Scottie returns to the Bulls:

Scottie Pippen has come to his senses and returns home to Chicago. According to ESPN, Pippen received a 2 year, $10 million deal. Even though Jordan won't be there, Pippen should be able to step up and lead the struggling, young Bulls. With over 18000 career points, he should add a nice dimension to the Bulls rebuilding process.

posted by meanie to basketball at 08:38 AM - 9 comments

The AL wins the All-Star game: Blah blah blah. The AL won this exhibition. The teams that were picked were quite misrepresented in terms of "stars". Jayson Stark of ESPN wrote an article on the difference Internet voting makes. For example, Gary Sheffield got only 273,488 votes at the baseball parks, where he ended up with 1,259,790 votes total (a 986,302 difference, by far the largest vote difference) Individuals like Torii Hunter were not voted in because lack of Internet votes.

What's more important though is that this game represents (roughly) the mid-point of the baseball season. Jayson Stark has an amazing trivia article about the midseason. Did you know that the NY Yankees had a 6890 game hitting streak (as a team) until the Astros used 6 pitchers to break it? And that Torii Hunter was ejected on his own Bobblehead night? And that the Marlins lost by 20 runs and then won by 20 runs a few days later, but it's still no feat in comparison to the 1979 Chicago Cubs who on May 17, 1979 gave up 20 runs to the Phillies and then within an hour scored 20 runs to eventually lose 23-22 to the Phillies? Enough trivia. it's a great article.

Back to the business of baseball. Go cubs.

posted by meanie to baseball at 11:31 PM - 13 comments

Protesters stop the Tour de France temporarily: Supporters of radical farmer Jose Bove ran into the the road and block cyclists about 91 miles into today's stage. Armstrong finished about 20 minutes behind the stage winner, but still held the lead because the other tour leaders were in the same pack. FoxSports's coverage and MSNBC coverage The Tour officials ruled it a "normal race incident" meaning that shit happens. (side note:) Bove is an anti-globalization activist who protests genetically modified foods.

posted by meanie to other at 10:59 AM - 46 comments

Welcome to the Nextel Cup!???: It appears that Nextel is in line to sign a deal with NASCAR to become the official sponsor replacing RJR's Winston brand. According to the ESPN article NASCAR went looking for a new sponsor after RJR indicated it may need to pull out.

posted by meanie to other at 11:58 AM - 3 comments