Now this is just taunting, part 2
Since I am no longer whining about software and hardware, and no longer spending my time asking "What is that godawful smell???" in my Beijing apartment, I am free to return to a familiar source of complaint: my cold-turkey withdrawal from something that once consumed a lot of my time, namely watching live sports on TV.
Imagine my surprise when I switch on the TV a few hours ago, Sunday night China time, and see -- a NFL playoff game! And one involving my "hometown" team, the Redskins! (My boyhood hometown team, the LA Rams, is of course lost to history.) But wait a minute... They're playing in Seattle. And as I turn it on, the Redskins have just stormed from behind to take a 14-13 lead! And, the Seahawks mishandle the ensuing kickoff return, so that the Redskins get the ball deep in Seahawks' territory, with a lead, in the fourth quarter. Huzzah!
As anyone still reading knows, what followed, from the game actually played one week ago, was about the most disspiriting ten minutes in any franchise's history. Moral question: with full foreknowledge of what's ahead, do I leave the TV on to watch those ten minutes?
Would Red Sox fans keep watching if they happened upon a replay of the 1986 World Series? Would Yankees fans, if they found a broadcast of the 2004 AL playoffs? If they were in China, maybe they would. And I did.
(Previously in the taunting series, here.)
Go Bulldogs! (NCAA Div III football dept.)
Updated, below
I am so starved for football-related entertainment here -- and there is only so much Chengdu v. Dalian women's volleyball one can tolerate, not to mention Asian snooker tourneys broadcast live from the Philippines -- that I am considering staying up for the wee-hours China time webcast of Saturday's exciting University of Redlands v St. John's University playoff game in the NCAA Div III football championships.
St. John's, a school in Minnesota that I know and like, is unusual in (a) having an on-site Benedictine monastery, and (b) having been in its heyday the crushing titan of small-college ball. Their coach, John Gagliardi, has now passed Eddie Robinson of Grambling to be the winningest college coach ever. Through the decades they have been repeat national champions and have reached the national playoffs 22 times. Etc. Plus (c) lots of other ways.
Redlands, a school in southern California that I know, like, and am on the board of trustees for, is unusual in (a) its overall charm and (b) having been in its heyday the crushing titan of small college tennis. My Redlands High School classmate (and co-member of the RHS tennis team, he #1 and me in the cellar) Doug Verdieck went to the University of Redlands and was the national small-college single's champion four straight years. His father, the U of R coach Jim Verdieck, won the national championship nine times in ten years and was the John Wooden of college tennis coaches. Plus (c) lots of other ways.
Inconveniently for Redlands, they're playing football this time, and St. John's is the higher seed. Also, the defending champion and big power this year appears to be Mount Union College, of Alliance, Ohio. But anything can happen. If you'd like to hear the game from the Johnnies' perspective, their webcast is here. I'm assuming I can hear it from the Bulldogs' side, here. Go team.
Update: I didn't stay up, but I did wake up in the middle of the night and thought, Why not check out this web cast? I listened long enough to hear, "What is killing the Bulldogs today is the turnovers, plus their inability to stop the passing game..." and I thought I had heard enough. Final score: St. John's Johnnies 41, University of Redlands Bulldogs 13. Good luck to the Johnnies in the next round, against the winner of Central (Iowa) v Olivet.
Also: not such a good day for Bulldogs of any type on the gridiron yesterday. Go Crimson.
Not just a beautiful backhand: brainy, too!
(With update, below)
I see from outside-world reports that Justine Henin might give up the chance to defend her Olympic gold medal in tennis, because she is so concerned about what the air in Beijing might do to her lungs. She has asthma and recently had to drop out of the last tournament she attempted to play here.
As noted earlier, I am against the idea of any threatened official boycotts of the Olympic games. The Beijing Olympics have become (despite many local grumbles) a source of pride for Chinese people broadly, not just for the regime. But I wonder whether we'll see many more individual "boycotts" of the sort Henin has mentioned.
Continue reading "Not just a beautiful backhand: brainy, too!" »
The Chinese tennis festival continues
It’s not just Ashe-Connors or McEnroe-Borg. Tonight Macau TV brings me Chris Evert vs Martina Navratilova, Wimbledon finals, 1978. The one, like McEnroe-Borg three years later, looks quite retro. Evert, then 23, still has baby fat. Navratilova — 21 years old, pre-blonde, pre-defection to the US, pre-out, pre-chic — has very dark chestnut hair and a clunky Eastern Bloc look. Both women use wooden rackets.
Why look at these old matches, given my previous protestation that sports is worth watching only if you don’t know how things turn out? Because there is a different kind of real-time tension built into the matches.
Continue reading "The Chinese tennis festival continues" »
How the Aussie Open will make me into a better person
As noted earlier, the just-concluded Australian Open tennis championship was the first sports event I've seen live on TV in more than six months. My enforced weaning-away from those previous idle hours moaning about the Redskins or wondering about split-times at the Tour de France is no doubt virtuous and self-improving and so on.
But here is what I learned from the one truly startling participant at the Aussie Open: not the elegant Federer nor the gutsy Serena Williams but the computerized instant-replay system for disputed line calls. For anyone who has played tennis in the past or plans to play it again, the results of this system are worth serious, life-changing contemplation.
Here is the three-part logic:
Continue reading "How the Aussie Open will make me into a better person" »
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