Mendoza: One of MLB's Best Baseball Analysts

No doubt about it. Period.

Look how knowledgeable she is.

The Times, they have changed.

Here is a toast to Mendoza: choose a fine red Burgundy or an excellent XO Cognac, Otard XO -- its headquarters are in a castle in Cognac, the ville, where King Francis I was born. (France's greatest art patron king, also known as Francois Premier, was the last patron of Leonardo da Vinci.)

World Series 2019 MVP Stephen Strasburg

First, unlike some sportswriters, I will not 'ham it up" by writing on and on about how prescient my previous post was.


Will just be succinct and state: Wow, what a season and playoff season that was! Here's a big drink from that dark beer shown in the previous post.


Yes, a huge toast to Strasburg and the entire team, including, in alphabetical order, Kendrick, Rendon, Sanchez, Scherzer and Soto.


(Actually, I will run a little longer than planned. First, they need to bring replay into strikes and balls called at home; some of the calls this post-season were atrocious. Also, baseball has to be the most nerve-wracking sport there is for fans -- at the park or at home.)




FINALLY, CLINT COURTNEY AND MANY OTHERS ARE SMILING. FOR MANY, INCLUDING THIS WRITER AND ARTIST, A CHILDHOOD DREAM REALIZED.


GO STRASBURG. GO NATIONALS.








(AS ALWAYS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEANETTE)





Stephen Strasburg might have pitched his most important and best

baseball game as a Major Leaguer in his great performance Friday that helped keep the Nats alive in the 2019 MLB season, says this old sportswriter Paul Heidelberg. (Once a sportswriter, always a sportswriter?)  Scherzer was also charging strong.


Strasburg had moves on his fastball like...will not attempt the analogy...Holy merde. Didn't realize until watching rebroadcast on MLB network today he was carrying a perfect game as far as he did.


He had bags under his eyes like he was worrying like hell about finally coming through late in the season; and with that beard, he looked like Honest Abe on the mound. As a sportswriter you learn to look at athletes as if you were sizing up a side of beef hanging in a meat locker. I always did that, including while covering world championship prizefights on Miami Beach back in the day.


Watching Strasburg in his last outing, I thought, Man, this guy has huge thighs and legs -- that must have something to do with how he hurls the ball, as well as his height -- there's the Honest Abe comparison again. So, I am posting a photo of one of the best beers in the world, taken in Leipzig, Germany, to toast Strasburg's wunderbar performance: ein prosit, salud and cheers.


After all, the Real Oktoberfest runs until tomorrow, Oct 6. in Munich (at The Miami Herald we used to say there is no tomorrow at The Herald, it was always the date, as in Oct. 6). And I will also post a photo of a pretty fraulein bicycling near a famous landmark in Berlin.


Finally, I hope the L.A. Times article theorizing this may be Strasburg's last season in Washington is not correct. Some of the best times I ever had with my late father were sitting in the seats in the old Griffith Stadium -- mere feet away from my favorite player Mickey Mantle, standing on first base after a walk.


My father would have loved to see how Strasburg pitched to help keep Washington alive in the playoffs. It was a truly remarkable performance.

...............................................................................................................................

writing and photographs (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg

THE MASTERS TOURNAMENT BEN HOGAN STORY

(Back here Monday for final, succinct remarks on this after saying, didn't that course look beautiful and green? What a great Masters. Period. -- PH 4/9/2018)


Many years ago, during my high school years my family moved from San Antonio to the residential neighborhood that surrounded the Champions Golf Club northwest of central Houston, which had two 18-hole courses overseen by golf legends Jimmy Demaret and Jackie Burke. I had often played golf in San Antonio and may have legitimately broken 100 for 18 holes once or twice.


I could get home from school, grab my clubs and pick up one of the courses located behind houses across the street. Well, the hole I would always play was a ferocious one -- a par 3 dog leg to the left that crossed a Grand Canyon-looking ravine that had to be at least 150 feet deep. The only way to the green was across “The Grand Canyon."


Well, that monstrous hole and my embarrassment at showing my poor form at the practice range and on the links made me give up golf for good. Later, as a sportswriter I covered many tournaments at courses in South Florida, from the Doral in Dade County to the PGA courses in Palm Beach County. That wicked par 3 back at Champions was a distant memory.


Imagine my amazement decades after I had last lived in Houston when I read this in a golf magazine: The great Ben Hogan played his final round of professional golf on those links I used to play after school at Champions. That damned par 3 across the Grand Canyon had gotten to him as it had always gotten to me -- he had a five over par 8 and gave up professional golf.




That monster hole had kicked both our butts -- this hack and one of the greatest golfers ever.

Schulberg, Phillies' Enzmann and Josh Gibson (c) Paul Heidelberg

Keith Williams, Jr: : Prescription for relief from disgusting political mess when he sung the National Anthem

at several LA Dodgers ALCS home games. This is what is at stake in Presidential politics -- protection of our flag and our country, which I did in the USAF when that was not a popular or likely thing for someone like me to do -- enlist.


