Is This It?

Microsoft's Answer To The iPod



Here's the link to Gizmodo. It's like a UFO sighting photo - blurry and out of focus, but that's what the world of Microsoft afficianados have to look forward to. I myself have a 60GB video iPod so this product really doesn't do it for me. I will say this: It's got a much bigger screen than an iPod.

Sim Leaguers
Here's a cool article. It's a very nice article, but this bit in particluar cracked me up:

Almost as gratifying, he says, has been the interest his games have attracted among major leaguers. While living in suburban Milwaukee in the 1980s, Cieslinski often played pickup basketball against some of the Brewers players. Jim Gantner, Bob McClure and future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor took the biggest interest in the game. He later became friendly with some of the Baltimore Orioles players, enticing Dennis Martinez, Tippy Martinez, Lenn Sakata and others to give his game a try.

"I remember my first game vs. Paul Molitor was in the Brewer clubhouse," Cieslinski recalled. "Paul was managing the Brewers, and of course he had himself leading off. Sure enough, he hit a leadoff homer! Paul grasped just how realistic the game was immediately. Dennis Martinez was a tremendous amount of fun to play because he was so animated. When he was pitching [rolling the dice] it was like he was rolling curveballs and fastballs with the dice."

Paul Molitor grasped how realistic the game was when his alter-ego hit a lead off homerun. Pretty funny.

Yanks Win 26-15 In 18 Innings


...in a manner of speaking. The Yankees won a doubleheader in Boston 12-4, then 14-10 to get a jump start in the 5 game series.

"We kept looking up and it kept being the fourth inning. It was nuts," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "I'm proud of it, especially in this ballpark, where every game seems like it's the longest game in history."

The teams combined for 41 runs and 61 hits. Twenty pitchers -- that's counting Mike Myers and Scott Proctor twice -- threw 783 pitches. In all, the teams played 8:40 minutes of baseball, from Jason Johnson's first pitch at 1:10 p.m. until Mariano Rivera covered first to retire Wily Mo Pena at 12:52 a.m.

"I don't even remember half of it," said Derek Jeter, who hit a bases-clearing double in a seven-run seventh inning to give New York an 11-10 lead.

"It feels great," Jeter said sarcastically, "especially when we have another one in a few hours."

Chien-Ming Wang (14-5) beat Jason Johnson (3-12) in the first game.

Johnny Damon had six of New York's 34 hits on the day, including a pair of two-run homers. Bobby Abreu had four hits to lead the Yankees to a 12-4 victory in the early game, then added two more in the sequel as the Yankees guaranteed that they will leave town after the five-game series with the division lead.

"It was a long, frustrating day," said Red Sox second baseman Mark Loretta, who had three doubles in the first game and went 3-for-6 with four RBIs in the second for Boston, which has lost nine of 13. "We have our work cut out for us in this series."

The night game surpassed the 4:27 it took the Dodgers and Giants to play on Oct. 5, 2001. Because the park was cleared between games, the Elias Sports Bureau does not count it as a doubleheader. The longest doubleheader, between the Rangers and White Sox on May 24, 1995, took 7:39.

So the longest game in MLB history plus another game... What a day. Kind of really glad they came away winners in both.