Baseball commentators on "Soccer"

It always surprises me what commentators at baseball games talk about over the course of nine innings. Obviously there is enough time to go through all kinds of topics while the two teams are playing since there isn’t much happening. So they talk about all these statistics that baseball fans seem to be obsessed with, but at some points they talk about different things. I really like the commentators who cover the games for the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.

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Yet another boring test match labeled a competition aka The German Liga-Pokal

For quite some time now the German Liga-Pokal officially starts off the new season. Rising from the ashes of the Fuji-Cup, a 4 Bundesliga-team competition which took place in small towns and villages it was established to promote the Bundesliga in the 1990s. At first 4 teams competed, then they changed the rules to six teams with two quarterfinals, semifinals and the final. There was no regular ground where it took place at first, then they gave it to Leverkusen, if I remember that correctly, it was also played in Mainz and now it’s situated in Leipzig.

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Competitive football at last. The 3rd division starts.

The summer break is over, at least on the lowest level of professional football in Germany. 3rd division teams played the first round of this season today. This contest will be a very special one since after this season there will be only one 3rd division (“3. Bundesliga”) instead of two which we have now. Because of that almost half of the teams will be relegated into the new “Regionalliga” which will have three conferences. Saying this it is obvious that there will be a lot of competition for the first 10 places in each 3rd divison this year.

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Just in: Kommando Sonne-nmilch "Jamaica" LP

There are certain bands that accompany you for a long time of your life. Most of the time those bands are the ones’ you heard in your childhood. Those were the bands who played the first tunes you listenend to. At some point you get bored of those bands, in my case that would be Die Toten Hosen from Düsseldorf, one of the bands that sparked my interest for punk music. In the early 90s their sound was just too plain and common so I left them for good. There wasn’t anything left and I just didn’t see any point in buying their new records and up until this very day I don’t think I missed a thing. They are mainstream music nowadays, still important for the kids who might get into punk music via their records, but it’s just not my thing anymore. I still like the old records, but I just can’t get along with the new stuff.

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Vampires on bikes playing khazakhian roulette: Yet another case.

So yet another bomb exploded on the scene of the Tour de France today with Alexandre Vinokourov being tested positive for blood transfusion. Vinokourov won last week’s “contre la montre” and yesterday’s stage through the Pyrenees. His team Astana had two cases of doping this year with Italian Eddie Mazzoleni and German Matthias Kessler. With the discussion circling around the current leader Michael Rasmussen and 2nd place Alberto Contador this race is a good as dead.

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Did anyone say the "E"-word? House & Parish @ Blue Shell, Cologne

Last Thursday saw some sort of a class reunion. House & Parish were set to play at the “Blue Shell”, a small club located in Cologne’s Bermuda triangle were a lot of clubs are. With their background featuring ex-mambers of The Promise Ring, Mineral, Texas Is The Reason and New End Original I thought that, well, a few people might show up, but as it turned out around 50 came to the show.

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Sports Round-up: Tour de France, MLB, Football

Lots of things happened over the past few days and weeks. First and most important, the Tour de France had its first doping case this year. German rider Patrick Sinkewitz was tested positive for Testosteron while staying at a training camp with his Team T-Mobile in June. Sinkewitz had to drop out of this year’s tour because of a crash with a spectator after a stage in the Alps. Although it is only the A-test and the B-est has yet to be opened chances are he will be suspended for at least two years and he will be the first rider to pay a fine of his complete one-year salary.

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An interesting final: Brazil vs Argentina 3-0

Brazil beat their archrivals from Argentina in the final of this year’s Copa América by 3-0. When reading this one might expect a hullaballoo of offensive football, nice attacking and brilliant and fast passing. But that wasn’t the case. Brazil stood firm in the defense waiting for the Argentinian attack just to stop it with cold blood. When taking over the ball they tried to put it up front as fast as they could. This was how they scored first after 5 minutes.

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Drug Stores On Bikes Through France

The “Tour de France“ was started last week in London and this weekend the riders finally came into the territory that always decides who wins and who loses. Yes, it’s the Alps now and just a few moments ago Michael Rasmussen won the stage after a solo escape for a few hours. He will now wear the yellow jersey but he also took over the polka dot jersey after climbing all those mountains by himself. Now honoury category mountains on this stage, but I believe on Tuesday the Galibier will be up, so there you go.

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Austria advances to the semifinals of the Under20 World Cup

Spot the words that don’t seem to go along in the headline. Hello?! I mean, Austria?! You have to be kidding me. Austria’s biggest success was beating the reigning world champions Germany in the 1978 World Cup at Cordoba. A match that the still remember down south. Since then they haven’t achieved anything. They qualified for a few World Cups and Euro Championships, but always crashed out in the group stages. Since being named the co-hosts for next years Euro 2008 they played more like the team that lost to the Faroer Islands in some Qualifying rounds for some major competition in the 1990s.

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