fans yelled "USA! USA."
The teams shook hands before California celebrated, then invited Taiwan to accompany them on the customary victory lap around Lamade Stadium on a sun-splashed afternoon. They celebrated the United States' fifth straight Little League championship...
6426. wabbit - 9/12/2009 3:35:39 PM I am way behind here!
On October 5, Rachel Alexandra made history at Saratoga Race Course by becoming the first female to win the prestigious Woodward Stakes, holding off Macho Again by a head. The sensational three-year-old ran an electrifying race against the older boys for her ninth consecutive victory and all but clinched Horse of the Year honors. Rachel Alexandra dueled early with 2008 Belmont Stakes winner Da’Tara before taking the lead along the backstretch. She set a blistering early pace on the way to running 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.29. On the turn for home, it looked for a brief moment as though the filly would be caught, but regular rider Calvin Borel wasn’t bashful about using the whip, first left-handed, then right-handed to keep her in the lead. As they crossed the finish line, Borel raised his right hand in a No. 1 salute and pointed to racing’s biggest star. Despite the lure of an extra $1 million by the Breeders' Cup, Rachel Alexandra's co-owner said his sensational 3-year-old filly won't run in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park on Nov. 7. Earlier Friday, in an effort to lure Rachel Alexandra to the Breeders' Cup to run against undefeated Zenyatta, the Breeders' Cup said it would add $1 million to the winner's share of the Classic if both horses ran in America's richest race. Jackson put an end to that possibility quickly, reiterating his dislike of Santa Anita's synthetic surface. 6427. wabbit - 9/12/2009 3:36:00 PM  With one of his classic, inside-out swings, Derek Jeter sent a sharp grounder skimming through the infield. And there it was, the record-setting hit that pushed him past Lou Gehrig. Jeter broke the New York Yankees' hit record held by Gehrig for more than seven decades on Friday night with an opposite-field single against Baltimore. It gave Jeter 2,722 hits, one more than Gehrig, whose Hall of Fame career was cut short by illness in 1939. The captain kept right on going, too, with an RBI single in the fourth that put New York up 4-1. He left the game after a 67-minute rain delay in the top of the seventh when manager Joe Girardi pulled most of his starters with the Yankees trailing 10-4.
Hiroki Kuroda figures if he got hit with both a ball and a bat within a month he might need to quit pitching and walk away from baseball all together. Kuroda dodged the barrel of a broken bat that flew in his direction and retired 19 straight during one stretch, Casey Blake homered and the Los Angeles Dodgers matched their 2008 win total by beating the archrival San Francisco Giants 10-3 on Friday night. Los Angeles (84-58) maintained a two-game division lead over Colorado, which rallied to win at San Diego. The Rockies extended their NL wild-card lead to 5 1/2 games over the Giants. Kuroda (6-6), making just his second start since missing three weeks after sustaining a concussion Aug. 15 when hit in the head by a line drive, quickly ducked out of the way and off the mound when Matt Cain 's bat splintered on his third-inning groundout and sailed onto the dirt past second base. That had to be a scary moment for the right-hander, who gave up two hits to start the second then got 19 straight outs before John Bowker's one-out triple in the eighth.
MLB news
6428. wabbit - 9/12/2009 3:37:35 PM 17-year-old Melanie Oudin from Marietta, Ga., kept erasing big deficits and upsetting older, taller, higher-ranked players at the U.S. Open, generating more and more interest in her magical ride. Her gutsy play, aw-shucks approach and those pink-and-yellow sneakers with "BELIEVE" on the heels carried Oudin all the way to the quarterfinals at the American Grand Slam tournament. That's where her surprising story ended Wednesday night with a 6-2, 6-2 loss to No. 9-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark. Wozniacki will play her first Grand Slam semifinal against another 19-year-old, Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium. The 50th-ranked Wickmayer -- never before past the second round at a major tournament -- beat Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 7-5, 6-4. The other women's semifinal features two far more familiar names: defending champion Williams against 2005 champion Kim Clijsters.
