Olympic Torch

I hoped to see the Olympic Torch this afternoon so I went down to the Embarcadero about 1 PM. The original route was along the Embarcadero and would end in front of the Ferry Building.

I saw the torch in Boston in 1996. A guy ran beside the Boston Public Garden followed by a Georgia State Police BMW, which was bizarre (BMW must have been an official sponsor). The BMW was driven by a obese man in a Georgia State Police uniform, which was, well, not so bizarre.

Today was different. Lots of shouting, Chinese Flags, Tibetan flags, people chanting, etc. I got a free Save Darfur shirt and I was all set. There was a fair amount of people yelling at each other nose to nose, and occasional shoving, but thankfully no violence.

I couldn't help but notice the rather limited repertoire of debate skills by the pro-Chinese government crowd. Waving their brand new Chinese flags, they would generally chant "Liar Liar Liar" when a large contingent of people with Tibetan flags walked past. Often they would should "How much are you being paid to be here?" Which raises the question of how much *they* were being paid to be there.

A few of them tried to shout in my face, which I countered by talking back to them. Their first line was to ask why I would oppose China in Darfur when the US was in Iraq. They seemed surprised and puzzled that I opposed the Iraq war. Then they tried to point out that China never attacked other countries. After I mentioned Korea and Vietnam (where China was clobbered), this tack was swiftly modified to 'China never occupies other countries'.


There was some irony to all of the pro-China marchers. They were participating in public debate, where different viewpoints can be aired and people can disagree. It's the sort of event that couldn't happen in China itself.


In the end, I think changing the route was the correct decision. There was a risk of violence if the city had insisted on running the torch along the Embarcadero. The Chinese Government had hoped to have a cheesy preposterous tedius gala ceremony at the end. Thanksfully, the city pulled the plug on that. There's no need for someone to get hurt (the Chinese Government already has plenty of blood on its hands; no need to spill any more).

Cards!

I admit, I thought that Cardinals were going to be bad this year. Really bad. They may well still end up as a bad team, but for now they're 5-2, half a game behind Milwaukee. Then again, I didn't think the Cardinals would have a team ERA of 2.32 and five quality starts in the first seven games. (All hail Dave Duncan!)

That probably won't last (Kyle Lohse, for example isn't going to sport an ERA of 0.00 all year), but if the staff can hang on until their actual starters get back later this year, maybe they have a shot at winning the division. There aren't any dominant teams in the division (sorry Eddie), so maybe 90 wins will be sufficient. This is a start.

12 runs. 5 games.

Yep, Our San Francisco Giants! They've scored 0, 2, 2, 4, and 4 runs. One victory. It's going to be a looooooong year. You don't win much scoring 2.4 runs a game.

It could be worse. In fact, it was worse one year ago, when they scored but 14 runs the first 7 games. That team "recovered" to average 4.2 runs per game, next to last in the National League. But last year they had Bonds.

So bizarre it must be true

This is apparently not an April Fools joke.

A bunch of schoolgirls were touring Fenway Park and one of them was attacked by a hawk that apparently lives there. It swooped down and scratched her head, drawing blood. Incredibly, someone was taking pictures at the time.

The girl's name? Alexa Rodriguez. Score one point for the hawk.

Opening Day!

I know, the Sox played two games in Japan last week, and Washington opened their new park last night. But today was the real Opening Day.

A lot of results from today's games will carry over for the rest of the season. For instance, the Orioles lost. They're going to do a lot of losing this year. Baltimore is a bad team, and it has to play a lot of games in the division, where the Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays are very good, and the Devil Rays should finish .500. Baltimore will be lucky to win 70 games.

The Giants didn't just lose, they were also shutout. Not for the last time. It's going to be a painful, painful year, even for a team with a great rotation.

And Johan Santana won. That's going to happen a lot.

Torch Run

Well this is encouraging.

The police say that they won't restrict protests when the Olympic torch comes to town. Now they just have to release the route.

Yessssss!

Naturally, I think this is terrific news.

Oxygen!

Finally!

Tibet

While San Francisco waffles, kudos to Nancy Pelosi:

If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world....The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world

Olympics

The Olympic Torch is scheduled to come through San Francisco April 9 on its (schmaltzy marketing-driven) tour of the world before heading to Beijing.

This is all very well and good, except that China is very touchy these days about any protests against its actions in Tibet (i.e. invading a sovereign country, shooting people, etc.). This affects San Francisco because the organizers of the event here are trying to keep even the route of the torch secret to hinder protestors. It sounds like they cannot even stomach the idea that having protestors near the torch--apparantly that might hurt the torch's feelings. They also talk about herding protestors into "free speech zones", which would presumably mean keeping them out elsewhere.

This is horrendous. I was under the impression that our entire country is a free speech zone. It is insulting and absurd to try to limit protestors here, especially people protesting against a foreign government. Eventually, the city will have to back down and the route will become public. I'm sure that when it does, the protestors against China will be out in force, as they should be.

