Another week another column for The Global Times. (And in case you’re wondering, my soul feels no less decayed than usual.) This one is on basketball with a little foreign relations thrown in by way of metaphor. Enjoy.
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What’s the point of having students if you can’t organize an NCAA pool and take their money? Yes, it’s that time of year again and in the spirit of exposing my stupidity to the public, I submit my picks for this year’s tourney: Louisville, Michigan State, UConn, Memphis, Syracuse, Gonzaga, Duke, Florida State in the Eight; Florida [...] Run, do not walk or stop to collect your bling, and read Brendan O’Kane’s vivisection of the recent NYT article “Now Hip-Hop, Too, Is Made in China.” I saw the subject, read Brendan’s title (“[HELP], [HELP], [HELP] THE POLICE!”) and just went and got some popcorn because I knew it was going to be fun [...] Down 2-1 in the series, and 5-0 in the bottom of 7th in game 3…we need some karmic assurance. I don’t have any, but I do have a link to one of the greatest pieces of sports writing ever: John Updike’s 1960 essay on Ted Williams’ last at bat “Hub Fans bid the Kid Adieu.” [...] And so the Red Sox squeezed past the Angels into the ALCS against the…Tampa Bay Rays!?!? Doesn’t matter. What is important is deciding where to watch the games as the playoffs heat up. Last year it was the Rickshaw, but I’ve been hearing about quirks in service as management focuses its attention on the hyper-successful [...] From yesterday’s Lithuania-China game… YJ and I went to the US-China baseball match last night at Wukesong Stadium. I was at Wukesong this past spring for the LA Dodgers-San Diego Padre AAAA international tour, and the experience last night was more or less the same…with the addition of a few thousand rowdy China supporters making up in exuberance what they might have [...] Many, if not both, of my regular readers know that I am both a history geek AND a bit of a sports nerd, and one of the biggest events of the year for sports nerds was last night…the NBA draft. As part of the tradition, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons does an annual ‘running diary‘ which–if [...] I know, I know…NCAA pool brackets are like children, never talk about them because either people have some of their own (and so don’t care about yours) or they don’t (and so wouldn’t understand anyway.) Nevertheless in the interest of holding myself up for public ridicule, here goes: UNC, Tennessee, Kansas, Georgetown, Memphis, Texas, UCLA, and Duke [...] Some notes from Saturday’s Dodgers/Padres game here in Beijing. Overall, we had a great time. It was a beautiful day for baseball. A little chilly and windy perhaps, but nice sunny skies. Wukesong Baseball Stadium was not particularly impressive, but suitable for the purpose. It has an obvious “won’t be around in 2009″ feel with temporary [...] I flaked on Froog last night. I was completely beat from a day of translating documents and just didn’t have the energy to go out after midnight to watch the FA Cup game between Manchester United and Arsenal. I have a hunch that I’m in for a raft of crap about how my tepid support [...] So…the Patriots lost. Proof–if such was necessary–that betting against the I-Ching is just not the best of ideas. Nevertheless, it was an excellent game watched in good company,* and Tim of Texas Tim’s proved a congenial host. And hey, 18-1 ain’t too shabby. Now, I will go and repeat that line over and over [...] So Froog and I finally decided on Texas Tim’s Roadhouse for the Super Bowl. Breakfast, post-game Mexican food buffet and a big screen. The Rickshaw was a good alternate, but we’d rather have one giant screen over lots of little screens. Froog’s friend Tulsa told us that NBC might be filming the crowd at Goose [...] The Chinese government and BOCOG desperately need to start listening to all the really smart, well-paid foreign PR firms they’ve hired if they want to avoid continually getting caught with their pants at ankle-height: To whit: January 20 The Sunday Times publishes an article claiming that at least 10 workers had been killed in the construction of [...] This has nothing to do with Chinese history and everything to do with Boston sports. If you don’t care about the latter, then click here to read historian Ken Pomeranz’s marvelous post on The China Beat about Han Dynasty reformer/usurper Wang Mang. Bill Belichick cheated. Fine. He ordered a minion to videotape the opposing team’s coaching [...] |
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