The Racing Capital of the World

Living in Indianapolis, it would be wrong for me to have a sports blog and not mention or go to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As shown earlier in the year, I go to the Indy 500 rather frequently, but it has been a long, long time since I have been to the IMS Hall of Fame Museum. So, on a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, my Father suggested, "let's go to the IMS Museum." And what a great idea it was!

Here are the pictures of our little trip through the History of Speed:

Really classy tickets to the Museum. I really like how there's not a bar code or any other garbage. Real clean look.

Beautiful day! Outside the Museum - notice the flags are the different flags used for the race. Checkered Flag is in the middle.

My lovely Mother and me - clearly happy to be here!

View from the steps of the Museum - You can see the stands, which are on the other side of the track. 

A re-creation of a 1950s garage at the Speedway. It's incredibly accurate - right down to the soda bottles in the upper right.

Ray Harroun's car - The Marmon Wasp. Winner of the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911.

Wilbur Shaw's Maserati - winner of the 1940 Indy 500. 

Portrait of 2-time winner Emerson Fittipaldi. He's famous for drinking OJ instead of the traditional Milk after winning in 1989. Public backlash ensued and he made sure to drink the Milk after winning again in 1993.

A.J. Foyt's winning car for the 1961 race. This was Foyt's first win of his record 4 victories. 

The Borg-Warner Trophy. The prize for winning the 500 is getting your face on this guy.

Mario Andretti's winning car from 1969. This was his only win despite his legendary status at Indy.

1991 Winning Car  - the win was Rick Mears' 4th, tying Foyt's record for most wins.

View from the stands between turns 1 and 2. You can see the Pagoda on the right side of the picture. This is the general direction of our seats for the race. 

It was a great day of racing history. Always love going to the track. Thanks for looking and hopefully I'll be back in May to see the 96st running of the Indianapolis 500.

Summer Day at Wrigley

This past weekend I traveled up I-65 to the North Side of Chicago to see the Cubs play the Cincinnati Reds. It was a perfect Saturday for Baseball. It was sunny, mid 80s, with a slight breeze coming off Lake Michigan. A small rain shower early in the morning really helped in cooling everything down.

The game itself was fantastic (at least for a Cubs fan). The bats were hot as both teams combined for 15 runs with the Cubs winning 11-4. In a disappointing year for Cubs fans, this was a wonderful day. After a win like that, it didn't matter that we were 15 games back and practically eliminated from playoff contention.
Carlos Zambrano had a great game, getting the Win, striking out 6, and hitting a monster Home Run in the 3rd inning. Every Cubs starter, except for Marlin Byrd, had at least 1 hit with youngster Starlin Castro picking up 4 RBIs. Over all a great game of ball.

Here are the pictures I took:

Up in the upper deck, but still a great view of the field and the Scoreboard.

View of the infield - Beam and all.

The Cubs at bat - I believe that's Alfonso Soriano at the plate.

A Closer view of the Scoreboard welcoming us to the Friendly confines.

Across the street - The World Series Counter and Eamus Catuli signs. The counter is on: AC0265102 - That is After Championship, 02 (years since winning the division-2008), 65 (years since winning the pennant-1945), and 102 (years since winning the World Series-1908). Eamus Catuli is Latin for 'Let's go Cubs!" although it literally translates to "Let's go Young Bears!" - same thing, right?

The Cubs have the bases loaded! 

Cubs Owner Tom Ricketts talking with fans. He was hanging out near our section for about 20 minutes. 

Game Over! Final score: Red-4, Cubs-11

After every Cubs win, they play Go Cubs Go over the speakers at Wrigley. They show the words up on the Scoreboard so everyone can sing along. This is part of the Chorus: Go Cubs Go, Go Cubs Go, Hey Chicago What'd you say, The Cubs are gonna win today.

The W flag flying proudly. 

So there you go. It was a great trip and a great time with friends. I can't wait to go back sometime. Probably next year because next year is going to be the year!

This may be the first of a regular column on this blog letting you know of all the things going on in the world of football (or for us ignorant Americans: Soccer). I say may because I tend to forget that I should update the blog and days go by without posts. Basically, this will be a regular thing if I remember to do it!

But I digress....

With Summer now officially here, not much is going on. MLS and the League of Ireland are going on (as is the Russian Premier League, I think), but most club leagues in the world are in the off season. This leaves the ridiculousness that is the Transfer Market. Twitter rumors included. But, instead of wasting time talking about players that may or may not be going to this or that club, I want to focus on the beautiful game itself. Lots of International tourneys are going on and here is a Region by Region breakdown, starting with the Americas:

CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football)

The Gold Cup is into the Semifinals with (obviously) only 4 countries remaining. USA, Panama, Mexico, and Honduras. The games are tonight at Reliant Stadium in Houston. The Final will be on June 25 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. 

