09/05/2008 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - U.S. Open officials made contingency plans due to the expected arrival of Tropical Storm Hanna this weekend, and it could push the women's final to Sunday night and the men's championship match to late Monday afternoon.
Hanna was moving up the Eastern seaboard Friday night and rain was in the forecast for Saturday. The U.S. Tennis Association said that wet weather was expected to begin late Friday night and last until early morning before subsiding Saturday afternoon.
Therefore, the start of Saturday's men's semifinals has been moved up an hour to 11 a.m. (et) when four-time reigning champion Roger Federer takes on Serbian Novak Djokovic, Top seed Rafael Nadal and sixth seed Andy Murray will play after that match, and the women's singles final between American Serena Williams and Serbian Jelena Jankovic is slated for the night session.
If rain wipes out all play Saturday, the men's semifinals would take place Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. and the women's final would be at 9 p.m. In that case, the men's final would be at 5 p.m. on Monday.
If the men's semifinals are finished Saturday and the women's final isn't, then both championship matches would be scheduled for Sunday, one at 4 p.m. and the other at 9 p.m.
<< NASCAR postpones Richmond races until Sunday
Richmond, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Due to heavy rains and winds expected from
Tropical Storm Hanna, NASCAR has postponed all track activities at the
Richmond International Raceway until Sunday.
The outer bands of the storm reached t
<< Serena, Jankovic to meet in U.S. Open final
Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - American Serena Williams and Serbian
Jelena Jankovic will square off in Saturday night's final at the 2008 U.S.
Open.
The fourth-seeded two-time champion Williams reached her fourth U.S. Ope
<< Boston activates trio, including Beckett
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Red Sox activated starting pitcher
Josh Beckett and infielders Sean Casey and Mike Lowell from the 15-day
disabled list Friday.
Beckett is scheduled to take the mound tonight against the
<< Nationwide qualifying washed out at Richmond
Richmond, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rain from the outer bands of Tropical Storm
Hanna have forced NASCAR officials to cancel qualifying for Friday night's
Emerson Radio 250 Nationwide Series race at the Richmond International
Raceway
Rangers' Kinsler to have season-ending surgery >>
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Texas Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler
will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a sports hernia.
Kinsler, out since August 18 with the injury, decided to forego an attempt to
come back this season
Rangers OF Byrd injures thumb >>
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Texas Rangers outfielder Marlon Byrd left
Friday's game with the Boston Red Sox after spraining his left thumb.
The injury occurred while Byrd tried to make a diving catch on Dustin
Pedroia's line drive in
Cards' Isringhausen to undergo elbow surgery >>
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jason
Isringhausen, currently on the 15-day disabled list with a right elbow strain,
will undergo season-ending surgery next week.
The procedure is slated for September
Nats' Hill has surgery; Belliard out with groin strain >>
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Washington Nationals pitcher Shawn Hill
underwent season-ending surgery on his right elbow Friday.
Dr. James Andrews performed the surgery on Friday and removed spurs in the
posterior elbow.
Hill
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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