Blake Murphy Sports Writing

Title: ODC Rough Cuts – The Site, The Derby, The Doc, The Rock
Date: July 15, 2008
Original Source: The On Deck Circle
Synopsis: Some random thoughts while healing from laser eye surgery.

Hey all, first off sorry about the low ODC flow lately. Entirely my fault, as I’ve battled a lack of internet, time, and laser eye surgery. Rest assured though, ODC returns to full volume later tonight when I arrive in Kingston. You can expect a two-piece All Star article from Andrew Chestnut, Sports Socialite’s sophomore column, a debut piece from Kabeir Dilwari, and a ton of baseball and basketball stuff from me in the coming days. I’m also working on Tags, for those of you who know what that means. So keep with us…ODC is still ill and will return to full flow later today, promise. In the meantime, my thoughts on three small sports items:

The Derby
What a display, for sure. I won’t get into how badly they need to change the format so a 28-tater first round isn’t wasted, but that had to be an entertaining view for anyone. If you haven’t heard Josh Hamilton’s incredible story yet, you need to. There’s been an ESPN feature on it and a big Sports Illustrated cover article. It’s inspirational on a personal and baseball level, and as Hamilton teared up talking about living an obscure Yankee Stadium Home Run Derby dream he had, it was honestly the best I’ve felt as a sports fan in a long time.

Halladay Frustrated
Umm, no way!? Obviously The Doc is frustrated with the Jays over the past few seasons, and he said so during Monday’s All Star media day. The team has floated around .500 through his entire tenure there while he toiled away as the best pitcher in baseball. Not that his talent is being wasted, persay, but you can understand why a guy with a .667 winning percentage is upset on a perennial .500 franchise. And folks, that’s all he said, frustrated, so don’t go making a Burnett-to-the-Cubs style big deal out of this. And if you say one bad word about Halladay…I’ll hunt you down. And kill you.

Team Canada Loses to Slovenia, Korea Tomorrow
The day after Lasik surgery, I braved a 545am wake-up to catch The Score’s broadcast of Canada v. Slovenia at 6am. It wasn’t worth it, trust. After 4 solid games against Lebanon and New Zealand at the JDIC and then a promising split of an exhibition pair against powerhouse Germany, Canada looked flat and disinterested against an undermanned Slovenian team. Losing by 16 doesn’t show the game justice, as Canada turned the ball over far too often, couldn’t get it’s long range shooting down, and was simply a mess offensively. Canada only needs to beat Korea tomorrow at 6am (on The Score) to advance to the elimination round (they would face the higher seed of Puerto Rico and Croatia, neither an easy task), so things are not lost yet. Oh, and “The Rock” in the title is the nickname of Carl English, Canadian supermodel.

Anyways people, keep reading, and expect a heavy Wed-Thurs-Fri here at The ODC…your #1 source for Jeff Finger jokes!