Sport

A Public Spectacle

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

I hadn’t been intending to watch the Olympics opening ceremony, but I’m visiting my mother this weekend and she put the TV on around 9:00pm to see what was going on. I spent the next 4 hours glued to the screen wondering what Danny Boyle would manage to get away with next.

Of course he wasn’t in change of everything. The old men in suits managed to get to make boring speeches eventually, and I’d like to comment briefly on Jacques Rogge’s self-congratulatory comments about gender equality. Yes it is a good thing that even the Saudis have caved in and allowed women to compete, but set against that M. Rogge is presiding over some entirely unjustified rule changes. As this recent New Scientist article notes, while testerone might help build muscle, there’s no evidence that it inevitably makes you a better Olympic athlete in any disciple. What testosterone does to is make you look less conventionally pretty or, as the tabloid newspapers would have it, “look like a man”. These new rules are not about excluding people who are not female, or excluding people with an unfair advantage, they are about excluding women whom the IOC think are likely to be picked on by the media and accused of being “really men”. It is an exercise in spin, and nothing to do with sport.

But back to Danny Boyle and his remarkably exuberant celebration of British culture as it really is, rather than as right wing politicians would like it to be. Given how little love there has been for the Olympics in my Twitter stream up until now, what happened last night was remarkable. The only poms whingeing were those for whom the word “multi-cultural” is anathema. And their complaints did not go down well. If it were possible to recall MPs in this country, Aidan Burley’s arse would be toast by now. As it is, I suspect his constituency party will be getting a strongly worded letter from Tory HQ suggesting that they find a new candidate for the next election.

Of course Boyle can’t have been free of political constraints. His job was to celebrate Britain, not to point out all of the horrors from our history, so celebrate he did. It is what he managed to celebrate that was remarkable. We got the Sex Pistols, we got a lesbian kiss, and we got a remarkably moving (and multicultural) tribute to the victims of the 7/7 bombings. All of these things, so Twitter tells me, were beamed live to Saudi Arabia where they took live coverage. The USA opted for a long delay in coverage so that they could censor anything that might offend Americans Rush Limbaugh. Twitter tells me that all of the above items disappeared from the US coverage.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in London, the Metropolitan Police were doing what they do best: kettling, beating and pepper-spraying protestors.

Pop music, of course, is meant to distract us from all that. But one of the things about pop music is that most people don’t listen closely to the lyrics. Danny Boyle, I think, does. Thankfully I didn’t hear “Turning Japanese” being played at any point – using that song is a very common error at international events. But tucked into the ceremony there was a brief reference to London’s railway system, and with that we got a song by The Jam. Here’s an except from the lyrics:

What you see is what you get
You’ve made your bed, you better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
And the public wants what the public gets
But I don’t get what this society wants
I’m going underground, (going underground)

(Lyrics by Paul Weller, © Universal Music Publishing Group – read the whole thing here.)

Yes, right in the middle of the biggest public spectacle the UK has had in ages, and in the middle of a double-dip recession, Danny Boyle sneaked in a song that satirizes public spectacle as a distraction from political problems. Well played, Mr. Boyle, well played.

Le Mans – Not Just For Boys

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

I don’t post about motorsport very often here because I get the impression that most of you are not very interested in it. However, I did want to mention a few things about this year’s Le Mans 24 hour race.

The race finished with a 1-2 victory for the Audi E-tron Quattro team. As you might guess from the name, these cars are hybrids.

The race was a second successive victory for the car and the driving team of Benoît Tréluyer, André Lotterer and Marcel Fässler. My interest, however, is in their race engineer. You have three drivers because it isn’t safe for anyone to drive for 24 hours non-stop. The race engineer, however, is the car’s manager and chief technical expert, and consequently has to be on the pit wall throughout the race. Take a bow, therefore, Leena Gade, also winning her second successive Le Mans. You can read more about her here.

Hopefully one day she’ll achieve her ambition to manage a Formula 1 team.

Perfection

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

San Francisco GiantsI am, of course, absolutely delighted for Matt Cain, and for all of my Giants fan friends. This is right up there with winning the World Series. I so wish I could have been there, or at least have been home watching it with Kevin.

