a blog by Ian Kennedy
From mlb.com, reporting on yesterday’s first round baseball draft picks:
Yankees top pick Ian Kennedy was one of four right-handers selected in the first five rounds Tuesday.
I’d like to wish the best of luck to the other Ian Kennedy, I’m pulling for you. I’ve been following his budding baseball career as part of a Technorati search and look forward to his continued success. My friends who follow the Red Sox have already said it’s going to be hard to get used to rooting against me.
Apple & Nike launched a new joint service that combines a wireless sensor that you put in your running shoes that uploads pace and distance data to your iPod Nano which you listen to while you run. After your run, you can sync with your nikeplus.com account and share your stats with other nikeplus.com members. Nike is also making special shoes with the sensors built in available in mid-July.
It’s worth looking at the video on the nikeplus site. Apple and Nike have done this integration very well and there are many little touches that make it clear that they’ve thought this through very carefully. On the nike site there’s an audio clip of Lance Armstrong talking about how listening to music helps him power through his workout and then there’s a link to the iTunes store where you can eventually purchase Lance’s “Sport iMix.” This channel might even kick off a whole new genre of Sport Music Playlists.
Looking forward to when Apple hooks up with someone for a cyclists’ version. My mix tape of the Cocteau Twins & Sundays helped push me over the Pyrenees.
Those of you who follow sports on a regular basis probably already know this but if you’re like me and haven’t had the time to catch up on your TiVo backlog of Olympic coverage, Yahoo’s got a great micro-site which pulls it all together for you. Turin 2006 Winter Olympics on Yahoo! Sports has been specially formatted to host larger format photos (today’s shot is a great example), exclusive analysis, and also features RSS feeds of the latest news and medal counts.
Slate’s got a column titled, Stealers, on how the refs handed the Steeler’s the Super Bowl victory and Joe Beulaurier over on the Unofficial Yahoo Blog writes about a snap poll on Yahoo Sports where you could make your voice heard right after the play.
Tyler and I had the good fortune to catch the Harlem Globetrotters when they were at the Oakland Coliseum last Friday. Our neighbor works at and ad agency and they had a few extra comp tickets that got us right up close. Our seats were only five rows back and from there, Tyler spotted a classmate who had courtside seats (where this photo was taken).
They were just as good as I remembered them when I went to see them at Madison Square Garden when I was Tyler’s age. Amazing ball tricks and some cool stunts with a trampoline, a three-way lay up which I caught on video.
I’m not much of a golfer. I never did understand the attraction of hitting a little white ball around and then, as is usually my case, looking for it in the bushes. I never gave the sport a chance when I was young and had a chance to get into it. I guess patience comes with age and I’m now beginning to appreciate what people see in the sport. The singular focus, you and the terrain, and the satisfaction when you do make good contact, that ping of the club against that little white ball.
There’s a public golf course about a half mile from our house and on Saturday my neighbor was taking his boys over to whack a bucket of balls at the range. Tyler and I tagged along (99 balls cost you $8) and Izumi let me borrow her clubs (she’s got a cute, pink driver that’s
real fun to use). It was Tyler’s first time at a range and he did pretty well. He did lament that there were, “no windmills” like the mini-golf place down on the Santa Cruz boardwalk but, nonetheless, he enjoyed himself.
I also go a few good shots out there and, after hearing a round of 18 holes is only $25 for Alameda residents, think I may try to get myself out there one of these days. They give free lessons to kids on the weekends and it looked like Tyler had a thing for this club and ball thing so maybe we’ll get him out there as well!
Today was Tyler’s last day of soccer. This was his third season and he’s come a long way. They still don’t keep score so I’m not sure of their record but I’m pretty sure the Alameda Lions were more interested in the snacks at the end of each game than the actual play. There’s still occasional confusion on which way they’re going and the players tend to “clump” together around the ball but they seem to have fun anyway.
Afterwards, we all met up at a local pizza joint to hand out the “participant” trophies where the kids all got up on stage and screamed out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” for some reason.
The SF Chronicle Bay Area section is always good for a personal interest storty or two. Yesterday’s paper had an amazing tale of two rough cut fishermen who survived the capsizing of their fishing boat a couple miles out beyond the Golden Gate. They clung to their overturned boat through the night in freezing water as wave after wave soaked them in the freezing water. Despite the dire circumstances, they kept their sense of humor:
“But we hung in there. After our first few swamps we got a routine down: We’d duck, and the wave would go over us rather than swamping us over. And we were trying to encourage each other: ‘The city’s getting bigger.’ ‘No, it isn’t, you’re just blowing smoke up my ass.’
They finally got close enough to make the swim to shore and staggered through traffic until they finally got the attention of someone that lent them their cellphone so they could call 911.
When he reached the emergency dispatcher, “They said, ‘We’ve been looking for you.’ I said, ‘You have? We’ve been looking for you too.’
They love their work and are looking forward to saving up the $15k they need to buy another boat and get back out there.
Six Apart has a partnership with Major League Baseball to enable their fans to keep blogs. It’s been an amazing glimpse into America’s #1 obsession to see how many different perspectives people have on the sport. Every now and then I check back to see what’s new and today see that they’re featuring a blog by a guy that’s collected over 2,600 baseballs. He gives tips on the fine art of getting yourself a game ball.
I can usually tell where a ball is heading by the way it sounds coming off the bat. During batting practice, I sometimes have to ignore the batter for a pitch or two to label a ball that I just caught. While I’m looking down, I listen for the crack of the bat, and I know whether or not I need to look up. There’s a distinct difference in the sound between a ball that’s pulled versus one that’s hit to the opposite field.
The Baseball Collector