It happened at the home of Luca di Montezemolo’s daughter after Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One title last weekend. From Reuters-
MILAN (Reuters) – Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo smashed a television set after seeing McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton snatch the Formula One world title from Felipe Massa in last weekend’s season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix.
“I broke the television, I must tell the truth,” Montezemolo told a news conference at a Ferrari event in Mugello on Sunday.
“When a television breaks it makes a terrible bang. My daughter in the other room was given an awful fright. Luckily we had another television so I was able to watch the podium ceremony, which I enjoyed.”
Ferrari’s Massa won his home grand prix and was poised for championship victory before Hamilton overtook a slowing Timo Glock on the final bend to finish in the fifth place he needed to clinch the title.
“I reckon that in the history of F1, we have never seen a world championship decided on the last bend of the last lap of the last grand prix,” added Montezemolo, who saw Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen steal the title last season in the final race.
“Miracles, when they happen, usually only happen once. I say that because last year was a miracle. A repeat is usually impossible. In Brazil, with Massa, we were in the process of producing another miracle.”
Normal grown men don’t smash television sets. I suggest Luca di Montezemolo take some anger management classes.
The caption for the above photo reads-
Ferrari’s President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo smiles as he arrives for the third practice session at Monza racetrack in Monza, Italy, September 8, 2007.
He was a key member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 40′s and early 50′s. His best year was 1951, when he went 22-3. What was Dodger Manager Charlie Dressen thinking in the famous ‘shot around the world’ game when he pulled Don Newcombe only to put in Ralph Branca. Branca hadn’t just pitched two days earlier but had given up numerous gopher balls to Bobby Thomson. I think 7 alone in 1951. Yes Branca gave the Dodgers the platoon advantage, but based on everything else Preacher Roe was the best available option. Roe, wasn’t used at all in the 3-game series versus the New York Giants. RIP.
Roe died Sunday in West Plains, Mo., said the funeral home handling the arrangements. His own Web site listed his age as 92 — other reference materials differed by a year or two.
Roe went 127-84 in a 12-year career with the Dodgers, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. But it was in Booklyn, where he played alongside the likes of Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Ralph Branca and others at Ebbets Field, where he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim.
Though those Dodgers teams of the 1940s and 1950s won only one World Series — Roe was part of three teams that lost to the New York Yankees — they became a beloved part of the borough. And Roe, a skinny left-hander and mathematics teacher from a small town in Arkansas, was among the fan favorites in the big city.
“He enjoyed playing the role of a country bumpkin, but he wasn’t one,” Branca recalled by phone Monday night. “He was real smart and real crafty on the mound.
“He threw two pitches, a slider and his ‘Beech-Nut slider.’ Beech-Nut was a gum we all chewed back then. He knew how to use that juice to get that ball all wet,” he said.
After retiring, Roe admitted in a Sports Illustrated story that he had benefited for years by throwing a spitball.
Like his age, there was no pinning down exactly how Elwin Charles Roe got his nickname. According to one family story, he dubbed himself “Preacher” at a young age because he admired a local preacher.
Branca remembered it differently.
“We all called him ‘Preacher’ because he could talk your ear off,” he said. “If there was no one around, he would talk to the wall.”
Roe led the NL in strikeouts in 1945 with Pittsburgh. He posted his best season in 1951, going 22-3 for the Dodgers — he did not, however, start in the three-game pennant playoff with the New York Giants, capped by Bobby Thomson’s famous home run.
Roe helped put the Dodgers into the World Series in 1949, 1952 and 1953. He started a game in each of those matchups with the Yankees, going 2-1 and completing all three outings.
Known for his sharp control, Roe finished with a career 3.43 ERA and pitched 101 complete games.
Roe made his big league debut with St. Louis in 1938 and pitched only once for the Cardinals. He spent the next several years in the minors and returned to the majors with Pittsburgh in 1944.
Roe’s path stalled for a few years following a brawl back home in Arkansas. He was coaching a girls’ high school basketball team, got into a dispute with a referee and, according to local stories, wound up with a fractured skull.
