Pretty humorous piece in The Wall Street Journal about Chris Snyder, who is yet to steal a base in MLB despite 2,094 trips to the plate. Some of the good lines include:
"That's the hot topic around here, man. Everyone's talking about how slow I am: teammates, umpires, the coaches, everybody."
That includes Snyder, who said he has been begging the coaching staff for the "green light" to run.
"This is the year. I mean, I'm 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds. Over the years, I've learned what kind of player I am. So I've learned, for example, when I can take an extra base and when I can't. I can't more times than not."
Snyder has been thrown out on both of his career attempts
But then disaster, just a few feet short of second base. "I face-planted," Snyder said. "Lost it, tripped, fell. And I would've had it, too."
In honor of Chris Snyder, today's cover of the day dates back to October 16, 1989. Someone who didn't have this problem...
Here at Garbage Minutes, we're very excited for the June launch of Bill Simmons' Grantland.com. This site is under the umbrella of ESPN but will feature an assortment of extremely talented and accomplished writers. Any site that combines the clever, brilliant and witty work of Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons will be a daily stop for us on our daily internet surfing trips.
Great comment by The Sports Guy in a recent interview pertaining to the reasons for this site and his vision for it...
"When I was growing up, I wanted to write for the Boston Globe, Inside Sports and Sports Illustrated. When I was in college, I wanted to write for The National and Spy magazine. I would have literally walked across the country barefoot to write for either of those places. When I look at the landscape now, I don't feel like there's a web site, or a magazine, or a newspaper like that. That's my goal: I would love for this to be the place where if you're a 19-year old in college you look at this web site and say, 'Some day I'm going to write for them."
"For the first time ever, the four major men's golf titles are held by foreigners, all members of the European tour. Except for the Williams sisters, no American, male or female, has won one of the Grand Slam tennis championships in the last seven years."
It took about 20 years longer than it should have, but the Boston Celtics announced yesterday plans to construct a statue of the legendary Bill Russell. Russell was not only an eleven time champion but a civil right's activist that lived in a city with extremely poor race relations throughout his career. He famously called Boston a "flea market of racism" and would sit out games in protest in cities that had restaurants that would deny service to him and his black teammates. His success on the court was unparalleled. He played in the NBA for 13 years and only failed to win the whole thing twice. Truly amazing.
The machine that is the New York media is currently chewing and ready to spit out their captain. Even as a Red Sox fan, it is hard to watch Jeter hit flailing around up there at the plate. This is going to be a long and painful road to 3,000 hits.
It's Chip McDivot's show this week as my 50% share hold in GM is on vacation in Ireland. I will be keeping up on the sports world through the BBC whose coverage is delightfully soccer and rugby heavy and not quite as condescendingly chipper like our friends at Sportscenter.
Great article about SEAL Team 6, the special ops unit that conducted the raid on Bin Laden's compound. Some great snippets in case you don't have the time:
Col. W. Patrick Lang, a retired Special Forces officer with extensive operational experience throughout the Muslim world, described JSOC’s forces as “sort of like Murder, Incorporated.” He told The Nation: “Their business is killing Al Qaeda personnel. That’s their business. They’re not in the business of converting anybody to our goals or anything like that.” Shortly after the operation was made public, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey called JSOC’s operators the “most dangerous people on the face of the earth.”
An all around great day on the home front yesterday and did not want to pass up the opportunity to post one of my favorite videos of all time. Pure gold. God bless America:
