I’m not getting into the NFL using Surface instead of iPads (and I’m really not touching the Beats/Bose thing).
However…
NFL’s Highest-Paid Player Calls Surface Tablets ‘Knockoff iPads’
There’s one thing wrong with that. Jay Cutler definitely isn’t in the top 5 of quarterbacks in the NFL. I’d argue with anyone who puts him in the top 10. So “Highest Paid”?
Peyton Manning says. Tom Brady says. I might take those more seriously. Cutler needs to figure out how to beat the Packers first…
I’m sure if both the Yankees and the Red Sox get good again, I’ll hate them again. That’s what Yankee fans do. But they put on the classiest farewell for Derek Jeter imaginable.
Former Red Sox players Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, Tim Wakefield, Rico Petrocelli,Jason Varitek and Fred Lynn were also involved in the ceremony, followed by appearances from Bruins legend Bobby Orr, former Patriots captain Troy Brown and former Celtics captain Paul Pierce.
Red Sox third-base coach Brian Butterfield, who helped mold Jeter’s defense in a crucial boot camp in the mid-1990s, presented Jeter with a pair of commemorative L.L. Bean Yankees boots.
The entire 2014 Red Sox team, led by David Ortiz, walked onto the field to exchange greetings with Jeter, with Joe Kelly stopping to take a cell phone “selfie.”
It kept going after that. Honestly, they’re making it hard to hate Boston…
Amusingly, being an Apply fanboy and hating the Yankees must be tough. Because your best blogger is a huge Yankees fan.
And he’s a much better writer than I am…
It felt like fall, not summer, last night in the northeast. Chilly and damp, dark already by the time the ballgame started just after seven o’clock. Yankee Stadium was sold out. Full house. Electric with anticipation.
And then…
Winning run on second base. One out. Everyone in The Stadium is standing. I’m standing watching at home. My son, 10, is standing on the couch next to me. The tension is excruciating. First pitch, Jeter jumps on it with his signature inside-out swing. Single to right! Richardson beats the throw to the plate. Yankees win. Yankees win. Pandemonium. My boy jumps off the couch into my arms and we run around the house, hugging, screaming, laughing like the maniacs that we are.
Things like this just aren’t supposed to happen. Real-life endings aren’t like scripted storybook endings. Except with Jeter they so often were. That broken-bat RBI grounder in the 7th was a realistic ending. A spectacular walk-off game-winning single in the bottom of the 9th was not. It felt like the World Series. It felt like the old days.
Yes it did.
Even the weather behaves for Derek Jeter. The forecast was for rain all night. The papers were saying that ticket brokers could lose a million dollars if the game got rained out. But no, the weather changed and Jeter got another story book night.
If you wrote this in a story it wouldn’t be believable. Of course the Yankees blow a three run lead in the ninth so that Jeter can come up in the bottom of the ninth with a chance to win his last game at Yankee Stadium.
And of course he does it.
Regular readers know I’m a Yankee fan and that Mariano Rivera was my favorite ever. Jeter has to be second.
Via The New Yorker. Cover art by a Red Sox fan.
The Yankees aren’t much this year, so Jeter’s last year is the story. He’s earned it.
#6 all time for hits (#4 modern era).
That’s first ballot Hall of Fame right there.
The career was story book.
– World Series his rookie year
– MVP of Subway World Series
– The Flip. The signature moment of his career, in my opinion. The live broadcast play by play as it happened:
Derek Jeter with one of the most unbelievable plays you will ever see by a shortstop
Just watch it:
– Mr. November. You can’t make this stuff up. Bottom of the 10th, World Series, pushed back because of 9/11. First MLB game in November. Walk off home run.
– 3000 hits.
3000. History. With an exclamation point.
He starts the game two hits shy. Gets a lead-off single. Next at bat, against David Price (no slouch) he gets 3000 with a home run. Not to rest, he finishes the day 5-5.
And he dates well too…
This is a great interactive article. I have issues with it because they consider Stella Artois (the Bud of Europe) to be as good as Guinness on draft, but overall the ratings seem good.
As a Yankee fan, the Yankee Stadium rating is embarrassing, but not unexpected. The beer there just isn’t good. What is especially bad is that there is a great brewery in Cooperstown, NY, Ommegang. Cooperstown? Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame? Hello?
Anyway, wherever you go, try to drink good beer.
Arsenal (English Premier League) is playing a “friendly” against the NY Red Bulls. Arsenal produced this video, with their players trying NY accents (“are you talking to me?”).
Hilarious.
The Jeter haters out there won’t like this…
FiveThirtyEight.com has a totally sports geeky article demonstrating how amazing Lionel Messi really is. Among the many charts:
Steve Fischer's Random Blog 