Round of Golf

Lots and lots of interesting developments over the weekend in the world of golf. A quick recap, in no particular order of importance.

1. Congratulations to Padraig Harrington for winning his second consecutive British Open at Royal Birkdale this weekend. Harrington shot a final round 1 under par 69 to win by 4 shots over Englishman Ian Poulter. Poulter's hair finished a distant 30th.

1a. A stunning 5th place finish for English amateur Chris Wood, with a composite 10 over par. It nevertheless must have been a bit disappointing as he finished only a single stroke from automatically qualifying for the 2009 Masters. It was the best finish by an amateur since Justin Rose burst onto the scene with his (tied for) 4th place finish in 1998.

1b. A dramatic comeback for Ernie Els, who missed a gimme on 18 on Friday that put him one shot out of the cut. However, the rest of the field came back to Els allowing him to survive through the weekend. His 74/69 finish left him in a tie for 7th.

1c. Jim Furyk was the highest finishing American in a tie for 5th place, leading Steve Stricker, Anthony Kim and Ben Curtis to top 10 finishes.

1d. Greg Norman shot a 7 over 77 to finish in a tie for 3rd with Sweden's Henrik Stenson. Although Norman was a great story at age 53, his finish was typical, as he has now led 8 times after 3 rounds in major events, with only one title to his credit.

2. Over on the LPGA Tour at the State Farm Classic at Panther Creek Country Club in Springfield, Illinois, Ji Young Oh was victorious, but not the story. Michelle Wie was disqualified after failing to sign her scorecard following the second round. However, the story is interesting due to the fact that she wasn't disqualified until after she completed the third round, and was in second place at 17 under par. (Oh and Yani Tseng finished tied for first at 18 under par). Apparently Wie left the scoring tent without signing her score card. A rules official noticed the missing signature and ran out of the tent to catch up to Wie, who then signed the card. On Saturday this was deemed improper, and Wie was disqualified for violation of Rule 6-6b and Decision 6-6c/1. It is unfortunate for Wie since she was playing so well, and likely would have earned enough money for her tour card for 2009, if not actually win outright.

3. On the PGA Tour, the men played the U.S. Bank Championship, which was won by Richard S. Johnson. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Dick Johnson was victorious.

No Sh*t!

ESPN proudly displayed this headline on its bottom ticker over the weekend:

MILAN RELEASES PRESS RELEASE STATING KAKA IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR SALE!

Now, I am assuming that this headline referred to Italian Serie A soccer club AC Milan and its Brazilian midfielder, Ricardo Kaka', in response to some rumors that the club was shopping Kaka' (to English Premier League team Chelsea). Purportedly Kaka' is expendable since the purchase of Ronaldinho's contract from FC Barcelona. However, it sounds a lot funnier completely out of context, especially since not only is Kaka not for sale, it is ABSOLUTELY not for sale. Perhaps they are just trying to give it (him) away.

If you don't understand why this is a funny headline, ask your Spanish neighbor, teacher, friend or gardener.

A Florida Marlins Home Game

This Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the Florida Marlins/Philadelphia Phillies game played at 3:55 in the afternoon. After gathering up some peeps, we make the hour drive down to Dolphin Stadium for the important NL East matchup.

Now, the game was great, with the Marlins winning 9-4 behind 3 homers, while Pat Burrell of the Phillies, and formerly of the "U", hitting two of his own. Kevin Gregg entered in the 9th in a non-save situation and needed a close play at second by Hanley Ramirez with the bases loaded to end the game, cutting the Phillies lead over the Marlins to 1 1/2 games (it is now only 1/2 game). Our seats were upper level but right behind home plate, with the sun on our backs. Believe me, you want the sun at your back and not in your face for a July afternoon home game at Dolphin Stadium, otherwise you just absolutely melt.

Plus, just going to a game is very relaxing. You have the sun, the game, keeping score, peanuts, hot dogs and of course, beer.

