Picture courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.
Started school this week, but I wanted to wrap up some thoughts I had regarding the Beijing Olympics. Overall, the Beijing Games were very successful, but one could get the sense that there was a sheen to it all. The Chinese government did not ease restrictions to international media and arrested protesters despite having protest zones, which made the Games' slogan, "One World, One Dream", untrue. We all desire peace and we are one world, that is true, but my "dream" is different than someone in China or Iran. It was sad to see the media restrictions and even worse worldwide PR (what else will journalists write about if you restrict their access?) Not to mention the controversy over the Chinese gymnasts' age...
That being said, the athletic competition was first-rate. From Phelps' domination to Dara Torres' silver medals to Usain Bolt's world record sprints, athletic prowess was on display. The facilities looked great (especially the Water Cube with the ever-changing color schemes on its exterior), though the Bird's Nest name was a bit overused by the time the Games were over. Mary Carillo's travelogues did exactly as they were designed to do: to show people in America various aspects of China. Stereotypically, our culture thinks of China as red, Communist, kung fu, and pandas. Carillo highlighted some other things (she did a particularly good one on Chinese writing with the guy who designed the Beijing Games logo).
Picture courtesy of CNN/SportsIllustrated.
Last Saturday, a yearly ritual continued in our house: the Fantasy Football draft. For the first time, we're doing individual defensive players and I drafted first pick overall. For those unfamiliar with fantasy football, the essential point of the game is that you draft real-life players and their stats in real-life dictate how your team does. So if LaDainian Tomlinson, running back for San Diego shown above, has 100 rushing yards and two touchdowns, that's about 19 points for my team, a pretty good day. So here's my starting roster:
QB Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh
RB LaDainian Tomlinson, San Diego
RB Jonathan Stewart, Carolina
WR Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona
WR Anquan Boldin, Arizona
WR Greg Jennings, Green Bay
TE Chris Cooley, Washington
LB Ernie Sims, Detroit
DB Champ Bailey, Denver
DL Trent Cole, Philly
DEF Indianapolis Colts
K Nate Kaeding, San Diego
Dad's team is also very good this year. Any team with Brees at QB, Houshmandzadeh at WR, Joseph Addai at RB, and Jared Allen at DL should rightly scare the pants off opponents. As for Robert's squad, it's mostly Cowboys but I can't fault him for that.
Since school has started, I do not know how consistent the blog posting will be. I am intending to put fantasy updates on here, along with the usual headlines, but we'll see. To whet your appetites for quality sportswriting in these down periods, I added three more columnists to the links page. Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press, and Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post. McAdam is a very good baseball writer. Albom, better known as the writer of "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" started as a sports columnist for the Free Press and still writes for them. Wilbon hosts of the ESPN debate show "Pardon the Interruption" and is a nationally recognized columnist. I intend to feature more columnists from different cities (Chicago, New York, Atlanta) and different regions (still looking for good columnists in the Southeast and more out West).
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