Urban Bocce '06

Saturday, I participated in the third annual Urban Bocce tournament. Balgavy participated in the first one back in 2004. That one was crazy and it included a lot of travelling. This one was all in one place - Coney Island.

16 teams. 1 champion.

The Green Team looked, um, great.

Sweet Touch

I was part of the team Sweet Touch and His Secret Admirer. By the way, we rebounded strong after this picture was taken. I was too focused all day to even remember to have a picture taken of Sweet Touch and me in our unis. Very high concept. You see, I was his secret admirer and was trying to be like him but messing it all up. He had black jeans, I had blue. He had orange shoes with some blue. I wore blue shoes with some orange. My Mets hat was even different than his. As I said, very high concept.

Mooney the Priest in a Wetsuit pointing out some real nuns.

Drawing up the Courts

One of these priests is real, the other isn't.

At the end of the World Cup style first round, there was a tie in one of the brackets. The only solution was a Simulbocc. No idea on the spelling of that.

The team that took Erik and me out also took out Mike and Mooney. Oh well, at least Sweet Touch and I made it to the Final Four.

The Green Team vs. Guys in Togas. So Felliniesque.


The Finals. Guys in busboy outfits vs. our boys in red.

Fully Loaded

The game was quickly getting out of hand for our friends. Balgavy had to resort to desperate measures.

The final shot by Jim didn't end in a good result.

Drinking vodka from the trophy.

UPDATE:
9/25
While Balgavy might not be nice enough to link to my pictures, here are a batch of his.

MA, ME, PA, VA, GA, and the ER

I know, it's been a while. I've been in transit, though, so I have an excuse this time! I finally left my post on Floor 19, packed up the apartment and loaded the truck, and said goodbye to NoHo. I've always been wistful and nostalgic when closing chapters in my life, but this time I can't say I've looked back. The town has definitely served its purpose. I'm leaving just in time because I was really starting to outgrow the area and its increasingly transparent, phony progressiveness.... in the South, at least bigots can look me in the eye and deliberately spew racist slurs to my face! Yeee hawww! Hey, I appreciate honesty, I really do. I can be honest right back, too.

I will miss New England, though. Autumn is just around the corner, my favorite season in the Northeast. I took the photo on the right at Atkins Farms near Amherst, MA, last fall. I love the smell of the autumn air, a melange of woodsmoke, wet leaves, apples, and the impending cold rain. I also associate the fall with brand new school supplies.




Anyway, after finally vacating the apartment, Toya and I drove eight hours to Northern Maine to spend time with my parents for a few days. It's always nice to visit home. I'm consistently amazed at how plentiful the food seems to be at my parents' house! Not just any food, good homecooked food. Even though I slept in my old room, I felt like a guest; my personal effects from adolescence are no longer on the walls-- in fact, the room has completely transformed since I moved from home almost a decade ago. Still, I felt safe in that space. I always feel safe when I'm in that house. I guess that's why I still call it "home," regardless of how many years have passed or how far I've moved away. Of course, this has little to do with the house itself, and mostly to do with the fact that my parents continue to make it a home for me and my siblings.

After a couple of very brief, relaxing days there, we then drove all the way down to Georgia with some stops along the way. (There was a karaoke contest somewhere in there. Yeah. Moving on.) The drive through Pennsylvania and Virginia was actually rather nice; I hadn't realized that these were such pretty parts of the country-- sorry PA'ers and VA'ers, I underestimated the beauty of your states! There were quite a few hours of picturesque, rolling landscapes along the way. Here is a glimpse of some of the beautiful scenery from the Shenandoah Valley that I encountered on the long road-trip to my new life in the South:



And then there was this snapshot of the green, lush Virginia mountains, blanketed with corn fields and dotted with cows. Check out the silhouette of the abandoned barn and lone silo against the fiery sunset:



D8

Live Event - Defending My Title

Managed to take down the $40 buy in event at my local card club. The prize for first was $460 this week so over two weeks I have managed to turn $40 into $820 of pure profit. It is amazing what can happen when your big hands hold up for an entire event.