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder what people (especially Americans) would say if I reported that a cricket match had taken place in which one side scored no runs. 😉

SF at the Olympics

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This article in today’s Observer annoys me in many ways. There’s the casual assumption that an intersex person who has been raised as a girl is “really” a man because some medical test says so. There’s the suggestion that Caster Semenya is only being allowed to compete (and rightly so in the eyes of the author) because she’s being forced to undergo some sort of treatment to render her less “male”. But eventually it goes way beyond this.

The main point that the author is making in this article is that some people have genetic advantages over others when it comes to sport, and that this is unfair and should not be allowed. At first sight that sounds crazy. Should we have labelled Joel Garner a “cheat” because he was taller than the average fast bowler? Then again, people have labelled Muralitharan a cheat because of his abnormal physiology.

The reason this is important, and relevant to science fiction, however, is that we are rapidly approaching the point where it will be possible to modify human embryos to add genes that are believed to lead to sporting success.

Sooner or later I’m sure there will be a version of athletics that is more akin to Formula 1, where success is very much a factor of how much effort and investment you put into the design of your equipment.

Winter Is Coming

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

It has snowed in parts of England today. Speculation on Twitter has been that this has something to do with the arrival of George R.R. Martin on these shores — he’s a Guest of Honour at Eastercon. However, I’ll be seeing George at a signing in Bath this evening, and there’s barely been a drop of rain, let alone snow, here.

A much more likely explanation for the bad weather is the Easter vacation. Public holidays rarely fail to bring out the worst in the British weather. There’s also the small matter of the start of the cricket season tomorrow. Should the pitch at Headingly be covered in snow, that will save Yorkshire from a drubbing at the hands of Kent. I expect the weather in Taunton to be fine, though not quite as warm as the welcome that Marcus and the boys will give Middlesex.

Spot Betting Scandal Hits British SF

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

The British Science Fiction Community was thrown into disarray this week after two undercover Guardian journalists, Alison Flood and Damien Walter, claimed to have obtained footage of a juror for the Arthur C. Clarke Award agreeing to fix the results of the short list in return for a substantial bribe. The affair is believe to be connected to a betting scam based on the popular Guess the Clarke Short List game run by the online gambling company, Vector. Flood and Walter say they have sent a copy of their evidence to the Metropolitan Police.

Mr. Tom Hunter, the Chief Executive of the Clarke Award, dismissed the allegations as nonsense. “This is just two desperate journalists making up a story for the muck-raking media”, he commented. “Flood and Walter have been camped outside my flat for weeks hoping to get a scoop on the short list before it was announced. Once I even caught Walter going through my waste bin, but I think that’s because journalists are so badly paid these days. I had just thrown away half a hot Cornish pasty. There will be more detailed allegations of misconduct in my forthcoming submission to the Leveson Inquiry.”

Political and religious figures have been quick to weigh in on the controversy. In Pakistan Imran Khan said he was not surprised about the allegations. “What can you expect from a country that gives literary awards to Salman Rushdie?”, he asked. Britain’s Prime Minister, Call-Me-Dave Cameron, hit back angrily. “It’s clearly not enough for Mr. Khan for his cricket team to have thrashed us 3-0 in the recent test series, now he has to rub it in by being rude about our science fiction awards too. I was so upset by his comments that I had to whip Clegg for almost half an hour before I could calm down. There is a word for this, and that word is ‘bullying’. I will be asking the United Nations to consider an emergency motion on the subject of cyber-bullying by politicians from foreign countries. And if Mr. Khan doesn’t apologize immediately I shall tell Mr. Obama on him and we’ll carpet-bomb a small Muslim nation into oblivion. So there!”

ArchbishopNewly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Paul Cornell, placed emphasis on the morality of gambling. “It seems that someone may have been very naughty here”, he said, “and in the Anglican Church, as of policy adopted at our last synod, we frown on naughtiness. People shouldn’t do it. I don’t have the eyebrows to frown as well as my illustrious predecessor, but frowning I am.”