But besides the game, I wanted to enlighten all of you about the Florida Marlin experience that is Dolphin Stadium, that was Pro Player Stadium, that was Joe Robbie Stadium. I will do this while simultaneously answering the question, "Why doesn't anyone go to the Marlins games, they are a good team?".

Under absolutely no worries whatsoever about finding tickets for the game, we stroll up to the ticket window and notice that the ticket prices are astronomical for a team that is having problems drawing fans. At the lower level behind home plate the tickets are $58 and $48 for each baseline to the bases. That in and of itself isn't awful for tickets, but they are when you can't fill the seats. At the back of the lower level, the "club" sections, the prices are $71 for right behind home plate and $66 for the baselines, again ending at the bases. As the base lines extend the prices are $39. If you prefer to sit in the outfield, the left field seats are $46 while right field is a bargain at $15 and $26. Although these prices aren't awful for some seats, the sight lines are ridiculously bad as the stadium is constructed for football, and thus all the baseline seats face the "football field", not angled toward the pitcher and/or batter's box. This is why we chose the upper deck with its view of the entire field. In addition, there are no kids prices for tickets whatsoever. Not that I had any kids with me, but just an observation that the Marlins might want to rectify in an attempt to win younger fans and fill the seats. Problem #1 - Ticket Prices.

Now the attendance for this game was 25,650, which is way above the Marlins' 15,493 average, but a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the fans were visibly cheering for the Phillies. Problem #2 - No Home Field Advantage (or too many visiting team fans).

As I make the ride up the escalator to the 400 level of seats, we notice that almost all of the concessions stands are closed/not open/dark. The team and/or stadium, knowing their likely attendance, just closes portions of the concession stands. Concessions did not turn out to be a problem for us whatsoever, as the concession stands right outside of the entrance to our seats was open, and nobody seemed to have a problem with lines. However, this is a symptom of a big problem. The team cannot even draw enough fans to keep the concessionaires working. Because of this, those fans in the sections with the closed concessions had to walk a ways to simply get food and drink, thus missing more of the game. Problem #3 - Inconveniencing Fans.

When we did make our way to the concessions stands, we noticed that some of the bars on the exterior of the concourse were open in addition to the main stands built into the interior of the concourse. While at the main concessions you could order anything, at the exterior bars you could only order beer, a few liquor drinks and peanuts. Think of them as an express lane, but with tip jars. Now, since we made several trips to the concession stands we noticed something peculiar. All of the ladies working the windows at the main concession were black, while those that worked the stand-alone bar were not. I am not drawing any definitive conclusions here since this observation was based upon a very limited sample size (the one primary concession stand and one stand-alone bar that I visited), but after discussing the observation with a couple of people, I determined that I was not the only person who noticed this peculiarity. It turns out the situation was very noticeable.

Now, I have not seen or reviewed the concessions contract, nor do I know whether the concessionaires that I saw worked for a different company from those manning the bar, so this may just be a coincidence. Nevertheless, it was very noticeable. If this situation is pervasive, then it could be a big problem for a team, and a sport, that seems to be losing black fans, be they African-American or Latin-American blacks. Problem #4 - Subconscious Racism?

Add these 4 problems to the list of the general problems which include the fact that the stadium is in the middle of absolute nowhere, with nothing bordering the stadium to accentuate the game day experience (i.e. bars, restaurants, stores), the temperature, the fact that you can never tell what the weather at the stadium is going to be and generally unrecognizable players from year-to-year (hopefully changing with the Hanley Ramirez contract extension), and you can understand why nobody at all attends the Marlins games. And yes, these pictures were taken from Saturday's game.
Nevertheless, a day at the park is still a great experience, and I might even watch another game this year.

OPENing Salvo

For those who regularly read We Make It Rain, you know that we are tremendous fans of all types of athletic competition, and that definitely includes golf. As you should know, one of the four majors, The British Open, or as the British like to call it "The Open Championship", began yesterday at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England. Even though the tourney is without its most glamorous star, Eldrick, the tournament is lining up to be a spectacular event.