I did pull off a suckout when I was shortstacked. Raise standard 3x bb with QJo from MP. A microstack pushes all in which is less than my raise and another guy pushes and it will cost me 1/2 of my stack to call. Blinds were increasing next hand and my read was that one would have Ax and the other would have a small pocket pair. So I called and they both had AQo! So I call for 2 J's to hit the board and I get one on the flop and the other on the turn to win the hand. Talk about establishing yourself as a loose insane player early. Stole the blinds a couple times to get to the final table.

Got JJ when we were six handed and the wife calls me to tell me she is going to the gym in the morning. So when it is raised and then a super tight player pushes all in I fold because everytime the wife chats with me it is super bad luck! The guy can't believe I folded J's and shows me pocket 9's. Great timing sweetheart! A maniac at the table started busting people with junk but he raised every pot for the next 15 mins. Finally, we get to the final four and a super tight player turns push monkey now that we are in the money. He gets called by maniac and the maniac puts him out 4th. This is the point where I felt that I could really win this because I felt that I was a best player playing. Blinds are now 1,500 / 3,000 and I have 20k when 3 handed play starts. Time to steal blinds just to stay alive and they both tightened up to help me out! Finally the maniac calls my all in bet from the SB when I have KJo vs. his J5s! Nice call out of him and my hand holds up and now I am the big stack at the table. He goes out in the next hand and we are HU. First hand I get A4o and decide to push to keep him guessing and he first asks how much are the prizes for 1st and 2nd. The answer is $460 for 1st or $230 for 2nd. Based on that info I put him on a weak ace but I was very happy to see A3o when he called.

He was left with 4k of chips and that became the new BB! It felt good to win the same tournament two weeks in a row to make me feel like my play can be good sometimes. For a live event I find that mentally it is easier to prepare than when playing online. Now if I could just put that type of concentration to my online game I am sure that my results would improve.

Sure Win Lost

The Reds dropped a game to the Astros, 8-5, that they should have won. Leading 5-1 going to the bottom of the 5th, things looked well in hand for the Cincinnati team. Then Bronson Arroyo imploded, giving up six runs in the 5th. Oddly, or not so considering manager Jerry Narron's usual handling of pitchers, Arroyo kept pitching into the 7th. The Astros' bullpen kept alive its consecutive inning scoreless streak by shutting out the Reds over the final four frames, in spite of a 9th inning rally.

Arroyo went 6 2/3, giving up eight hits and eight runs on three home runs. He walked one and struck out seven. Brian Shackelford got one out, and David Weathers pitched a shutout 8th.

Arroyo was belted in the fifth, giving up a double and then an HBP, and then another runner reached on Royce Clayton's error. Then it was single, single, home run by Lance Berkman for a total of six scores. Arroyo then retired the side, and pitched a 1-2-3 6th before allowing another homer to Berkman in the 7th, this time for two runs.

Adam Dunn had four hits, two of them doubles. Rich Aurilia had three, a homer, triple and single. Ryan Freel had two singles, and Dave Ross a double as he returned to the lineup. The Reds had 13 hits in all. They had difficulty stringing them together, partly because offensive black hole Clayton was hitting second, and the horrible slump that is Ken Griffey Jr. was batting third.

Hoping to take the rubber game of the series tomorrow night, with Elizardo Ramirez going against Taylor Buchholz. Buchholz has posted a 5.57 ERA this year, and his win over the Reds is one of his few good starts. Better luck this time!

NCAA Tournament Expansion Talk

The men's and women's basketball committees are meeting this week in Orlando and one of the hot topics up for discussion is whether they should expand the NCAA Tournament to include more than the current field of 65. This idea was floated back in March at the Final Four and USA Today raised the issue in May on the grounds of parity. In both cases expansion propsals topped out at 80 teams. Now as the committees prepare to meet the National Association of Basketball Coaches is asking for complete doubling of the field to 128 teams.