I went into the Air Force thinking it was the Boy Scouts. Nope. I learned damned soon in Basic Training only two branches of the military then had what they called Motivation for those enlistees who screwed up really badly. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marine Corps. Think Prison, or worse. Just like the PC flight, guys got beaten all the time.


And I remember doing a ceremony at my NATO base in Greece in which we stood in front of the raised Star-Spangled Banner and saluted as the National Anthem blared from a rusty old speaker a la MASH. I felt proud I guess you could say.


And those who never served in the military have no idea what is involved. I often thought our country used totalitarian means to fight the totalitarian USSR.
Back to that National Anthem singing by this hero that seemed to wash clean the mess made by these politicians, I certainly felt proud when the Brother sang at that last Dodgers game.


As editor in Sports at the Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel Craig Stanke would say, Holy Merde!
Pardon my French.


But what an admirable and remarkable job Williams did on all the nights he sang.


BRAVO.


Baseball-wise, how about Jon Lester's performance in that Fifth game. As he was exhausting the batters he faced in his final inning, I thought. that is it. I figured the momentum he had built would carry on to the relievers, and it did.


BTW, Tony DeMarco, the great baseball writer I worked with in South Florida always said it was the pitching, not hitting, Stupid. He was right.


Also, when we covered minor league baseball in South Florida with such teams as the Fort Lauderdale Yankees, we often also had the job of being official scorekeepers.


If the ball got anywhere near a defensive player's glove, DeMarco would proclaim "Error."
I would usually say give the guy a break DeMarco. He would likely have called that one play last night an error. The guy got his glove on the ball, didn't he?


Ah! Sports. Always provides relief from an often screwed up world.


Tell 'em Heidi said that.

Porsche-powered (equivalent) '67 VW Bug/Update to getting TBS MLB games in English

Important update for having problems with such games as tonight's Playoff contest, October 17, 2016
It isn't the SAP button. I don't have one. What does work with my DISH remote for Channel 139:


Go to Menu
click system setup
click alternate audio
be sure English is checked.
Bueno!
For previous writing, See Below

HEIDI-MOBILE FAST-ASSED 67 BUG

First baseball: Let me start by saying I lived in Espana por dos anos y dos mesas from 2004-2006 and I used to watch several hour live bullfighting broadcasts on Spanish TV -- Yeah, Wow, right? -- but this beisbol in espanol is frigging annoying.

Is Turner saving money by doing this, screwing the sports fan once again or is there some other stupid-assed reason? I "googled" this last year and found no reasonable explantion -- no it is not the SAP setting. This applies to the games on Channel 139 of Dish I get here in New Mexico.

Back here. I have used computers for years, including during my first job in Sports in Texas and later at The Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida and computers, and their not working, or not working right never ceases to amaze me.


I am in some weird font I have not encountered on my BlogSpot blogs since starting them about nine years ago. I feel as if I am on deadline and will just roll with  the punches. That is fitting as I was thinking today of a reporter I worked with in Lifesyle who would say, "I can't talk I'm on deadline." I would tell her in Sports you are always on deadline, as in the night I met Don King covering a fight on Miami Beach one of the fighters managed by his son was fighting in. When the fight ended, how long did I have to finish my story using the old Radio Shack computers we called Trash 80s? Eight minutes.


OK I want to get this published and get onto my VW story. That car is like an old girlfriend, for sure. But first, why the hell the Spanish for these beisbol games...But it fits well. I told a Hispanic friend Pat Ortiz last year I could not believe all the Hispanics in baseball now. Then last night the Hispanic pitcher for the O's gave up the game winning homer to the Hispanic batter from the Blue Jays. OK I want this published -- will make corrections later. BTW, I like the two broadcasters for the Spanish language broadcast and I understand the damned language. Entiendes, Mendes?


Back here to finish, whatever problems I am having with style and font today. Now that car: my excellent mechanic Marshall Painter of Davie, Florida, just west of Fort Lauderdale told me my '73 Super Beetle engine he put in as a replacement for the one that finally leaked its last quart of oil, had more horsepower than a '55 Porsche 356. I had a Kadron exhaust system on it that made it sound neater than hell and helped it move faster, too. And it would move...I was covering IMSA sports car racing at the time and took a ride with Michael Andretti in a 950 HP Porsche 935 Turbo the first time he drove anything more powerful than a circa 140 HP Super Vee race car.


We got up to about 160 MPH in a matter of seconds. WOW. Then Andretti braked hard for a series of turns before accelerating again and I began to learn about the thrill of auto racing. So, I took this photo of an old photo of my VW today and wanted to get it on the www. I have been meaning to put it on this blog as I wrote about auto racing before and needed a photo.


This is It.


And I wanted to complain about beisbol en Espanol aqui en NM/USA. I think I read a year ago about TBS running some Sitcoms in Spanish irritating the hell out of viewers. But, hell, this is important -- this is Major League Baseball playoff games we're talking about,  right, Sports Fans?


