Here's an interesting article comparing the Yankees and the Australian cricket team.
Within their sport, this Australian cricket team has been likened to Bradman’s Invincibles and Clive Lloyd’s West Indians. Outside their sport, an apt contemporary comparison of sporting dynasties would be to the New York Yankees baseball team since 1995.There's a tone there that seems to declare that both the Yankees and the Australian cricket teams are done; perhaps a little wishful. Of course, unlikely as it seemed three days ago, the Yankees have earned sole-possession of the Wild Card lead after edging out Toronto 5-4 today.
It wasn’t just that they mostly won, it was the way they won: with self-belief that sometimes bordered on brashness. Their fans saw their belief and embraced them. Others saw brashness — plus, in the case of the Yankees, owner George Steinbrenner’s cheque book that underwrote championships — and loathed them.
All these years, on the highway to success, the Aussies and the Yankees charted similar paths. Today, at a crossroads, they face similar questions. Depending on what you see and whom you believe, both teams are either in slow decline or in a slump. All summer, they have been threatening to perform, but have been consistently losing the plot.
The Aussies we know. For the Yankees, the first half of the long-winding baseball season was their most miserable in the past decade, prompting Steinbrenner to fire tirades and sign more cheques.
Both teams revolve around ageing veterans, who’ve been there and done that but are struggling to string it together this season or series. There have been rumblings to make wholesale changes and consign these teams to history but the men who matter have placed their faith in the tried and tested to play catch up.
On Monday, the Yankees did catch up, moving into a tie for the ‘wildcard’ lead in their American Division — basically the fourth and final playoff spot on their side of the draw. Still, after the numerous false dawns, few, if any, are saying they look like a championship team.
But there are some telling signs. For the first time in the season, three of their five original starting pitchers — the most important men in a baseball team — are healthy and throwing freely. Similarly, Australia are done backing one under-performing veteran. At Trent Bridge, for the first time in the series, they will have four bowlers, not three bowlers and a passenger called Gillespie.
Of all the tests they have had to collectively endure, this is among the hardest. The stakes are high. On it hinge some reputations, some careers, and the future of two great teams.
Felix Escalona's bases-loaded single with two outs in the ninth inning gave the New York Yankees a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night and sole possession of the AL wild-card lead.So Al Leiter pitched a gritty seven-plus innings, Rivera blew a save again, but the bats bailed him out for the win. Meanwhile, Australia heads into yet another test match on their Ashes Tour, this time at Trent Bridge
Hideki Matsui hit a tying homer in the ninth, and Derek Jeter had two hits in his return to the lineup for the Yankees (69-55), who scored in each of the final four innings to win for the ninth time in 12 games and reach 14 games over .500 for the first time this season.
New York, which didn't lead until the final hit, had been tied for the wild-card lead with Oakland, which lost at Detroit.
Vernon Wells had three hits, including a homer, as the Blue Jays wasted a strong start by Josh Towers.
Toronto took a 4-3 lead off Mariano Rivera (6-3) in the ninth, but Matsui led off the bottom half with his 20th homer, a drive off Miguel Batista (5-5). Jorge Posada walked with one out, and Robinson Cano walked with two outs. Batista then intentionally walked Jeter to load the bases for Escalona, who singled to center.
After New York tied it in the eighth, Orlando Hudson singled off Rivera with one out in the ninth when Escalona came off first base to grab Jeter's throw. Hudson took second on an infield out and scored on Reed Johnson's single, beating Matsui's throw.
Al Leiter gave up three runs and six hits with one walk and five strikeouts in seven-plus innings.
Australia will certainly make one change, axing fast bowler Jason Gillespie and ushering young tearaway Shaun Tait to his dressing-room peg. The 22-year-old is expected to pose more problems in swinging conditions.
Gillespie's lack of zip has been shocking. For years, he has been the unsung hero of the Australian attack.
During the last five weeks, however, he has been treated dismissively by English batsmen, his three wickets costing 300 runs and bucketfuls of self-esteem.
