After growing up watching great boxers like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Alexis Arguello, and Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran, the Tank has soured on professional boxing over the past decade or so because of the corruption and mismanagement that has plagued the "Sweet Science".  However, my friend Boogie Down Bronx Jose taped some fights during the past year and we would talk about them.  While listening to Max Kellerman on ESPN 1050 AM, I also got back into boxing as Max is an excellent boxing analyst.

Instead of travelling to Vegas or Atlantic City to watch a fight, the Tank went to the world's greatest arena, Madison Square Garden, a few weeks ago to watch the heavyweight champion of the world, Dr. Wladimir Wladimirowich Klitschko.  Since the Tank went to the Brian Regan comedy concert earlier that evening, I wasn't sure when it would end so I didn't want to waste money by buying a ticket I wouldn't use.  The Tank walked up to the box office but only the Will Call window is open.  The main event was more than 30 minutes away and they weren't selling tickets, only Will Call.  I could understand if the Garden sold out but there were still at least a few thousand tickets available.  What's up with that? 

I started to walk around the entrance of the Garden with one finger in the air.  It wasn't the BNL insanity signal but I tried to scalp a ticket.  The following is a brief transcript of a conversation:

Stranger: Are you a cop? 

Tank: No.

Stranger: You look like a cop.

Tank: No, you look like a cop.

This didn't go anywhere so the Tank moved on.  A Ukrainian adolescent about 100 feet away said to not to bother trying to scalp a ticket as he and about seven of his friends were sold fake tickets.  They ask me if I understand.

Tank: "Da, ya znaio."  ("Yes, I understand," I replied to him in Russian.)
   
Adolescent #2: "Where is the ESPNZone?  Will it show the fight?"

Live!

Sunday, December 03, 2006 9:41:24 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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As much tradition as Ohio State - Michigan has with 103 meetings, Army versus Navy takes the cake with 107 battles.  It is not only the best rivalry in all of professional and amateur sports between two great institutions, it is bragging rights for our servicemen and women stationed at home and around the globe.  It also helps them forget their daily issues and hardships wherever they are.  Army and Navy compete in almost every conceivable sport from football to track to women's basketball.  (R.I.P. Army Coach Maggie Dixon who tragically passed at 28 years old earlier this year.) 
                                
The 2007 Army senior class is going for their first victory in the four years, especially after last year's painful rout.

The Tank can not honestly pick the game because of personal emotions as well as the fact that the emotion on the field trumps everyone, including Vegas oddmakers (but of course excluding God).  The spread is 20 in favor of the Naval Academy but a win against Navy would salvage the Army season.
                                         
Throw out the records, throw out the betting, this game comes down to PHD, Pride Hustle Determination.

These young leaders play for the love of the game, NOT pro contracts and endorsements.  Both programs run Old School option attacks not pretty pro set offenses.  It's football in its purest form.  Moreover, the Tank would prefer that North American football get back it its roots with leather helmets like when President Ford played at Michigan.  For those not familiar with President Ford's colege football days about 70 years ago, my proposed reforms would be closer to current leather rugby helmets.  Metal helmets cause too many injuries and take away from the game.  Football should be physical but not violent.  Just ask paralyzed players like Darryl Stingley at the hands of Jack "They Call Me Assassin" Tatum.     
          
Enough ranting, back to the Army-Navy game.  The Tank wanted to go to Philadelphia today but uncertainty over availability on an office project kept me in New York.
                              
Army took an early 7-0 lead.  Navy counters and ties the score.  Army holds the potent Naval attack to a 7-7 draw at halftime.

Navy unfortunately takes a 14-7 lead in the third quarter.  Army gets the ball back and converts a key 3 and 8 play to keep the drive going but could not capitalize.

Army is plagued by second half mistakes with two interceptions and a missed field goal attempt.

Navy converts a late field goal to take a 17-7 lead in the fourth quarter. 

Navy gets a late safety on Williams to take a 19-7 lead.  Each team gets an additional late touchdown and the Naval Academy unfortunately wins 26-14. 

