Charles Fenwick: Jackpotzrebie

Official Sports Teams

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:33:13 GMT

Following the lead of Dr Steven Taylor...here are the official sports teams of Eye of the Storm:

Pro Football: Washington Redskins, first and foremost. When I was a youngster and my family lived in Italy, I got up at 2 in the morning to watch Super Bowl XXII (the one where Washington scored five touchdowns in the second quarter to thrash Denver).   In the other conference, coming in a distant second, is the Jacksonville Jaguars. An odd situation with them as I like them for being from Jacksonville, but I don't like the franchise that much, and I am annoyed to no end at how uncritical the local media is of them.

College Football: Florida State, first and foremost. When I was young I cheered for all of the schools from Florida (before the aforementioned Super Bowl, I got up early in the morning to watch Miami lose to Penn State, an unpleasant experience that made me question whether I wanted to risk a repeat experience). But by the Charlie Ward days I was an FSU fan to the exclusion of the other two schools.   Coming in second is my father's alma mater, Virginia Tech. Thanks to family, I've been a fan of them since the Bruce Smith days through their rise to the top thanks to Frank Beamer.

Pro Basketball: No preference. Back in the days of Parrish, McHale, and Bird, I liked the Celtics, but since, I haven't cared much for professional basketball.

Pro Baseball: Baltimore Orioles, first and foremost. Unfortunately, my family did not move to Maryland until after the '83 season (it was in Maryland that I saw the first baseball games that I remember). I've been a fan since the days of Eddie Murray, Rick Dempsy, and the young Cal Ripken. I totally despise Peter Angelos, and was somewhat disgruntled at the thought that every Orioles ticket I bought probably amounted to a small contribution to the Democratic Party of Maryland. Ah well. Coming in second is the Washington Nationals. Definitely helps that the former Oriole great, Frank Robinson, is the manger.

College Basketball: Like football, FSU first and foremost with Virginia Tech second. Like baseball, the first college basketball games I remember watching, I watched in Maryland. Because of that I still have a special place in my heart for the Georgetown Hoyas. I didn't care so much for the Maryland Terrapins, but I did like Len Bias. Even though I was only eight years old at the time, I remember the exact moment when my mother informed me that he had died (remember that he was the first round pick of the Celtics, so the anguish was amplified).   That had more effect on me than any anti-drug commercial ever produced.

College Baseball: Other than casually watching the College World Series championship, I didn't follow college baseball until going to FSU, so Florida State is the only team I cheer for. Happiest (and saddest) moment is sneaking into Section B for the final games of the 1999 regional. (Click on the black ribbon towards the bottom of the page for an account of that day).

Hockey: Washington Capitals. Again, a throwback to my living in Maryland during part of my formative years.

Soccer: Don't follow it much anymore. Adopted DC United as my team when the MLS formed, but I haven't paid attention at all in recent years. On the international level, I tend to cheer for Italy (assuming, of course, that the U.S. isn't facing them).

Teams I cheer against:

College: Notre Dame first and foremost. University of Miami second. University of Virginia third. University of Florida fourth.

NFL: Dallas Cowboys

Baseball: NY Yankees

Latptop fixed

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 04:15:30 GMT

No thanks to Best Buy or the local repair shop, my laptop is now fixed. Total cost of repair was ~ $15.

Compaq laptops have a bad design for the plug that makes it very easy for it to become broken if the computer is not set on a desk. Putting it in your lap, for example, can put upward or downward pressure on the plug that will cause it to come unconnected from the motherboard (because it is only a dab of solder that holds it in place). It becomes more and more difficult to keep your laptop plugged in and eventually, it won't effectively plug in at all. Such was the problem that afflicted mine.

So I took it to the local repair place and the kid there said they don't do that sort of repair, all they would do is replace the motherboard (a $600 item unto itself), so he advised taking it elsewhere. I then took it to Best Buy (where I had purchased it about two years ago) and was advised that I might as well buy a new computer, because all they would do is replace the motherboard. The person behind the counter also volunteered that they would back up my present computer for $60 (or so). I politely declined.