Other religious leaders were less restrained. One such was Rev. Christopher Islander, the High Priest of the Wessex Baptist Church, a small fundamentalist sect whose tenets include the belief that the Israeli philosopher, Lavie Tidhar, is the new messiah. Islander’s church is quite popular amongst the London arts community where members are often known as “lavies” in recognition of their faith. Islander fulminated at length on the evils of the Clarke Award in his sermon this morning, calling for the jury to be burned at the stake and their remains thrown into a pit of boiling lava. He described the authors of the short-listed books as “demon-spawn”, “sons and daughters of Satan”, “avatars of Evil”, “a stinking pile of foetid LOLcat feces” and, more unusually, as “Internet puppies”. Members of the Wessex Church are now picketing the Clarke Award offices in St. Johns Wood waving placards that read “God Hates Dogs”.

God hates DogsNot everyone is impressed with Islander’s statements. Damien Walter claims to have a fresh scoop. “I paid a cat burglar to raid the offices of Rev. Islander’s psychiatrist”, he said. “I can now exclusively reveal that Islander is a frustrated science fiction writer. He’s been worried about declining membership of his church and thinks he will do better if he could emulate his idol, L. Ron Hubbard, and write blockbuster SF as well as found a religion.”

The Clarke Award jury has been largely silent on the matter, though Juliet McKenna did generously offer to meet Rev. Islander as discuss the matter with him privately over an Aikido mat.

The authors attacked by Islander have been more forthcoming. Sheri Tepper released a statement that was read to journalists for her by her secretary, a horse named Ed. The text was as follows:

“As I have often written, patriarchal religions of the sort led by Rev. Islander are a scourge upon the planet. For the good of all the species of Earth we should cull all male religious leaders like the pestilence they are. There can be no leniency, no exceptions.”

Charles Stross made no comment, but did let his tongue hang out and panted enthusiastically. His partner, Feòrag, commented happily, “this has done wonders for Charlie’s training. I lined his litter tray with photographs of Rev. Islander, and now his poop is on target every time.”

Speaking from his Seattle home, Greg “Killer B” Bear said, “I am so happy to have another excuse to go to Merrie Olde London. I love that city. It is so great to visit somewhere that hasn’t changed since the days of Dickens, Austen and Shakespeare. I’m really looking forward to seeing those great London landmarks such as Big Ben, Bucking Ham Palace, Stone Hinge and the Eiffel Tower. And if I meet that Islander guy there I’ll happily give him a bloody nose.”

The scandal has come to the attention of worldwide literary bodies. Speaking for the International Awards Association, Mr. Kevin Standlee called for a full and frank inquiry to be carried out by the England & Wales Science Fiction Board. “Corruption in literary awards will not be tolerated”, said Standlee. If the England & Wales Board cannot clear up this matter to our satisfaction then we may be forced to impose sanctions, up to and including denying their request to host the World Science Fiction Contest in London in 2014. If necessary we will relocate the event to Glasgow, a nearby city that has a distinguished record of hosting the event.

British fandom has also been discussing the scandal enthusiastically. Mr. Richard Bheerbhelly, who describes himself as a life-long BSFA member and someone who has attended every Eastercon since it was founded in 1833, was scathing in his condemnation of the Clarke. “I am delighted that this has been exposed at last”, he said. “I have suspected for some time that the Clarke was corrupt. Nothing else could explain the fact that fine science novels such as The Eye of Argon, March of the Robots, Battlefield Earth, Atlanta Nights and the Wheel of Time series have failed to win the Clarke. None of these jurors have any idea what true hard science fiction is.”

Another British fan, Mr. Jonathan Agnew, blamed America. “Our finest writers are being lured abroad to write in the American Premier Literary League for silly money. Everyone knows that the juries for the Hugos, Nebulas and Locus Awards are on the make. You only have to look at the luxurious, jet-setting lifestyle they lead to realize that they must be raking it in. No wonder our British lads and lasses are tempted.”

The UK publishing industry has been quick to cash in on the crisis. Noted science fiction satirist, A.R.R.R.R.R.R. Roberts, has been contracted to write a series of darkly humorous thrillers set in the high finance world of science fiction awards. The Clarke Inheritance is already written and in production, with The Clarke Legacy due to follow next week and several more sequels planned. The dashing young hero of the books, Tim Huntsman, fights an increasingly bizarre series of foreign plots against British science fiction while investigating the possibility that he is the secret son of Sir Arthur C. Clarke. A Hollywood studio has already taken out an option on the first book, though it is understood that the story will be changed for the movie so that it can be set in Los Angeles and feature the Hugo Awards instead of the Clarke.

