Wimbledon Tomorrow!

I'm excited!

Wimbledon starts tomorrow! Though it won't be the same without Rafa Nadal. I was so looking forward to a Nadal-Federer rematch in the final, but that won't happen due to Nadal's knee injury. I think now I would like to see an Andy Murray-Roger Federer final because Murray will be in his home country.

The Wimbledon roof may look nice and shut out the rain and all but what a horrible idea! Imagine if last year's Nadal-Federer classic was played under the roof? It just wouldn't be the same if Wimbledon wasn't ever rained out again. It just isn't. Besides, they could have put that money to better use rather than destroy part of Wimbledon tradition. What do YOU think?

To baseball now. The Jays could have very well went home on a 6 game winning streak, instead they go 4-2, which is not that bad. They swept the Phillies (applause) and dropped two consecutive games in extras to the Nats before the bats broke out this afternoon, winning against Washington 9-4. It's a good sign certainly, and I hope they win again on Tuesday when I'll be at the Rogers Centre for the match up against the Reds.

Two more exams to go tomorrow and I'll be done my first half of high school!

-D

Photo credits: http://blog.nj.com/realtimesports_impact/2009/06/large_rafael-nadal-wimbledon-619.jpg

We're Talkin' Baseball!

To paraphrase Chuck Swirsky:

Jays win! Jays win! Jays win!

Again, with a good combined effort from the pitchers and the batting order, the Jays salvage the series in Philly under a steady rain. We got on board early, gave Scott Richmond 4 runs to work with, and added insurance for a 7-1 win. Aaron Hill hit another tater which was good to see. So that brings our record to 36-31, a much less impressive stand than just a month ago when we were still leading the division. Nonetheless, winning series on the road is always a good sign!

In other notable news, Scott Downs has suffered greatly from interleague play. Being an AL relief pitcher, going up to bat was probably already intimidating enough for Downs. But as he slapped at a pitch in the 10th inning last night, Downs stumbled out of the gate and hurt his foot. Now, he's been summoned to the DL. Horrible. Horrible. I had been a fan of interleague play, but now I understand what significant consequences it could have.

Ivan Rodriguez has now become the number 1 catcher in games caught. Now, he's a wonderful player in all, but like many in the game, there are some character issues and I wonder whether that's going to affect his chances in the quest for Cooperstown. As well, Omar Vizquel set the record for most hits by a Venezuelan. That's certainly great to see. I love Omar-great defensive shortstop. With nearly 3000 hits, Vizquel would definitely be on my ballot for the HOF. Now, only if he could secure it by reaching 3000.

-D

Federer Among Other Things

I know it's been a long while since I posted, but these past two weeks have been unbelievably crazy for me, both in and outside of school. I'm happy to say that I am finished with end of the year school work, and I only have exams left, which will come late next week.

I woke up early (well, 10:30's not that early) Sunday morning and caught the last set and a bit of the French Open final. I have to say, it was a breeze for Federer. I was glad to have witnesssed a great moment in sports history, when Roger finally hoisted that elusive 14th victory trophy, completing a coveted career Grand Slam.


Though the quality of the match may not have been as great as last year's Wimbledon, and it was over in less than 2 hours, Federer's win was every bit as amazing as any other. The fact that he has now won every surface and still has plenty of shots ahead of him is hard to fathom. This year's Wimbledon will be particularly exciting to watch-I'm hoping for another Federer-Nadal final. That would make this rivalry one of the greatest in sports history-sports history!

When I find the time, I shall write a long piece on Federer's win in Paris and his place in tennis history. In the meanwhile, it's nice to see the Blue Jays doing well. I might go to another game on June 23rd.

-D

Baseball and Tennis

It's nice to see the Blue Jays finally snap their funk. On Friday night, after more than 10 days of bad baseball, they finally picked themselves up and put a W on the board. Not only that, we won another series! Though we're still a game behind the Sox after a loss today, it is good to be back in contention (or feeling like it anyway).

The biggest news of the day, perhaps, came from Paris! At the fourth round of Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal, the four time French Open champion, lost his first ever match in Paris to an unseeded Swede named Robin Soderling. It wasn't close either, as Soderling knocked off Rafa in four sets. This changes the landscape of the tournament in a huge way. Federer faces minimal competition now as Djokovic was knocked off yesterday too. Andy Murray's chances of winning just went up by a whole lot and so did Andy Roddick's.

It's been an incredible tournament already. So many seeds are out early, in addition to the aforementioned, James Blake, Marat Safin, Nadia Petrova, Radek Stepanek, Gilles Simon, David Ferrer, Venus Williams, Elena Dementieva, Fernando Verdasco, and defending women's champion Ana Ivanovic.

Aleksandra Wozniak the Canadian and Serena Williams will go ahead tomorrow on Centre Court. Federer will play there too. It's going to be a wild ride no matter what. I'm lovin' tennis a whole lot right now.

-D

Downhill

Casey Janssen-3 runs in 6 innings.

Roy Halladay-0 runs in 7 innings.

Jays offense=first in the league.

Jays are in a 5 game losing streak.

You didn't expect to see those four lines mixed together, did you?

Well, it's happening right now and it's a bit painful to watch. We have led the high-octane AL East since day 1 and that lead is in serious jeopardy now. Both the Red Sox and the Yankees are just 0.5 back of the Jays. Fortunately, the Red Sox lost their second straight as well today.