Took the computer back home and started unscrewing it. Unlike desktops, laptops aren't entirely intuitive when it comes to disassembly. Fortunately, Compaq makes their service manuals available online, so I was able to figure out the steps that I couldn't guess myself. After completely taking it apart, I went to Radio Shack and bought a 15 watt soldering pencil and some solder. Soldered the damaged area and then put the computer back together. Didn't work the first time (partial disassembly found something that wasn't connected) but it worked on the second try. Everything seems to be working fine.

Needless to say, I am quite happy at the moment.

Site Outage

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 15:14:44 GMT

Down while I resolve issues with my laptop.

Status: minimum activity

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 03:16:33 GMT

Well, Tropical Storm Gert went ashore this evening, and Franklin is looking sick. If Franklin doesn't manage to rally himself, we might actually have a few days of quiet in the Atlantic basin as the Tropical Weather Outlook indicates all is quiet elsewhere.

If so, I scheduled my two weeks of active duty for the Naval Reserve quite well. I am in Pensacola for leadership school. Blogging will be light and restricted to the evening hours this fortnight.

Guilty verdict rescinded against Formula One teams

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 19:21:33 GMT

A quick break from storm news to post a story about something I had written about a fair bit at the time. The governing body of Formula One rescinded the guilty verdict against the teams that boycotted the U.S. Grand Prix.

Guilty verdict on USGP cancelled

... The Senate announced on July 14 that the teams could have faced serious legal difficulties had they raced against the orders of their French tyre manufacturers....

FIA said in the statement: "Having examined the new evidence previously submitted to the FIA Senate, the FIA World Motor Sport Council has voted overwhelmingly to accept the recommendation of the FIA Senate regarding events at the 2005 United States Grand Prix. The guilty verdicts of June 29 made against the seven Michelin teams have therefore been cancelled."

A wise decision that should not have been necessary.

Belated Blogiversary

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 20:06:06 GMT

Just realized that the one year annivesary of this blog was two days ago. Never would have thought that my one year of blogging would see me writing about five hurricanes hitting Florida.

More USGP fallout stuff

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:05:30 GMT

The Times of London reports that FIA is going to bring the hammer down on Michelin's teams if the tire company do not do more to make amends for not bringing adequete tires to Indy. On top of the offer that Michelin has made to rebate the cost of tickets for fans who attended the race this year, FIA wants Michelin to pay for their tickets next year as well. The article suggests that if Michelin does not pay up, then the teams they equip will be hammered with millions of dollars in fines to cover the cost of compensating fans.

Teams to put the squeeze on Michelin (Times of London)

Their is one error in the article. It states:

A statement last night on behalf of the seven teams claimed that they were supported by 19 of Formula One’s 20 drivers — the exception being Michael Schumacher, who won the US Grand Prix in a race of only six cars.

The statement referred to is here: Six Michelin Teams Respond to Findings

The Teams explained to the World Motor Sport Council that, in the light of the clear and written advice from Michelin that it was unsafe to race at Indianapolis on the tyres supplied by that company, the Teams had no choice but to decline to race. Any other decision would have been irresponsible. Nineteen of the current Formula One drivers have expressed their agreement with the decision of the Teams.

Nowhere does it name who did or didn't agree with their position. To find that we have to go to another document: Statement of nineteen F1 drivers . The drivers who signed the statement were

Christijan Albers
Fernando Alonso
Jenson Button
David Coulthard
Pedro de la Rosa
Giancarlo Fisichella
Patrick Friesacher
Nick Heidfeld
Christian Klien
Felipe Massa
Juan Pablo Montoya
Kimi Raikkonen
Takuma Sato
Ralf Schumacher
Jarno Trulli
Jacques Villeneuve
Mark Webber
Alexander Wurz
Ricardo Zonta

Two of those drivers (Ralf Schumacher) weren't in the USGP. Ralf Schumacher was injured in the turn 13 crash in practice that was part of Michelin realizing they had a major problem. Pedro de la Rosa is a test driver. So, there were actually two other drivers besides Schumacher who did not sign the statment. One of them, understandably, was his Ferrari teamate Rubens Barichello. The other was Narai Karthikeyan, another driver who benefitted from the lack of competition.

Anyone who has been reading my comments on this know that I'm sympathetic to the teams and not happy with how FIA handled this (as NASCAR or IRL would have found some compromise to keep the disaster from happening). Therfore, I agree strongly with the comments in this BBC column: F1 puts war on ice. The key part:

What this judgment does not do, however, is address the deeper-lying issues that allowed the situation at Indianapolis to get so out of control

There appears, for example, to have been no consideration of Mosley's role in the US Grand Prix fiasco.

