Left Coast Sports Babe

So now Americans have to return to their regular sports, and give up on being temporary experts on sports they only care about every four years.

But for fans of spectacular dives…there’s still hope with the Cubs.

–

The Olympics are especially fun for fans who like to see underdogs come out of nowhere to win.  But now that they are over baseball fans are ready to get back to reality and another Red Sox-Yankees pennant race…

–

And baseball won’t be a part of the London Olympics.    Though an Olympic committee may decide to reinstate it in 2016.   If they don’t, the U.S. is considering suggesting some other sports that we could do well in… for example, our sprint relay teams would love a “Dodge-baton” event.

Colorado is a swing state.  So while in Denver, Barack Obama will be trying hard to connect with the state’s residents.  While John McCain is still trying to remember if he has a house there.

–

The Democrats chose Denver for their convention partly because they have hopes of winning Colorado in November.

John McCain, on the other hand, is hoping that Colorado residents will remember his support of their petition for statehood.

–

Barack Obama’s campaign sent the text message announcing Joe Biden as his running mate at 300a.

Wonder if Hillary was awake to get it?

He’s been in the the Senate long enough to remember when McCain WAS a Maverick.

–

If McCain picks Romney will the slogan be “Change from what we believed in?”

–

This spring John McCain launched his campaign tour of the “forgotten places” in America.

Who knew he was talking about his houses?

–

Well, now we know in the opening ceremony why no members of the US Olympic relay teams were asked to carry the flag.

–

Of course, they have been offered spots in future A T and T commercials.   You don’t need to drop a call to ruin your whole day.

–
Any truth to the rumor that the U.S. relay teams have been sponsored by FEMA?

–

While watching Canadian woman Emilie Heymans win the silver medal in platform diving, we all heard the commentators marvel at how little splash the Chinese girls made on their dives.  Of course, the first step – start out being about 50 pounds.

–

Four horses –  and their riders – were suspended from the Olympic games because they allegedly tested positive for a banned derivative of chili peppers.  Chili peppers?  Given the results for the Jamaican sprinters, does this mean jerk chicken may end up on the forbidden performance enchancing list?

Apparently Republican presidential candidate John McCain is not sure how many houses he actually owns.  Well, in the current economy and with the mortgage market this gives him something in common with many Americans.  Of course, in most of these cases their answer is one, or none.

Now that John McCain has embraced conservative positions on everything from choice to taxes to oil drilling, shouldn’t his slogan be changed from “The Original Maverick” to “Originally, the Maverick.”

–

Or if he wants to borrow and vary a phrase from Barack Obama, what about “Change from what I believed in?”

–

Who knew Joe Lieberman would turn out to be  the Hebrew translation of  Zell Miller?

–

John McCain asked Joe Lieberman to speak at  the Republican National Convention.  His original choice was apparently not available, an old Naval Academy buddy named Benedict Arnold.

After winning eight gold medals, Michael Phelps received a call from George W. Bush. 

But after winning a silver medal, despite having a score that tied for first, Nastia Lukin got a call too, from Al Gore.

One reason that baseball may be dropped as an Olympic sport is that the best athletes in the sport don’t play because it is during the regular Major League season.

–

Two solutions?

–

Play baseball in the winter Olympics?  Makes as much sense as playing basketball during the summer.  And there are domed stadiums.  (Heck, the Vancouver Olympics could borrow Safeco field.) 

–

Or do a modified draft.  Each team can protect 10 players, each team also has to contribute one player for a few weeks to a month.    For an incentive, the league whose players perform best could get say, home field advantage in the World Series?   (Not that Major League Bbaseball would ever allow their “Fall Classic”  to be influenced by what are basically exhibition games..)

The Canadian Olympic Committee asking their federal government for $30 million a year through 2012 to help implement its Road to Excellence program, so Canada can win more gold medals in London:

Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more effective to offer $10 million a year to Michael Phelps to become a Canadian citizen?

–

Chad Johnson left a preseason game today with a possible injured shoulder.  If he’s out for any length of time will the Bengals receiver be known as “Oucho Cinco?”

–
President Bush called Michael Phelps after his record breaking wins.  The President was particularly impressed with that seventh gold.  He didn’t realize in a tight race you actually needed to finish first to win.

–

John McCain feels he had a good week while Barack Obama was somewhat out of the public eye on a week’s vacation in Hawaii.    But what McCain is really looking forward to is the next two weeks, when  President Bush will be on vacation in Texas.

NBC is getting great ratings on the Olympics.  Bad news for Conan O’Brien: the network is now thinking of replacing Jay Leno with Michael Phelps.

–

And for the second straight Olympics, American shooter Matt Emmons has lost both the lead and any medal with a horrendous final shot.  On the brighter side, he has improved his chances of growing up to be vice president.

No, this isn’t a discussion of why this is an Olympic sport at all.  Though the question has crossed my mind.

