Something Something Gold Medal

For those of you who stayed up to watch the US defeat Spain in the gold medal game in the wee hours of Sunday morning, how did that work out for you? Personally, I just woke up and cannot get back to bed because my fantasy football draft is in a few hours and, well, the excitement is getting to me.

Let's talk about this "Redeem Team" for a few moments. If you watched the game (or expanded highlights like me), one thing probably caught your attention over everything else, and that were the players standing up on the bench for most of the second half jumping around with every basket like they were Chaminade getting ready to topple Ralph Sampson and Virginia (I don't believe that reference is too dated). Talk about a team proud to be in Beijing representing the US. Hell, I'm proud to have them represent us.
There have been articles written discussing how this team would do versus the orginal Dream Team, as there are everytime America selects twelve NBA players to take on the world. How would this team fare? It's an in depth analysis that we'll be tackling this week. Stay tuned.

Random Posts and Podcast News

Ok, a few things since it's been a few days since we last checked in. First off, I have received emails (mainly negative...wait, all negative) about the Bernie Mac post from a few months back. I'm not going to go back and erase it. It was written two months before he died. I don't feel it needs to be changed since it was obviously not written in a very serious tone.

Secondly, in case you missed it last night, Josh Hamilton was walked intentionally with the bases loaded. Only the second time in 68 years that has been accomplished.

As for the "The Reach Blog Podcast"--be ready, it's coming. A few more pieces of equipment are still needed and we'll be good to go (figure late this week or early next week...stay tuned).

As for the Olympics--I hope you're enjoying the coverage. I'll do a longer post in conclusion of the games. An overview, wrapup if you will.

Finally, the Reach Blog offices appear possibly moving from the Twin Cities to New England. Yet another thing that New England is claiming from Minnesota (KG, Big Papi, Randy Moss...now this very blog?). Details to come. Thanks for the patience.

P.S. Name the mustache above. Is it A. Freddie Mercury or B. Mark Spitz?

20 years ago...

It's weird to think that it's been 20 years since the Cubs played the first night game at Wrigley Field. Well here we are in 2008 and as the calender would have us believe...sure enough, it's been 20 years.

The Cubs only play about 25 home night games or so each year, which understandably, send the ticket prices skyrocketing. Naturally to get the full Wrigley experience an afternoon game might be the way to go--but a cool summer breeze under the stars isn't bad.

So what are the Cubs doing to celebrate this historic anniversary? Why an afternoon game against the Cardinals of course.

The sick fact of the day: a bleacher seat on 8/8/88 was only $6. I paid $50 for my ticket earlier this year off eBay. How the times change.

The wonderful folks at Democraticcentral.com have a great historic review of the first night game at Wrigley. Check it out here.

Mass Suicides in Wisconsin

Ok, now that the trade has been made, I'll talk about the big yellow gorilla in the room. If you read this site with any regularity you've probably noticed that Brett Favre hasn't been mentioned too much recently. This would be normal, if the rest of the media under the sky hadn't been on the "Favre Beat" for the last month and a half.
I made a decision when this whole thing began not to talk about it. Why? Because it was this summer's "There isn't much else going on--so let's talk the shit out of this" story. Last year it was Barry Bonds chasing Hank Aaron. Guess what? Both stories peaked on August 7.
If you ask me, this is just one great big conspiricy to detract attention fron Sidney Crosby's 21st birthday binge tonight (yeah--he's only 21!).
In all seriousness, this story has gotten real old real quick. In the end, what is this trade do to each team? It makes the Packers take a step back and more than likely only adds one or two victories to the Jets this year bringing their projected total to...six wins! Hell yeah!
Does anyone really believe this move makes New York a playoff contender? Or do you see this as one great big marketing plan to sell PSLs to Jets fans? Honestly, I'll tend to believe the latter before I believe the former.
So to recap: Favre is on the cover of Madden 09...the Madden curse sends Favre to New Jersey. Touche John...touche.

Football Begins

That was pretty cool last night wasn't it? The NFL is back as of last night when Indy and Washington squared off for four smashmouth quarters (and with the exception of Mike Hart and Colt Brennan, you didn't know who anyone was from the middle of the second quarter on). And by four smashmouth quarters I really mean--it was a glorified practice with pads played in a stadium that is home to a high school team during the fall.

Anyhow, for those in an NFL Preseason office pool: The Redskins won the game 30-16. That's it! The Colts' reign as a powerhouse is over. One note that I found rather funny was the Colts pulling Jim Sorgi after one drive--were they afraid he was going to get hurt? Gotta feel bad for Sorgi, he probably had 200 family members in the stands figuring it would be the most playing time he's seen in the pros and they go and sit him down after one possession?! What the hell.

Speaking of QB controversies...the race for the Colt's number 3 QB is between Quin Gray and Jared Lorenzen. It promises to be a tightly contested battl---zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Trade Deadline In A Few Hours

Look at that headline. Can you think of a more exciting sentence in sports? Sure, sure, the games themselves are exciting. As a Cubs fan, I nearly wet myself over the last few days as the Cubs have won 3 or 3 from Milwaukee at Miller Park. The only thing more exciting than winning is someone getting your hopes up with trade scenarios...even though we know damn well that Superstar X isn't going to be traded to your team at the deadline for two or three midlevel minor league prospects.
Does anyone really believe for a second that Manny Ramirez is going anywhere today? The only way Manny heads to South Florida this year is if the Sox meet the Marlins in the World Series. There, I said it! So go to ESPN.com today and read about how close Boston is to trading their best offensive player since Ted Williams--they're in a tight race with the Yankees and Rays--sure, it'll happen.
But we do have a little activity this morning. The outfielder formerly known as Ken Griffey Jr. is heading to the White Sox (pending approval). I'm not sure what this does to the White Sox, or even where they'll play Griffey. This trade opens up the door to the possibility that Griffey goes from "greatest baseball player in a generation" to platooning with Brian Anderson in just under nine years. If nothing else, this trade will allow the White Sox to move Nick Swisher to 1B full time.

Another great thing about the trade deadline is being able to see a headline that on any other day would seem compleatly ridiculous such as "Will Ohman in High Demand".

There you have it. Teams trying to get in their final positions before the stretch run over the next two months.

*Speaking of Griffey...the card pictured is his rookie card from the 1989 Upper Deck collection. If you collected baseball cards between 1985-1995 you recognize this card as the holy grail of cards. So, do you have any guesses how much it's worth today? $25. You can find it on Ebay for anywhere between $11 and $25. Maybe it was a good thing your mom threw all your baseball cards out.

Logjamming With The AARP

I have to give credit to a friend's roommate for something he said a while back about coffee. To this day, it's one of the truest things anyone has ever told me. He said, "coffee is a great reason to get up. If life sucks and I'm lying in a comfortable warm bed, I can always take solice in the thought that there's a cup of coffee waiting for me. Because, life is hard...but there's always coffee". Honestly, truer words never spoken.

Now, I'm not one of those obsessive coffee drinkers where I cannot start my day until I have coffee. Not one bit. Just a fan of coffee. Black. Strong. Insert joke here.

The Reach Blog began as something to do while I drank coffee in the mornings. It turned into something that I loved doing and began to take on a personality of it's own--mainly sports. But today is one of the most important days in the history of the site.

Why is that you ask?

Because I am finally going to post the story I was born to post. A story about Japan's 73 year old porn star Shigeo Tokuda.

Nothing that I could possibly type could be funnier than the actual story itself. So why try? Don't worry about watching this at work--it's a CNN clip. They aren't allowed to show nudity, but they'll unleash Glenn Beck on their guests (see video below). Go figure.