He blocked a plan which would have allowed the race to take place following the insertion of a chicane but with only the cars on Bridgestone tyres scoring points.

It might not have been a proposal that fell strictly within the rules, but at least it would have given the thousands of fans at Indy and the millions of TV viewers around the world something to watch.

Mosley's suggestions for a solution were even less realistic - and would arguably have made the "race" more of a farce than it turned out to be.

And there is no doubt that the poor relations between the FIA president and most of the F1 teams exacerbated the problem at Indianapolis.

The teams have lost their faith in Mosley's ability to govern F1 satisfactorily, a feeling that is at the heart of the threat by seven teams and five car manufacturers to set up a rival series in 2008.

Rightly or wrongly, the teams feel Mosley governs in a haphazard manner, interferes where he is not needed and that his impartiality cannot be guaranteed.

His intervention in the rows at Indianapolis did nothing to diminish those feelings.

Nor did his admission in a newspaper interview this week that he felt the teams were overstating the seriousness of the problems with the Michelin tyres at Indy.

So while the potential consequences of this particular battle may have been defused, the wider war rages on.

Nvu 1.0 released

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:38:13 GMT

Early this morning, Daniel Glazman, the author of the Nvu (pronnounced N-view) web authoring system announced that Nvu 1.0 is now available.

Glazman was the key programmer for Mozilla's web page editor editor on the payroll of AOL before they sacked most of the Netscape/Mozilla programmers in July of 2003. In October of that year he formed a company called Disruptive Innovations and announced that the first project would be a stand-alone web page editor. Shortly thereafter the company got a contract with Lindows (now Linspire) that funded the project. A 0.1 release came out in February 2004 and it has since been through the long process of improvement and refinement to make it worthy of the 1.0 designation.

Nvu is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and, of course, Linspire. If you do any kind of web page authoring, it is worth checking out. Download it today!

Outcome of Formula One hearing on US Grand Prix

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:39:17 GMT

This morning the governing body of Formula One, FIA, held a hearing in which the teams that boycotted the race faced the following charges:

1. The teams failed to ensure that they had a supply of suitable tires for the race.

2. The teams wrongfully refused to allow their cars to start the race.

3. They wrongfully refused to allow their cars to race, subject to a speed restriction in one corner which was safe for such tires as they had available.

4. They combined with other teams to make a demonstration damaging to the image of Formula One by pulling into the pits immediately before the start of the race.

5. They failed to notify the stewards of their intention not to race, in breach of Article 131 of the FIA F1 sporting regulations.

The teams were found guilty on the first two charges and not guilty on the other three. For the purpose of public relations, punishment will not be dealt out until September. F-1 Racing Live
offers some quotes from Max Mosley, the head of FIA:

- "It would not be appropriate to deduct points or ban people from a race. We do have ability to impose a fine and can do what we want with the money," said Mosley. "We could impose fines and use that money to compensate. We said if you sort it out we will take a lenient view, if you don't sort it out we will not take a lenient view."

- "As you will recall, there were five charges against the teams. The first of these were to be sure they were in possession of suitable tyres, and they were found guilty of that, but with strongly mitigating circumstances," "They were accused of wrongfully refusing to start the race, found guilty of that. They were found not guilty of refusing to race subject to a speed limit, because there was no plan in place.

"They have also been found not guilty of conspiring to make a demonstration because they satisfied the World Council. They were found not guilty of failing to tell the stewards."

- "The World Motor Sport Council has decided to adjourn discussion of penalty to an extraordinary meeting, when it will be seen what steps have been taken to compensate the fans," "And also what steps have been taken by the Michelin teams to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. The final decision will then be made after that."

-"The difficulty is the FIA has no relationship with the Michelin tyre company, so we are in no position to impose a penalty in Michelin.

"They are not the scapegoats, they are responsible because they got the wrong tyres and their teams could not race. They have clear terms in their contract, requiring the company to bring a tyre that is safe in all circumstances, even if it is not quick.

"We can't impose a penalty on Michelin. We have no power over them. On the other hand we are able to indirectly put pressure on them through their teams and we are doing that at the moment."