Author Norman Nobbish, whose self-published novel, Cyber-Wolf Pirates of the Death Galaxy, was overlooked for this year’s Clarke, will be challenging the Award results in the courts. On his blog he said:

“Corruption in the Clarke has cost me million’s in unpayed royalty’s. I demand to be constipated not only for this but for the billon’s I wood have received from the movie that wood have been made from my book had I one as I deserved!!!”

Meanwhile Hunter is becoming increasingly frustrated with the affair. Speaking from in front of his office, and struggling to make himself heard above the constant chanting of “God Hates Dogs”, he said, “all of the work on this award is done by volunteers, and in this climate of fear no one is willing to help out. I have to go to my day job now, so I can’t talk to you any more. I need help. Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

[My apologies to non-UK readers who might not be 100% up on such urgent matters of British politics as betting scandals in cricket and PastyGate. I have tried to provide informative links where possible so as to establish the veracity of this story.]

Well Done Ireland!

~ Cheryl

It was the final day of the Twenty20 Qualifier Tournament today. Two matches were played. In the morning Ireland had a re-match with Namibia, and thrashed them by 9 wickets. That guaranteed them a place in the main event in September. In the afternoon they played Afghanistan for the tournament cup, and again they won. That puts them in Group B in the final tournament where they will play Australia and West Indies. Afghanistan, who were already qualified, will be in Group A with India and England.

Cricket – Almost Done

~ Cheryl

Sadly the USA did not end the tournament on a high, getting comprehensively beaten by Hong Kong in the 11th place playoff. Scotland, however, went out with a bang, beating Canada for 5th with a four off the last ball (and they needed all four of those runs).

Ireland comfortably beat Netherlands, and now face a re-match with Namibia to see who will get that second berth in the senior tournament.

Cricket – Into The Playoffs

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I’m pleased to report that the USA cricket team ended the tournament on a high, registering their third win as they beat Bermuda by 34 runs to secure 11th place overall.

Elsewhere Ireland crushed Canada by 10 wickets, but Scotland put up a tremendous fight against Netherlands. A couple of wickets in the 18th over put them in with a chance of an upset, but the Dutch tail managed to get them home.

Also today, Afghanistan played Nambia for the right to immediate entry into the main tournament. The Afghans won, so they will play in Sri Lanka in September. They also go directly to the tournament final. Ireland now play Netherlands. The winner of that will play Namibia. And the winner of that will book a trip to Sri Lanka and play off against Afghanistan for the tournament cup.

USA Beats Scotland at Cricket

~ Cheryl

Yes, you did read that right. The final round of the group stages of the World Twenty20 Qualifiers took place today, and USA registered their second win of the tournament (the other being against hapless minnows, Oman). Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to get them into the playoffs. It was, however, just enough to lift them above Uganda on net run rate, so they finished 6th in their group. On Thursday they will play Bermuda, who were 6th in the other group, for 11th place overall.

Scotland, meanwhile, should not be too disappointed. They managed to qualify for the playoffs, as did Canada. The two group winners were Afghanistan and Namibia, while Netherlands and Ireland took the runners-up spots. By next week we should know which two teams get to play with the big boys in Sri Lanka later this year.

T20 Qualifiers: Day 3

~ Cheryl

Meanwhile, back at the cricket…

Today’s top game was Italy v Ireland. The Irish just squeaked home with two balls and two wickets to spare.

Scotland registered their second win, against Uganda. Afghanistan thrashed Denmark while Canada dealt out a similar thumping to Hong Kong. The Americans fought bravely against highly fancied Namibia but lost by 17 runs.

Netherlands also had a tough game against Bermuda, but came through it OK. Kenya won the battle of the minnows against Oman, and Papua New Guinea got on the board at last by beating Nepal. Geraint had a good game, being second-top scorer and taking a stumping.

I’ll be on the road for the next three days and probably won’t be able to keep up with developments, so if you are interested you should check out CricInfo.

