Tag: Sports

C-SPAN asked 65 presidential historians to rank the former 42 former occupants of the White House on ten attributes of leadership. My favorite leader–the croquet president–ended up being the 10th worst president ever. Hey, at least George W Bush is…

October 2008. A week after the Chicago Cubs disgraced themselves in the playoffs. Less than one month before the Obama election. I’m hungry. For lunch. I leave work and walk through the the Tribune Tower lobby. Occasionally in the lobby…

The architect’s rendering of the rink at Wrigley Field for the Winter Classic. (Handout photo/NHL) With the Wrigley Field being iced over from the Blackhawks game on January 1, they are going to let regular people ice skate on it…

Who wants to go to croquet school with me sometime next year in West Palm Beach, Florida? Summary America’s favorite croquet pros, headed by Bob Kroeger, teach this three day intensive course covering all aspects of our wonderful game. Held…

It’s a countdown day, 10/09/08! 10… 9… 8. What are we counting down to? Here’s some ideas: 25 days until the USA National Election for President 301 days until the G.I. Joe movie The countdown to the cubs winning the…

A random snail mail letter was sent to me from a six-year-old thinking I work at the corporate headquarters of McDonalds. He has some incredible ideas for a McDonalds playground design with crazy tubes, slides, and mazes of various levels.…

While Joe Biden was smacking down Sarah Palin on the Vice-Presidential Debates, the Chicago Cubs were suffering their second playoff loss to the Dodgers. Since Biden was so dominating, he should have gone over and played for the Cubs! They…

There’s an “OFFICIALLY LICENSED CHICAGO CUBS 3-COIN SET” being sold that features three accomplishments by recent Chicago Cubs players. But uh, hello. Alfonso Soriano did not join the 40-40 club while with the Cubs in 2006. Soriano got 40 homers…

A couple of days ago Vocalo.org asked, “If you invented an Olympic sport from one of your daily activities what would it be?” My response: CTA stair races. Both up and down the stairs. I will defeat ANYONE. BRING IT…

300,000 Lego bricks were used to create a 10ft by 26ft miniature city of the 2008 Beijing Olympics including the Bird Nest Stadium and the Water Cube swimming center. How much would this cost? I have a general rule when…

photo courtesy of raincitystudios via creative commons I really enjoyed watching fencing. What summer olympic sport do you really enjoy watching?

My niece took her first steps yesterday! Here’s a poem I wrote for her to commemorate this event: During the 2008 Olympics Livvy started her walking kicks Olivia so full of pep, took three small steps! With those three paces,…

You know what would be cool? In the Olympics when they have the athletes on the medal stand, they should let the winner pick a pop song from their country. And then everyone will dance to the song. Right now…

Since Estonia’s independence in 1991, they have only gotten two summer golds. Erki Nool’s decathlon in 2000 and Erika Salumae’s 1992 Cycling. And only one silver, Juri Jaason’s 2004 silver in single sculls rowing. (he’s estonia’s oldest competitor this Olympics…

Mr. cocky fencer Jerome Jeannet of France (currently ranked 2nd in the world) won the gold medal in 2004. He clashed sabers against underdog 57-ranked Estonian Nikolai Novosjolov in the second round of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Let me…

Estonia male cyclists a bit pokey Estonia’s male cyclists didn’t fare too well in the Bicycle Road Race of the 2008 Olympics. Tanel Kangert finished 69th, 13 minutes behind the leader. Rein Taaramae landed 48th, 7 minutes behind. Whoa! 69th?…

I love the name of Estonia’s female badminton player, Kati. It’s like a merging of my parents names: My dad Mati (who is Estonian) and my mom Kathy (German). This Estonian woman badminton player had better chances to win than…

Underdog Estonian Raul Must started off his first round against Poland’s Przemysław Wacha. Raul is ranked 74th in the world badminton rankings with Przemysław currently at 15. Przemysław also won the bronze medal at the 2008 European Badminton Championships. The…

The question on everybody’s mind. Who will carry the flag for Estonia in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics? It will be the great super heavyweight Judo champion, Martin Padar. At 6’4″ 300lbs, he rules the heaviest weight division…

Imagine if someone counted the number of mustaches in every year Topps made a baseball card set. Then there could be a line chart to display the mustache trends in baseball through the years. What year do you think was…

Six stolen bases is the most in one game done by Otis Nixon (1991-06-16) and Eric Young (1996-06-30). Baseball-reference has a great tool called the Play Index where you can look up all sorts of crazy stats. While watching the…

photo courtesy Library of Congress What if this was the regular road uniform for the 2008 Cubs? Goodbye red, white, and blue. Welcome pure charcoal gray.

It would be really cool if people could leave public comments on ebay auctions. I’d love to leave a comment on a goofy auction. Or better yet, I could release my angst when someone outbids me. I recently I was…

Major Leauge Baseball’s website doesn’t allow you to have a password over 10 characters. They used to allow you to go beyond 10 characters, but now, for some odd reason, they limit it to ten. Maybe they want someone to…

There are so many different baseball card sets, it’s interesting to see the different designs from all the years. The cards from the 80s are soooo 80s design (check out the 87 fleer design pictured above). So are the 90s…

There’s a cool application on facebook called Baseball Trading Cards where you can collect and sell virtual cards for free. If you collect an entire team, you get a special Hall of Fame/Fan Favorite card. There are several of these…

MLB.com has a game called Beat the Streak where you try to put together a hitting streak to beat baseball’s legendary record of 56 games. Choose one player every day who you think will get at least one base hit.…

Here are my four favorite baseball websites: baseball-reference.com My favorite source for quick stats. Plus, it’s just fun to tool around on the site, looking at random stats. hardballtimes.com Great writing on baseball desipio.com Hilarious coverage of the Cubs cubscast.com…

Every year the two teams with the worst records should be banned from playing baseball for one year. That means the Pittsburgh Pirates (2007 record: 68-94 .420) and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2007 record: 66-96 .407) would be be banned…

I’m a lifetime Cubs fan. But I’m also gonna root for the Mets now. I only know a couple baseball fans on AIM and one of them is a Mets fan. Why not root for them too? Reasons not to…

If i was Wrigley Company, I would buy the naming rights to Wrigley Field from Sam Zell. But I would name it Wrigley Spearmint Field one year. Then Wrigley Wintergreen Field another year. Juicy Fruit Field another year. That way…