Michelin is doing their part to mitigate the PR disaster: Michelin seeks calm with refund offer (Times of London)

MICHELIN has offered refunds totalling more than £9 million to the 120,000 fans who attended the US Grand Prix, which ended in farce, but whether the tyre manufacturer can head off a plethora of lawsuits being prepared in the United States, which could cost tens of millions of pounds, and prevent a split in the sport’s ranks, remains to be seen.

Not only are they offering full refunds to everyone who attended the race, but they are also offering to buy 20,000 of them tickets to next year's race (assuming, of course, that there is one).

Some USGP fallout tidbits

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 00:56:25 GMT

Some selections of news and commentary from Formula One regarding the US Grand Prix mess. News is picking up again as the FIA hearing (in which teams may be punished for their boycott of the race) is on Wednesday.

The head of the Minardi team, Paul Stoddart gives a personal account how things played out. Of note for people who aren't close followers of Formula One is his description of the politics involved:

For those who have not followed the recent political developments in Formula One, it is fair to say that, for over a year now, the majority of teams have felt at odds with the actions of the FIA and its President, Max Mosley, concerning the regulations, and the way in which those regulations have been introduced, or are proposed to be introduced. Not a weekend has gone by where some, or all, of the teams are not discussing or disputing these regulations. This is so much the case that it is common knowledge the manufacturers have proposed their own series commencing January 1, 2008, and this is supported by at least two of the independent teams. The general perception is that, in many instances, these issues have become personal, and it is my opinion that was a serious contributory factor to the failure to find a solution that would have allowed all 20 cars to compete in Sunday's United States Grand Prix.

A Personal Recount of Indy Events

The Minardi head has suggested that if FIA comes down hard on the teams that boycotted the race then the teams may boycott once again.

Formula One teams could boycott future races if they get severe penalties for their role in the US Grand Prix fiasco, Minardi boss Paul Stoddart said.

Stoddart said it would be wrong for F1's governing body the FIA to hand out "draconian bans" to the seven teams at Wednesday's disciplinary hearing.

"Would we race after a (heavy) penalty? I think we'd have a meeting and you wouldn't guarantee it," Stoddart said...

F1 Teams 'ready to boycott races'

Driver Michael Schumacher notes something that I had mentioned to a friend while watching the 'race'

What the fans didn’t know is that they had it in with their powers to stop the race and have it re-started. If enough of them had been throwing objects onto the track they would have had to stop and think again. Niki Lauda was telling me of a race he had with James Hunt at the Hatch of Brands, British GP and when the fans heard that James Hunt had been excluded they stormed onto the track and would not let it start – or similar.

Schumi's Secret Diary: USGP

Indeed, had this been a NASCAR event, the start/finish line would have been covered in garbage in short order.

Legendary driver Jackie Stewart suggests that FIA head Max Mosley should take the fall for the mess.

Stewart said: "I think that would be scandalous. I think the sport, if it's allowed to be dealt with in that fashion, can't go on with the leadership it has if that is the case.

"We've got to have a workable organisation because those teams are being supported financially by multi-national corporations around the world."

Stoddart, whose team use Bridgestone tyres and did race in the US, has blamed FIA president Max Mosley for the incident and called for his resignation.

Stewart feels that it is definitely an option.

"I think it has to be looked at. I think there's been so much disruption caused by this event.

"In the normal business sector, where corporate life has a very dim view of that kind of situation being allowed to occur, the management of the whole structure is put into question.

"I think the people at the top are vulnerable."

Stewart criticises FIA 'failure'

A columnist for Planet-F1 says Mosley should go

Max Mosley once famously (and stupidly) described F1 like a game of chess.

Answering growing criticisms that all the overtaking moves were going on in the pitlane he countered that people didn’t watch F1 for the overtaking, it was all about the strategy, like watching a really good game of chess.

That analogy has come back to haunt him many times since, but on Sunday we saw a Mosley move in another much bigger game of chess. The FIA sacrificed the USGP, like sacrificing a rook or a knight, in their chess battle with the manufacturers.

Even if Ferrari did or didn’t agree with a chicane, Paul Stoddart’s contention that Max Mosley personally insisted that a chicane not be built is the most damning.

"Max Mosley categorically forbade the introduction of that chicane, and he's going to have some serious questions to answer as to why he actually took that decision," the Minardi boss told the BBC.