“He wouldn’t fly with us,” Branca said. “It made his head hurt. He always took the train.”
The Pirates traded Roe, infielder Billy Cox and reserve Gene Mauch to Brooklyn for former star outfielder Dixie Walker and two other players after the 1947 season.
Roe retired after going 3-4 in 1954 and later owned a grocery store in West Plains. He often attended the Dodgers’ adult baseball camps at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla.
A David Booth hat trick was the key to the victory. After last night’s win, Florida has a record of 5-8-1. More importantly, the Panthers five-game road trip is at an end. Florida has home games this week against Tampa and Detroit.
Florida’s win last night marked the second time the cats have been able to beat a high flying California team. Their last win before Anaheim, came against the San Jose Sharks. After their loss to Florida, the Sharks ran off a 7-game winning streak that only came to an end last night.
As nice as the win was last night,(I watched the game. Memo to FSN- Cut out the idiotic in game commercials that fill 20% of the television screen while the puck is in play. They are very disruptive when it comes to watching a hockey game) Florida didn’t play much different than they have all this season. No offense(Other than David Booth), poor special teams, and way too many shots on goal allowed. Last night it was 45-26. You can’t keep asking Goalies Tomas Vokoun and Craig Anderson to be almost perfect every game. It still looks like a long year for South Florida hockey fans.
It happened during yesterday’s game against Green Bay.
Minnesota Vikings cornerback Charles Gordon was carted off the field in the second quarter against Green Bay after a gruesome ankle injury that occurred on a punt return.
Minnesota Vikings cornerback Charles Gordon was carted off the field in the second quarter against Green Bay after a gruesome ankle injury that occurred on a punt return.
Here’s a You Tube video of the play.
Fox refused to show the play again after a break. Huh? Football is a violent sport and honestly I’ve seen worse football injuries.
The evening news is more graphic than what happened yesterday. But Fox can’t upset those sensitive football viewers. What’s wrong with this picture?
He isn’t expected to play this afternoon when the Seattle Seahwaks(2-6) play the Miami Dolphins(4-4) in Miami. Can you believe Miami is one win from being over .500?
I find the writing of the followhttp://wizbangblog.com/mt-static/images/formatting-icons/quote.gifing AP article on Hasselback to be interesting.
Matt Hasselbeck did not make his anticipated return to the practice field Thursday, casting some doubt over whether the Seahawks’ indispensable quarterback will be ready to make his scheduled start next week against Arizona.
That didn’t mean Hasselbeck wasn’t working. He was sweating inside the training room, going through a battery of exercises with a trainer. Their session was continuing a half-hour after the no-pads practice ended.
Friday’s practice is a light walkthrough, hardly an extensive test of Hasselbeck’s back and knee. The Seahawks then leave for Miami to play the Dolphins (4-4) on Sunday, where backup Seneca Wallace will make his fourth consecutive.
“Some guys are banged up and new guys are stepping in. We are working out there, grinding away,” Wallace said.
Seattle has gone 1-3 this season with Hasselbeck, who was the NFC’s lowest-rated passer when he hyperextended his knee Oct. 5 in a loss at the New York Giants. And the Seahawks are 1-3 without him.
A QB with a 57.7 rating is ‘indispensable’ Seattle is 1-3 with Hasselback, 1-3 without him. Seems to me Seattle is equally crappy with and without their ‘indispensible’ quarterback?” May I interest Seattle in the much maligned John Beck? Beck had a higher passing rating in 2007 for the 1-15 Dolphins.
Imagine if the Vancouver Canuck Goalie was still playing for Florida instead of being traded for shit garbage. From AP-
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Roberto Luongo was quick to credit the Canucks defense for his previous last two shutouts. There was no doubt, however, who deserved the most praise for No. 3.
Luongo made the most sensational of his 29 saves when Vancouver was clinging to a one-goal lead in the second period and backstopped the Canucks to a 2-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night for his third consecutive shutout.
“His best performance yet,” checking-line center Ryan Kesler said. “He kept us in it.”
