The view from here

Oh my! Last week was a huge sports and news week. So lets get to it.

Sunday June 21st was Father’s Day and the last group game for the U.S. National Soccer Team in the Confederations Cup Tournament. The U.S. played Egypt and needed a miracle to advance to the semifinals. If you remember, we were out scored 6 goals to one, in their first two-group games, by Italy and Brazil. They beat Egypt 3 to 0 and needed Brazil to beat Italy by more than 2 goals, they beat them 3 to 0 for the U.S. to advance. I will have the semifinal game later in this report.

Monday was the final round of the US Open Golf Championship at Bethpage State Park on Long Island New York. The Championship usually ends on Father’s Day but with all the rain on Long Island it played the final round on Monday for only the 4th time in the tournaments 109-year history. It was full of stories, Phil Mickelson trying to win one for Amy, his wife who is battling cancer. Phil came up just short this year but in the process he set a record for the most runner-up finishes in his career. I can’t imagine the pressure and the emotions Phil was feeling that week. Great show Phil!
Ricky Barnes was another story at the US Open; he was the 2002 US Amateur Champion but struggled as a pro. This was his first year on the PGA Tour but his season was not going well and he came out of nowhere to set a record for the lowest half way total in this tournament. Hopefully this performance will lead to bigger and better things. Another great story was the resurgence of David Duval. David was a former number one player in the world who has struggled in recent years with his game. Hopefully this performance will lead him back to the Winner’s Circle soon. The Champion is the last great story, Lucas Glover. Lucas is a journeyman golfer, who did not make the cut in his three previous US Open appearances and has one PGA Tour victory. Lucas survived a tough week and deserves this victory. What I like about Lucas is that he could have taken the week off after the win, but he made a commitment a few months ago to play the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and kept that commitment. Bottom line is if you make a commitment keep it. Good for you Lucas.

Tuesday was a slow day with the Red Sox beating the happless Washington Nationals 11 to 3 and it was day two at Wimbledon.

But Wednesday was one of the biggest upset in worldwide Soccer history as the US National Team beat Spain 2 to 0 in the Confederations Cup Semi Finals to advance to their first FIFA worldwide final. Spain was the world number one team, had a fifteen game win streak and beat their three group opponents in this tournament by a total of 8 goals to 0. With stats like that a lot of people, myself included, thought the US would get killed. But we played a perfect game with the defense and especially goalkeeper Tim Howard really steped up. My question is where was this performance in their first two games? If we want to contend in the World Cup next year I think we have to play well in all games not just the ones that matter?

Thursday was a crazy day. First was the other Semi final in the Confederations Cup: Brazil beat South Africa 1 to 0. I was very impressed by how the South Africa’s played by keeping Brazil to one goal. (They scored 10 goals in the group stage) South Africa will be a tough opponent next year at home for the World Cup. This result gave the US a ray of hope for the final. Remember the US lost to Brazil 3 to 0. Right after the game ended news was breaking that Michael Jackson had died. If you like him or didn’t like him you had to respect his music and his dancing. In fact while writing this post I was rocking out to some old school Jackson 5 music.
I will skip to the Confederations Cup Final on Sunday. I will admit that I missed the first 15 minutes or so because I though the US would get blown out and that they could not put two big upsets together. I was shocked to see that Clint Dempsey scored the first goal in the 10th minute and than added to the lead in the 27th minute with a Landon Donovan goal to make it 2 to zero at halftime. At the half I was thinking that we could shock the world but than I remembered that there was 45 minutes to go and Brazil being Brazil any thing could happen. Then it happen Brazil scored 3 goals in the second half to win. After the first goal in the 46th minute I thought OK we can hold them for 44 more minutes, well we could not, Luis Fabiano scored again in the 74th minute to tie it up. Then I started to panick and knew we were going to loose. Thank goodness it didn’t go to PKs because I think it’s a hideous way to end a major championship. Thankfully Brazil scored in the 84th minute to put me out of my misery. Good game from the US, Tim Howard played great again and kept the ball out of the goal as best he could. We forget that there is two halves in a game! The defence that gave us the lead in the first half was forgotten in the second half. Great run in this tournament, they should be proud of the run, but getting to the finals should not be good enough. We need to learn from these experiences because the World Cup is the ultimate test.

This Weekend

The big event this upcoming weekend is the Wimbledon Finals. Saturday the 4th of July is the Women’s Final and it looks like we will have an all American final with Venus and Serena Williams meeting for the championship. Sunday is the Men’s Final with Roger Federer looking to regain his crown and become the greatest Grand Slam Champion of all time. He is tied with Pete Sampras with 14 wins. Roger will meet one of the Andy’s in the final, either Andy Roddick the American or Andy Murray the Brit. This is also the 30th anniversary of “Breakfast at Wimbledon”. In 1979 NBC Sports showed the Gentleman Final at 9 A.M. Saturday morning thus the name “Breakfast at Wimbledon”. That first “Breakfast at Wimbledon” almost didn’t happen. You see, in the old days the Final started at 9 A.M. on the dot. NBC needed time for the announcers to set up the match. They got a lucky break that year; the match was between Bjorn Borg and Roscoe Tanner. One of NBC’s announcers that year was Donald Dell who happened to be Tanner’s manager. Dell told Tanner to come out, go directly to the chair umpire, request a bathroom break, and not to comeback out of the locker room until 9a.m. Because Tanner did this NBC didn’t miss a point of the match. Interesting story to start a summer tradition, I think!

The other big event is the Moto GP at Laguna Seca in California. This is one of the most exciting round of the championship and one of the few times of the year that the bikes are on TV. The race is live on FOX at 5 P.M. on Sunday.

On Sunday I will be at Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox play the Seattle Mariners. I will have a full report next week. I’M looking forward to it. If you get a change to go to Fenway, even if you’re a Yankee fan, I urge you to go. When you walk to you seats through the tunnel and see the Green Monster, I well tell you there’s nothing like it.

Talk to you next week.

Jamie Lazaroff