Nadal wins Monte Carlo title

It's clay court season, and as is the custom this time of year, Rafa Nadal is unstoppable. He stormed his way through the draw (which was not as strong as it could have been, missing a couple big names in Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro) and advanced to the final against Fernando Verdasco. The match was played this morning, and since I don't get the Tennis Channel, I was unable to watch. I had to settle for a live scoreboard, but evidently I didn't miss much. It was all Nadal. He handed Verdasco a bagel in the first set before finally dropping one game in the second for a 6-0, 6-1 victory. A very encouraging result for Nadal, who had battled injuries last summer and still did not appear to be 100% at the last major, the Australian Open. Of course, clay is his best surface, and right now it's looking like Nadal will be the heavy favorite to win the French Open, which would be his fifth title in the past six years there.

Phillies off to a good start

Last week was the first week of baseball season, and the Phillies have gotten off to a good start, winning 4 of their first 5 games. The opener was a day game down in DC against the Nationals, so I missed that one. Roy Halladay started and pitched well, getting the win. The Phils dropped the last game of that series, but now have one two in a row against hapless Astros, who remain winless. I listened to last night's game on the radio and was not too impressed with Houston. They gave up some runs early, then inexplicably scored five of their own in the 3rd. But they couldn't hold the lead, and the Phillies stormed back to win by a final score of 9-6. The series concludes with a game this afternoon; Halladay will take the mound against Roy Oswalt.

In Harm's Way

I recently finished reading the book In Harm's Way, about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis which resulted in the Navy's greatest at-sea loss of life. It happened in late July 1945, during the closing days of WWII. The atomic bomb had been successfully tested in the desert, and the Indianapolis was chosen as the ship to transport the components of Little Boy to the island of Tinian in the Pacific. The mission was highly secret, and almost no one on board knew about it. After arriving at Tinian, the Indy sailed from Guam and from there proceeded to Leyte in the Philippines. Halfway there she was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese sub, leaving close to 900 men floating in the water. Despite sending out distress signals before going down, nobody was aware of the sinking. The men were in the water for over four days before being spotted by a routine patrol. During that time, they had been steadily dying from drowning, shark attacks, dehydration, etc. By the time the rescue effort had been completed, only 317 were still alive.

The disaster was not widely known due to the overwhelming news of the atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan. The Navy, however, needed a scapegoat and found one in Captain McVay, who was court-martialed and convicted of hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag. Sadly, for the rest of his life McVay received hate-mail from families of men who had died in the sinking, and the guilt weighed so heavily upon him that he committed suicide. In 2000, he was posthumously exonerated by an act of Congress.

Roddick beats Nadal in Miami

The last big hard-court tournament before the clay-court season has been going on this past week in Miami, and just a few hours ago Andy Roddick faced Rafa Nadal in the semis there. Unfortunately, I had no way of watching the match on TV, so I had to settle for following on the internet. Nadal took the first set 6-4, but Roddick came back to win the final two for the victory. Even though Nadal does not seem to be the Nadal of old, this was still an upset. Roddick has been playing some solid tennis, though. He made the final at Indian Wells, losing to Ljubicic in a disappointing contest, and now he's made the final of another masters level tournament. He shouldn't blow this opportunity again. His potential opponents are Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych, both of whom are solid players but not quite on Roddick's level. Incidentally, Roddick and Soderling just faced each other in the semis at Indian Wells, with Roddick winning in three sets.