The first round ended with a three way tie at 1 under 69. The only three players to shoot in the red on Thursday were Australia's Robert Allenby, Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell, of the Queens McDowells, and America's (now) favorite son, Rocco Mediate.

Everybody knows about Rocco and his near victory at the U.S. Open, losing to Eldrick by 1 shot after playing 91 holes. However, Rocco and his fun-loving personality should have been fan favorites well before this year. Now, I may be a little biased toward Rocco because, well his name, but also because Racecar's father tells great stories about Rocco from Mediate's time in Jacksonville. In addition, I witnessed what I thought was a great act by Rocco back in the day.

During the 2001 U.S. Open at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I had the opportunity to attend the second and third rounds via my friend Alex, who happens to live in Tulsa and who also happened to commandeer some tickets (for free even - yeah Alex). We walked the course with a couple of groups in the second round to get a feel for the course, and let me tell you, just walking the course was exhausting. The elevation changes were so much more dramatic than you can ever envision from television.

For the third round, we decided to get to the course early and snag a seat behind the 13th green. We chose this spot because it had great views of both the 13th and 15th greens, but also because the 13th hole was the only hole in which every player had a legitimate shot at birdie, and most could entertain thougths of an eagle.

So, about halfway through the afternoon, short driving Mediate's group is in the fairway, and he looks like he is sitting pretty good. He takes a fairway metal and is going to try to hit the green in two. And boy does he ever. The ball lands on the green hot, hops through the green and hits a kid in the chest. Lucky for Rocco, the kid stopped his ball, which most likely would have ended up in the grandstand. Rocco pitches and putts for a birdie. As he and his playing partner exit the green to move toward the 14th tee, Mediate walks straight towards the kid, signs his ball and gives it to the kid. I always liked this gesture by Rocco, and have since followed his career, rooting for him and hoping that he does well.

Now, I understand that this is one of the unwritten rules of golf and that many players may have done the same thing, but I always find it amazing how many people either (1) don't know the unwritten rules of courtesy; or (2) just don't care about being courteous.

Mediate shot a 3 over 73 today, and is now in a tie for third at +2. The winner in that 2001 U.S. Open was Retief Goosen, who midway through the second round is also tied for third at +2.

Now, back to the first round. A Brit is tied for first. I don't know if McDowell and his Golden Arc of a swing can stand up to the pressure of trying to be only the third Brit since 1964 to win the Open, and the first since Scotsman Paul Lawrie in 1999, but it certainly makes for a very interesting tournament. He has shot a second round 3 over 73 as well, and is currently tied for third at +2.

The story right now is Greg Norman, who after two consecutive rounds at even par is in the lead. Before I comment on Norman, let's see if he is still in the neighborhood on Sunday.

Although Mediate, Norman, McDowell, Englishman Ian Poulter or any of a number of players would make for a great story, I myself would love to see Camillo Villegas win. He has a lot of flair and attitude on the course, and it comes through in his game and his wardrobe. Yesterday he shot a 6 over 76, then started today bogey-bogey, before closing with 5 consecutive birdies for a 5 under 65, one shot behind Norman. The only problem with Villegas is that he is a Florida Gator, and after their run in football and basketball the last few years, Gator fans don't need anything else to cheer, believe me.

However, sometimes the volatile (players and scores) are too erratic to win a major golf championship in weather conditions like those at Royal Birkdale. It is often slow and steady that wins the race. My pick is Jim Furyk, who after two consecutive 71s, is tied for third at +2.

All-Star Revue

In lieu of the traditional "Thoughts From the All-Star Game" type format of analyzing last night's game, I thought that we here at "We Make It Rain" would just give you the synopsis of our thoughts on the festivities as our thoughts occurred.

As background, Sinickal and I were at completely different bars in completely different states, but through the wonderful world of technology were able to have the following conversations, some of which are printed here (Who on earth knows where Hopps was during all of this). Second, some of the conversations are not exact quotations, but rather revised and massaged for mass consumption, which means that we edited some of the conversations so that inside jokes and the like make more sense to anyone who may read this.