That's right 128 teams.

The reasons cited for such a grand expansion are the failure to include tournament worthy teams and the fact the 64/65 team format has been in place for a long time. The also cite the increased number of Division I teams, the fact the NIT is now controlled by the NCAAs, and the George Mason tournament run.

First of all the longevity of one format over another is a weak argument. I would take that to mean it works and very well so there is no need to change it. As for NCAA control of both postseason tournaments, that does not seem to matter to me.

The two reasons I take issue with the most is the "George Mason" argument and the increased number of Division 1 teams.

The GM argument stipulates that by expanding the field it increases the chances for small schools to have their own magical Final Four run based on the Patriots' improbable run in the the 2006 Final Four. However I would argue that a 128 team expansion would actually kill such runs because it add an additional game these Cinderella schools have to play. It is my observation that the more games a lower seed has to play the worse off they are in continuing the run. In a 128 team field GM would have played a team 11 spots lower than them before facing the higher seeds. While there is no conclusive evidence of how an extra game would effect the outcomes of future matchups I tend to think that had GM been saddled with an opener against a lower seed it would have hurt them going forward. And if they contest the first round a weekend before the round of 64 or even at different sites then changing sites or experiencing a delay also gives higher seeds more time to prep for the upcoming lower seed. I think the GM argument is a celebrity cause for the coaches who want to strike a tone with the fans who they perceive are hungry for a bevy of lower seeds penetrating deep into the tournament. I think the rarity of the feat is what makes it compelling and special to watch.

The second argument on the number of D1 schools is also a simple argument to refute. Taking the CollegeRPI rankings posted by Jerry Palm there are 334 D1 schools playing basketball. The argument the coaches are making is based on that number but the real number that should be considered is the number of teams which finished above .500 last season which is only 171 teams. Why is this important? Because outside of winning an automatic bid there is no way a team which lost more than they won should get anywhere close to the NCAA Tournament. In fact I am not entirely sure a team that is under .500 in their conference should be allowed into the NCAA Tournament. Assuming you use this rule it would mean you are taking 75% of the teams, who, in many cases, did nothing but finish with one or two more wins that losses. This would essentially render the regular season worthless except for purposes of seeding. It would set up a system where all a major conference school has to do is win 15-17 games and they know they are getting in to the tournament. And while parity is nice the tournament also has to have credibility and adding 63 teams, of which there are at most eight who were borderline exclusions, is an inherently bad idea. Getting into the NCAA Tournament must actually mean more than playing one game above .500 all season. The prize of winning the national championship must be based on earning your way into an exclusive field of teams which includes enough good teams to make you earn your way to the top. A field of 65 is less than half the winning teams out there which means the regular season has served its purpose in weeding out the bad teams.

The reasons the NBCA gave are cover for the real motive behind such an expansion and that is job security. Most of the job stability which surrounds a coach is tied to his ability to make the NCAA Tournament. Coaches like Jim Boeheim, who floated the 80 team field at the Final Four, are afraid they cannot guarantee a spot in the tournament every year because of the increased parity from the mid-majors. They also unwilling to give up there lucrative home games against St. Sebastian's School for the Fingerless in exchange for road games at mid-majors or even hosting them for fear they will get beaten at home. In other words there are apparently enough coaches who would feel a lot better about keeping their job if getting into the tournament were easier.

In my opinion getting into the tournament is not supposed to be easy. Getting a NCAA berth should mean you played well all season and you acquitted yourself as one of the best 65 teams in the country. Yes, automatic bids to lower seeded conference finishers does muck things up a bit, and yes a few teams would get shafted every year who could have won one or two games. But the last thing you want to is make so a winning record virtually locks you into a NCAA Tournament berth and until I see more than one #11 seed making the Final Four every 20 years I would not tinker with the current system. It seems to a do a decent job producing a worthy national champion.

Allez Les Bleus?