Paul Stoddart is aware of the libel laws. Unless Mosley challenges him in court now we'll have to accept that this is true...

Why Mosley is King of the Blame Game

Finally, a Times of London columnist gives his explanation of why this wouldn't have happened in an American sport

n America, sports are organised in a much more ruthless way. Sunday’s fiasco was especially awful because it happened in a country where tolerance for this kind of ineptitude is very low. There’s a precedent, in fact, for Sunday’s event in the early days of NASCAR.

In 1969, at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, several prominent drivers refused to race, saying that they feared a tyre blowout at high speeds. Bill France Sr, the legend- arily hard-nosed founder of NASCAR, simply told the drivers that if they were concerned, they should slow down. When they walked off the track, France found substitute drivers and the race went on.

America may be a democracy when it comes to organising its government, but when it comes to running professional sport, it prefers the model of medieval autocracy. Popular American sports have not grown organically and chaotically. For years they have been driven hard, like a herd of longhorn cows across Texas, prodded and shoved into line. The leading sports are run by commissioners, men who run their empires more like Soviet commissars.

It is not widely known that in the 1800s, cricket rivalled baseball in popularity in the US. Baseball’s success was largely down to the ruthless management and promotion of the game over its amateurish alternative. The lesson has been well-learnt. In American football, the NFL runs everything with the attention of a control freak. From the distribution of television revenues to the precise height of the stockings that footballers must wear (let them roll down and you face a $5,000 fine), football is organised like a battalion of military police. The college draft, the salary cap and the fixture list rigidly enforce a principle of socialist equality between teams.

Baseball has none of the enforced equality but is no less authoritarian in the way it is run. It is organised as a not very benevolent oligopoly in the interests of its wealthy owners. They are exempted by law from legislation designed to enforce competition.

American sports are not without tensions. Labour disputes have afflicted all leading sports in the past 20 years. But that simply reflects the inevitable fight between management and unions over how to divide up the pie of revenues that for most sports has grown spectacularly, and in the end management has tended to get its way.

Of course, the rigid control US sports commissioners can exercise over their domains doesn’t make them especially well-liked. It’s hard to imagine a less popular public figure in the country than Bud Selig, the Major League Baseball commissioner. But then again, the chaotic anarchy of Formula One hardly looks like a crowd-pleaser either, does it?

Why Indy indignity drove America to distraction

Totally random and useless fact

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 23:48:12 GMT

Blame Nick West for this post. Inspiration was from him. To writ:

I have to head up to the scary Tallahassee. The city with (too) many s's and e's.

Which made me think, actually it's too many a's and e's.

So here's the shot of inspired insight derived from this:

Tallahassee is the only state capital name with at least five vowels that does not contain the state's name in it.

No posting until Monday

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:01:18 GMT

No need to panic storm-watchers, I would not abandon my post if there were somthing brewing in the Atlantic. However, things look reasonably quiet at the moment so can I take a break with a clear consience...

A sight I may not have seen before

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:49:50 GMT

Was in the McDonald's earlier and noticed that all of the workers were female. If I have ever seen this before, I have not taken note of it. However, I do tend to pay a bit more attention to what's going on in a McDonald's as I worked in one once upon a time.

I think the closest we came to having an all female crew was having one guy on the grill. For a variety of reasons that was the one thing most female crew members did not get trained on (their first training usually came when they became managers).

This must have some implication for the 99 cent economic survey, but at this moment it is not clear to me what it may be.

Lawsuits begin in aftermath of US Grand Prix

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 03:04:19 GMT

Indianapolis Star sportswriter on the U.S. Grand Prix

Let me roll out the thesaurus.

It was a fiasco.

It was a debacle.

It was reprehensible.

Unless you're a lawyer, in which case, it's a godsend.

He was right on the last one: Fan Sues Over Grand Prix 'Race'

Larry Bowers, a Colorado resident, has filed a class action lawsuit against the Federation de l’Automobile (FIA), Formula One Group, Formula One Administration, Michelin Tires and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway following Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.

Bowers, represented by Indianapolis-based attorney William Bock III, filed suit claiming the 2005 USGP was fraudulent after 14 of the 20 drivers pitted and withdrew after the formation lap of the race because of a dispute surrounding the use of Michelin tires on the track.

