sports « Bakker Bugle Blog

28 October 2007

The NFL on FOX SKY

Filed under: culture,expat,sports — Anita @ 19:53

When we moved to Dublin, we made the choice of getting the “local” (UK) satellite system, called SKY. We were amazed to discover this fall that SKY Sports is showing NFL games each Sunday. As we started to research exactly why, we discovered that Miami and the NY Giants were going to play a NFL game in the new Wembley Stadium, outside London. In the last few years, interest in American football has increased in Britain and now, we are reaping the rewards with games each Sunday. Today is the day of the big game at Wembley.

While we weren’t always the biggest NFL fans back at home, we have found that watching the early game on Sunday night is a relaxing way to end our weekend. We’ve even had Kathryn over for pizza and football, since she is a huge fan and hasn’t gotten to see a lot of games since she moved to Europe.

The strangest thing to overcome is the British accents talking about the game. It just sounds off. But, the beer commercials are just as good here as they are in the States. The ad firm for Coors took advantage of the combination of American and British accents. And, I think the folks here have an even bigger obsession with the cheerleaders that the guys back home. There was as much cheerleading as football in the previews on SKY Sports for today’s game.

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19 October 2007

Joe Girardi

Filed under: sports — Will @ 17:24

Chicago readers of the B.B.B. will recognize the name Joe Girardi as the catcher for the Cubs from 1989-1992 and 2000-2002. (Irish readers: I’m writing about professional baseball in the US.) I knew the name as a child, because he was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois. And his high school, Spalding, was my chosen high school (among the two Catholic high schools in Peoria, which consolidated my fresher year, but let’s not get into all that).

Furthermore, I was inculcated with a reverence for Joe Girardi by my grade school, Father Sweeney School. While I attended Father Sweeney (1983-1988), the school was perpetually in financial straits, and the Girardi family was a patron of the school in some mysterious way that my naive mind could not grasp.

It’s all the more remarkable that Joe Girardi was a kind of hero to us when you consider that he didn’t make it to the Show until April 1989, almost a year after I graduated from Father Sweeney. After doing a little research for this post, I see that I may have heard his name for the first time when he was just 19 and playing for Northwestern.

When he was big news for all of Peoria, during my high school years, the Father Sweeney alumni relished the notion that we’d known about him all along. That kind of pride is surely the most delightful feeling for a sports fan, and perhaps in the whole of life.

The long-term result of all this is that I feel warm, fuzzy emotions whenever I hear about Joe Girardi — a man who certainly made good on the Father Sweeney Weenies’ faith in him. I was especially glad to hear his voice during last year’s World Series. After that, his fate and the Cardinals’ are connected in my mind. And now he’s in the news again, according to the Daily News:

Joe Girardi was on the hot seat last night, and you could see him squirming. That’s the way it is when your name has surfaced as a possible successor to Joe Torre.
…
Well-embedded TV moles said Girardi made it clear to Fox execs that he was “extremely uncomfortable” about addressing the Yankees’ managerial situation.
Dan Bell, a Fox Sports spokesman, declined to confirm nor deny what Girardi may have told Fox brass, but said: “We have too much respect for Joe Torre and Joe Girardi to enter into that kind of speculation. It’s a no-win situation for everybody involved, especially when the Yankees have not made a decision.”

Well, Mr. Girardi, whatever you decide, I’ll wish you all the best. There’s no way I’m going to root for the Yankees, though. I just thought you might want to take that into account, and the people at Fox won’t let me leave a voicemail.

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20 September 2007

Photos for Phans of Cyclists and/or Bakkers

Filed under: dublin,entertainment,ireland,sports — Will @ 21:13

Hello, all! I just posted some photos of the Tour of Ireland on our flickr account. And I wrote a bunch of text for each photo. Are you sitting comfortably?

The best way to enjoy the photos is to click through, in order, as a set. Here’s how you do it.

1. Open the set by following the link:
http://flickr.com/photos/willbakker/sets/72157602086146256/

2. Click on the first photo — the upper-left corner of the group.

3. Read the title, above the picture. Read the description, below it. Snicker, guffaw, marvel at my wit.

4. Check to see whether there are any “notes” on the photo — boxes on the picture itself that point out details.

5. If you have something to say, write a comment! (Disclaimer: Comment on Flickr may or may not be eligible for Commenter of the Week awards. Bakker Bugle not responsible for any injury and/or loss of income due to commenting activities.)

6. Time to move on. There’s a grey control panel to the right. It shows the previous photo and the next one. Click on the next photo.

