Phoenix is closer to A) United States B) Canada Oh, and the game between Mexico and South Africa yesterday drew 7,937, so apparently about half of the those 16,000 or so Mexicans that went to the Mexico/United States game but didn't go to the United States/Canada gamemust have been partying at Swoly-D's house or something...
He *is* a cool guy. Are you suggesting that the US team is a bigger draw than South Africa? Ludicrous, I says. Seriously, did you expect huge crowds to show up for glorified spring training games? If you like baseball, you'll enjoy watching it, if not...who really cares?
The US will advance with a win against South Africa since Mexico now has 6 runs against Canada. This means if Canada loses, then there would be the three way tie b/w the USA, Mexico and Canada at 2-1. The tiebreaker is runs allowed amongst the teams when they played each other. Mexico: 2 (vs USA 2, vs Canada 0 - through 2 innings) USA: 8 (vs Mexico: 0, vs Canada 8) Canada: 12 (vs USA 6, vs Mexico 6+) If Canada comes back to win, obviously Mexico is out with 2 losses.
Will baseball players get as much crap for this as the NBA players get for their BRONZE??? I doubt it Hell Baseball team did not even MAKE the last olympics if i'm not mistaken Rocket River
Well, the US was favored to win this only after Vlad, Manny and Pedro withdrew from the Dominican team. Contrast this to the basketball team's remarkable history of domination and you have a different set of expectations. The first round of games was used by Buck Martinez to evaluate all the players - that's why you saw so many different guys being used. In the next round, he's going to go with who is producing, so you'll see better lineups for us. I see where you're going with this (not surprisingly, since that's basically the lens you look at everything with...), and I don't think it holds merit.
I think in the Olympics pro players are not allowed to play for the US. I remember Roy O and Adam Everett winning gold medals when they were in the minors.
Texx . . .you pulled out your JUMP 2 CONCLUSION MAT Rocket RIver for the record. . . tell me .. where was I going with this????
You're wrong. There is no history of domination in todays basketball world, there was domination back in the 90's when there were hardly any internationals playing NBA ball and when over seas basketball leagues were weak. Today some of the greatest basketball players in the NBA are from another country, a team from Israel beat an NBA team, and some players choose to play overseas because the money is better and the competition is close to equal. Truth is, recent expectations were are set way too high in relation to the US talent v the talent of opposing countries, the media still wants to ignore this for some reason. The last time we won a gold medal was at the 2000 Olympics, in that tournament Sarunas Jasikevicius missed a 3 pointer at the buzzer that could have eliminated the US and held them down to at best a Bronze. No one remembers that, but that game changed everything for the rest of the world, they started to believe that they could beat the US if they played well enough. Back here in the states everyone thought we were still, BY FAR, the greatest basketball country in the world because we came home with the Gold, wrong. Fast forward to the 2002 World Championships in Indiana, the US finished 6th, and again that changed everything, the rest of the world KNEW they could beat us, they expected to beat us. We go to the 2004 Olympics and since we're still arrogant enough to think we're the greatest country in the world, we sent a bunch of clueless young guys or guys who suck at basketball with FIBA rules, and expected Larry Brown and Tim Duncan to win Gold with them. In the end, they won the bronze, were thought of as an underachieving disgrace of a team, when in reality a team that couldn't shoot or pass had no business winning a medal, but they did because they played their asses off, an over achievement. Outside of the professionals, our best high school and college basketball players are getting beat in low profile competitions all the time, the reality is that the level of US basketball talent is getting lower while the rest of the world is getting better and better. Now, after knowing all of that, why would they be the heavy favorites anywhere? Why would everyone (again the media who drives most peoples' opinions) still push US basketball superiority even though recent history shows that that wasn't the case anymore? To me, I think they are simply stupid, a bunch of cocky idiots, because I refuse to believe that they raise the expectations of the US because they don't want them to have any glory when they win, and if they lose they want to vilify them unmercifully.
Hey, don't forget this is the guy who can tell what race every caller into 610 is. Well, at least the black ones.
Uhh...dude thanks for the history lesson - I'm aware of our basketball history. I meant prior to starting to lose in 2002 the USA was completely dominant. I'm well aware that we haven't been of late. We had such a long history of winning up until very recently. That's why the expectations are still high.
It's pretty obvious - many of the callers even identify themselves as such. Nice attempt at trolling, though, RM95
How is it obvious for all of them, though? I guarantee you that you would not be able to determine the race of the African-Americans I work with based on their phone voice.
Dude, the expectations shouldn't be high anymore, they shouldn't have been high in 2004, that was my point.
Expectations? We're talking about expectations? OK, I won't continue my Iversonesque tirade. Honestly, the expectations should ALWAYS be high...because we are the USA, because by and large we do have the best basketball athletes in the world, and we host the highest caliber and most competitive basketball league in the world, which is still predominantly made up of US players. I don't know what the percentage of foreign players is exactly, but the NBA is still mostly made up of Americans. Now, with all that being said, I think there is something severely wrong with the US team selection and preparation process. International teams have vastly more time on the court together, more cohesiveness, more experience on the FIBA platform. The US team throws together a team of "all-stars" and tries to make the team successful on individual merit with a few practices. Half the time, the players we need to be able to bring home GOLD are not willing to play...which just pisses me off. It's true, the international basketball talent pool is growing and catching the US (if they haven't caught up already). But I still believe that if our "cream of the crop" athletes took pride in playing for their country, looked forward to doing so, and worked, played, and practiced together as teams do from other countries......then the results would be different. I, for one, am tired of pompous US athletes snubbing offers to compete on the world stage. It's embarrassing, frankly. Something's gotta give!
soooooooo.. back on topic... US leading 10-0 through 1.5 innings. When does the mercy rule take effect? 7th inning? And Derrek Lee is a beast. Too bad he plays for the Cubs. Also, JumpMan, if you want to respect Keith Bogans, you should start with spelling his name right.