The lawsuit claims Formula One, the FIA, Michelin, the teams equipped by Michelin and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway forged an agreement allowing the Michelin teams to participate in the formation lap and then exit the track prior to the start of the race.

“The alleged ‘race’ participated by just three teams did not constitute a true grand prix race under FIA and Formula One rules in that the race was started with an insufficient number of participants,” the lawsuit reads...

FIA (the F1 governing authority) is going after Michelin and the teams that they supply: Deserters face bill for life in farce lane

THE seven teams that boycotted the US Grand Prix could be forced to pay millions in compensation to the 120,000 fans who walked out of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway here, shocked and angry with a sport that has been decried throughout the United States. The repercussions of the explosion of disgust at a debacle of a race, in which only six cars took part, will ripple through Formula One for months.

The punishments could start next week, when all seven teams and Michelin, their tyre supplier at the centre of the farce, will be called in front of the FIA, Formula One’s governing body, on charges that amount to bringing the sport into disrepute. Banning the teams is not an option, given that future races would be wrecked with 14 cars out of the sport, but Max Mosley, the FIA President, raised the possibility yesterday that the teams could be forced to pay back the fans, many of whom had spent hundreds of pounds on travel and hotels, as well as an average $100 a ticket (£54) to get into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“I think Michelin and the seven teams should compensate the fans,” Mosley said. “What about the American fans? What about Formula One fans worldwide? Rather than boycott the race, the Michelin teams should have agreed to run at reduced speed. The rules would have been kept, they would have earned championship points and the fans would have had a race. As it is, by refusing to run, they have damaged themselves and the sport...

I can't see how the teams can be blamed for this. If Michelin comes out and says they have a tire that is unsafe for the race conditions, then the teams realistically can't race without modifications. Had the teams gone out anyway and one of their cars suffer a severe or fatal accident that team would be open to massive liability (The Williams team was put on criminal trial for the death of Ayrton Senna in a crash; the circumstances were nowhere near as clear cut as they would be in this situation).

Bizzare

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 18:08:48 GMT

The most incredible spectacle at the U.S. Grand Prix. Only six cars are 'racing' due to a combination of Michelin's failure to provide adequete tires to their teams and Formula One not affecting a change to the course requested by teams carrying Michelin tires. The other fourteen cars went to pit lane before the official start of the race. The TV announcers are calling the race 'a farce'.

LATER: This Sunday Times article Tyre farce hurts F1 gives a description of what the situation was going into today. The BBC reports that Ferrari's refusal to run on a modified course is what kept FIA from imlementing the modification (TV coverage hasn't stated that, however. They stated FIA had said any race run on a modified course would be not count for championship points. Also, none of the team managers that they have spoken to pointed the finger at Ferrari, they all pointed the finger at FIA).

This sort of incident shows the vast cultural/political difference between F1 and American racing series such as NASCAR. The Formula One governing authority could have done something to prevent this, but chose to adhere to the rules (or their interpretation thereof, anyhow). NASCAR would have done something (bring in new tires, mandate pit stops for tires, etc) to prevent this from happening even if it was something not necessarily in the rule book (The NASCAR rule book has a rule to the affect of 'We can change the rules at any time we want to for the good of the sport). While the professional wrestling approach to the rules can be enermously frustrating at times, it would have produced a better result in this instance.

Eddy Garabito in Camden Yards

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 02:13:23 GMT

One of the fun things about going to minor league baseball games is knowing that you are probably going to see at least one of the players in the big leagues some day.

After a Bowie Baysox game in 2000 I was convinced that one of those players was going to be Eddy Garabito (he had hit two home runs that afternoon).

I was a bit puzzled as the years passed by to not see his name pop up in an Orioles box score.

Well, his name was in the box score for last night's game...but for the other team.

According to MLB.com's story Camden, finally for Garabito , he played 1001 games in the O's organization without ever being called up.

The Rockies signed him to their AAA team before calling him up due to injuries to their infielders. He went into tonight's game hitting .414 through fourteen games.

Tonight, he hit the first home run of his nascent big league career. May it be but one of many.

