Posts Tagged ‘Nothing to do with Hip Hop’

California beats Taiwan takes Little League WS

Andy Rios couldn’t wait to get home to Southern California to have some french fries.

There’s a big victory meal upcoming back in Chula Vista.

Bulla Graft’s sharp single scored the go-ahead run in the fourth inning and Kiko Garcia pitched three-plus scoreless innings of relief to lead California to a 6-3 victory Sunday over Taoyuan, Taiwan to win the Little League World Series.

With the U.S.-partisan crowd on their feet, Garcia closed out the victory by striking out Yu Chieh Kao, completing a comeback from a 3-0 deficit. The California fans yelled “USA! USA.”
Chula Vista, California short stop Andy Rios reacts after turning a bases loaded double play against Taoyuan Taiwan during the fifth inning in the championship game of Little League Baseball’s World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, August 30, 2009.

“We knew we could come back,” said the 13-year-old Garcia in between laughs with his teammates. “We always do.”

They’re surely celebrating in the San Diego suburbs after California secured the fifth straight Little League championship for the United States.

After a wild celebration around Garcia, the Californians invited Taiwan to accompany them on the customary victory lap around Lamade Stadium on a sun-splashed afternoon.

But the championship banner belonged to California.

“It seems San Diego comes so close all the time. The Padres come close and don’t win. The Chargers come close and don’t win,” manager Oscar Castro said. “It was nice to do it for the city.”

Castro sought to shield his team from the pressure of the tournament as they advanced, forbidding them to surf the Internet for the last three weeks to prevent them from seeing the media exposure back home.

Victory on Sunday looked in doubt early. Wen Hua Sung and Chin Ou hit back-to-back homers in the third to give Taiwan a 3-0 lead.

California scored a run in the third before surging ahead in the fourth. Seth Godfrey drove in a run on a sacrifice fly before Nick Conlin scored on a wild pitch.

Even Vice President Joe Biden, who attended the game, was impressed, standing and clapping as his three granddaughters looked on.

Later, Taiwan walked slugger Luke Ramirez with two outs to bring up Graft. The 12-year-old second baseman hit a 1-1 pitch to right to score Rios from third.

Taiwan loaded the bases in the fifth off two hit batters and a walk, but Garcia escaped the jam after getting Ou to ground into an inning-ending double play. Rios snagged the bouncer, tagged the runner going to third before throwing to first to get Ou.

“It was just instinct to tag the runner, he was right in front of me,” the 13-year-old Rios said. “They had all the momentum with the bases loaded, but I gave us the momentum with the double play.”

California added two runs in the fifth, more than enough cushion for Garcia.

The boys threw their gloves high in the air after Kao struck out, then gathered near the mound and fell into a pile on the ground.
Chula Vista, California player Andy Rios scores a run against San Antonio, Texas during the third inning in the U.S. final of Little League Baseball’s World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, August 29, 2009.

After the game, the boys were asked what they wanted to do when they got home. Rios, flashing a mischievous grin, raised his hand and said he wanted to go the team’s favorite restaurant for the customary post-victory celebration. Rios and Godfrey longed for fries, while Garcia wanted tacos.

“It’s just an amazing feeling,” the 12-year-old Godfrey said. “We went for it, and we did.”

Ou, who started for Taiwan, baffled California early with breaking balls before the team rallied in the fourth inning.

California didn’t homer Sunday, though the club followed through on manager Oscar Castro’s philosophy to hit line drives, not the long ball. Castro said it took his boys one time through the order to figure out Ou.

Garcia, who led the team by hitting .667 with three homers and eight RBIs for the tournament, said the team never lost confidence.

“We knew we could hit any kind of pitching,” he said.

Taiwan’s coaches declined to speak with reporters afterward, instead choosing to lead their players across the field back to their dorms, with equipment bags in hand.

They walked right past giddy California boys on their hands and knees, scooping up bags of infield dirt as a memento of their big win.

Man Carrying Assault Weapon attends Obama Protest

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday – the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they’re exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday’s event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn’t need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. “In Arizona, I still have some freedoms,” he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

“Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions,” Oliver said. “We were keeping peace on both ends.”

Last week, during Obama’s health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading “It is time to water the tree of liberty” stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

“It’s a political statement,” he told The Boston Globe. “If you don’t use your rights, then you lose your rights.”

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

“When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance,” Solop said. “It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication.”

He said he’s never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. “The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation,” he said.

Phoenix was Obama’s last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

Authorities in Montana said they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama’s health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority.

Heather Benjamin of Denver’s Mesa County sheriff’s department, the lead agency during Obama’s visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an “open-carry” state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it’s visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

“To me, this is craziness,” he said. “When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you’re just making the situation dangerous for everyone.”

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. “The more guns we see at more events like this, there’s more potential for something tragic happening,” he said.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president.

“In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or otherwise attempting to,” Donovan said. “They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon.”

Representatives of the National Rifle Association did not return calls for comment.

The New Dallas Cowboys Stadium will Offer $90 Pizzas WTF?

The colossal new Dallas Cowboys Stadium is living proof that everything is bigger in Texas. The menu in the luxury suites proves that things there are more expensive too.

Those enjoying a Cowboys game from a luxury suite at the new stadium will have to shell out $90 for pizza and $66 for a 12-pack of domestic beer, reports Steven Sipple of the Lincoln Journal World. Ninety bucks for pizza? That’s almost as much of a rip-off as Roy Williams.

It costs $800,000 per year to lease one of those luxury suites, a hefty sum that doesn’t include game tickets. On the bright side, the stadium’s official Web site says that “having your company’s name on a suite makes an important statement about your success” and can help make an impression on clients. (Namely that they’re paying you way too much money.)

As for the $90 pizza, that’s the cost for a plain pizza. No word on how much each topping costs but, suffice it to say, if you’re a fan of pepperoni you may want to consider refinancing your mortgage before you head down to watch the Cowboys.

Obama caught booty watching Check the Video

Record attempt reaps 217K texts 26K phone bill

PHILADELPHIA -
Their thumbs sure must be sore. Two central Pennsylvania friends spent most of March in a text-messaging record attempt, exchanging a thumbs-flying total of 217,000. For one of the two, that meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $26,000.

Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were relying on their unlimited text messaging plans to get them through the escapade, so Andes didn’t expect such a big bill.

“It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me,” he said Tuesday. He said he “panicked” and called T-Mobile, which told The Associated Press it had credited his account and was investigating the charges.

The two Lancaster-area residents have been practically nonstop texters for about a decade since they attended Berks Technical Institute together.

That led Andes to search for the largest monthly text message total he could find posted online: 182,000 sent in 2005 by Deepak Sharma in India.

Andes and Klinger were able to set up their phones to send multiple messages. During a February test run they found they could send 6,000 or 7,000 messages on some days, prompting the March messaging marathon.

“Most were either short phrases or one word, ‘LOL’ or ‘Hello,’ things like that, with tons and tons of repeats,” said Andes, reached by phone.

Andes sent more than 140,000 messages, and Klinger sent more than 70,000 to end the month with a total of just over 217,000, he said.

A spokesman for Guinness World Records didn’t immediately return messages asking whether it would be certified as a record.

April came as a relief to Andes’ wife, Julie, who had found his phone tied up with texting when she tried to call him on lunch breaks.

“She was tired of it the first few days into it,” Andes said.