By this time during the 2002-3 Ashes, the contest was already over. It took barely 11 days for Australia to go 3-0 up in that five-match series.
Everything was different then, not least the press coverage.
England, beset by one injury after another (Andrew Flintoff did not get on the pitch and Simon Jones lasted one session), were lampooned in Australia as the most physically and mentally brittle bunch of losers ever to show their red faces Down Under.
Mockery, of course, is the preserve of undisputed world champions.
In 2005, however, the Australians have spent more time anxiously studying their navels. Adam Gilchrist's lack of dazzle has been as perplexing as Matthew Hayden's shortage of runs.
Former captain Ian Chappell has suggested the side may not be quite as good as they imagined, having spent so many years subsidised by the twin genius of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Dennis Lillee has talked of an ageing team in decline.
There have also been injury worries, with McGrath missing the second test and playing in Manchester only half fit, while Michael Clarke spent more time in bed than on the pitch during the third test.
England have stayed fit and with the same 11 that began the series. In their last home series, they used 19 players.
Trent Bridge, though, is not one of England's favourite Ashes haunts with only three wins there in 19 tests. In 1997 and 2001, Australia wrapped up the series in Robin Hood country. The last English champagne was uncorked in 1977.
I know I said the dynasties are over a week ago, but these dynasties seem to be refusing to go into the night quietly; and that's what we like from our sporting heroes. A good deal of fight and fire in their bellies. :)
Nutbar Central
You know it: The Christian Right in US politics is about 50 cards short of a full deck. Former Presidential Hopeful (delusional perhaps) Pat Robertson called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela. The repercussions are coming hard and fast.
There's an old Southern saying that you dance with the one that brung ya, but as the Bush administration found out this week, sometimes you don't want to dance too close. The administration quickly distanced itself Tuesday from the suggestion by religious broadcaster and Bush backer Pat Robertson that the United States assassinate a leftist Latin American head of state.This is just so sad. As an aside I can't resist a little kicker: I guess The Angry Fatman could put a spin on this to make it all acceptable to himself. *Ugh*. More Disgust.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ``inappropriate,'' but stopped short of condemning them.
``This is not the policy of the United States government,'' McCormack said. ``We do not share his views.''
The Bush administration does share many of Robertson's views on other matters, such as stem cell research, and Robertson's largely conservative, evangelical audience overlaps with the core of Bush's political base.
About nine of 10 white evangelicals voted for Bush in the 2004 election - about as high as his support from any group of voters, according to exit polls. This group also supported Bush overwhelmingly in the 2000 election.
McCormack tiptoed around the question of whether the rest of the world might assume that Robertson speaks, if not directly for Bush, at least for a sizable share of the Republican Party.
``I would think that people around the world would take the comments for what they are,'' McCormack said. ``They're the expression of one citizen.''
Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1988, supported Bush's re-election last year and said he believed Bush is blessed by God. Robertson also told viewers of his ``700 Club'' television program that God had told him Bush would win re-election in a ``blowout.''
Speaking on the same program Monday, Robertson said killing Chavez would be cheaper than starting a war to oust him. Getting rid of Chavez would stop Venezuela from becoming a ``launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism,'' Robertson said.
``We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,'' Robertson said. ``We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.''
A Robertson spokeswoman, Angell Watts, said he would not do interviews Tuesday and had no statement elaborating on his remarks.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon isn't in the business of killing foreign leaders, but he also did not denounce Robertson or his remarks.
``He's a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time,'' Rumsfeld said.
Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, said of Robertson's remarks: ``We are concerned about the safety of the president.'' Alvarez said measures should be taken to guarantee Chavez's safety any time he visits the United States. The Venezuelan leader is expected to attend the special session of the U.N. General Assembly next month in New York.
Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have been linking Chavez with Cuban leader Fidel Castro as destabilizing troublemakers in teetering Latin American democracies. En route home from visits earlier this month to Paraguay and Peru, Rumsfeld told reporters, ``There certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways.''
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