Posted by a disappointed Tank in NY.

College Football

Saturday, December 02, 2006 7:43:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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November came and went and I think (and hope) that the Knicks weathered the storm with a 6-11 record.  (The Knicks lost to Detroit Friday night to begin December on the wrong foot but the game was in Detroit who is still an Eastern Conference power.)  Since all other teams in the Atlantic Division are below .500, the Knicks are only 1.5 games games behind the 5-9 Nets for the best record in the Atlantic Division which would make them the #3 Seed in the Eastern Conference.  Granted the winner of a division should be above .500 but this is the Atlantic Division after all.  If the Knicks don't win the division, they are only 1.5 games out of the 8th playoff seed.  As Medford Bob often says, "you (The Tank) make lemonade out of lemons."

The Knicks also had the third best road record in the entire conference, 5-6, which is not bad after finishing home and away games with Western Conference powers Houston and San Antonio.  Furthermore, the Knicks have a new coach in Isaiah Thomas and new players learning a new system.

NBA

Friday, December 01, 2006 11:58:01 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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After intense emotional therapy, I can now share the following story with you. 

Training for a marathon has its share of obstacles and I encountered a unique situation a couple of months ago.

I was finishing up my workout and heard the manager say through the locker room entrance that he was locking up soon.  I looked at my watch and it read 8:59 pm. OK, the gym closes at 9 pm and I am almost done.  I finished packing my clothes.  As I exited the locker-room to walk up the stairs to leave the gym, an alarm bell started ringing very LOUDLY!

What's happening?  I am trying to leave the gym NOT break into it.  I looked around and didn't see anyone.  The lights were out.  I went to the front door and saw that it was locked.  Did the manager forget about me?  The alarm continued to ring as I unlocked the front door to LEAVE the gym.  I saw a doorman in the building next door and asked him if he saw anyone leave. He replied no as the alarm continued to ring.  We tried to figure out what to do and I asked him to watch my gym bag as I went back inside and checked both locker rooms.  Being a gentleman, I of course knocked on the Ladies Room door and asked if anyone was there.  No one answered and then I checked back upstairs and there was no one there.  I didn't know what to do as I wanted to go to watch KAL, a Roma (Gypsy) band, at 9:30 pm and wanted to grab something to eat.  I conferred with the doorman and asked him to watch the building as I went over to Ray's Pizza to grab something to eat.  (He didn't want anything to eat.).  I went back to the gym and the doorman didn't see anyone.  I tipped him a few bucks and asked him to watch the building until the gym opened in the morning.  The show must go on and I was running late to Joe's Pub right around the corner.

The concert was good and I enjoyed the rest of the evening.

When I went to the gym the next weekend (as I normally workout at the downtown gym during the week), the manager was very apologetic as my motion from leaving the locker-room activated the alarm.  After the alarm went off, he was alerted on his beeper.  He called his colleague who lived nearby and turned off the alarm around 9:40 pm.  He apologized again and gave me some complimentary vitamin waters as endorsed by Mets star third baseman David Wright.  I won't name the vitamin water until they advertise with us. 

Posted by The Tank in NY.

MLB | Running

Tuesday, November 28, 2006 11:47:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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When the Tank suggested I go see the TriNations rugby final, since I was going to be in Sydney that day, it seemed like a good idea, although I was somewhat surprised that I was still able to get a ticket less than a week before the game - although I was later told by several people that Rugby League (which is a different game than rugby union, which is what Americans generally think of as rugby) isn't that popular in Sydney, and the stadium wasn't full to capacity (although attendance was over 27,000 people), apparently there has been some discussion of moving the Tri Nations games from Sydney to another part of Australia where the game is more popular, so I may have seen one of the last Tri Nations games in Sydney

- there were tons of Kiwis and Aussies in the crowd, seemed to be almost 50-50, but the vibe was more of a friendly rivalry (i.e. Mets-Yankees) than a real hatred between the sides -

