Phillies win!

Game 5 of the World Series finally concluded Wednesday night with the Phillies winning 4-3. I watched quite a bit of it but did not make it to the end before falling asleep. I saw the Phillies go ahead 3-2, then I saw the Tampa Bay guy hit a homer to tie it up, then I listened on the radio as the Phils got another run in the 7th to go up 4-3. The next thing I remember was waking up in the morning. But the Phillies won! The victory parade is scheduled for today, so I'm sure a lot of people are excited about that. Personally, I think it's really cool to see and hear all the excitement surrounding the Phillies. Everyone talks about them on the radio and on the local news, and I see people all over wearing Phillies shirts and hats and other paraphernalia. Quite a unique experience.

The NBA season got underway earlier in the week, and the Sixers played their first game right before the World Series ended on Wednesday night. They lost, 95-84 to Toronto. Their next game is tonight at home against the Knicks.

Rain for Game 5

Last night I tuned in to the baseball game just like any other night and went to bed after the first couple of innings. It was not until this morning that I found out the game had been suspended by rain in the middle of the 6th. The field had already turned completely to mud, but Bud Selig in his infinite wisdom waited until the Rays splashed another run across the plate before suspending the game. Sounds fair to me. I'm sure if the Phillies had had a 10 run lead he would have waited just as long, right? So the Phillies defense played the 6th inning on a field that was slop, and whenever they play the bottom of the 6th, the Rays will get a good field. Well, the game won't be completed tonight. We've had a mix of rain and snow all day with no letup. Looks like it'll have to happen tomorrow.

Federer downs Nalbandian in Basel

Roger Federer was in action again this week in Basel, Switzerland. Earlier today he defeated David Nalbandian 6-3, 6-4 for only his fourth title of the year. That's right, fourth. He won a clay-court tournament in Portugal, a grass-court tune-up in Germany, and then the US Open a couple of months ago. Definitely looks like an off year for Federer, but when considering that he made the finals at the French Open and Wimbledon and the semis at Australia, I'd say that's not too shabby. Andy Murray is continuing his stellar play, winning the St. Petersburg Open this week. In the final he beat a Russian named Andrey Golubev who is ranked 150th in the world. Not surprisingly, I'd never heard of the guy.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about the baseball game last night because I didn't get to see any of it. It was rain-delayed and did not get underway until after 10pm. It's a shame, because I've heard it was a great game with the Phillies winning 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth. I listened to the extended pre-game show on the radio while I was in bed, and more than one caller expressed disgust that baseball did not care enough about the fans to postpone the game. Not sure why anyone would think that MLB cares about the fans. I mean, two east coast teams are playing in the World Series, but the games start so late that none of the east coast fans can watch. I had to laugh at the response to the caller. Something along the lines of, "But what about FOX? They can't just postpone the game - they have other TV programs already scheduled for those nights! The game has to be played tonight no matter how late it starts!" Anyway, when all was said and done, the Phillies came away with a win and now lead the series 2-1. Game 4 will be tonight, and I look forward to watching about an inning of it before I have to go to bed.

Rays even the Series

Game 2 of the WS was on Thursday night, and, as expected, I watched about an inning of it. The Rays jumped out to a quick lead by scoring a couple of runs in the first inning. I remember seeing Jayson Werth make a fielding error which allowed Tampa Bay to have runners at second and third with nobody out. The Rays were then able to drive in the runs on a couple of ground-outs. Good fundamental baseball. The final score ended up being 4-2 in favor of the Rays. Game 3 is scheduled for tonight, but I believe they're calling for rain here in Philly.

Phillies take Game 1

I got to watch an entire inning of baseball last night. The game started a little after 8:30, so I turned it on and saw Chase Utley's two-run shot in the first inning and then Cole Hamels shutting down the Rays in the bottom half. After that it was bedtime. I had the radio on, and I did hear that the Phillies loaded up the bases but Victorino was thrown out at home trying to score on a very shallow fly ball. This morning I saw on the news that the Phillies ended up winning 3-2. I believe tonight's game starts at the same time, so I'll probably watch an inning and then go to bed again.

Rays win the ALCS

Last night before I crawled into bed, I turned on the radio to listen to the Sunday night football game and was surprised to hear the familiar voices of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan calling game 7 of the ALCS. I can't figure out how they decide which games to broadcast, but I was shocked that baseball would preempt a Sunday night football game. Of course, I'd rather listen to baseball anyway, so I can't complain. I fell asleep while the Rays had a 2-1 lead, but apparently I forgot to hit the sleep button on my radio, because I woke up a little later and it was still on. The postgame show was going on, and I heard that the Rays won, so I went back to sleep with that extra knowledge.

