Month: June 2006

The Hurricanes are now only one win away from winning the Stanley Cup! After taking one of two games in Edmonton the Canes are coming back to Raleigh with a shot to win the Cup on home ice. No NHL team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in a finals series to win and the leading team are 19-7 all time in game 5’s. Hopefully the Canes can follow suit and take care of business on Wednesday night.

The World Cup is under way now and both England and the USA played poorly. However, England was able to walk away with a very important 3 points with the help of an own goal to take a 1-0 victory, while the USA took a 3-0 beating by the Czech Republic. Both teams are going to have to play much better if they hope to move on past group play but the USA is definitely going to need some help. Cup favorite Brazil finally takes the pitch today against Croatia, which should be an easy victory for them. If you want to watch the worlds best you should definitely watch this match.

The Miami Heat look to be in some serious trouble in the NBA finals. They lost a close one in game 1 and then got absolutely destroyed in game 2. Shaq managed all of 5 points in game two and is now making a scorching 12% of his free throws. I said earlier in the playoffs that Shaq was done and then he came back with a 30 and 20 game to shut me up, for the Heat to do anything in the next couple of games he’s going to need a similar type of performance. While Shaq is fading, Dirk is becoming one of the top players in the league right now. You could easily make an argument that he’s one of the top 5 players in the league now, a big change from even the beginning of the playoffs. One more thing about the playoffs, does anyone else thing this 2-3-2 series format is completely stupid?

The US Open starts on Thursday from Wingedfoot Golf Club in NY. Tiger is making his return to playing after his fathers death and Phil is going for his third major in a row after winning the PGA last year and the Masters earlier this year. Will have more on this later in the week.

Glad to hear that Ben Roethlisberger is OK after his crash but seriously, WEAR A DAMN HELMET! Much easier to get up after a wreck when your face isn’t broken. Hope he’ll be OK for the start of the season.

The World Cup 2006 from Germany gets under way today when the host nation takes on Costa Rica in the opener from Berlin. The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world and one billion people are expected to watch the opening match around the world. However, most of those viewers will be outside of the USA.

It’s a shame that more people in the USA don’t understand the magnitude of the World Cup because the US team could be considered one of the 5 favorites to win the Cup this year. They’re actually ranked in the top 5 in the world at the moment. Which is much higher than they are historically. They did get a tough group draw with the Czech Republic but they should be able to at least finish second in the group which is good enough to advance to the next round.

Since none of the other authors here give a damn about the World Cup, Section30 will be routing on England who’s also one of the favorites to win the Cup. It’s been 40 years since they won their first and only Cup so hopefully they can play up to their potential.

Standing in their way is perennial Cup favorites Brazil who’re in search of their record sixth Cup. Brazil is by far the favorite to win the Cup again but after the group matches it’s lose and you’re out so anything can happen.

Stay tuned for more.

Raleigh, NC – With the summer season getting ready to tip off in the next week the Wufpack have finally got their roster set. With the loss of Kirk Kruger for the season, due to his hiatus to finally try and pass the NC bar, there was an opening for GM Scott Frank to fill. After much deliberation Frank finally decided to sign free agent Chris Hasse. Frank said that “Chris was just the perfect fit for what we were looking to accomplish with this team.” Frank failed to mention that Chris was the only available option as he was the last remaining free agent in the pool.

With the addition of Chris there will have to be some position changes to make room for the addition. The most noticeable moves will be Shawn Willams to small forward, Scott Frank (player) to shooting guard, and Matt Edwards to point guard. Frank (GM) thinks that the moves might put a burden on the teams ball handling but he feels that Matt will be up to the challenge – “If Matt can handle the ball the way he has been making layups we have nothing to worry about.” Williams and Frank (player) will be able to help with the ball handling as long as they remember to pass the ball, look up, and not dribble into triple teams.

Rounding out the team this season are some familiar faces with some new looks. Geary Knapp is up in weight and has added a mullet in homage of the Carolina Hurricanes quest for the Stanley Cup. Ben Crawford is back but has his changed his nick name from Big Slow to Medium Fast after his wife stopped feeding him and he lost 50lbs. Shooting guard Shaun Taylor discovered that guards could go past the three point line in the offseason and hopes to add this to his game. Chris Langdale was unable to be reached by the time this article ran we can only assume he’ll be playing because he’s still on the roster.

All Wufpack games will be played at the JC Community Park off of Wade Avenue this summer. Please come and show your support.

APEX — The Big Dogs were eliminated from the Apex Men’s Softball C-League Tournament in dramatic yet typical slaughter-rule fashion Tuesday night, falling 19-7 in six innings to the Rebel Alliance.

The Big Dogs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, but the Empire indeed struck back, tying the score with two runs in their first at bat and one run in their second, while buckling down on defense.  They took the lead 5-3 in the third and never trailed afterwards.  They added a two-out two-run homerun in the fifth inning, and then the floodgates opened in the sixth.

In a season marked by excessive fielding errors, mindless and uninspired base-running, and impotent bats, it was fitting that the season would end in similar fashion for the Dogs. 

Storming back from a 7-3 deficit in the top of the sixth to even the score, the Big Dogs perhaps caught a whiff of momentum hanging in the chilly, damp late-night fog. 

But their unlikely rally would just as quickly prove premature, as they soon collapsed miserably under the pressure of facing elimination, giving up 12 runs in the bottom of the inning to fall victim to their tenth salughter-rule game of the season.  Perhaps even less remarkable was their inability to record even a single out while facing 15 batters.