USA vs. Panama   June 22, 2011 -  7:00pm EST

The United States finally remembered how to play the game and beat Jamaica in the Quarters 2-0. After a horrendous group stage that saw the Americans barely make it through, the dominating performance against the Reggae Boyz was very welcome.  Jermaine Jones had a wonderful strike 4 minutes after that break that broke the goalless deadlock and Clint Dempsey killed the game off with a good effort in the 80'.  


Their opponent will be Panama, who beat the US 2-1 in group play. The Canal Men edged El Salvador in the quarterfinals, winning in a penalty shootout after the teams played to a 1-1 draw. Striker Luis Tejada has been very good for Panama in the tourney, scoring 3 goals overall, including one in the 89' to push the game into penalties. 


It should be a very good game tonight. These teams only played 11 days ago and all the story lines are there. The US wants revenge. Panama are trying to get back to the finals for the first time since they were runners-up in 2005. Which one will make it to the Final at the Rose Bowl? 


Mexico vs. Honduras   June 22, 2011 - 10:00pm EST

Mexico has been blazing through the tournament winning all three of their group matches by at least 3 goals. In fact, their goal deferential in Group A was +13. Javier Hernández is on fire, leading all scorers with 6 goals in the competition. He had a hat trick in the first group match and the winning goal in the quarterfinals. He is the Mexican team. 

They will face Honduras, the runners-up in Group B. Like Panama, they qualified for the Semifinals through a penalty shoot out. It was a 1-1 draw with Costa Rica. Carlo Costly and Jerry Bengtson have been the offense, each scoring 3 goals in the Tournament so far. 


Not so sure this one will be as entertaining as the earlier game. Mexico has been demolishing team and look to have this one won even before the whistle blows. But Honduras could put up a fight and they have to score first to even make this a game. 










CONMEBOL  (South American Football Confederation (Spanish: Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol))

Not a lot going in the Southern part of the Hemisphere at the moment. Most countries are gearing up for Copa América (in English: America Cup), which is the South America Championship. Argentina is the host country and the Group Stages start on July 1. Argentina and Uruguay have won the most titles followed by Brazil. All will be able to win and will be the favorites.
An  interesting fact about this tournament is that there are only 10 countries in the Confederation and the tournament has 12 spots. Because of this, the Confederation invites 2 teams from another Confederation to play. In years past the USA has played, most recently in 2007. This year the 2 teams are Mexico, fresh off playing in the Gold Cup and Costa Rica, who has already been eliminated from the Gold Cup. 
It should be a fun tournament all around.  

That's it for now, more to come in the next few days. We still have to cover Europe, Africa, and Asia. Should be fun.

And as always:

Let's go USA! 

                                                                                                                                                                    

2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup Group Stages

The final matches in the group stage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup are tonight with Panama taking on Canada at 7pm EST and The US battling Guadeloupe at 9pm EST. 5 of the 8 spots have already been claimed in the Quarterfinals and the US and Canada are looking to grab one of the remaining 3. Both can advance with a win.

On a side note --- The games are both going to be played at the new Livestrong Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kansas. It's a beautiful stadium and part of me wants to watch the games just to see it. I posted about the Park a few days ago and included some sweet pictures. Feel free to check it out here.

Anyway, it's crunch time for the teams in Group C (except for Panama).

Here are the standings in the groups (via Wikipedia):

Key to colors in group tables
	Teams that advanced to the quarterfinals
	Eliminated from tournament

Group A

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Mexico	3	3	0	0	14	1	+13	9
Costa Rica	3	1	1	1	7	5	+2	4
El Salvador	3	1	1	1	7	7	0	4
Cuba	3	0	0	3	1	16	−15	0

Group B

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Jamaica	3	3	0	0	7	0	+7	9
Honduras	3	1	1	1	7	2	+5	4
Guatemala	3	1	1	1	4	2	+2	4
Grenada	3	0	0	3	1	15	−14	0

Group C

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Panama	2	2	0	0	5	3	+2	6
United States	2	1	0	1	3	2	+1	3
Canada	2	1	0	1	1	2	−1	3
Guadeloupe	2	0	0	2	2	4	−2	0

First and Second place teams advance automatically and the two best third place teams move on as well. Guatemala, from Group B, has already claimed one of the Third place spots and the other will go to either El Salvador, from Group A, or the Third place finisher in Group C (The US, Canada, or Guadeloupe).


As you can see there are a lot of possible outcomes and it can become very confusing, especially because of the third place thing. I, for one, am just going to watch the matches tonight and enjoy the beauty of the game and the new stadium. I hope that the US wins and moves onto the next round and I will probably be rooting for our Canadian neighbors as well. Like I said before, both the US and Canada move on with Wins. Lets go USA! 

Enjoy the games!