Just sitting here waiting for the Phillies game to be called, though it appears as if they might wait for a long time despite the fact that the radar shows nothing but a huge mass of green covering the Eastern Seaboard. Frankly folks, I’m against this invasion of our region of our country.
Nevertheless, chances are they will wait before calling the game because the San Diego Padres do not return to Philadelphia after Monday’s game. Finding a date in which to force the Padres back to Philly for one game will take some work.
So that’s why they’ll wait despite that green mass covering the map.
But remember back when they used to show the team’s yearly highlight films during rain delays? Sometimes they were better than the game itself and they definitely made the rain delay much more enjoyable.
These days though, they have shows to serve as filler, or viewers can just get up and go do something else during a delay. Back then we had the game and the highlight tape and that was it. Things might not have been better then, but we didn’t know – we liked anyway.
Speaking of rain delay highlights, how about that shot from Andre Iguodala last night? Crazy huh? At least the response to it on my mobile device was crazy. While walking to 30th Street Station for the ride home, the messages rolled in right on top of each other expressing amazement that Iguodala could make that shot and that the Sixers could rally from 18-points down.
I’m sure Marc Zumoff and Tom McGinness probably sounded a bit excited, though the guy doing the highlight below might have been brought in just for the taping:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XK_goEKYpQ&hl=en&fs=1]
* Elsewhere, there was a pretty stellar Boston Marathon with two Americans finishing on the podium. Firstly, Ryan Hall closed hard, but finished in third place with a 2:09:41 clocking. For a first time run at Boston, that’s not bad.
Hall, 26, has run 2:06:17 in London, which is the fastest marathon time ever by a man born on U.S. soil. He also owns the American record in the half-marathon (59:43 in Houston) and clobbered the field in the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in November of 2007.
It’s not unreasonable to think that Hall could actually win one of the Marathon Majors (Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin) in the very near future.
On the women’s side, 45-year old naturalized American Colleen De Reuck paced the pack through the early part of the race with Kara Goucher, who is off to a pretty good start to her marathon career.
After finishing ninth and 10th at the Beijing Olympics in the 10,000-meters and 5,000-meters, Goucher, 30, made the jump to the marathon where she ran an eye-popping 2:25:53 for third place in last November’s New York City Marathon. For an encore, she damn-near won the Boston Marathon.
Goucher ran with winner Deriba Merga of Ethiopia and Salina Kosgei of Kenya past Kenmore Square and actually had the lead with a half-mile to go. But down Boyleston Street, Merga and Kosgei kicked away with the Ethiopian winning by a stride in the closest finish ever.
Goucher was nine seconds back in 2:32:25.
It will be interesting to see if Hall and Goucher go back to Boston in 2010. If so, I’m going after them… OK, maybe not, but we’re going to go after something.
* Oh yeah, game called... the Phillies will return to action on Tuesday night - weather permitting.