Cricket Report

~ Cheryl

The big game today was Netherlands v Afghanistan. It was a close-fought affair that ended with Afghanistan getting the winning runs with just 2 balls to spare, and 4 wickets in hand.

Ireland got their campaign back on track today with a 10-wicket thrashing of Kenya.

USA had a much better day, but fell just short of beating the very interesting Italian side.

Namibia continued their good run with a comfortable win over Scotland.

Geraint had a much better game today, but Papua New Guinea fell just short of beating Canada.

Nepal is emerging as a team to watch, with two good wins over Hong Kong and Denmark. Uganda are also unbeaten, having disposed of Oman today.

Cricket: it is a World Sport

~ Cheryl

For the next two weeks an international cricket tournament is taking place in the UAE. It is a qualifying event for the World Twenty20 tournament that will happen in Sri Lanka in September. All of the top cricketing nations: England, Australia, India, and so on, have been seeded into the main tournament. This event will give two lucky minnows a chance to try their luck against the big boys.

There are teams from all over. We have the USA and Canada, Ireland and Scotland, Italy and Denmark, Kenya and Uganda. Here are a few highlights.

The defending champions are Afghanistan who caused a huge surprise last time around. They kicked off with a comfortable win over Papua New Guinea.

The Netherlands are also hot favorites to get through, though they appear to be without their star, Ryan ten Doeschate, who is widely acknowledged as the best player from outside the main cricketing nations. He has a lucrative contract playing in South Africa and didn’t make himself available. The Dutch kicked off with a comfortable win over Canada.

Ireland are also hoping to do well after their upset win over England last year. Sadly they got off to a poor start, losing to Namibia by just 4 runs.

The dark horses of the tournament may be Italy. You don’t normally associate them with cricket, but their side includes Michael Di Venuto who was born in Tasmania and has for some years been a mainstay of the hugely successful Durham side. He has done very well for my fantasy cricket team too. Today the Italians thrashed Oman by 9 wickets.

The USA probably don’t stand much chance, and they have not done themselves any favors today by losing narrowly to Uganda. They might beat Oman though, and Kenya, also in their group, look vulnerable. USA-Scotland could be fun.

You may be wondering where the Welsh team is. Well, they are seeded, because the team that people usually call “England” represents the England & Wales Cricket Board. Welsh players are all qualified to play for “England”, and many have. One, Tony Lewis, captained the side. There is, however, one Welsh player in the tournament. Geraint Jones, who kept wicket for England for several years, was born in Papua New Guinea. He didn’t have a good game today, but I’ll be keeping an eye on him.

Sports Documentaries

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Over the weekend I finished watching a few DVDs I need to send to Kevin. Two of those were sports documentaries: Ken Burns’ Tenth Inning and Stevan Riley’s Fire in Babylon. Both are notable for using sport a a lens with which to examine social history.

There’s an interview with Burns in the extras for Tenth Inning in which he says he sees Baseball as a kind of sequel to his famous series about the American Civil War. Both of them are projects that examine American history. Tenth Inning fits right into that theory. Although it is fairly recent history, the Dot Com Boom and 9/11 are well worth historical examination, and once again baseball proves a fascinating lens through which to do so.

Fire in Babylon takes us to another part of the American continent, and another sport. It celebrates the creation and 15-year domination of the great West Indies test side. The stars of the show include Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Michael Holding and Bunny Wailer. I loved it, especially the extra that is made from a series of interviews with Sir Geoffrey, Lord Gower and Imran Khan where they talk about having to face up to the West Indies pace attack. If any of my American friends want to know why I think baseball players are a bit wussy (though I now understand the game much better than I did when I wrote this) they should watch this documentary.

A brief warning for my West Indian friends. There’s one extra that is an interview with cricket historian David Frith. He’s so smarmy and vile that you may end up wanting to punch your TV. I know I did. Thankfully the main film makes it very clear how West Indies developed their pace attack as a response to the physical battering they took from Lillee and Thomson, and the racist abuse they got from the Australian crowds, in 1975, and this exposes Frith’s comments beautifully.

