He did it in last year’s US Open during the semifinals against Novak Djokovic. Here he goes again in the first round of the 2010 US Open, this time against Brian Dabul of Argentina. (When Djokovic was asked if he had seen the shot, he answered, “I’ve seen it live last year, passing next to me. That’s enough traumatic experiences for me.”)

Federer Between the Legs Shot – US Open 2010 (Video length: 2:33)

Watch to the end to see comparison shots between this year and last year. This year’s shot was further behind the baseline, making it an even tougher shot to hit.

Related post:  Federer, Sampras, Nadal, Agassi Doubles Video
 

Saturday, December 31, 2005
San Diego Chargers vs. Denver Broncos
Eight seconds was all it took to change my life forever. Eight seconds at the end of the second quarter, in the middle of a meaningless game. (Drew Brees, Coming Back Stronger)

Drew Brees is the starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints and a Christian with a strong testimony. Drew’s new book, Coming Back Stronger, was just released today. Drew shares his life story — from his parents’ divorce when he was a child, to his coming to Christ in high school, to his devastating shoulder injury with the San Diego Chargers in 2005, to his amazing comeback and the Saints’ Super Bowl win over the Indianopolis Colts in 2010.

Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, the book tells two stories: the story of Drew’s comeback from his injury and the continuing comeback of New Orleans from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Drew has an amazing story to share, and through it all he points to the Lord who uses adversity in our lives to help us not only come back, but come back stronger.

“Nobody’s perfect!” – Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga commenting on umpire Jim Joyce’s wrong call which cost Galaragga a perfect game yesterday.

From The New York Times:

“I just cost that kid a perfect game,” Joyce told reporters in Detroit. “I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay. It was the biggest call of my career.”

Galarraga told reporters that Joyce apologized to him after the game, adding that he had no instinct to argue the call. “He probably felt more bad than me,” Galarraga said. Smiling, he added, “Nobody’s perfect.”

Related articles:
    • Galarraga Loses Perfect Game With 2 Outs in Ninth
    • Two Amazing Baseball Plays in 2010

The Celtics-Lakers 2010 Finals begin tonight. The Celtics and the Lakers are the two most successful basketball teams in NBA history. There have been a total of 63 NBA Finals. The Celtics and Lakers have won over half of them with the Celtics winning 17 and the Lakers 15. (The Chicago Bulls are the next closest team with “only” 6 championships.)

The Celtics and Lakers have met each other 11 times in the finals, the last time just two years ago. The Celtics won the first 8 contests, the Lakers won the next 2, and then the Celtics won again in 2008. The Lakers beat Orlando in the finals last year and are looking to repeat. If they win this year, they will only be one championship way from tying Boston’s record. If Boston wins, they will increase the gap to three. As a long-time Boston Celtics fan, I am really looking forward to this one. This should be a great series.

Any predictions? Share them in the comments!

Update: The Lakers win it, 4 games to 3.

Here is a table showing all the Celtics-Lakers finals match-ups:

Related links:

• Top 20 Celtic-Lakers Moments in Finals History
• NBA Finals: Year-by-year results

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The 2010 baseball season is off to a great start with these two amazing plays. First up, here is pitcher Mark Buehrle’s “between-the-legs” play against the Indians on opening day.

MLB Mark Buehrle (Video length: 1:04)

 

Next, moving from the Major Leagues to College Ball, check out Fordham’s Brian Kownacki and his diving flip to home plate over Iona’s catcher.

Fordham’s Flip (Video length: 0:21)

 

Makes you wonder what the rest of the season might hold!

On Friday, March 12, 2010, the four greatest tennis players of the past two decades played a doubles match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Roger Federer and Pete Sampras teamed up against Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal in the Hit For Haiti charity expedition that raised over $1 million dollars for the Red Cross and Haiti.

Although the match was more for entertainment than competition, it is still amazing to see these four tennis greats on the court all at the same time. Between the four of them they have a combined 222 titles (44 Grand Slams), 13 year-end No. 1 rankings, and 706 weeks at No. 1 in the ATP Rankings system. For the last 19 years straight (since 1992), one of the four has earned at least one Grand Slam title each year. Their combined prize earnings total a staggering $157,292,855.

Here is a ten-minute video clip with highlights from the match. For the record, Federer and Sampras came out on top 8-6.

