The Raleigh Reds Team

Archive for July, 2010

Marcia Henin asked:




Fans can find latest sports News, such as football and basketball scores as well as current events on the sports web sites. There is a long list of sports news sites. Now, people or sport lovers do not have to press buttons of TV remote to find out the various sports news, scores, and events at various news channels.

With the arrival of Internet, it has become possible for the sport lovers to get all the required information at their fingertips and that too within a matter of seconds. Readers can find the truth and rumors about basketball players and games through basketball news. Below is a description of certain well-known basketball news sources:

CNN sports web site provides the latest basketball news and basketball coverage. Fans can find top NBA stories through this site. They can find basketball coverage and news from renowned writers such as Marty Burns, Steve Aschburner, and Ian Thomsen. The web site also includes videos of the crucial match winning moments.

Fox sports web site displays score of current basketball coverage. It covers news for the basketball clubs such as Kings, Tigers, Bullets, Wildcats, Crocs, Taipans, Breakers, Blaze, 36ers, Razorbacks, Hawks, Singers, and Dragons.

WNBA web site covers the News and coverage of women basketball. Readers can find schedules of different matches on this site. The web site also includes basketball coverage and information related to players. The history column provides information on how the women basketball has shaped over the years.

Top 25 Basketball Teams:

ESPN has displayed the NCAA men’s basketball rankings for the year 2008. The top 25 basketball teams are North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA, Kansas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Texas, Georgetown, Duke, Stanford, Butler, Xavier, Louisville, Drake, Notre Dame, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Vanderbilt, Purdue, Washington State, Clemson, Davidson, Gonzaga, and Marquette.

Basketball enthusiasts may find best coaching and instruction information on most basketball web sites. They provide sources for basketball coaching sessions, basketball books and videos, basketball camps, and basketball equipment. They cover topics such as basics of basketball and motivational guidelines. There are chat rooms, where fans can discuss their favorite basketball players and teams.

John Kochanski asked:




It is amazing how momentum, streaks and slumps play such a significant role in the game of baseball. You know the saying “we’re on a roll”. It seems when things are going good they continue that way and, unfortunately, it’s the same when you’re on the other side of the fence. And that is what I call “baseball karma”.

What is Baseball Karma

Baseball Karma has nothing to do with having the physical abilities to excel in the game of baseball. It has everything to do with your baseball mindset. If you believe in yourself, and your team, and you have a positive attitude the baseball karma is with you.

Baseball karma is the belief that, no matter how dire things may appear, you still believe that you can win. Of course, teams are going to lose but to be able to come out and with the same positive attitude the next game is what baseball karma is all about.

Example of Baseball Karma

I mean you baseball karma affecting the game all the time. Take a look at the Milwaukee Brewers. At the end of August they appeared destined to make the playoffs. But like the previous year, they are floundering in September and may not make the playoffs for the second time in two years.

It is so bad that management actually fired the manager with about twelve games left. Did they fire the manager for insubordination? No, Did they do it because his strategies were wrong? No, again.

The front office made the change because it appeared that his players had lost confidence in him. So by replacing the manager they are looking to change the mental attitudes of the players and bring in a new positive influence. This is the greatest example of how baseball karma affects the game of baseball.

Is there any way to measure baseball karma? There are some obvious signs such as the body language of players, how hard they play on the field and how they come together as a team.

We won’t know if the managerial change in Milwaukee will work; we will have to wait and see.

Chris Pettitt asked:




I was excited the other day because Sky Sports News was launching in HD and I am a dreadfully sad individual. Finally I could see all those smart graphics and sports action as clear as day, not to mention Georgie Thompson and her sisters of sport looking better than ever. However the first slice of sports news I came across was the continuing saga of the so-called ‘Bloodgate’ affair in which some generic rugby player apparently cheated by using fake blood for what appeared to be no particular reason and consequently lots of middle-aged potato-shaped men in grey suits were very irate about the whole thing. On the grand scale of cheating it seems to me to be a minor instance; nevertheless it raised the issue of cheating and whether it is ever justifiable.

I started to ponder over this further after a teacher friend of mine relayed a story to me. She was administering an online spelling test some months ago when she discovered that one of the students taking part had opened a second internet page and was using Google to find the correct spelling of words. This was of course dealt with in the accepted way and she was promptly reprimanded for cheating. Quite right too, I thought immediately; however as my life is tremendously dull I was still thinking about this a while later and I started to wonder whether this girl had been harshly treated. She sat down and realised that she had a problem and wasn’t sure how to spell a word, she thought about it and then found a way to solve this problem. isn’t that exactly the kind of skills we should be encouraging in children? The kind of skills that will see her able to deal with the rudimentary shite that gets thrown at you on a weekly basis after your sixteenth birthday. Of course it is.

This highlights a clear difference in attitude; what is considered as cheating in school is often lauded as initiative in business and the world of work. If you are given a task during your workday I would expect that your brusque and hard-to-please boss would like it to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Let’s think for a second about the ultimate surly boss; the monstrously-macabre man-gorilla Sir Alan “you’re fired” Sugar. When he sets one of those pointless challenges on ‘The Apprentice’ he is testing the cash-hungry wannabes on their business skills and encourages them to use their initiative and find the most successful way to prove their worth; he doesn’t care if they take a few shortcuts and inadvertently cause the deaths of some third world children in the process; as long as they pass the task and make some money. Cheaters prosper; that one girl in the spelling test is going to make a million pounds whereas the other nineteen goody-two shoes will be working in Debenhams but winning games of Scrabble every night in their bedsits.

I am, of course, not condoning cheating in any way. I was one of those said goody-two-shoes and never came close to cheating; perhaps that is why I am sitting here in the dark on a damp Wednesday morning desperately trying to think of something to write instead of sitting in a warm, comfortable apartment complex basking in my 100K salary and drinking glasses of Veuve Clicquot with Peaches Geldof. The problem is that there are so many mixed messages over whether cheating is acceptable or not; you will be familiar with huge controversy that blew up over MP’s expenses last year in which many of our trusted MP’s exploited a lacklustre system and effectively cheated tax-payers money and spent it on moats and such. This was rightly deemed unacceptable. On the other hand thousands of us every day manipulate those poor credit card companies by repeatedly transferring our extortionate balances from one account to another to avoid paying interest, is that not a form of cheating? One of the first and most important lessons we are taught in our formative years as children is that the Jedi’s are the good guys, yet they spend their days getting everything they want by manipulating the poor weak-minded drones and Stormtroopers, is that not the highest form of cheating? The bastards.

I suspect that cheating will be around as long as the disgusting and immoral human race are; but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing that cheating goes on. As I’ve said its practically a job requirement for many careers and has certainly provided us with lots of entertainment over the years; recent famous examples include some posh bloke coughing his way to a million pounds on ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ and a whole load of different incompetent posh blokes fiddling TV phone-ins for their own ends. Both of these instances brought with it weeks of headlines and conjecture resulting in people yelling from atop their soapboxes and bemoaning the decay of ethics in society. Yet, without the concept of cheating in its many guises, the News of the World would have nothing to report and it would certainly be a travesty if that publication ceased to be.

01/10/2010