With that being said, the thoughts and conversations are time stamped. Other sentiments are editorials on last night's festivities are interspersed. Here we go:

Great idea having all of the Hall of Famers on the field. However, the crowd is what makes this part of the "ceremony" interesting.

8:19 - Sinickal - "How about boos for the Red Sox players, and Wade Boggs wearing a Yankee hat!"

8:20 - Pepster - "We were just commenting on that. Ridiculous."

Now keep in mind, the "ridiculous" was for both parts of Sinickal's observation, the boos and Boggs' hat. At least he didn't offer the Rays the chance for him to wear their hat for $25,000.

8:22 - Sinickal - "There are 1000 Cubs standing on the field."

8:23 - Pepster - "Except Ron Santo."

Yep, I am going to hell for that one. We love Ron Santo here at We Make It Rain, and may he give much joy to anyone that watches and/or listens to a Cubs game for many, many years. I sure hope that covers it.

8:24 - Pepster - "There are 1000 Cubs fans in this bar."

Which was true. No wonder the Marlins can't draw anyone to the game (more on this later).

8:25 - Sinickal (as Willie Mays is announced) - "Do you think he is muttering 'Where is my Godson?"

8:25:41 - Pepster - "Well Played."

Like him or not, Bonds should be playing somewhere if he wants, and there is no doubt in my mind he would have been in this game.

8:33 - Sinickal - "Look, its Tony Gwynn times 3."

9:25 - Sinckal (about Yogi Berra) - "Lawrence Peter? Did you know that?"

9:26 - Pepster - "I did not."

I mean honestly, hasn't he always been Yogi? His mama call him Yogi, Imma call him Yogi.

10:08 - Sinickal (in a familiar refrain) - "It is always Jeter in big spots!"

So true. Forget about how players perform in the clutch, Jeter always happens to have an at bat in a big spot. Now that we have mentioned it, look for it and you will see. Even during the World Baseball Classic Jeter had several key at bats during the tournament. Not key because of what happened, but he is just always hitting in the most crucial situations.

10:54 - Pepster - "Girardi is warming up K-Rod. Guys I am with just called him 'the fluffer'."

What other manager would do something like that? Let me see, LaRussa - no. Torre - no. Grady Little? - Oh, sorry. This is one of the reasons why Girardi should still be in Florida. Curse you Loria, boy did you blow that situation!

11:00 - Pepster - "Having a debate over whether Tejada is 45 or 53."

11:01 - Sinickal - "He's that young?"

11:33 - Sinickal - "About time someone got thrown out," when Navarro threw out Christian Guzman.

Sometimes there does have to be some actual baseball analysis.

11:37 - Pepster - "Drew is set up nicely to be the MVP. Good thing Dempster is 'closing'. He thrives so well in that situation." [Ed. note, Dempster struck out the side in the 9th, including Drew]. Too bad he couldn't do that when he was an actual "Closer".

11:41 - Sinickal - "I just wanted Papelbon to get the loss so that we could hear the NY media tomorrow."

11:59 - Sinickal - "Your Marlins clearly had money on this game. All 3 errors and non clutch hitting. What's up with that?"

Clearly Sinickal forgot about Hanley Ramirez's 2-3 with a run scored. Wait, never mind, there goes error number 3 for Uggla.

12:31 - Sinickal - "Can a Marlin help here?"

Nope, not if you are counting on Dan Uggla.

After that - well, we pretty much got sick of the game. Hope you enjoyed the game as much as possible, given that it lasted until well after 1:00 a.m. E.D.T.

Never Surrender

Later we will have a more detailed post filled with interesting observations from the MLB All-Star Game, but for now I just wanted to write briefly (which is generally difficult for me) about the main point I took from the game: Corey Hart needs to be banned from baseball. Yes, yes I know that the Milwaukee Brewers are finally in a legitimate playoff race, and that Hart is a big part of their lineup, but he made two egregious mistakes last night.