7. Repeat until:

your belly hurts from laughing
you’re bored
your eyes cross
the boss walks by, unless your boss is Keely
you reach the end of the set

Oh no! Don’t be sad! There’s another set! But it won’t take as long. Start here:
http://flickr.com/photos/willbakker/sets/72157602086280884/

If you don’t want to see next year’s Tour by the time you’re done with this, then I’m not worth what Fáilte Ireland is paying me.

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2 September 2007

All-Ireland Hurling final

Filed under: ireland,sports — Will @ 17:35

Anita and I went shopping this afternoon, just off Grafton Street. On the way home, a local pub, Doheny and Nesbit’s enticed us. The county flags for the two teams playing in the All-Ireland Hurling championship were flying at its front entrance.

County Kilkenny was heavily favored over County Limerick. Since we didn’t follow hurling this season, we didn’t have a strong opinion in the matter. The folks in the pub, however, did: they were plainly cheering for Limerick. So we ordered a pint of Guinness, a Jamieson and ice, and sat along the rail.

It’s amazing how much easier it is to understand a sport when you’re watching with a crowd. Their cheers and sighs were better signs of what mattered than the announcers’ drone. Hurling is an impressive sport, when you actually pay attention to it. In retrospect, we had hurling on the TV in our home, but we never gave it more than half our attention.

Kilkenny dominated Limerick. We missed the two goals that gave them a solid lead, but we saw them protect that lead for the rest of the match. It reminded me of the way that a great hockey team can make a slightly less talented team look ridiculous using defensive tactics.

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29 August 2007

Ah, the Dubs

Filed under: dublin,ireland,sports — Will @ 21:09

Sunday, County Dublin’s gaelic football team lost to County Kerry. So Kerry will play Cork for the All-Ireland title on September 16th.

In the spirit of self-deprecation, here are a few jokes that require a basic understanding of Irish culture to understand. In the spirit of sadness at the Dub’s loss, I’ll give bonus points towards Commenter of the Week to commenters who kill the comedy by explaining the jokes. (Jokes courtesy the culchies at askaboutmoney.com.)

What’s the difference between a Dublin jersey and a school uniform??
You can see school uniforms in September.

Paul Caffrey, Dubs manager, was arrested last night after vandalising a cigarette machine. He replied by saying he was in a bad way for 20 players!!

What is blue and navy and goes beep, beep, beep?
The Dubs’ bus reversing back into the garage.

What do you call a Dublin man with an all Ireland medal?
An antique dealer!

What I find remarkable is that County Dublin comprises almost 20% of the population of the island. Many of the 32 counties have less than a tenth of that population. Croke Park, the site for the All-Ireland contests, is in Dublin (although it is not Dublin’s home stadium). Yet Dublin is relatively unsuccessful in both football and hurling.

The Bakker Bugle staff are engaged in a long-term research project to determine the cause for this anomaly. We hope it will bring insights to similar oddities in American sport.

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24 August 2007

Up the Dubs!

Filed under: dublin,sports — Will @ 18:25

Dublin’s football team will face Kerry in the semi-finals of the All-Ireland Football Championship, Sunday.

In Ireland: “soccer” means soccer. “Football” rarely means soccer, although it can. “Football” can also mean American football, but very rarely. In most cases, “football” means GAA (Gaelic Athletic Assocation) football, which is like a faster, less tackle-y form of rugby, played with a volleyball. Except when “football” refers to Australian Rules, which was even more confusing back when teams from Ireland and Australia would play each other. Recently, it seems, the difference over the linguistics of “football” lead to a game called “donnybrook,” which is (incidentally) a district of Dublin and a town in Australia. Anyway, Irish GAA football teams do not play Australian football teams, although players from Irish GAA football teams occasionally go to Australia to play professionally. All clear?

The Dublin County football team‘s colors are dark blue and light blue, and those colors have served as a casual uniform for Dubliners for about a month now. (The formal uniform is a fluorescent yellow safety jacket; more on that at a later date.) I didn’t know that there were so many variations on a blue striped collared shirt. Houses are festooned with the checkerboard of blues, especially on the northside.

There’s no chance of getting a ticket. But if we’re not busy after the Tour of Ireland passes through our neighborhood, we’ll probably go to a pub to watch the game. Dublin are the underdogs, so this should be fun.

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17 July 2007

Cycling Today: Will 1, Rain 2

Filed under: sports — Will @ 15:21

It doesn’t take long to get from the city centre to the outer suburbs of Dublin, and I’ve cycled out to those suburbs as an explorer. By “explorer,” I mean that I stopped frequently to take pictures, to have coffee, to find my bearings, and so on. And I used my commuting bike, which is comfortable — and can carry a lot of cargo — but is not a speed machine.

