Archive for the Sports Category
November 20, 2008Right hip surgery may bench Philadelphia Phillies 2nd baseman Chase Utley until June, although it is also possible that he could return to the World Series Champion team as early as April.
Utley consistently downplayed speculation about his bad hip during the second half of the postseason. But the Phillies revealed Thursday that since the World Series, he has had the hip evaluated by Phillies team physician Michael Ciccotti, of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital’s Rothman Institute, and by Dr. Bryan Kelly, of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
Both doctors recommended that Utley undergo surgery on his right hip. That procedure, described by the club as an “arthroscopic evaluation with treatment of any labral or bony injury,” will take place next week.
According to the Phillies, Utley would be able to resume baseball activities in three to four months — meaning sometime during spring training, but possibly not until the week before opening day.
However, full recovery time is projected at between four and six months. That means the best-case scenario is a return in early April, but the worst-case scenario is late May or early June, depending on how long a rehab option the club feels he would need.
The chuckles and guffaws over Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb’s “I didn’t know there were ties in the NFL” comment continue as retired NFL defensive tackle and current Dancing With the Stars contestant Warren Sapp piled on.
When I heard him say it, I almost passed out. I thought, ‘This will follow you for the rest of your career.’ Your legacy in the league, Donovan, will be throwing up in the Super Bowl, Rush Limbaugh and now ‘I didn’t know there were ties in the NFL.’
Laura Nachman is reporting that the Phillies’ broadcast television games will move to Channel 17 from the CW’s Channel 57 beginning this year and lasting for three years.
In the announcement, Phillies executive David Buck said, “As an independent station, they have the ability to provide prime time coverage that will be complemented with the right balance of advertising and marketing support and we’re excited to have them on board again as our television rights holder.”
This is the third time with Channel 17 for the Phils. Their games aired from 1971-1982 and 1993 - 1998.
The majority of Phillies games will remain on cable’s Comcast SportsNet.
Phillies Win
Phillies Win
Phillies Win
Well done.
We’ll now watch to see how well Philadelphia does a Detroit impersonation.
Although the lights are extinguished and all the athletes have gone home, the International Olympic Committee’s investigation into the real ages of several gymnasts on the Chinese gymnastic team continues.
Mike Walker, the computer security expert and blogger who uncovered purged Chinese electronic documents putting gymnast He Kexin’s age under the minimum allowable 16-years, believes he may have found additional documents throwing into question the age of gymnast Jiang Yuyuan.
Continue Reading “Olympics Over, But Chinese Gymnast Investigation Continues” »
After winning the the Gold Medal in her event, US beach volleyball champion Kerri Walsh took the NBC interviewer’s microphone to deliver a personal message.
I just want to say thank you, Mr. President, for all you do. Thank you for your inspiration.
Walsh and partner Misty May-Treanor beat the top-seeded Chinese team in a painfully close match played in the pouring rain to win the Gold medal in their event, repeating their 2004 Olympic Gold medal win. No female beach volleyball team has previously had back to back Gold.
Continue Reading “Class Act: Walsh Thanks President Bush After Gold Medal Win” »
The gymnastics competition judging controversy at the 2008 Olympics in Bejing continued after American Nastia Liukin lost a Gold medal for the uneven bar competition to Chinese He Kexin although the two obtained the same score.
The scoring between He Kexin, obviously under sixteen-years of age and therefore unqualified, and Liukin came down to a third-level tie breaker. In Olympic gymnastics scoring, the third-level tie breaker is “the average of the three lowest of the four counting judges’ deductions” according to Sports Illustrated. Liukin lost because the Australian judge did not deduct the proper amount of points for He Kexin’s visible errors.
I’m no gymnastics expert, but the experts on television are aghast at the judging of this year’s Olympics.
The American squad lost the team finals to a Chinese team that is obviously mostly underaged and arguably turned in worse performances on most of the events. That was explained away by a few mistakes perpetrated by Alicia Sacremone.
Sacremone later lost a bronze medal for the vault competition to Cheng Fei of China, who hit the vault crooked and landed square on her knees. Sacremone was competent in her performances and hit both landings.
And now an inaccurate score has robbed all-around winner Liukin of a well deserved Gold medal in favor of an athlete whose hometown paper listed her age as 13 this Spring.
For her part, Liukin is a lot more gracious than I am about China’s questionable Gold.
“I know I didn’t have my best routine, but I had the same exact score as she did, which makes it a little harder to take,” she said. “I still don’t understand how they broke the tie, but that’s the rules, and you just have to play by them. If it had happened in the all around, I would have been a lot more disappointed.”
Liukin was also asked if the fact that He was one of the gymnasts suspected of being underage — in May she was identified in a Chinese newspaper as being just 13 — made the silver medal harder to swallow. But she wouldn’t bite. “She’s an excellent athlete no matter how old she is,” she said.
Next up for Liukin is Tuesday night’s balance beam event, in which she’ll try to beat her father’s total of four medals in an Olympics.
I stayed in front of the television later than usual last night, as I suspect a lot of people did, to watch the US Female Gymnasics team compete in the Olympic team finals. I found their second-place finish for the silver medal disappointing but understandable considering a few missteps including team leader Alicia Sacramone having fallen on her ass twice.
Continue Reading “Controversy Surrounds Chinese Gymnastic Olympic Gold” »