I’ve never been a soccer fan but the timing of the World Cup matches, especially in the knock-out rounds, matched meal times for the beloved infant pretty well, so I caught a lot of games. An all-Europe final four wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped, but I loved watching Zinedine Zidane, loved his handsome intensity and his age and that great, great name, and I love France, so I plumped for them.

When it turned out they were facing Italy in the final, I questioned my choice. I have loved France since I was seven, but it’s not done much to love me back. In fact, loving France is hard a lot of the time. When I went to France at sixteen, my French was fluent and I was treated well—often mistaken for Swiss or Belgian, there was something not-quite-us-but-very-acceptable about me. In later visits, my French rustier and rustier, I was treated with more disdain. On my one visit to Italy, by contrast, I got off the train without a word of Italian and bluffed my way through with French and Sesame Street Spanish and was welcomed as a prodigy. Besides, two of my dear friends are married to Italians.

French racism is an uncomfortable mirror of our own: they mistreat their African immigrants and welcome African-American with open arms where we, as I heard a Haitian woman observe recently, are much more willing to accord a black person respect if we learn they are not African-American.

Watching Zidane head-butt the Italian player in the final moments of the final was heart-breaking. Now, speculations rage about what provoked him. Initially, I imagined the Italian player had just been trash-talking and, in the heat and fatigue and stress, he heard one “your mama” too many. While some speculate that Zidane, who is the son of Algerian immigrants, was called a “terrorist,” it seems that, my first guess may have been closer to the truth: the Italian player has admitted to making a crack about Zidane’s wife…

Sigh.

One of the great pleasures of learning French, of loving France, of loving any other country is the ability to sigh wistfully on occasion and say, “Well, if we were in France, we’d be….drinking Lillet on the terrace…discussing Beauvoir and smoking Gitanes….enjoying oysters on a bed of sea salt…attending the opening of the new exhibition…instead of stuck being here in the U.S…” Of course, it turns out that loving France is a lot like loving the U.S.: it's not always an easy break from life's warty complexities. I still like Zidane and I still love France, but Sunday didn't do anything to nurture my affections.

Final Four

NBA rules say high school junior O.J. Mayo, who would be the No. 1 overall pick if he were eligible for the 2006 draft, can't enter the draft until 2008. Fine. Rules are rules.

But Mayo has been pushing all kinds of envelopes since he was a seventh-grader in Ashland, Ky., averaging 23 ppg for his high school varsity and boasting his own website. It's time for him to push one more envelope, to cross a barrier as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

Time to get paid, O.J. And if that means going overseas -- and it does -- fine. Do it. Drop out. Quit school.

O.J. Mayo's endorsement cash would make him a millionaire before he even gets to the NBA. (Provided to SportsLine)

O.J. Mayo's endorsement cash would make him a millionaire before he even gets to the NBA. (Provided to SportsLine)

It's time for all of us here in the United States to say goodbye to our best homegrown guard since Kobe Bryant. Time to wish Mayo well, and farewell. Arrivederci. Or bon voyage.

How do you say "hit the road" in German?

It's not goodbye forever. We'd see him again in two years. Mayo, a 6-foot-5 point guard now based out of North College Hill, Ohio, would return in 2008 to claim his rightful spot as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. Mayo is that good. On the court, anyway. Off the court? Not so much. Which is why he needs to quit high school -- quit the charade that he's a high school basketball player -- and turn pro. Immediately.

That means going to Europe. Or South America. Asia? I don't care. Just go.

Mayo is about as "amateur" an amateur basketball player as Amare Stoudemire in 2002, LeBron James in '03 and Sebastian Telfair in '04. Proof? The biggest buzz of the current spring recruiting circuit came when Mayo played in the Kingwood Classic in Houston with the Miami Tropics instead of his longtime team, the D-One Greyhounds -- wearing the Tropics' Nikes instead of the Greyhounds' Reeboks. O.J. with a new shoe company? That's news.