Sami Salo scored a power-play goal in the first period, and Daniel Sedin added a breakaway tally with 2:41 left to give Luongo his first two-goal cushion in two games. He stopped 28 shots in a 1-0 win over Nashville on Thursday, made 28 saves in a 4-0 victory against Nashville on Tuesday, and has now gone 201 minutes, 8 seconds without allowing a goal.
With Marty Brodeur injured, Luongo is the best goalie suiting it up in the NHL today.
It’s going to be a long year for South Florida hockey fans. From AP-
GLENDALE, Ariz. – Olli Jokinen had a goal and an assist against his former Florida teammates in the Phoenix Coyotes’ 4-1 win over the Panthers on Saturday night.
Jokinen was traded from Florida to Phoenix for defensemen Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton during the offseason.
Mikkel Boedker added a pair of goals for Phoenix, marking the first multigoal game of the rookie’s early NHL career.
Florida has lost six straight (0-5-1).
Phoenix’s Ilya Bryzgalov stopped 26 shots to improve to 5-5 this season.
The Panthers took an early lead when Richard Zednik scored during a goal mouth scramble at 13:49 of the opening period. It was Zednik’s third point in 11 games.
Zednik is just one of a group of over the hill vets filling Florida’s roster. Can’t this team find players in the minors, Sweden, or Outer Mongolia that can produce more than Zednik, Bret McLean, Radek Dvorak etc?
Florida’s six losses have come against- St. Louis, Ottawa, Nashville, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. None of these teams have more than 14 pts. This is the easy part of the schedule! Tonight Florida plays Anaheim, before returning home to play among other teams, The Detroit Red Wings.
It’s true, I’ll be watching almost every game. Just like I did last night. I am truly the Florida Masochist.
Look out Lorena Ochoa. You have a challenger for #1 in the world. From AP-
SHIMA, Japan – Shin Ji-yai won the Mizuno Classic for her second LPGA Tour title and ninth international victory of the year, shooting a 5-under 67 on Sunday to easily hold off Mayu Hattori at Kinetsu Kashikojima.
The Women’s British Open winner and the first player to sweep the Korea LPGA Tour’s three majors in a season, Shin finished at 15-under 201 for her second victory of the year in Japan. The 20-year-old South Korean star earned $210,000.
“Yesterday and today I was really good with my iron shots,” Shin said. “Almost the best this year. It feels like I can make everything.”
Hattori, the Japanese player coming off a victory last week in the Japan LPGA’s IDC Otsuka Ladies, closed with a 67 to finish second, six strokes back in the event sanctioned by the LPGA Tour and JLPGA. Lim Eun-a (70) was third at 8 under, and Chung Il-mi (69), Wei Yun-jye (70) and Lee Jee-young (72) followed at 7 under.
Shin played the front nine in 4 under — birdieing Nos. 2 and 3 and holing an eagle chip on the par-5 seventh — to move four strokes ahead of Hattori and Lee. Lee birdied the 10th to cut Shin’s lead to three, but had a double bogey on the par-3 11th.
“I was very nervous on the first tee,” Shin said. “But I made birdies on the second and third holes and got more comfortable and confident.”
Shin birdied the par-5 13th and had a six-stroke lead with four to play. She three-putted for a bogey on the par-4 15th, only her second bogey on the week and first in 47 holes, then birdied the par-5 16th and closed with two pars.
Shin now has two LPGA wins and she isn’t yet a LPGA Rookie. She will be eligible for Rookie of Year, assuming Ji-Yai comes to play in the US. She has been tearing up the KLPGA, to a lesser extent the JLPGA for a few years now. You read it here first, the second South Korean LPGA golfer to qualify for the Golf Hall of Fame will be Ji-Yai Shin. Take that to the bank.
The complaints the Koreans are taking over the LPGA are about to get louder. Isn’t it about the best golfer is, not where in the world they are from?
Note- Shin is rated #8 in the world right now.
Update- Hound Dog, perhaps the best blogger who out there writing about the LPGA, agrees with my assessment of Shin.
The reigning British Open champ blew everyone away the last two days in a manner reminiscent of Lorena Ochoa. That’s how good Ji-Yai Shin might be. It’s too bad this tournament doesn’t get any U.S. exposure or a lot more Americans would know what Asia already does – Ji-Yai Shin is a contender to overtake Ochoa as World #1 as soon as 2009.