Bloody English

~ Cheryl

Here is how the BBC is reporting the state of the Six Nations table after the first weekend’s matches.

Six Nations Table

Of course it could just be incompetence. How else are they going to explain this (from the same page)?

Illiterate

Couldn’t follow Sam Warburton’s thick Welsh accent, perhaps?

Respect

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

It has been a busy day here, full of minor annoyances, so I’ve not had time to write anything much. However, I would like to give a quick shout out to a couple of people who have done good things recently.

Firstly, Michael Clarke, captain of the Australian cricket team, who was well on his way to setting a new world record for runs scored in an individual innings of a test match, but chose to declare his team’s innings closed in order to make sure he had plenty of time to win the match. Good show, Puppy, even us Poms are impressed.

And secondly to Mr. Hornswoggler, a.k.a. Andrew Wheeler, for this rather fine review of Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief. From one reviewer to another, well done, sir.

An American At Lords

~ Cheryl

A couple of days ago I was pointed to this long essay by ESPN reporter, Wright Thompson. He’d been sent to cover the England-India test match at Lords last summer, and found the experience fascinating. There is much good in the article. Thompson is great at getting across how antiquated and stuffy Lords can be, and how ridiculous the MCC members look. He’s also spot on about the Tendulkar/Dravid phenomenon. He does get rather side-tracked at times, which is perhaps appropriate for anything that mentions Test Match Special and the inimitable Henry Blofeld. But the more I thought about what he wrote, the more I felt that he didn’t really understand test cricket, or baseball either.

Much of the article is, in fact, a standard piece of modern technophobia. Back in the 19th Century, journalists worked themselves into a frenzy over the possibility that people would die traveling in trains because our bodies simply weren’t designed to move that fast. Naturally they could find reputable doctors willing to attest that this was a very real danger. These days the favorite story is that the Internet and smart phones will make us dumb: if we use them too much we will never be able to concentrate on anything that lasts more than a few seconds again. As this manifestly isn’t true for most people, the current line is that it will only affect people who are born in the digital age. Naturally there are experts willing to swear that this is a very real danger. In a few years time no one will be able to read a novel, or watch a test match.

Well, I confess that I did spread my re-watch of The Lord of the Rings over three days because a whole twelve hour movie was a bit much, but I don’t think I’m a cabbage yet, despite my intensive use of Twitter. And I still follow test cricket, despite loving T20.

There’s a pervasive myth that baseball is a high-intensity, thrill-a-minute sport, whereas cricket is slower than watching paint dry. It doesn’t surprise me to hear British people trot this out, but I’m somewhat agog that an American who has watched both games could think this. As anyone who has seen more than a few games knows, much of the enjoyment of baseball comes from things not happening. Games in which one side doesn’t score any runs are common. Games in which one side is prevented from making any hits are celebrated. A game in which both pitchers got through nine innings without giving up a hit would probably be celebrated as the Best Game Ever, though this being baseball they’d play on until someone won, even if it took another three hours.

It is true that T20 was designed to last the same amount of time as a baseball game. But this wasn’t to replicate the energy of baseball, it was because it meant that you could stage the game in an evening, after work. The average baseball game sees 9 runs scored. The average T20 game sees around 300 runs scored. Which game sounds like it has more action?

The two sports have a number of similarities that become obvious if you watch Ken Burns’ fabulous documentaries (including the newly released 10th Inning). Both sports have a love of history. Both are absolutely obsessed with statistics, baseball probably more so because plays are called off the field rather than by the fielding captain so it is much easier to check stats before making a decision. And the frisson of horror that ran through baseball during the McGwire/Sosa home run fest was very similar to the panics that hard core cricket fans have over the six-hitting in T20, again possibly more so because of the open secret that performance-enhancing drugs were involved.

But what about this five-day thing. Americans would never watch a game that lasts that long, would they? Well, actually they do, it just doesn’t seem like it.

Almost all baseball games are played as part of a series. Mostly fans pay little attention to the outcome of series during the regular season because they are more focused on the overall record of their team, and its place in the standings. Once you get to the playoffs, however, it is the series, not the game, that matters.