First, and foremost, he enters the game without any sunglasses. This might be a bad pun on Canadian rocker two-hit wonder Corey Hart's song Sunglasses at Night, but shouldn't he be required to wear them. If it isn't already, this should be a law. I mean, what on earth is our Congress working on? Iraq? Gas Prices? Foreclosure Bailouts? IndyMac? Please. We are talking important stuff. Especially since this was an exhibition game.

Second, how can a young right-fielder from the heart of the good ole U.S. of A. not be able to throw out a slow-footed Canadian at the plate on an average depth fly ball to the outfield off the bat of Michael Young. Especially since right fielders are supposed to have the strongest arms. It's not like Ben Johnson and Donovan Bailey were on the base paths. I'll bet Ichiro would have thrown him out.

Perhaps the Brewer Corey Hart decided to take a little vacation during the All-Star break and replaced himself with the Canadian Corey Hart, who actually wanted his compatriot Justin Morneau to score the game-winning run.

Or, he just wanted the game to finally be done, which if this was the case, I will gladly hear his petition for reinstatement.

Beep, Beep, Beep....

It was the only title I could think of to describe a backup...In this case, backup QB.

Okay, the site has been dormant for a while, and I have been absent through name changes to our Patron Saint, reinstatement for our Patron Saint, Grand Jury testimony by our Patron Saint...You get the picture. Part of the problem is laziness. Some of it is vacation. Some of it...well, it's just not defensible.

No matter, we are back and we are talking about someone I have loathed for most of my adult life - Brett Fucking Favre.

If you read the phenomenal piece by Big Daddy Drew (yes, I know he doesn't use that anymore) at Deadspin, you now understand the ABC's of hate. And I agree with every hate filled word. More, as a Chicago Bears fan, there is no one that I hate more than Brett Favre (and his ridiculously spelled name) ! I have always thought that the media sucked from his ass more than should be allowed. I have always believed that his career has been a long series of very good games where he threw 7 to 10 balls up for grabs (and several for interceptions). I have never liked that he became a crossover marketing sensation. And I hate that for nearly two decades, he has been the face of my arch rival.

But, do you know what I hate more? That since Brett Fucking Favre made his first start as QB for the Green Bay Packers in 1992, my beloved Bears have had 49 different people from week to week under center. Twenty three different starting QB's in 15 years. It is so depressing to look at the names and think about the ineptitude.

Who remembers such names as Peter Tom Willis from Florida State (anyone with three names should be assraped with a telephone pole, then killed by angry Costa Rican Nationalists); or Dave Krieg, who was 78 years old when he started for America's team; or Cade McNown of parking ticket fame; or Shane Matthews (Shane? As an NFL QB?); or small handed Rick Mirer?

Do you know any of the following names: Henry Burris, Moses Moreno, Eric Kramer, Steve Stenstrom, Jonathon Quinn, or Chad Hutchinson? They all have started at QB for the Chicago Bears. I will now weep uncontrollably.

I don't really have anything positive to put in this post so I will end with this...I really hate Brett Fucking Favre and I hope that he doesn't end up playing for my team. But at least didn't play for the Boston Red Sux.

Here We Go Again

It appears that our Patron Saint is at it again. Not content with just causing trouble in strip clubs, Mr. Jones has decided that he would also return home to wreak havoc, in of all places, an SUV.

According to reports, Mr. Jones and two of his friends were inside a Toyota SUV after 12:40 a.m. this morning in backwoods West Virginia with a white powder covering a card as Mr. Jones used a credit card to scrape the powder. After officers took the men out of the SUV, they found a plastic bag with a white substance, most likely cocaine, as well as a jar with possible marijuana residue. When asked about the substance, Mr. Jones apparently admitted that it was cocaine.

He is being held in jail on a charge of felony possession of a controlled substance, with his arraignment scheduled for tomorrow.

What? It wasn't our Patron Saint, Adam "Pacman" Jones, but rather a white receiver from Jacksonville named Matt Jones? It wasn't backwoods West Virginia, but rather Arkansas?

Good - that feels much better. Never mind!