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May 16, 2008

Saturday Sports I Missed

Big Brown won the 133rd Preakness Stakes today by 5 1/2 lengths, and it wasn't that close. Coming out of the final turn, Brown showed he had one, possibly two gears that the other horses just don't have. Running three-wide, with Big Brown on the outside, Brown just effortlessly pulled away from the rest of the pack. Jockey Kent Desormeaux looked back with about 1/16 to go, saw little but turf, and slowed the horse up for the rest of the stretch run.

The race isn't on YouTube yet, but you can see the same sort of explosive speed on display at the Florida Derby, the horse's final race before the Kentucky Derby:

In a way, it's a shame that this is Big Brown's year. The field he's racing against isn't the strongest, and you'd really like to see a Triple Crown winner who's tested in all three races. The Belmont may still pose a challenge though: other owners may run long-distance specialists to try to stop history from being made. Nevertheless, Secretariat didn't exactly beat a field of all-stars in any of his races, and 35 years later, is still fairly well thought of.

As for lacrosse, Virginia got by Maryland today 8-7 in the NCAA quarterfinals. The two had split during the regular season, but Virginia, who's been first or second most of the year, won it in overtime this year. Their opponent will probably be Syracuse, who faces Notre Dame, and whom Virginia beat 14-13 in overtime on a neutral field back in March.

The other side of the bracket features perennial representative of evil, Johns Hopkins, and newly-minted representative of evil, Duke. Duke has gone from being the joke of the ACC 10 years ago to being a national powerhouse, and Virginia lost to them twice this year. Best outcome of next Saturday - a U.Va.-Hopkins final. Worst outcome: Duke-Syracuse.

Lacrosse used to have 3 or 4 competitive teams among a field of 8 perennial powerhouses. But lacrosse has been getting more competitive, with all four ACC schools making the field of 16, and every quarterfinalist had a reasonable shot at the title.

May 29, 2006

Annual Lacrosse Posting

Once a year or so, usually on or just after Memorial Day, I write something about lacrosse. This year, Virginia's in the championship game against upstart UMass. Apparently, Virginia's offense this year is to Div I lacrosse what Magic & Bird were to the college basketball game in 1979: resurrecting passing. They pass often and they pass hard, and they've got four or five guys who can shoot, which makes being anywhere near the crease on defense eligible for extra combat pay. UMass's defense has been terrific in the tournament, though, and they've been beating good teams, so a win this year is far from a given.

I was sorry (heh, no, really) to see Hopkins get knocked out in the quarterfinals. The natural order of things is for Virginia, Hopkins, North Carolina, and either Cornell or Maryland to be playing in the Final Four. Then again, if I'm drawing the Natural Order of Things from the 70s and early 80s, Virginia usually lost the championship game in overtime, so maybe a little Syracue or Princeton now and then isn't a bad thing.

I also see where the University of Denver made the tournament this year, promptly losing in the first round. Still, it's a start. Colorado is hotspot of lacrosse in a desert of football football football, and this year, CSU beat CU for the A Level club-level championship. Club sports aren't eligible to participate in the varsity tournament, which is why the Colorado schools don't play the eastern schools during the year. We'll see if CU or CSU see DU's move into the tournament as challenge to go varsity.

This comes on the heels of the Colorado Mammoth winning the indoor lacrosse championship, which is to real lacrosse what Arena football is to real football, Japanese baseball is to real baseball, or soccer is to real sports. So it's good and logical that the professional outdoor lacrosse league has finally expanded here to Denver. Of course, half the team is from Hopkins, which says that it's easier for Virginia grads to get real jobs, I suppose.

Now, if we could only get them to play some of their games on Sundays...



  booklist

Power, Faith, and Fantasy


Six Days of War


An Army of Davids


Learning to Read Midrash


Size Matters


Deals From Hell


A War Like No Other


Winning


A Civil War


Supreme Command


The (Mis)Behavior of Markets


The Wisdom of Crowds


Inventing Money


When Genius Failed


Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking


Back in Action : An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith and Fortitude


How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?


Good to Great


Built to Last


Financial Fine Print


The Day the Universe Changed


Blog


The Multiple Identities of the Middle-East


The Case for Democracy


A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam


The Italians


Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory


Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures


Reading Levinas/Reading Talmud