Stories on Justin Upton

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 15:17:58 GMT

As one would expect, the first pick in the baseball draft, Justin Upton, figures prominently on the sports pages of Hampton Roads:

Upton 1st, Zimmerman 4th in Major League Baseball Draft (Virginian-Pilot)

CHESAPEAKE -- Manny and Yvonne Upton, with sons B.J. and Justin, sat on a table in Great Bridge High School’s crowded media center Tuesday afternoon. They stared at a large, flat screen hooked to a laptop as news cameras stared back.

Yvonne grimaced. Justin snapped his bubble gum. Manny and B.J. were stoic, belying the anticipation in the room. Already thick, the tension was exacerbated by technical glitches in starting the 1 p.m. Web cast of Major League Baseball’s amateur draft, in which Justin Upton was expected to be chosen first.

Twice, the promised announcement was met with abrupt silence by dozens of students, friends and family – and followed by a burst of nervous laughter as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ pick was delayed.

The alleged hold-up? The New York Yankees’ tardiness in joining the official draft conference call .

Ultimately, though, even the “Damn Yankees” couldn’t forestall the inevitable forever:

“Arizona selects Draft No. 8526, Upton,” came the voice of a Diamondbacks executive through the speaker...

Baseball Comes Calling (Daily Press)

As much as Justin Upton wanted Tuesday to be just another day, it wasn't. Life changed around 12:30 p.m. when the 17-year-old high school senior became a millionaire.

Upton, a shortstop from Great Bridge High in Chesapeake, was selected No. 1 overall by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Major League Baseball draft. He one-upped his big brother, B.J., who was chosen No. 2 overall in the 2002 draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but they made history together. They are the highest selected brothers in the history of the major league draft...

Not a bad bit of publicity for my alma mater, Great Bridge High School, as the Associated Press pictures show him wearing his jersey. With him being the first pick overall, every sports page in the country has at least a mention of him and his school.

Great Bridge player goes first in baseball draft.

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:18:22 GMT

Juston Upton, who is from my alma mater, Great Bridge High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, was picked first in the Major League Baseball draft today.

He is the brother of BJ Upton, who was picked second by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 2002 draft.

According to the Baseball America Draft-Day Blog, BJ was at Great Bridge for the moment:

At 12:20 edt, Justin Upton's brother B.J. arrived at Great Bridge High in his hometwon of Chesapeake where Justin awaited the start of the draft. B.J., who played a Monday afternoon game in Ottawa with the Triple-A Durham Bulls, had to book his own flight to Norfolk this morning. The Bulls, who open a series against the Norfolk Tides tonight in Norfolk, were delayed, though B.J. was determined to be alongside his brother when Justin's name is called today.

Upton is the third player from Great Bridge High to be drafted in the first round of the draft. In 1997, Micheal Cuddyer and John Curtice were drafted ninth and seventeenth by the Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox, respectively. Cuddyer was in calculus class at the moment he was drafted.

I am currently listening to the draft via XM Radio and it is certainly different from the NFL draft, which has a maximum fifteen minute gap between picks in the first through third rounds. In the MLB draft there is a mere thirty seconds between picks in the first three rounds (and 'no' time between picks after that).

Pecuiliar stories from Maine

Wed, 11 May 2005 16:16:22 GMT

I went to the Portland Press-Herald page in search for base closure news and found these two stories as the top ones.

More brain suits filed

The legal battle over brain harvesting in Maine continued to expand Tuesday when four more families filed lawsuits alleging their dead relatives' brains were taken without proper authorization.

The cases, all brought by Berman & Simmons of Lewiston, raise the number of brain-harvesting lawsuits in Maine to eight. The Lewiston law firm is expected to file a ninth case today in Kennebec County Superior Court...

This apparently has been a running story for awhile now. The newspaper's Brain harvesting in Maine page has stories going back to October of 2004.

By bus or it's a bust

SANFORD — Take those Betsey Johnson and Jessica McClintock dresses, scrunch them up and pile onto the bus - Sanford High School is headed to the prom. A bus to the prom? That doesn't sit well with parents who think they should be allowed to drive their children to and from the event. One mother is seeking a court order that would permit her to drive her 18-year-old son.

Marylou Mitchell of Sanford, who opposes a new policy that states students must either book a limousine or ride to the event in one of six coach buses provided by the school, said she filed her request Monday afternoon in Springvale District Court...

What puzzles me is that there is no mention of students being upset over not being able to drive themselves. Perhaps they have never had that opportunity or it was taking away so long ago that it's not an issue. Strange stuff.