So, today, it was time to switch from Explorer Mode to something more closely resembling exercise. The skies darkened as I fixed a few glitches on my mountain bike. But rain on a day like today usually doesn’t last long. So I headed into the drizzle.

It felt great to accelerate so well past the traffic. Before I left the city centre, though, the drizzle turned into a downpour. I was wearing a t-shirt and no jacket, so I waited for a while under a building’s overhang. Pedestrians came and went. Sometimes, waiting under a building by the street is pleasant, a kind of enforced break in one’s day. This was a long break, and I was already damp enough to feel a little cold. Score one for the rain.

I saw a patch of blue sky over Phoenix Park, my destination. And if I gave up, rain would win. So I headed for daylight. The further I went, the less rain fell, and I had a great ride through the enormous park. (Anita and I only made it halfway through the last time.) As I rolled downhill, I began composing this post in my mind, and I judged the match a tie:
Will 1, Rain 1.

Well, it had not stopped raining in the city centre during my absence. The bike paths were underwater and the rain was relentless. My legs were fine, but my torso was quite unhappy. A stripe of water and dirt ran up my t-shirt from the water off my rear wheel. I looked like a wet dog by the time I got home.
Will 1, Rain 2.

Close followers of this blog may remember that I suffered a defeat at Sandycove Beach several days ago. Rain didn’t bring its A-game (like it did today), but it scored nonetheless. In that post, I didn’t mention the most dispiriting part of that day. A drizzle blew into our faces as we sat in our chairs. Anita reached into her bag, found her umbrella, and popped it open. The umbrella was between us, so she couldn’t see the open-mouthed look of incredulity on my face. Score one for the rain, with an assist from Anita. Thus, for the 2007 season, the overall score is:
Will 1, Rain 3.

And, as I finish this post, the rain is gone again. That’s what gets to me — Dublin weather actually gloats.

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8 July 2007

How did he DO that? Tour Stage 1 (updated)

Filed under: sports — Will @ 22:05

Robbie McEwen was in a crash and injured his wrist about 20 km from the finish for Stage 1. With about 7 km left, he just reached the peloton — the massive group of cyclists jockeying for position. (Thanks to tdfblog’s story for fact-checking.)

McEwen is a consummate sprinter, so the race is only worthwhile if he’s in front of the peloton. In about four minutes, he and his team (Predictor-Lotto) had to get him through the almost one-hundred other riders in the Tour. Every one of those riders knew that, if McEwen were allowed to get through, he might beat the others’ teammates.

So I was astonished to see Robbie McEwen just burn past all his competitors in the last 200m of today’s race. Eurosport TV had an overhead view that made it look like all the other sprinters were dragging anchors. If you have about three minutes, take a look at the video on YouTube. The backstory is first, and the overhead view is toward the end of the clip.

In last year’s Tour, he won three stages with superhuman sprints like this one. But the commentators (and I) believed that he’d be exhausted from making his way back into — and then through — the peloton.

Guess not. That’s why I love following the Tour — every day brings you a new group of heroes.

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29 June 2007

Is Hurling Violent? Part 1 of 2

Filed under: ireland,sports — Tags: battle, contact, football, foul, gaa, hurley, hurling, injuries, injury, regulations, rules, soccer, sport, sports, stick, violence, violent — Will @ 11:11

From the first impressions that I posted, you may think my answer is “yes.” I’d like to correct those first impressions. Hurling is not a violent sport, or at least, it is no less violent than other contact sports.

Tackling in hurling is highly regulated. There’s a reason why the participants wear little protective equipment — the referees strictly enforce the rules, and the way that fouls are penalized allows the referee to call a tackling foul without badly interrupting the pace of the game. My impression, from watching three matches, is that called fouls are much less disruptive than in soccer. And let’s not even talk about the persistent problems with foul-calling in American football and NBA basketball.

So don’t take the apparently-wild swinging of a wicked-looking stick (or “hurley”) as a sign of violence. Unlike lacrosse, there are few legal tackles that involve using one’s hurley against another’s body. And injuries are remarkably rare, especially when one considers that almost nobody plays hurling as a full-time job.

Yet it does look like a pre-historic battle. And it look maniacal, with its incredible speed and how often the best players lose the ball (or “sliotar”) and then sprint after the loose ball.

One point of clarification: I’m talking about the rules and the practices of the sport. One could argue that the way the game is played in the All-Ireland Championship leads to fistfights among players too often. One could draw a comparison with American ice hockey and say that the violence is integral to the sport. I admit that I sidestep that point entirely — in part because I’m hardly qualified to argue it.

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