Murray takes Madrid title

Looks like I was completely wrong about Federer meeting Nadal in the Madrid Masters final. They both lost in the semis! The matches seemed to be pretty close, though. Nadal lost to Gilles Simon 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(6) and Federer lost to Andy Murray 3-6, 6-3, 7-5. Murray then went on to defeat Simon in the final earlier today by a score of 6-4, 7-6(6). He has been very impressive as of late. I'm not sure what his ranking is, but he must be top 5 by now. I don't know who would be ahead of him other than the trio of Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic. I look forward to seeing how well he plays at the year-end Masters Cup in Shanghai.

Federer and Nadal both win in Madrid

The Madrid Masters tennis tournament continues, and both Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal won their matches today in straight sets. Nadal defeated fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-4, while Federer downed Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 6-3. I don't know anything about the matches other than the scores, but it looks like the world's top two players are still playing very well. Del Potro is a tough character, and I expected Federer to have some trouble with him. The semis are tomorrow. Nadal plays Gilles Simon, and Federer takes on Andy Murray in a rematch of the US Open final. I predict Nadal and Federer to meet in the final, but it would not be a shock to see either one lose in the semis.

Phillies in the WS!

The Phillies beat the Dodgers 5-1 last night to earn their ticket to the World Series for the first time since 1993, when they lost to the Blue Jays. I watched the start of the game but could not stay awake for the whole thing. Cole Hamels had another solid outing, allowing only one run, a solo shot to Manny Ramirez in the 6th. In my opinion, the big inning for the Phillies was the 3rd, when they scored a couple of two-out runs. Jimmy Rollins had a key stolen base before Chase Utley walked, and Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell both singled. The score of the game was 3-0 when I turned of the TV and went to bed. I had the game on the radio, but I fell asleep before they scored again.

In tennis, the indoor season is underway, and right now the Madrid Masters tournament is being played over in Spain. Andy Roddick just lost to Gael Monfils today, but both Federer and Nadal are still alive. Djokovic also lost to Ivo Karlovic. I don't think this part of the tennis season is very important since all the Grand Slams are over, but it's still interesting to check out the results.

Phillies, Dodgers almost brawl

Last night was game 3 of the Phillies-Dodgers series, and the first few innings were full of action. Unfortunately, Jamie Moyer did not have good stuff, so the Dodgers were able to put together 5 runs in the first inning. Moyer got the axe the following inning. Clay Condrey took over and brushed back Russell Martin, who ended up grounding into a double play. This after he was hit by a pitch the previous inning. So when the Phillies come up, the Dodger pitcher throws over Shane Victorino's head. After Victorino makes an out, the benches clear. The bottom line is that the Phillies couldn't recover from the early deficit and lost 7-2. Game 4 is tonight in a little over an hour.

Tampa Bay is playing Boston right now and leading 5-0, but it's hard for me to follow that game since it's on TBS.

Not a good race

This morning I ran the Baltimore half-marathon, and it did not go very well at all. I basically hit the wall at mile 3 and shuffled my way through the final 10 miles, even needing to take walk breaks toward the end. I was just dead tired, and I don't really have an explanation why. I struggled just to stay below 10-minute miles. One of my miles was even over 10 minutes. Well, I'm trying not to dwell on it too much. Here are my splits:

To the starting line - 1:23
1 - 8:17
2 - 8:08
3 - 7:53
4 - 7:58
5 - 8:13
6 - 8:45
7 - 8:44
8 - 9:18
9 - 9:28
10 - 9:26
11 - 9:54
12 - 10:47
13 - 9:21
13.1 - 0:43
Gun time - 1:58:25

Approaching race day

The half-marathon is on Saturday, so I'm taking it easy with the running this week. My final long run was on Sunday morning, and it was about 10 miles, run down at my grandma's place near Baltimore. Monday was 3.9 miles, yesterday I took off, and this afternoon I ran 3.3 miles. So tomorrow I may only go 2 or so, and then Friday I'll take off. My Achilles seems to be holding up well, so I am very encouraged by that. A couple of weeks ago I wasn't sure I'd even be able to race.

ALCS now set

Both the Red Sox and the Rays chalked up wins yesterday, so now the ALCS is all set. I believe it will start Friday night in Tampa. It looks like FOX will be televising both the ALCS and the NLCS, which is good news for me. I'll get to watch a little bit of baseball every night.

I missed almost all of the football this weekend. I was visiting my grandmother in Baltimore on Sunday, and early in the afternoon I watched some of the Phillies-Brewers game, which was way better than any early-season NFL contest. After that I drove home. I listened to some of the Pittsburgh-Jacksonville game that night before falling asleep. I saw that the Eagles lost to the Redskins. And I listened to the start of last night's Saints-Vikings game before going to sleep.