Dang.

Michigan Basketball Wins Tournament Game!

Whoo-hoo!

Ehhh, the Big 10 tournament. Against Iowa. It's generally not a good sign when the first sentence of the game summary reads:

Michigan missed 13 shots in a row during a stretch in the second half.

But somehow Michigan won the game. Michigan plays again tomorrow and I believe after that I'll be able to resume not paying attention.

Bartolo Colon

The Sox have somehow brought Bartolo Colon to spring training. On the one hand, he won 64 games in four years from 2002-2005 and won the Cy Young in 2005. On the other, he's tailed off badly since then and (how to say this gracefully?) he's looking rather big boned these days.

In the "I don't know which way it cuts" category is the fact that his listed birthday is May 24, 1973. So he's 35 in Dominican Republic Years.


Back when he was in Cleveland, I would complain that he was a headhunter. But that was a long time ago and I'm prepared to let bygones be bygones because it's always good to have more pitching.

...getting closer...

I went for a run along the Embarcadero yesterday and ran past the Phonebooth. One of its cool features is that one can see the diamond from outside the right field wall.

When I last ran past a couple of weeks ago it was all torn up (they had one of those motorcycle-jumping-dirt-heaps events there a month ago). Now the grass is green and it looks great.


Which is not to say that the Giants will be any good. They had posters up with their marketing slogan this year. The theme seems to be "______ is a gamer." As in "19 years, 11 Gold Gloves, Omar Vizquel is a gamer."

Ehhhhh, he may be a gamer, but he can't hit. Vizquel was the worst hitting shortstop in the National League by FAR last year. He had the lowest OPS of anyone with 500 at bats and Jimmy Rollins had more than TWICE AS MANY total bases. I suppose he is a gamer, though.

Iraq costs

Aside from the cost in blood, this war is also costing us money. Lots of money. Like, two trillion dollars. With a "t".

Here's a story from 2006 pointing out that the war could cost as much as one trillion dollars. Now it's doubled. More interesting is how the Administration originally estimated the whole thing would cost "just" $50 billion. Oops.

Mitchell Report

American Lawyer magazine is perhaps not the most widely read publication out there, but it had a moderately interesting article on the Mitchell Report.

Apparently it cost Bud Selig* $20 million. Was it money well spent? I don't know, but it sure would have been a lot easier if he had taken action ten years ago, or five years ago.

The article does make it very clear that Mitchell reached out repeatedly to the Players Association. Roger Clemens can yammer on all he wants about how easy he is to find, but that's hardly George Mitchell's fault. He ought to be complaining to his agents and the Players Association.

Clemens!

Seriously, this Clemens story is gold.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was kind enough to lay out his various lies and half-truths in glorious detail.

Does it really make sense to go after Clemens for perjury? There are, ahem, a few more important problems out there.

As I've said before, jail ought to be for punishment, not deterrence. However, like with Martha Stewart (and Lil' Kim), there's something to be said for throwing the occasional Big Name in jail when there's a clear case of perjury. I bet there were plenty of people who paid attention when Martha Stewart was hauled off, and there would be lots of ballplayers who would sit up and take notice if Clemens went to the Big House.

Schilling Out

I don't know that Curt Schilling will ever pitch again.

That certainly clears up the "problem" of having a six man rotation. Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester, Wakefield, and Buchholz are a pretty good staff. They'll need Julian Tavarez again this year, because there's no way that Lester and Buchholz make 35 starts apiece. Tavarez isn't a bad option for a spot starter.

It wouldn't surprise me if Schilling came back for the last couple of months. Between Wakefield, Lester, and Buchholz, they'll need a new arm then anyway. I don't know if the Sox will make the post-season, but since I think Schilling is a borderline Hall of Fame guy right now, another couple of good post-season starts would help his case considerably.

I went for a run yesterday and I noticed that I was wearing Asics shoes, Nike socks, and Adidas shorts. Is that the success of branding, or is that the failure of branding? I dunno.


This is boring. I am so ready for Opening Day.

Clemens

Among the *many* ludicrous things Clemens said yesterday was a bizarre discussion of his availability to George Mitchell. Someone asked him why he didn't respond to Mitchell when Mitchell asked to talk to him when he was preparing the report.

Clemens said that he didn't know that Mitchell wanted to talk with him and went on at length about how easy he is to find, emphasizing how he responded to Bud Selig when Selig asked him to be a member of the USA team for the World Baseball Classic. He blames Bud Selig for not contacting him.

Obviously this is wildly irrelevant. Although he didn't pick up the phone to call Clemens personally, Mitchell DID contact his agents on multiple occasions. I can't imagine that his agents didn't pass word along to Clemens that he was under investigation. It's ridiculous for Clemens to try to blame Mitchell or Selig.

I'd wager that his agents told him that Mitchell was asking about him, but they also advised him to ignore Mitchell, which was the same advice the players union was giving. Oops.