And yes, I did find something base closure related: Base Closings Blog (Maine Today).

What I have been up to recently

Mon, 09 May 2005 21:55:16 GMT

In what may prove to be an act of extreme masochism, I have started to learn Arabic. Stay tuned to Blog Al-Talib for the gory details...

Firefox 1.01 released

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 08:23:44 GMT

A minor follow on release for Firefox 1.0 has been released. It has a bunch of security oriented updates, so if you are a Firefox user, you should upgrade ASAP. Get it here.

Quick Super Bowl review

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 03:50:55 GMT

- Philadelphia's defense was tighter than I gave it credit for.

- Tom Brady's red zone fumble was disconcerting as it was the stuff that upsets are fermented from.

Nonetheless the Patriots won as I expected, albeit by a closer margin. Good thing I did not bet on the game.

Deion Branch was the only reasonable choice for MVP. Can't justify giving it to Brady due to the turnover in such a crucial spot.

Favorite commercials were the Mustang convertible (despite being played more than once), the CareerBuilder.com monkeys, and Budwiser's designated driver (a type of commercial that is usually dull and preachy managed to be amusing for once). None of these are anything near classics, however.

Super Bowl Prediction

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 19:43:18 GMT

Inspired by Steven Taylor's Super Bowl Post

On the Sunday night of the conference championships I pondered what the opening spread for the Super Bowl was going to be. Of course, I considered the fact that the odds are not designed to be predictors for the game, but instead, are intended to create equal amounts of betting on each team. Because of that, they reflect the public's perception of the game, not necessarily the reality.

Following that line of thinking, I considered the public's perception of the game. If New England had anything resembling flashy media adorned stars, they would certainly be double digit favorites, as there would be talk of an inevitable dynasty in the making. Of course, that is not the case, New England has always been underrated, sometimes to extremes, the widespread predictions of an Indianpolis victory over them being just one example of this. So it was clear that New England wouldn't get much boost from that.

But I did think that they would get a boost from the fact that they come from a conference that has proved to be superior this year. The AFC had three 9-7 teams that did not make the playoffs. On the other side, three 8-8 teams did so. The NFC had only two teams with winning records against their AFC opponents (Minnesota and Atlanta). I thought these stats might offset the lack of hype for New England, and result in a spread of about ten points or so.

So I was only mildly surprised when I found the opening spread to be around seven points. I was then curious to see how the story would be covered over the next two weeks. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the coverage has revolved around the Eagles, with coverage of the Patriots seeming like an afterthought at times. An uninformed observer could come away from the coverage thinking that the Eagles were the favored team.

They are not, and even though many have come out predicting a New England victory, they seem to be quiet. The opposite of these are people like Michael Wilbon who are predicting a Philadelphia victory. One common thread in these predictions is an acknowledgement that New England is the better team and would win a seven game series, but that Philadelphia will win for some magical reason.

I am not making one of those predictions. New England is the better team, has played (and beaten) better opponents, and will come out on top in this game. How anyone can discount a team that put up 41 points on the top defense in the league is beyond me.

I am a Redskins fan but I was symphathetic to the Eagles when I lived in southeastern Pennsylvania. After living there, I lived in Maine when the Patriots were a bad team and if anyone at my school were fans of theirs, they were deeply in the closet. So it's with a mind unclouded with the biases of team loyalties that I predict:

New England 31
Philadelphia 17

No Comment

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:18:54 GMT

From the Letters page of the December 18-31 issue of The Economist (regarding Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons).

SIR - Tom Wolfe's characterisation of co-ed life in the Ivory Tower is far from true, at least for this Ivy Leaguer. My life surely would be much more amusing if I were living in his fictitious Bacchanalia with a gangsta-rap soundtrack. As it is, I am living with nine guys and I'm still not getting any.

Elizabeth Maples
Providence, Rhode Island

Do not Concur (re BBC tsunami coverage)

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 15:30:17 GMT

Powerline has a post that suggests that the BBC has systematically ignored the US Navy's response to the tsunami.

The first place I heard that we were sending the Lincoln Strike Force and the Bonhomme Richard amphib group was.... the BBC (on my new XM radio). They had a substantive interview with a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet. That night my parents were watching NBC Nightly News and I hung around to see if they would mention this development. They did not.