Double, E4, single, E5, E6, texas-leaguer, E4, E4, E8, E4, single, E5, E6, single…then the season was on the line with the bases loaded. 

Having a baseball mind and knowing the runner on third was all that mattered when trailing by 11 in a “slaughter” inning, 1B/DH Lucas Miller immediately called for the outfield to come all the way in and form a “wall” around the infield; there was only one play: at the plate.  He tried to hastily explain that nothing could get through and that any fly ball scores the runner from third, so they had to play for the ground ball or line drive out at home.  But they just didn’t get it. 

Not that it would matter.

The last pitch of the Big Dogs season turned into a sharp, high liner down the right field line, easily scoring the runner from third and leaving these unlovable losers to contemplate what they would have to do differently in the fall to find that elusive second victory.

It must start with the simple principles of baseball: middle infielders that aren’t scared of the ball and actually try to get in front of it, pitchers that don’t deliver “meat,” leading off with speed rather than power, making contact with the damn ball at the plate, and not trying to make impossible plays on base hits where balls end up in left or right field.  Other than that, the spring season showed tremendous promise. 

They rallied twice in their last two games of the season, proving they had the tenacity to come up with big innings when most needed; this could prove to be a moral victory that a 1-16 record just doesn’t reflect.

APEX — The Big Dogs (1-15) face elimination tonight against Rebel Alliance (9-7) at 9pm on Laura Duncan Field #2 in the Class-C Apex Men’s Spring Softball League tournament.  The game is not televised.

They have fallen to the Rebels (as their fans affectionately refer to them) three times this season by a total margin of seven runs.  The Rebels were the suprise team of the C-League this year, breaking out for a winning season and a 4th-place regular season finish.

While losing has been a lesson in humility for the Big Dogs this season, losing to Rebel Alliance is rather shameful explains first baseman Lucas Miller.

Up until a conversation with a teammate yesterday, Miller had assumed Rebel Alliance was the sponsoring company’s name; it even provided for the smooth “Rebels” nickname.

But the embarrassing truth is that “Rebel Alliance” is a Star Wars reference. 

In fact, the Rebels are all software engineers or computer programmers for SAS.  On closer inspection, they even have an X-Wing Fighter logo on their jersey. 

“They probably run an undeground RTP fight club in the off-season,” Miller quipped wryly, the embarrassment evidenced by his sullen expression.

Their leader isn’t Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, but rather Jack Ramsey.  He’s 5’3″, plays left center, and leads off with his patented left-handed hack-swing, just like the girls.  He wears jeans shorts and scrunches his white tube socks halfway to his knees.

“In another life he probably flies the Millenium Falcon,” suggested Big Dogs right centerfielder Brent Horne.  He went on to add that he was wearing a storm trooper helmet at the plate tonight.

The short stop may have a long pony tail and wear tight-fitting shorts, but he’s a veritable vaccuum in the middle infield and a solid line drive hitter at the plate.

The first baseman stands about 6’4″ and weighs in at around 125 — insert C3P2 joke here — but what stands out are not his too-short old-school Umbros but rather his (inter) stellar ability to reign in the high and wide throws. 

Their cleanup hitter is a Techie stuck in an athlete’s body.  He crushes the high pitches to the deep center woods and then rounds the bases with a gloating trot, as if he has just slayed Darth Vader to save the universe. 

“It’s just really tough to fathom that we’re losing to a group of wannabe-Jedi Knights,” Miller confessed.  “I mean, these guys are thirty- and forty-somethings that will probably sit around analyzing Episode II after the game.”

Regardless, tonight the Big Dogs will need their Light Sabres to be cracking and their defense to be like a force field around some planet in a galaxy far, far away if they plan to keep their season going. 

May The Force be with them. 

As a follow-up, one of the Big Dogs player’s wives was told the following story as to why they chose ‘Rebel Alliance,’ which she passed along to be preserved for posterity.  It has to be true because you can’t make this stuff up.

A couple years back (apparently in a galaxy far, far away), a group of programmers and engineers from the SAS Institute played for the company softball team in the Raleigh Recreational League, the Majors to Apex’s Minors, if you will.  Along the way, for some reason, this team folded.  But a contingent of players was still eager to compete and formed a team in the Apex City League.  They fostered hopes of wearing the SAS jerseys from years past, but to their chagrin, SAS would not support this team as a sponsor, and denied this request; SAS would not actively support the formation of a team under its name (perhaps it was due to money issues for Jim Goodnight, who was likely fighting to maintain his grip over Wendell Murphy on the title of “Richest Man in North Carolina”).  Rejected, but never dejected, this contingent found their own sponsor and became known around the SAS campus as “rebels” for their obstinance towards their corporate opressors.  They took it one step further and compared this act ‘rebellion’ to that of the young Skywalker of Star Wars lore, and officially became The Rebel Alliance.  Unofficially, they call themselves the Rebels, while everyone else just calls them dorks.   

 

Last night the Carolina Hurricanes advanced to their second Stanley Cup Finals since their move to Raleigh 10 years ago by becoming the Eastern Conference Champions. Behind Rod Brind’Amour’s game winning goal, adding another late in regulation, the Hurricanes finished off the Sabres in game 7 with a score of 4-2.

It’s the start of Hurricane season and it seems that it’s taken over the city of Raleigh. You can’t drive anywhere in the city without seeing cars with flags flying. Maybe if they continue to play well and win the cup they will develop more of a core following that can help them really sustain their presence here in Raleigh.

It’s definitely been exciting watching the run to the finals. Now bring home the cup!