Kiwi Daniel had explained that rugby league is a cross between American football and traditional rugby - Daniel also recommended that I root for the Kiwis, which didn't strike me as such a good idea, given that it was Aussie turf - I was planning on taking Peter's recommendation that I "root for the ref," but it seemed like the one thing that both the Aussie and the Kiwi fans could agree on was hating the ref, so I decided that total neutrality was probably the route to go (especially since I was surrounded by vocal fans of both teams) - the fans really had gone all out, there was even one set of Kiwi fans a few rows over from me that had gone all out with afro wigs and black face and body paint (which didn't seem to bother anyone, can't quite imagine anyone doing that in the states somehow . . . although the overall impression was more of a member of Kiss than anything else . . .

. ) -

on the way to the bus to the match, Aussie Dan gave me a quick rundown on the main rules of the game - each side gets six "tackles" (the same thing as downs in American football, but with the action not stopping between tackles) before the ball changes possession (unless intercepted), although, like in American football, no team actually gets to the sixth tackle, they "do something stupid" before that point (I mentioned Hail Mary passes, and Dan agreed that was the general idea) - Dan also told me that the defending team would try to hold down the player as long as possible so that the defensive players had as much time as possible to get into position before the ball started moving again (which helped explain why the player who had been tackled struggled so hard to get back to his feet as quickly as possible) -

the first sign when I arrived at the stadium that I was no longer in New York was the truck taking bets on the game just outside of the stadium (I considered it, but decided that I didn't know enough about which team was favored to tell if the odds were good or not) - I made my way into the stadium and to my seat, which ended up being three rows off the field, pretty amazing to be able to see the players up close, they really are amazing athletes, quite strong but also very fast - and the game moves amazingly quickly, quite different from American football with the constant starts and stops -

and then I made a big mistake - I was running a bit late, so I went right to my seat, which was dead center in the middle of a row of 25 and I didn't realize that there are no beer vendors (Steve would have been out of a job) like at American stadiums, so I would have to make all those people get up again to get a beer - in the interest of international relations, I decided to hold off on the beer run for a while - anyway, the game was about to start, the players came out to fireworks at the goal lines, both national anthems were sung and then the Kiwis did the haka - game on -

the Aussies score a goal (kicked in) for the first two points, then they score the first try (touchdown, worth 4 points) and convert the try (extra point, or in this case two points) - the Kiwis also kick in a goal for two points, then they score a try and convert it while I'm on a beer run (I finally couldn't hold out any longer, especially after the tip from the guy sitting next to me to walk over a few aisles for shorter beer lines) - there were separate beer and food "queues" (lines), huge queues at all the beer vendors and no one at all at the food vendors, guess some stereotypes are accurate - at the half, Aussies 10, Kiwis 6 -

the second half started, and the Kiwis scored another try, unfortunately they missed the conversion, so the score was tied at 10 - then the Aussies scored a goal on a penalty to go up by two, but the Kiwis also scored a goal on a penalty, score tied at 12-12 - in the very last seconds of regular time, the Aussies had a great run, and it looks like they may have scored a try, but on review of the video replay (which is a great idea, in case any MLB officials are reading this . . . . ), its ruled a knock forward, no try, and we're into a 5 minute first OT - at the end of 5 minutes, no score, so the announcer says that the clock will now run until either side scores (I guess it isn't very common to need more than one overtime, since the fans next to me had been wondering what would happen after the first overtime) -

but the second OT doesn't last long, the Aussies have a breakaway run and score a try about a minute and a half into it, game over, Aussies win, the crowd goes wild (well, half the crowd anyway . . . . ) - I decide to try to get ahead of the crowd and skip the awarding of the trophy, but as I walk away from the stadium I hear the strains of "we are the champions" (some things seem to be relatively universal in sports . . .

) - overall an amazing experience and one that was a good talking point in the wineries in the Hunter Valley on Sunday and Monday –

Posted by Linda, Live! From the TriNations Rugby Final in Sydney.

Live! | Rugby

Monday, November 27, 2006 7:56:26 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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