I'm Gina Smith

They really are Giants. (today's editorial from the NYT)

From today's Opinion Page of the NYT. Excerpted below.

Editorial

They Really Are Giants

Let’s remember this later when we are locked in to professional football and the gloom of winter. Let’s remember it when rich baseball teams go on their off-season spending binges, packing the payroll with talent for their annual open-checkbook march to the playoffs.

Let’s remember, for as long as we can, this long-haired, farm-raised, mostly home-grown and organic World Series, won by the Giants on Monday night.

It was their first championship in 56 years, and their first as a San Francisco team. And team they were — not a consortium of superstars, but a smooth blend of rising stars and nonstars, of rejects and never-beens, modestly compensated by Yankees and Red Sox standards, but hard-working and well-anchored by a staff of awesome starting pitchers, all in their 20s.

Thanks to them, this Series felt relaxed and fun, relatively free of the high-stakes anguish so prevalent in the playoffs. The pleasures started with great pitching: Madison Bumgarner in Game 4, his performance as majestic as his name. Tim Lincecum, all spilling locks and whipsaw arm, throwing smoke in Games 1 and 5. The black-bearded closer Brian Wilson, pitching a 1-2-3 ninth to seal Monday’s game, 3 to 1, and the Series, four games to one.

Let’s remember, too, the excellence of the Texas Rangers, who got as far as they did through heavy hitting and the ace Cliff Lee, all but invincible through the season, the playoffs and — well, for six innings on Monday night, anyway. There was even a good first pitch, by George W. Bush in Game 4: an easy strike by a former president who knows how to throw a baseball.

Excellence and ease, from teams that clicked, that was this Series. “It’s a whole different vibe since Barry Bonds left,” one Giants fan told The Times a few days ago. “People have just opened up and realized we can have fun with this whole thing.” The Giants once tried to build a franchise around Bonds, the sullen slugger, but the glue didn’t hold. It did this time, with players like the creaky Edgar Renteria, age 35, whose .412 Series average and three-run homer Monday night helped make him the M.V.P. Yes, he was a star, but just one in a constellation — of eccentrics, castoffs, teammates, winners.

I'm shocked. Shocked.

This bizarre story from Reuters. First cheek implants, who knows what's next. Maybe the US Volleyball team wil outlaw breast implants next.

SEOUL (Reuters) - One of South Korea's top women fencers was dropped from the country's national team because she underwent plastic surgery that included receiving cheek implants, local media reported.

Nam Hyun-hee, a top foil fencer, had cosmetic surgery in December on her eyes to fix a problem that meant her eyelashes were bothering her vision, reports said.

Along with the eye surgery, she also decided to have a little work done on her cheeks to increase their amplitude, South Korean media reported. The cosmetic surgery was not approved by her coaches or the country's fencing federation, reports said.

The cheek surgery caused her to miss several days of practice because of a swollen face. This angered her coaches and South Korean fencing officials who said she should not have put improving her personal appearance ahead of her commitment to the team.

"We have to be more strict in the management of our athletes. For instance, what are other athletes thinking when a fellow athlete is lounging around because of plastic surgery?," Oh Wan-gun, the director of the Korean Fencing Federation said by telephone Friday.

Nam could not immediately be reached for comment.

The fencing federation has kicked Nam off the national squad for two years, officials said, adding they are still looking into the matter.

Nam has asked to be reinstated more quickly so that she can be on the team for this year's Asian Games and be in good shape for the 2008 Olympics, reports said.

Skateboarder JUMPS Great Wall of China.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California skateboarder Danny Way jumped over a 61-foot (18.6-meter) gap in the Great Wall of China, becoming the first person to clear the ancient fortification without motorized aid, his sponsor said.

Way then went on to jump the wall three more times on Saturday, taking off from a specially built ramp at the nearly 3,000-year-old Ju Yong Guan Gate, and adding in 360-degree spins as spectators looked on.

"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a statement.

Way, of Carlsbad, California, was sponsored by Quiksilver Inc., which makes skateboard apparel.

Others have tried to jump the Great Wall before. In 2002, Wang Jiaxiong, a mountain biker, fractured his skull and died after overshooting his planned landing area. Way was the first person to try the jump on a skateboard.

Way already holds the world records for distance jumped by skateboard and for height at 79 feet and 23.5 feet, respectively.

No pants for young Sumos, Sumo Kyokai spokesman says.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A tussle has broken out in Japan's tradition-bound sumo world over the right to wear pants in the ring.

Gargantuan sumo wrestlers generally compete naked but for a "mawashi," an arrangement of wrapped cloth that preserves a bare minimum of modesty.

Sumo's amateur association hit upon the idea of allowing shy youngsters to wear "sumo pants," a more substantial garment similar to cycling shorts, to try to boost the dwindling numbers of children taking up the sport, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun said on Thursday.

"Pubescent kids are not going to want to take part if they don't look cool," Yomiuri quoted one local amateur sumo official as saying.

The sport's professional body, the Nihon Sumo Kyokai, however, has made clear that it will not allow wrestlers in pants to take part in youth tournaments at the venerable national stadium in Tokyo, the paper said.

"The national stadium has its rules and ways of doing things," the paper quoted a Sumo Kyokai spokesman as saying. "We have no intention of allowing children in pants into the ring."

Drunks banned from Euro Soccer Game! (Reuters)

Expect empty stands at the upcoming Euro 2004 soccer championship!

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

LISBON (Reuters) - Fans at the Euro 2004 soccer championship will be tested for drunkenness and those over a certain blood alcohol limit barred from games, Portuguese authorities said on Friday.

Fans who show a blood alcohol level of 1.2 grams per liter will be turned away from stadiums, said Lieutenant-General Leonel de Carvalho, head of a government security committee for the 16-team tournament in June.

Of course, this doesn't address those who arrive with under 1.2 g alcohol level and bring it up to 2 or 3 during the course of the game. Maybe they could have the concessions people start testing blood alcohol levels!
gs

Windsurfer Completes First Pacific Crossing

Amazing!

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Sean Combs' Goal Was To Beat Oprah

I haven't gone running in a couple of weeks. Then I read that Sean Comb finished the New York Marathon today.

He said his goals were to finish under four hours and quicker than popular talk show host Oprah Winfrey's 1994 U.S. Marine Corps marathon time of 4 hours 29 minutes. He said he would appear on "Oprah" Monday.

p.s. He did beat Oprah's time. He ran it in four hours, 14 minutes and change.
p.s.s. I will start training again tomorrow!

Grady Little is History

Excerpt from Reuters:

Little was heavily criticized after leaving ace Pedro Martinez on the mound in the eighth inning as the Red Sox blew a four-run lead in the seventh game of the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees eventually won the game 6-5 in the 11th inning on a home run by Aaron Boone, breaking the collective hearts of the long-suffering Red Sox fans.

Red Sox owner John Henry did not provide Little with any public support as the manager faced the wrath of Boston fans following the loss.

This was inevitable. Grady Little is out.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Here's a Picture of the Errant Cubs Fan

Just a quick note. Smokinggun.com has the name and picture of the Cubs fan who caught the foul ball everyone's talking about.