Thursday, August 5, 2010

Sports + the Summer of 2010


Yep, that's everyone's favorite horn to hate, the infamous vuvuzela.  With apologies to all my non-athletically inclined friends, this post is going to be a sporty spice one.  Obviously I like athletics, and play them whenever I can (hence my girlish figure).  Usually summertime is a fairly boring season, sports wise.  The only thing going on the US is baseball, which is unquestionably the most boring of the 4 major American sports.  It's only fun if you are at a game and even then, it's more entertaining to have a beer and a hot dog with a friend.  At best, you casually follow the game while you talk about a wide range of topics in the hopes that a foul ball gets popped somewhere in your vicinity so you get that rush of maybe catching one.  Baseball gets exponentially more exciting in September in October when each pitch means something but before that the games, and the season (162 games) are too long.


The other event that happens every summer which is always exciting in my world is Wimbledon.  For a tennis nut like me, it is Mecca. Whenever I am wandering the grounds, I get that far too infrequent feeling that there is no other place on the planet I'd like to be at that exact moment.  I can go on and on about what makes the tournament so fabulous, but it's best quality is that it retains its tradition.  The British are crazy about tradition, in many cases to a fault, as they are slow to evolve and change compared to the US or many of their European counterparts.  However, at Wimbledon, this stubbornness is a large reason why the tournament is unique and spectacular.  For example, they are the only tournament that reserves tickets on the show courts every day (except the semis and finals) for people willing to, "queue" (line up in American).  They keep 500 tickets for center court and court one and people camp out overnight in the hopes of buying them.  Moreover, these are superb tickets, usually in the first 10 rows and would fetch a price 10-15x higher in the open market.  Wimbledon is not interested in the $$$ though and I'm quite glad they aren't.

The above pic is court 18 where the historical 11hr 5min match took place a couple days prior between Isner and Mahut.  I suppose that's what happens when you have two solid servers and mediocre returners but the statistics on that match are silly.  The final set alone was longer than any match in the history of the sport.  On this day, Thomas Berdych was serving there in a 4th round contest.  This was the match before he upset Roger and then Djokovic to get to the final.


I also went to check out Roddick who I felt had a decent shot at the title.  He was playing a Tawainese guy that even I hadn't heard of and somehow lost in 5 sets.  So much for that prediction.

This year, Wimbledon, and all other sports, took a back seat to the biggest sporting event in the world, the World Cup.  Most Americans don't freely admit that, but if you travel abroad during any of the games there can be no dispute.  The fans and media in any country that is participating is wholly consumed by what their team is doing.  I even found myself jumping around my hotel room when stranded in Boston when Donovan scored that late goal in extra time against Algeria to push the US to the top of their group.  Of all the countries in the world, our recent nemesis happens to be Ghana which is annoying because they are next to impossible to hate.  They are happy, go-lucky and deserved a better fate in the World Cup.

I was in England when the Brits lost to Germany.  The poor British are a tortured sports nation, desperate for any kind of success from anyone from the UK.  They'll even root passionately for a Scot if he shows promise.  They are quick to bash a player or team when they lose which is a shame.  Imagine Cleavland and Cubs fans populating a collection of islands where the weather is the same as Seattle.  It's going to take a herculean effort to rise above the pressure the country puts on its athletes, but if the Red Sox could win a title than anything is possible.  They have the talent but I think the national players need to stop playing in the Premier league a month or two early to focus on taking a solid TEAM to the World Cup and not just a great group of individual players.  The US basketball team had a similar problem for a while but figured it out. 

My travel schedule after London took me to Amsterdam where Holland was somehow still alive in the WC after beating Brazil.  To say the Dutch were a fired up people was an understatement.


This was after their semi win over Uruguay.  It was orange and more orange everywhere you looked.  I even got into the act and made a few purchases to show my support for the "Oranje".


I was supposed to be in Barcelona for the final which would have worked out swimmingly given that Spain made the final. (Side note: I didn't realize that Barcelona folks would not be 100% in support of the Spanish team but they weren't.  The reason: Barcelona is in the Catalan part of Spain and many of the Catalan people would like to secede from the rest of Spain if it were an easy thing to do.  Why this is the case is historical and complicated, but feel free to wikipedia it at your leisure.  The net result is that only 50% of the people there were excited, flag waving hombres).

Given the sentiment and the fact that I was traveling with a Dutch girl, we high tailed it back to Amsterdam early, peeling myself away from Park Guell which was truly painful.  In anticipation of the final, the spirits were high and apparently there were helicopters over the main square there that holds around 70k dropping orange flowers on the crowd.


I'm a dork, but I was caught up in the pre-game excitement.  Alas, it was not meant to be and Spain deservedly won an ugly game marred by too many yellow cards and fouls.  As usual, there were also some missed offsides,etc.  I don't want to beat a dead horse, but why FIFA refuses to adopt technology to help with simple things like goals and offsides makes no sense to me.  I'm not even advocating replay as I like soccer's continuity but sensors on people or in balls is hardly rocket science.  If tennis (and apparently American football as of today is putting chips in the ball to help with spotting) can do it why not the greatest game on earth?  Tsk tsk....

The last compelling sports story of the summer had nothing to do with anything contested on a field or court.  I thankfully missed most of the silliness while in Europe, but "the Decision" seemed to be a huge story here.  Normally basketball is an afterthought in the summer and most are just glad the season finally ends in early June.  This time it was different as you had several prominent free agents looking for suitors, including the arguable best player in the world in Lebron James.  To mine, and most people's surprise he chose my team, the Miami Heat, along with another superstar Chris Bosh to "take his talents" to.  I was legitimately shocked when I heard it, and, after the elation, I started to think how much harder it was going to get tickets for my dad for his bday in November.  When I read about how badly he screwed over the people in Cleveland I also felt badly for them.  They deserved better and even now, I don't fully understand his behavior to those fans that cheered so loudly for him when he played or did his powder smoke ritual before games.  All I can think is that he's, for some reason, treating it like a break up with a girlfriend and is in this stage immediately post breakup where you minimize all the good times you had and concentrate on all the reasons you left the relationship to make things unequivocal in your mind.  I hope he comes around on this, because as happy and curious as I am that he is in Miami now, the "fan" in me wants to see resolution for his old fans that were so invested in him.