The offense has been pathetic in the last 5 games. They were shutout yesterday, for what I presume to be the first time this season. They scored 3 runs today. They scored just 5 runs in three games in Boston. What happened to Aaron Hill's clutch hitting? What happened to Adam Lind's RBI machine?

Brett Cecil was shook up big time with 5 homers on Wednesday. He was sent down to AAA along with Robert Ray and Travis Snider. Overall, the rookies held the fort well and if Janssen and Romero return to form soon, we could still be playing .600 play through the summer, provided the hitting climbs out of this funk.

A losing streak was inevitable. It was a matter of time before the Jays slipped downhill for a while. Now, if they want to truly show baseball that the 09 Jays are contenders, they must get up fast. We can still win the next 3 of 4 games on this road trip and go home with a 30-20 record.

French Open's back!! Nadal's reign on clay has been challenged by Federer and Djokovic last week. Should be an exciting one. I'm rooting for Federer to make a breakthrough in this one, but Nadal's the prohibited favourite going into Roland Garros.

-D

Three!

So the White Sox have lost another to the Jays earlier this afternoon. Toronto's 24-14 now! Woot! I was down at the game last night and that was a blast!

I was downtown on a history field trip and got down to the Rogers Centre around 4:30. Got a bite to eat, slice of pizza with water for 3 bucks. Met my friend Kevin, negotiated with the scalpers to get 2 tickets for $20. Got in line at 5:15 and the gates opened right on time at 5:30.

I entered the stadium and ran down to the outfield baselines. There were 8 White Sox players playing catch. I asked Matt Thorton (or so I thought) for a ball and he said he'd hook me up one later. And he did. I gave that ball to Kevin and went up into the right field seats for BP home run balls.

There was a ball lying in the White Sox bullpen and I got a groundskeeper to toss it up. I chased a couple homers but couldn't get my hands on one. A couple Blue Jay fans kept asking DJ Carrasco to toss up a ball. DJ looked at them and asked them while smiling: "Where's your White Sox gear?" I waved my White Sox cap at him and he pointed at me to show: "Like that guy!" So that was number three of the day. At the end of BP, I tried unsuccessfully to get a couple autographs.

During the game, Kevin and I sat near the first base dugout, 32 rows back. The game itself was really exciting, especially when we pounded the Sox for 6 runs in the fourth. After the third out of that inning was made (flyout to CF Scott Podsednik), I sprinted down the steps to the camera bay with my White Sox cap and held out my glove. Scotty Pod ran in and tossed the ball to me just like that. It was nicely rubbed up and simply awesome.

At the end of the game, Kevin and I made our way down to the Jays dugout. I yelled for Vernon Wells to toss me the game ending ball but he gave it to a kid on my right. No biggie. I asked Brian Butterfield if he could give me the line up cards, but he said they requested the cards to be turned into the umps. So I thanked him and said no worries.

Fun night! Snagged four balls-personal record!

-D

Busted...Again

It was a long week for me. It was a long week for baseball.

Manny Ramirez got busted for steroids and has been suspended for 50 games. I wonder how many players would have tested positive if this type of punishment had been established in the 90's?

I've never liked the guy. He always struck me as an arrogant rich boy who thinks he can do anything he wants and get away with it. Some people say it's "Manny being Manny". Now that he's been caught for performance enhancers, I can only thank KARMA.

Jays lost another winnable game yesterday. We had runners on base, it seemed, every game, but we still walked away with a 5-3 loss. Richmond was solid save for that one rough inning. Otherwise, Tallet's going on the mound today, in 45 minutes time against Oakland again. We've got to win this series and bring some momentum going into a VERY IMPORTANT home series against the Yankees.

I'll be down at the Rogers Centre again next Friday.

-D

Sailing Right Along

Over the weekend, the Blue Jays swept their first series of the season, putting down the O's in three fabulous games that were won on basic baseball skills-pitching, hitting, defense.

But hold on a sec. Let me just say that I got TWO baseballs from Friday night's match. I got there for BP as usual. I asked the groundscrew in the bullpen to throw up a ball that was lying on the grass/turf. He tossed it up to my friend instead. No worries. That was cool.

For the next half an hour, there were quite a few homers that came to my section. One headed right for the first row. I lined myself up with it. I stuck my glove out, instead it zoomed by and richocheted off the second row. This other, older man and I struggled for it. I swooped it up blindly and the two of us made peace.

That was the only ball I received in BP. We wandered around for most of the game. The ushers let us go down to the Jays dugout with two outs in the ninth. I darted down to the dugout roof as soon as the ball was put into play. The Jays came out in celebration. Travis Snider and one other player had a ball in their hands. I yelled for it. Snider tossed it to another section. The other player tossed it in my direction, but being the short kid I am, I stood no chance against the taller, more aggressive, and may I say gloveless people behind me.

However, I made my way to the end of the dugout where the batboy was still cleaning up. I asked him if there was any chance of getting a ball. He said to wait up a sec. After he finished his business, he took some balls out of a bucket and handed to all the kids who he had promised. What a nice guy! This ball was nicely rubbed up with mud. It might've been game used as there was a little brown scuff.

Friday night was fun! And especially because earlier in the day, I had been declared the winner of my school's student council elections. So as of right now, I am the President-elect of the Student Leadership Council. There's a hell lotta work to do but when your hardwork pays off, it's an amazing feeling. I have alot of ambitious plans for next year and I'm really excited to start working with the new council.

-D