The Rams scored a big win on the final play of the game yesterday up at Rose Hill, beating Xavier 76-74. Yours truly was lucky enough to be up at the game, which Fordham nearly gave away in the last few minutes. The win makes them 6-9 and 1-1 in the conference. Not too shabby... certainly a lot more than Bob Hill did with the team. Where is old Bobby boy anyway? I hope he's coaching an 11 year-old CYO team somewhere.
All in Baseball and Other Sports
Last night was our first ZogSports Dodgeball Game. Not only was it a blast, but it turns out we're not too shabby either. In fact, we went undefeated in the four game round robin at PS 191's gym. (Yes, we actaully play in elementery school gyms.)
Here are the pics... The gym was sort of dimly lit, but Sue Yoo did an admirable job with the photography work while she sat out this week on the DL nonetheless.
Pastore came up with a great team cheer:
D! O! D! G-E! DODGE-THIS! [Run around like idiots and bump chests]
We've yet to get the whole team on board with the cheer, but we're working on it.
I have to say, everyone up and down the lineup did a great job. We worked together as a team and became a sweaty force to be reckoned with. Extremely sweaty. Ohhh... memories of being nine. One lesson we all learned well today... Don't mess with Lindsey.
Carlos Beltran is now a Met.
Beltran is simply the most exciting addition this franchise has made... EVER. That includes the trade for Mike Piazza. When Piazza joined the Mets, don't get me wrong, it was exciting, but he wasn't coming off the kind of postseason performance Beltran had. Carlos Beltran nearly carried the Astros on his shoulders into the World Series. Plus, unlike Piazza, he can field and he's much younger than Piazza.
You know what's even more exciting? Carlos Beltran was a Jesuit--he was on my fantasy team for the last two years. I got him last year for a paltry $23 bucks, which meant I got to keep him this year for $28, because I'm in a franchise league. Clearly one of the best fantasy signings ever. So, I've rooted for this guy... waiting for him to come up on SportsCenter every time I was out at a bar, checking the box scores on the net. When I watched the playoffs this year, I had a special kind of pride in Carlos Beltran... the kind of special pride that can only come from watching one of your fantasy guys succeed in the real world. Geeky? Perhaps, but hey, its 2005, and this is the bizarre state of the game for the internet generation. I'm a rotohead loser, so shoot me.
And yet, the press says that the Mets aren’t even done yet. There’s apparently an outstanding offer to Carlos Delgado on the table. Pedro, Beltran AND Delgado? That’s just nuts. Imagine this opening day lineup…
SS Reyes
3B Wright
CF Beltran
1B Delgado
C Piazza
LF Floyd
RF Cameron
2B Matsui
P Martinez
Now that’s potent with a capital M. :)
The carnage begins Thursday, January 13th, when my charity dodgeball team, Dodge This!, plays its first ZogSports dodgeball scrimmage.
Come see us play!
Thursday, January 13, 2005 9:30PM
PS 191 (West 61st Street bet West End/Amsterdam)
Be there, or we'll throw a wrench at you.
Link: ESPN.com - MLB - Reports: Mets top Red Sox offer for Pedro.
Well, this makes total sense. Here's a big name guy with a bad attitude, past his prime and on the decline, asking for too much money. Oh, not to mention the fact that his health is suspect.
He fits perfect with the Mets strategy.
I've heard some Sammy Sosa rumors as well. Again, right in line, and it would be great to have both an overrated pitcher on the decline AND a slugger on the decline.
Is Jose Canseco available?
After they lost their third game in the series against the Yanks, I sent this e-mail to Ryan Roy, who is as diehard a Red Sawks fan as they come...
"My condolences. Your boys let you, and everyone else down, big time.
And why the hell can't you get a manager who knows when to take
pictures out and put them in? Mendoza should have been in there for
three innings. It was obviously going to be one of those games, and
if he gives up a couple of runs, so what. He got yanked early, and
that's what opened up the floodgates."
I may have been a bit premature.
Its all over. The Red Sox have come back from the dead and have finally made it to the Series. As a Met fan, I was more than happy to watch Johnny Damon stick a fork in them with a slam in the second. It was a beautiful thing to watch. The best part about it was that it wasn't even close. It makes the book thing a little easier to swallow... at least my day ended on a high note.
In other news, I'm pretty excited about a meeting I have with someone from GM corporate this Monday. I think they're part of a research and development group, but GM is so large, its hard to get a handle on what anyone is doing. One of my goals over the next year is to streamline our process of leveraging our relationship with the IT guys in the company. Not only that, we should be better leveraging our relationship with the IT folks from other clients that we manage money for, like Delphi and Xerox, as well. Its the kind of think that just needs someone dedicated to it and willing to keep after these guys... the kind if relationship building we do with our own GPs. We have relationships and connections to such a huge group of IT consumers that its a waste of a resource not to know these guys better--especially since GM can be such a difficult organization to get inroads to. That's probably my number one goal over the next year.
That makes me think of a post that someone wrote about what to look for in a VC if you are an entreprenuer at a startup. In this case, I think connections to a large organization should be one of the things that VCs should look for in their LP base. That would make for an interesting post... what to look for in a good LP. I'm sure that VCs and GPs in private equity in general are looking for more than just dumb money. Over the weekend, I think I'm going to put some thoughts down about this, because its something we think about a lot here in terms of what makes us a more attractive LP.
Playoff quote...
Every time I see Jeff Bagwell, I want to get on my Total Gym. He looks like Chuck Norris."
Of course, I don't know who said the quote, because I'm watching the game on closed caption at DTUT while I write my Stanford Essays.