Indian Wells – Federer/Sampras vs. Nadal/Agassi (Video length: 10:56)

Note: Click on the “4-arrow icon” in the bottom right corner of the video to view in full screen.

Focus on the Family’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featuring 2007 Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow is stirring up attention all over the place — and it hasn’t even aired yet! Focus on the Family Vice President for Pastoral Ministries H.B. London shares the inside scoop:

Would you believe all the commotion and publicity the 30-second Super Bowl® ad sponsored by Focus on the Family has received?

By our estimates — and they are pretty accurate — the pre-Super Bowl hype of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad has registered to date 2,265,490,170 impressions. That is “billion” with a “B.” Amazing!

The interesting thing about all of this is that no one in the media has seen the ad. And, unless there is a big leak before Sunday, no one will see it until it is shown during the Super Bowl pre-game show and the first quarter of the game itself.

Another interesting phenomenon is that, even those in the liberal media who have opposed us before — and disagree even now with most of what we stand for at Focus on the Family — are defending our right to run the Super Bowl ad.

On February 2, 2010, The Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote, “I’m pro-choice and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the ‘National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women all the time’ (referring to the group NOW). They aren’t actually ‘pro-choice’ so much as they are pro-abortion.”

She continues, “If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”

Interestingly enough — a little inside stuff here — our Super Bowl ad never mentions abortion. Also, as we have reported in other columns, not one dollar was spent from our regular operating expenses at Focus on the Family to underwrite the cost of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad.

You can read the Sally Jenkins article mentioned here: Tebow’s Super Bowl ad isn’t intolerant; its critics are. And don’t forget to watch for the commercial during the Super Bowl on Sunday. It will air twice: once during the pre-game show and then again during the first quarter.

Yep, that’s me just beating the throw into home at church softball last week. Why didn’t I slide? Because I’m a wimp.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling announced his retirement earlier this week after 23 years of playing professional baseball. On his blog Monday he offered “two special thank you’s”:

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for granting me the ability to step between the lines for 23 years and compete against the best players in the world.

To my wife Shonda and my 4 children, Gehrig, Gabriella, Grant and Garrison for sacrificing their lives and allowing baseball to be mine while I played. Without their unquestioned support I would not have been able to do what I did, or enjoy the life, and I am hopefully going to live long enough to repay them as much as a Father and Husband can.

Thank you and God Bless
Curt Schilling

Congratulations, Curt, on a great career, and may God bless you in your next steps. (Note: You can read more about Curt’s Christian faith here. )

I enjoyed reading this article about Houston Rockets basketball player Shane Battier. Although he doesn’t have the stats to prove it, apparently when Battier is on the court, his own team plays significantly better and the opposing team plays worse.

Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win …

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly ­reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways.

“I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.”

Battier reminds me of the many people in church situations who serve quietly behind the scenes. Because they are not up front, you may not notice them a lot; but the whole church runs more smoothly as a result of their service.

This is a good cartoon.

Here is a great feel-good story out of Milwaukee:

Milwaukee Madison senior Johntell Franklin, who lost his mother, Carlitha, to cancer on Saturday, Feb. 7, decided he wanted to play in that night’s game against DeKalb (Ill.) High School after previously indicating he would sit out.

He arrived at the gym in the second quarter, but Franklin’s name was not in the scorebook because his coach, Aaron Womack Jr., didn’t expect him to be there.

Rules dictated Womack would have to be assessed a technical, but he was prepared to put Franklin in the game anyway. DeKalb coach Dave Rohlman and his players knew of the situation, and told the referees they did not want the call.

The referees had no choice. But Rohlman did.

“I gathered my kids and said, ‘Who wants to take these free throws?’” Rohlman said, recounting the game to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Darius McNeal put up his hand. I said, ‘You realize you’re going to miss, right?’ He nodded his head.”

McNeal, a senior point guard, went to the line. The Milwaukee Madison players stayed by their bench, waiting for the free throws. Instead of seeing the ball go through the net, they saw the ball on the court, rolling over the end line.

“I turned around and saw the ref pick up the ball and hand it back to the player,” Womack said in the Journal Sentinel. “And then [McNeal] did the same thing again.”

Said Rohlman: “Darius set up for a regular free throw, but he only shot it two or three feet in front of him. It bounced once or twice and just rolled past the basket.”

“I did it for the guy who lost his mom,” McNeal told the newspaper. “It was the right thing to do.”

Update: Here is the video report (length: 6:24).

 
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