A playoff series is played over several days, in both teams’ ballparks, with different starting pitchers each night. It is good to get the better of your opponents in an individual day’s play, but ultimately only the series result matters. The playoffs take place later in the year, at a time when the weather is most likely to affect games. Even the time of day matters, as anyone who has watched one of the idiotic 4:00pm start matches at Emperor Norton Field can attest. At that time of day the angle of the sun over the park, and the shadows it creates, makes batting almost impossible (which is reminiscent of the infamous “sun stops play” incident at Derby a few years ago). The World Series of Baseball is, in effect, a single game played over seven days (with breaks for travel).

Of course it doesn’t feel like that, because at the end of each day’s play one team or the other can say that it won. Also each day’s game (normally) only lasts about 3 hours, not 6 as in a day’s cricket. But the real attraction of both the World Series and test match is not what happens on an individual day, it is the developing story. It is the ebb and flow of fortunes, the changing conditions from day to day, the different individuals who come to the fore each day, the chance for redemption tomorrow if you mess up today.

Any writer will tell you that there is so much more that you can do in a novel than in a short story. The same is true of sport. Cricket has short forms, and baseball has regular season games, but for both sports the pinnacle of achievement comes in a contest that develops over several days. And in both cases the serious fans are glued to the developing story. I think that has always been the case, and always will be.

Rugby – Down to the Wire

~ Cheryl ~ 7 Comments

The first couple of weeks of the Rugby World Cup are a bit dull for the casual fan, especially from the nations with better teams. Basically the group stage is all about letting teams like the USA, Japan and Russia get games against top flight opposition, and giving the likes of Scotland, Italy and Argentina a chance to prove that they are not so poor as people might think. There’s generally space for one of them at the top table, and Argentina bagged it again.

There is also the question of automatic qualification for next time. Tonga, Scotland, Italy and Samoa picked up those slots.

For everyone left in the tournament, however, things have got serious. Here’s how the quarter-finals line up:

Wales v Ireland
England v France
South Africa v Australia
New Zealand v Argentina

The final game is the easy one to call. New Zealand are the hosts and favorites; Argentina are gutsy but not in the same league. But there’s one big wild card. The All Blacks have lost their talismanic fly half, Dan Carter, to injury. Fly half is the rugby equivalent of a quarterback, so think of how the Colts have imploded without Peyton Manning. His backups are less than stellar. Colin Slade was given an outing in an earlier game and looked terrified. I like Aaron Cruden a bit better, but he’s inexperienced. The question that everyone in the UK is asking is, “what the heck is Nick Evans doing still in England?” If New Zealand fail to win this tournament it will probably be because of Carter’s injury and their rule of not picking anyone who doesn’t play his club rugby for a home-based side.

Defending champions, South Africa, have had a very poor year by their usual high standards. They got some almighty drubbings in the Tri-Nations, but that was mainly because their head coach, Peter de Villiers, was keeping his best players under wraps for the World Cup. Australia won the Tri-Nations, but have been disappointing at the tournament. They also have a lot of good players out with injury. Fond as I am of the Wallabies, I’m pretty sure that the Bokke will grind their way into the semi-finals.

The England-France game is a battle of two disaster zones. England’s play thus far has been very poor, and their head coach, Martin Johnson, seems to have been spending more time defending his players for their drunken antics off-field, and in disciplinary hearings for serious foul play and breaches of the kit sponsorship rules, than he has getting them to improve their form. England have conceded more penalties than any other team. France, meanwhile, have been terrible, culminating in an embarrassing loss to Tonga. The papers are full of stories of how Marc Lievremont has lost the confidence of his players and has no idea who to pick. The good news for French supporters, however, is that their team is famously mercurial. They can pull a brilliant performance out at any time. England teams, in contrast, tend to take a long time to turn around.

The game to watch is undoubtedly Ireland v Wales. The Irish are in fine form, coming off a famous win over Australia. In O’Driscoll and O’Gara they have masses of experience, and in O’Brien and Heaslip two of the best loose forwards in the tournament. Wales are equally on a charge. They missed beating the Bokke by just 1 point, and have scored the second highest number of points after the All Blacks. They have a young team that looks to be fitter than anyone and brimming with confidence. This one should be a cracker. See you on Twitter, Irish pals.