GM Jacques martin isn’t happy with the performance of the team. From the Sun-Sentinel-
In light of the Panthers’ 4-6-1 start, a disappointed General Manager Jacques Martin said Tuesday that he expects more from the veterans and is considering trading some players.
“When I look at our performance so far, I don’t think it’s good enough,” Martin said. “We made some moves in the offseason, and some of our veterans have to give us a better performance.”
Ville Peltonen, Brett McLean and Jay Bouwmeester don’t have any goals; Radek Dvorak, Richard Zednik and Stephen Weiss, who has missed four games with a strained groin, have just one apiece.
“I’ve got to get more shots and get to the net and battle for loose pucks there,” Peltonen said. “A lot of us guys need to give more. It’s just [a matter of] staying determined.”
Martin said the lack of scoring — 25 goals through 11 games — isn’t most troubling.
“We’ve probably given up too many,” he said of the 35 goals allowed. “That’s the biggest concern. We look at our goals agaist and it’s not just one group, it’s six guys on the ice doing their job.”
Florida started 4-3 but has gone 0-3-1 since. With three west coast games still to come, I don’t know when the Panthers will finally hit bottom.
I’m disppointed with the Panthers, but Martin shoiuld look in the mirror for the cause. The team has too many vets(McLean, Dvorak, Zednik) past their prime and or playing out the string. Olli Jokinen the team’s leading scorer was traded away. Did Florida do anything to replace Jokinen? Bring in vet Cory Stillman, who played well but is now out with a concussion. The players acquired for Jokinen, two defensemen, have played well but Florida is giving up shots because the Panthers are weak and hurting at defenseman.
Florida hasn’t played well, but the team’s management is no better.
All indications are the LPGA will be down at least two tournaments in 2009, but with about one-third of its sponsor contracts (along with its TV deals with ESPN and Golf Channel) expiring after next season, and its sanctioning fees increasing as much as tenfold, insiders believe the real challenge for the women’s tour will be the 2010 schedule.
The Fields Open in Hawaii and the Ginn Tribute in South Carolina are gone for 2009. Safeway is out as the sponsor of the Phoenix tournament, choosing to focus on its event in Portland, Ore., instead, but sources say the LPGA will fund a Phoenix tournament. And the ADT Championship — the 32-player season-ending event with a $1 million first prize — won’t be played in 2009.
Tournament officials are pointing to a 2010 return, ideally as a February event to kick off the season, but so far lack a sponsor (ADT bows out after this year). The Stanford International Pro-Am will move from the Miami area to Houston (where Stanford is based) and become the new season-ending tournament, beginning next year.
That means the LPGA won’t even have a tournament left in South Florida. No more golf watching or blogging for me.
Good question- Why was the Stanford played in Aventura this year only to be moved after one year? Is there some golf real estate that needs to be sold in Houston?
Neither scheduling proposal is sitting well with a significant faction of players, who feel starting the year with a $1 million first prize will skew the chase for the money title and that ending the season with a tournament with a 120-player field is odd since only the top 80 on the money list retain cards for the next year (in other words, non-exempt players for 2010 will be in the 2009 field).
Some how I think the LPGA is still thinking out what these tournaments will and will not be. If the LPGA gets enough bad input from its players, they should make appropriate adjustments.
“The best-case and worst-case scenarios are that we will be plus or minus two or three events next year,” LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens told Golf World.
The best case is the loss of two to three tournaments. What is the worst?
“The next [few weeks are] a critical time.” Bivens said she expects the tour’s 2009 schedule will be released at this year’s ADT Championship, which begins Nov. 20. She warned, however, that “in this economy, until you have a signed contract, nothing is buttoned up.”
And in this economy, it is difficult to see adding tournaments. One addition for 2009 is a return of the stop in Thailand.
The tournament is just being resumed after a change of dates from the Fall to the Spring. I do agree with Sirak, the LPGA is unlikely to be adding any tournaments with the US economy as it stands now.