Whenever the rain lets up, the men's semifinals will feature Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic, and either Rafa Nadal or Fernando Gonzalez vs. Juan Martin del Potro. The Nadal-Gonzalez match is still on hold with Nadal up one set 7-6(4), 6-6(3). 6429. wabbit - 9/13/2009 12:32:38 AM Whatever respect I had for Michael Jordan as a basketball player will be forever tarnished by his "speech" at his induction into the NBA Hall of Fame. What a petty, small, bitter 'guy' he is. ...Worst of all, he flew his old high school teammate, Leroy Smith, to Springfield for the induction. Remember, Smith was the upperclassman his coach, Pop Herring, kept on varsity over him as a high school sophomore. He waggled to the old coach, “I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”... Jerk. He should never be in basketball again, in any capacity. Not the front office, certainly not in coaching and definitely not in PR. He may well have been the best basketball player ever, but what an asshole he is as a person. He was introduced as a role model — I sure hope not.6430. wabbit - 9/13/2009 2:45:44 PM Serena Williams turned what had been a scintillating US Open women’s match into an ugly and improbable spectacle that gave Kim Clijsters, an unseeded wild-card entry making a joyful return to Grand Slam tennis, a 6-4, 7-5 victory she could not even celebrate.
Clijsters, a 26-year-old from Belgium who is the mother of a toddler, had frustrated and dominated Williams all night. After Clijsters won the first set, Williams slammed her racket to the court twice, mangling the frame in disgust. She walked to her chair, whacking the net with her racket on the way, and earned a warning for racket abuse.
Clijsters stayed composed. She had a 6-5 lead in the second set, and Williams was serving to send the set into a tiebreaker. At 15-30, a lineswoman called Williams for a foot fault on her second serve. Williams argued angrily, then walked back to the baseline. But she could not let it rest. She approached the judge and appeared to threaten her, shaking a ball in her face, according to reporters courtside and television replays.
The chair umpire, Louise Engzell of Sweden, asked the lineswoman to approach and explain what happened. Engzell then assessed Williams a point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, with Brian Earley, the tournament referee, in agreement.
But Williams had no point to give — the penalty ended the match, and the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, which was only about half-full after two days of rain delays, was stunned. So, too, was Clijsters, who had not even played in the Open since she won it in 2005. Suddenly, and strangely, she found herself in the final once again.
Clijsters will play ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who romped over Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer, 6-3, 6-3, in the other women’s semifinal, which was played simultaneously on Louis Armstrong Stadium before barely 300 fans... 6431. wabbit - 9/15/2009 9:20:03 PM Kim Clijsters made history Sunday night, capping a comeback from two years out of tennis to become the first unseeded woman to win the US Open -- and the first mom to win a major since 1980 -- with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki. When it was over, Clijsters collapsed to the ground and started crying -- tears of joy, probably mixed in with a little bit of shock, too. Her 18-month-old daughter, Jada, watched from a suite with a pacifier in her mouth, but later came down to the court to take part in the celebration. Clijsters beat both Williams sisters and two players seeded in the teens. She matched Venus and Serena power shot for power shot and showed she could play Wozniacki's patient game -- and play it better. Clijsters didn't even have a ranking coming into this tournament because she hadn't played enough tournaments to get on the list. She'll come in at around No. 20 when the new rankings are released this week, but probably won't try to improve on that right away.
One day after the biggest win of Juan Martin del Potro's career, the 20-year-old Argentine managed to one-up himself. With a shocking 3-6, 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 victory Monday night, del Potro snapped Roger Federer's streak of five straight U.S. Open titles in dramatic fashion. Federer, who had lost just one match since April, was trying to become the first man to win six consecutive American championships since Bill Tilden in 1920-25. The top-ranked Swiss had won 40 consecutive matches here, dating back to a semifinal loss to David Nalbandian in 2003. But with a thunderous serve and punishing forehand, the 6-foot-6 del Potro pounded both streaks into history. Having upset third-ranked Rafael Nadal in straight sets in Sunday's semifinal, Del Potro became the first player to defeat both Federer and Nadal -- the era's two most decorated players -- in the same Grand Slam tournament...At four hours and six minutes, Monday's match was the second-longest final in U.S. Open history after John McEnroe's classic five-set victory over Bjorn Borg in 1980.
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