But today, the U.S. Men’s team almost lost to the Swiss team.

Switzerland has a beach volleyball team?  They must have found time to practice while serving in the Swiss Navy.

–

Hard to believe after all the money and effort expended into the Olympics, that they will be over by the end of the month. Sort of like the Yankees’ season.

So while the Midwest and the East Coast see many Olympic marquee events live, on the left coast we end up having to stay up until 1am or later, to see tape-delayed events on NBC that finished 3 hours earlier.

I mean, come on, they don’t tape delay the World Series or the Super Bowl, do they?

Guess I’d better not give the networks any ideas.

–

The U.S. Basketball Olympic team has become known to Americans as the “Redeem” team. 

As opposed to John Edwards and Joe Lieberman, who have become known to Democrats as the :”Unredeemable” team.

–

There’s a new cocktail honoring the Chinese women’s gymnastics team.

It’s small, pretty, potent, and makes you feel like a kid again.  But the next morning when you wake up, you feel years older.

A possible steroids scandal was averted for the Chinese women’s gymnastics team when items taken from their tote bags turned out not to be “the cream” and “the clear.”

Instead, the items turned out to be diaper ointment and teething gel.

President Bush is still following the games from back in Washington, DC,  though he gets a bit confused sometimes.

Like Tuesday, when Benjamin Boukpeti won the first  Summer Games medal for his African country in the single kayak.  Apparently when Bush read the results “Bronze: Togo,”  his response was “”To go, is China having the rest of the medals delivered?”

 –

ABC’s Cokie Roberts criticized Barack Obama for vacationing in a “foreign, exotic place.”

The Hawaii visitor’s board was so upset they warned Ms. Roberts if she plans a visit they may well deny her visa.

–

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev now says that his country has done enough to Georgia  for  its attack on South Ossetia.

“The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized,” he said.

Is that Russian for “mission accomplished?”  

–

Despite widespread accusations that the Chinese women gymnasts are underage,  the other Olympic gymnastic teams are being good sports.   In fact, several of them have approached China and, when the competition is over, offered to babysit.

.

“

As a left-coaster, I cannot wait for the Vancouver Olympics, where NBC can show everything live.

But upon further reflection, of course the events will be tape-delayed on the West Coast.

–

Poor George W.  He had to leave before the water polo started.  Apparently our President was really looking forward to seeing those swimming horses.

–
The new system in gymnastics has resulted in the official scoring decisions taking an incredibly long time.  Even Brett Favre is saying “make up your minds already.”

–

President. Bush was asked if he has talked to Vladimir Putin about the situation in Georgia.  George W. said for some reason that the Prime Minister didn’t seem to take him seriously when he said that you just can’t go around invading countries that are not threatening you.

There are accusations that the Chinese girl gymnasts are younger than 16, which makes them younger than the minimum age to compete.

But the Chinese government denies the rumors, and says their  IDs say they are 16.    Well, sure,  as any college student in the US knows, that must be true then.

The Chinese deny that any of their female gymnasts are underage.  And they say that  it is just a coincidence that the team totes their stuff in diaper bags.

–

They also say that it is only to learn English that the women say their favorite American television program is “Sesame Street.”

–

The situation is getting worse and worse between Russia and Georgia.    Today John McCain said on top of everything else, he hopes it doesn’t cause tension on the Soviet Olympic team.

–

Early Sunday evening, NBC ran women’s synchronized diving, followed by the women’s gymnastics floor exercises.  And all over America, men turned to their wives and said “Honey, maybe this would be a good night for me to finally come with you to see Mamma Mia..”

–

And finally, from Bill Littlejohn —

The Lakers have signed Chinese point guard Sun Yue. If he and Kobe end up in the backcourt, it’ll be Yue and Me”

Bill Clinton has been causing more controversy by still refusing to say that Barack Obama is ready for the White House..

Although after this week, he does say that he now feels John Edwards is ready for the White House.

–

John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is apparently going to be short, less than 20 minutes.  McCain says this is because the best speech he has heard in his life was also short, the one given by Lincoln at Gettysburg.

–

Or-  John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is apparently going to be a short one.  Apparently he feels it would be better to deliver it without a bathroom break.

Olympic souvenirs are selling well in Beijing, and the Chinese are thrilled.   They can sell both sell junk to Americans AND  save on shipping charges.

–

jetBlue is now selling pillows and blankets to their customers for $7.00.   United Airlines has a better idea, however, they are going to sell a larger pillow and blanket to their customers, and then charge them $25.00 to check them on the way home.

Thursday night NBC aired their Olympic ad, “How often is that the entire world can share a moment as it happens?”
Then they ran another ad for their tape-delayed broadcast of the opening ceremonies Friday night.

While in Thailand, President Bush gave a speech gently  chiding China for its human rights violations. He might have  gone on longer but he had to deal with a call from some
advisers about Guantanamo.