Congratulations to Jim Thome on hitting his 600th career home run last night. While he was running around the bases, he was thinking of his late mother. This story has more, including visits to his Little League baseball field in Peoria where his mom used to watch him play. Well worth your time.
Baseball, and sport in general, needs more like him.
With football starting up again — thank God — it should be fun to revisit A Quick Rant About the State of the Chicago Bears 2011, my post-season wrap from a few months ago, which is mostly about the horror show that is the Bears’ leadership team: Mike McCaskey, Ted Phillips, Jerry Angelo, and…
Summer Guide 2011 - The Legendary Tale of Two Yankees Pitchers Who Swapped Wives — New York Magazine
…New York’s all-time oddest sports sex scandal came to light during spring training in 1973. That was when two Yankees pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, 40 percent of the team’s starting rotation, called a press conference to inform mind-boggled newsmen that they had traded families. This included wives, children, and pets.
Almost 40 years ago now, and still one of the strangest sports stories in my lifetime.
Ball, meet bat!
Francisco Cervelli lays down a bunt. I just want you to look at the ball meeting the bat. Wow.
AP photo by Kathy Willens.
Finally a photo that captures the excitement of bunting.
Bunting? In the AL? What the hell is that?
Beautiful.
When it came to hitting, I had two specialties in Little League. Bunting and taking one for the team.
Needless to say, I didn’t play much after middle school…
(via sportspage)
Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy on the Miami Heat getting frustrated by negative attention in the media:
My suggestion would be if you don’t want the scrutiny, you don’t hold a championship celebration before you’ve even practiced together once.
Exactly right.
via DailyHerald.com
Pete Maravich, voted by GQ readers the coolest athlete of all time.
Cool!
gq:
According To GQ Readers, This Man Is The Coolest Athlete Of All Time
Wow. We love this choice. As we said earlier, if we had ranked the 25 athletes in our recent cover package, Dr. J would’ve been our #1. But honestly, Pete Maravich—the winner of our readers poll at GQ.com—is a far cooler pick. And we never would’ve guessed it’d turn out this way. Pistol Pete. The original rainmaker. Died with his Chucks on. Once again proving our readers are hepper cats than we are. And you all just made our design director Fred Woodward, the biggest Maravich fan we know, and author of the excellent tribute to him in our magazine cover package, a very happy man today.
(via sbnation)
Blackhawks vs. Flyers for the Stanley Cup. Here’s the schedule.
Both teams are playing their best hockey of the year, so this could be a great series. The Blackhawks have won 7 in a row on the road, and 10 out of 12 overall, while the Flyers have won 8 out of 9, including coming back from a 3-0 deficit against Boston, and a 3-0 deficit in game 4.
Here’s a good summary of the matchup.
I would caution all Hawks fans: do not be overconfident based on the fact that the Flyers are a #7 seed. That information means nothing at this point: it’s a best-of-seven series between two teams, and the first team to win four times takes it. That’s all there is to it. You have to show up, and you have take it away from the other team, which just might be hungrier than you are. Teams that rely on reputation or listen to their own PR too much forget that sometimes.
2010 Stanley Cup Finals… Chicago… Philadelphia… HELL YES!
(via edge1)
