The Sporkball Journals

2008 Olympians, Part 2

See Part 1

See Part 3

• UPDATE •

August 21, 2008 — Team USA Baseball has earned the #3 seed during the preliminary rounds of the baseball tournament. This means a rematch against Cuba in the semifinal game on Friday, August 22 (6 p.m. Beijing = 6 a.m. EDT/4 a.m. MDT). #4-seed Japan will play undefeated #1-seed South Korea in the other semifinal game scheduled for earlier that day (10:30 a.m. Beijing = August 21, 10:30 p.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. MDT). The winners of the semifinals proceed to the gold/silver medal game; the losers play for the bronze.

The gold/silver medal game is scheduled for Saturday August 23 (6 p.m. Beijing = 6 a.m. EDT/4 a.m. MDT), preceded by the bronze medal game (10:30 a.m. Beijing = August 21, 10:30 p.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. MDT). The medals ceremony takes place after the finish of the gold/silver medal game (9 p.m. Beijing = August 21, 9:00 a.m. EDT/7:00 a.m. MDT) BTW, many thanks to the folks at NBC.com for making the live and archived baseball broadcasts available via their website:*

Watch via the Internet

*You’ll need a high-speed Internet connection and plenty of RAM for this to work. Also, I should point out this is a bare-bones video feed. There is no voice-over or soundtrack, and minimal written commentary and/or statistical overlays. You might want a pen and paper handy to keep track of pitch counts and baserunners.

As for the status of our two favorite Olympians, you can peruse their stats and game boxscores at USA Baseball. In summary, Kevin Jepsen has faced 12 batters in 3 appearances for 3.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, 4 SO and 1 BB. Matt Brown has started in 7 of 7 preliminary games and is batting .240 (6 for 25) with 6 RBI, 5 BB and 7 SO. Defensively, Matt’s played four games at 3B and two games at 1B (and one as DH) with 1 E, 12 A (assists) and 20 PO (put-outs).

And lastly, I found some photos of Kevin and Matt going for gold in Beijing. Bye for now!

U.S. versus China Taipei, slide #7 SPACER TEXT

U.S. versus China Taipei SPACER TEXT

U.S. versus Netherlands SPACER TEXT

U.S. versus Canada SPACER TEXT

U.S. versus South Korea SPACER TEXT

Add comment August 21st, 2008

Link of the Week (or Whenever): Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan writes,
Pat Jordan speaks,
Pat Jordan drops the f-bomb. . .

AN EFF-ING TON OF THEM.

August 20, 2008 — For readers who don’t blanch at large text blocks of stream-of-consciousness cursing, I heartily recommend a series of online interviews [WARNING: Hyperlink to LOTS of profanity.] conducted by Joe Posnanski.

Once a bonus-baby prospect for the Milwaukee Braves, Jordan wrote about his aborted baseball career in a book titled, A False Spring. Since those days, Jordan has become a freelance writer of considerable note. He’s politically conservative, fiercely opinionated, and in case you didn’t catch it on the first, second or third mention, has a gift for delivering the thinking-man’s obscene invective. (If that doesn’t make sense, you’ll just have to read the interviews. Or take my word for it.)

Even if you aren’t in the mood for eavesdropping on Jordan and fellow writer Scott Raab as they engage in the verbal equivalent of peeing on fenceposts, I’d still advise you give Jordan’s written work a look-see. Jordan really is a superb wordsmith. When his written pieces are supervised by editors of mainstream mags, they lack the saltier language of his spoken opinions. No promises, though. Visit Pat Jordan’s homepage to browse his work. Bye for now!

Add comment August 20th, 2008

Link of the Week (or Whenever): Disco Dodgers

August 19, 2008 — This really needs no introduction, except maybe as a warning to avoid anything from the 1980s. BTW, I believe that’s LA Angels skipper Mike Scioscia in the green jacket. Bye for now!

Add comment August 19th, 2008