Obligatory Sports Babe

The world champion Boston Celtics-- which, after following the NBA for the last 15 years, still seems really odd to say-- raised the banner for their 17th championship last night, and then proceeded to beat LeBron James and the Cavaliers 90-85, kicking off the NBA season. So...

Rays Fans: Blame The Groundskeepers

Interesting take from Rays Index on who Phillies fans should be whining about the most after Monday night's debacle in Philadelphia. They suggesting that the mirror be turned inward... towards the Phillies groundskeeping crew. "During the bottom of the 5th inning, Chris Myers reported from the field that he had just spoken with the head groundskeeper who claimed that the ground crew had the situation under control and that the field could handle the rain. ... This is the same person that Major League Baseball and the umpires are checking with and Boekholder is telling them that the field will not be a problem."

Foreign Ownership: Coming To A League Near You

New Jersey Nets owner Bruce "Brett" Ratner, who may be losing as much as $30M on the team each year, has listened to proposals from a Russian group and one based in Dubai about selling the team, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Look For the Red Dots

Apologies for a moment of Toronto-centrism, but the biking infrastructure in this city pretty much sucks-- especially when you consider how many cyclists there actually are around here. I mean, it's not awful, but bike lanes are still too few and too far between, and a lot of them are just glorified gutters (ahem! Spadina!). I was in Montreal earlier this month and saw a kid about five years old biking in the downtown core with his dad. How was this possible? Because there was actually a small concrete median that separated the bike lane from traffic! I can't speak to the rest of their system, but that one small thing was pretty impressive.

Anywho, I bring this all up because, apparently, Toronto's got its act together in one respect. Traffic lights in some intersections here are now equipped with sensors, denoted by three white dots on the road, sensitive enough to detect a bike stopped at a red light and change it to green. Bike dots!

More Montreal

Another thing that thoroughly surprised me when I was in Montreal earlier in the month was that when I picked up a copy of the Gazette and opened it to the sports section, almost the entire page was taken up by a huge photo and article about the Impact. In Cancun last night they lost 2-1 to Atlante FC, to finish second in their CONCACAF Champions League group-- meaning they have the daunting task of facing the winner of one of the other groups in the next round.

The Dan Orlovsky Action Figure

I missed this the other day, but Tirico Suave came up with this prototype of a Dan Orlovsky action figure, which is just a little bit priceless...