Brewers take game 3 from Phils

Last night I got to watch almost all of the Phillies-Brewers game on TV. It was kind of an ugly game, with both teams squandering many opportunities. I don't know how many times the Phillies got their lead-off runner on base without being able to drive him in. And the Brewers had lots of chances to blow the game wide open, but they never came up with a big inning.

There were a couple of weird plays which I thought were interesting. First, in the 6th inning Jayson Werth hit a drive to right field which was caught by Corey Hart. Hart banged into the wall, hit the ground, rolled over, and then dropped the ball. Werth, who had alertly been running the whole time, ended up on third with a triple. I was never quite clear on the rule that says when a ball is officially caught as opposed to dropped. The only time I'd ever seen anything like that was earlier this year during a Cubs-Phillies game when Fukudome ran down a fly ball but dropped it a few seconds later after bumping into Soriano.

The second weird play was in the 9th when the Phillies loaded the bases with nobody out. Pedro Feliz hit a double-play ground ball, and Shane Victorino, who was on first, decided to plow into Craig Counsell instead of sliding. The umps conferred and ultimately ruled interference against the Phils, bringing runners back to second and third and nullifying the run that had scored. I bet Victorino will be smart enough to slide the next time he tries to break up a double play.

Game 4 is going on right now, and the Phillies lead 1-0 in the 2nd inning. As for the Cubs, I can't really say much except they lost last night and I didn't watch the game. What a pathetic post-season they had. Now I'm rooting for the Phillies all the way.

Berdych defeats Roddick in Tokyo

I've been following the Japan Open this week, and earlier today Andy Roddick lost a close match to Tomas Berdych, 6-7(3), 7-5, 7-6(3). A little disappointing, but I'm glad to see he put up a good fight. Berdych is a solid player, currently ranked 27th in the world. In the final tomorrow, he'll take on Juan Martin del Potro, who had an amazing summer before losing to Andy Murray in the US Open quarters. Looks like this is his first tournament since the US Open. It will be an interesting final tomorrow. As for Roddick, I'm not sure what his next tournament will be. The Madrid Masters is coming up in about a week, so maybe he'll play in that one. Federer and Nadal should be there too, so that'll be a fun one to follow.

In baseball, the NL took the day off yesterday while the two AL series continued. Tampa Bay and Boston both won again. Later this evening the Phillies and Brewers will resume their series in Milwaukee. I'll actually be able to watch that game on TV since I'm down in Baltimore visiting my grandma, who has cable. I'd love to watch the Cubs-Dodgers game, but 10pm is just way too late for me. Unless the Cubs make it to the World Series, I don't think I'll be able to watch them at all. Thanks a lot, MLB!

Cubs down 0-2 to Dodgers

I didn't get a chance to follow the Cubs-Dodgers game last night because it started after I went to bed, but this morning on the news I saw that the Cubbies got crushed 10-3. I could only shake my head in disgust. They lost their first two games at home, so now their only hope of winning the series is to win three games in a row, two of which will be out in California. I know they're capable of doing that, but that doesn't mean they will. Game 3 is tomorrow night, but it doesn't start until 10pm, so I won't know the result until Sunday morning.

On the flip side of the coin, I am very excited to see the Phillies playing great baseball. They beat the Brewers 5-2 yesterday. It was an evening game, so I listened to much of it on the radio. It was a 1-1 tie when I turned it on, and then Shane Victorino hit a grand slam to give the Phils all the runs they needed for the win.

Hamels pitches a gem

Game 1 of the Phillies-Brewers series just got over less than an hour ago with the Phillies coming out on top 3-1. I missed most of the game but did listen to it on the radio on my way home from work. Cole Hamels pitched very well, going 8 innings and allowing no runs and only 2 hits. Brad Lidge took over in the ninth and picked up the save, although he gave up a run. I didn't hear the bottom half of the ninth because I was out for a run, but I caught the post-game show when I returned.

The next playoff game is Cubs-Dodgers, which should already be underway. I've scanned all the AM radio stations in the hopes of finding a play-by-play broadcast, but there was nothing to be found. And I can't watch it on TV since it's on TBS, and I don't have cable. I'll have to rely on the internet for updates.

Last night the White Sox defeated the Twins 1-0 in their one-game playoff to advance to the ALDS. Sounds like it was a good game with the only run coming on a Jim Thome solo homer. The Sox will now take on Tampa Bay starting tomorrow. The other Sox (the Red ones) play the Angels tonight, but I expect to be sound asleep before the first pitch is thrown.