CIAO PER ADESSO..I LEARNED THAT WHILE LIVING EN ITALIA FOR A YEAR AND A HALF DOING INTELLIGENCE WORK IN THE US AIR FORCE. -- HEIDI AKA PAOLO AKA PABLO. ALSO
DAMNED GOOD GAME TONIGHT -- GIANTS VS. METS. THIS TIME ON ESPN AND EN INGLES...MUCHAS GRACIAS.  

WORLD SERIES 2015 AND MORE...HAROLD REYNOLDS BAR NONE BEST TV BASEBALL COMMENTATOR

by far.


was going to write this months ago but did not.


hearing Harold The Man call a certain starting pitcher in tonight's second WS game The Man with the Hair, I had to fire up this writing implement and write.


fyi, like Verducci, who also knows his stuff, I too have written for SI.


Go to www.si.com/vault and search for Paul Heidelberg Ernest Hemingway for my SI Sportsman of the Year story on Hem's Key West Years, when he regularly sparred with two guys I interviewed in Key West years ago, James Roberts and Kermit Forbes aka Geech. Geech took a punch at Hemingway when Hem was refereeing a Key West prizefight. Great story Geech told.


OK Harold is speaking well of the hairy one as I write; time to get back to the game.


Ciao y A...I learned that years ago while living in Italia.


Go Astros. They represent the city where I graduated from HS a few years ago.


once a sportswriter always a sportswriter I guess. here's to my old boss fred turner who hired me and mitch albom about the same time at the sun-sentinel newspaper in fort lauderdale.


btw my novel COOK'S RETURN A NOVEL OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY is being published this year.


it is about art and artists not sports but there are similarities.


P.S. mention on tv of guy in AA earlier this year and now in world series...wow baseball.


Heidi aka Pablo aka Paolo aka Paul

Triple Crown Celebratory Bike Ride

Today for me, first "Post" bike ride in "many moons."


As first Triple Crown winning jockey in 37 years, great Sports Desk Editor Craig Stanke and this writer like to say:


HOLY MERDE (avec Frenchie-language clean-up [hyphens "in honor" of Stanke's and Heidelberg's "service" at  The Miami Herald before our stints with the always-great Sun-Sentinel "Top Dog" Sports Editor Fred Turner]).


PH/NM Monday, Ocho de Junio -- Espanol in tribute to the big not little Mexican jockey, and isn't that a remarkable and most memorable horse, American Pharoah.

The 2014 MLB World Series Title

is what Brandon Crawford might have also wanted (see previous post).


Great work by all the Giants! I guess I'd call them my home team, or one of a few home teams
as I lived in San Fran for six years and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute.


There was no baseball or other sports teams at the SFAI, only a basketball hoop in the new modern addition that always kicked my butt.


The art institute is located a good San Fran walk from the Giants ball park. Oh, as I wrote in  my novel CHASING FREEDOM, you don't call it Frisco unless you are a Hell's Angel and you are wearing your colors. I mean it.


OK San Fran, celebrate!


And one more important note today: Happy Birthday, Jeanette -- Heidi

Brandon Crawford becomes first shortstop in MLB history to hit a grand slam

homer in a playoff game.


Talk about history. What more could you want in life, Man?


Remember all that pregame bs about the noisy Pirates fans? All it took was one swing of the bat by Crawford to shut up those fans as the Giants beat the Pirates 8-0 in last night's game.

Derek Jeter Poem

A post worth repeating on this day when Derek Jeter is scheduled to be the DH in a game against the Boston Red Sox starting in less than an hour that comes soon after his amazing final at bat at Yankees Stadium.

NEW YORK: AUTUMN 2001 Up from the ashes with a toss from Jeter coming from nowhere to save the game and the season (the best play ever?), The Men in Pinstripes rising from the dust of buildings and lost lives, The American Spirit resurrected with The Sport of Baseball and The New York Yankees and The Miracle at Home. (October 18, 2001)



Derek Jeter: The Best Play Ever?/One Of The Best Players Ever

Hail to Derek Jeter!



Here is a poem I wrote soon after 9/11.

If you remember, the New York Yankees came up short that year, but during the team's efforts to win the World Series, Jeter made a play that helped ease the scars of 9/11 -- for New Yorkers and the whole country. If this guy can do this, maybe things aren't so bad, one might have thought.

That is the best play ever? part of the above subject line.

One of the best players ever has to do with Jeter being tied with Hank Aaron for the most consistent 150-hit seasons, 17.

Aaron's remarkable achievement covered the years 1955 to 1971. Jeter's began in 1996 and continued into the 2012 season.

For both men, the feat is truly astounding.

Also, hail to my old Executive Sports Editor Fred Turner at my old Florida daily newspaper, who gave me a sports job when I really needed it. Note: about the same time, he also hired a certain Mitch Albom, giving him a fulltime job after the freelance work he had been doing (Mitch didn't drive back in those days -- I would give him rides home late at night in my 1967 VW Beetle that had a '73 Super Beetle engine with Kadron exhaust that had more horsepower than a '55 Porsche my mechanicc Marshall Painter told me).

NEW YORK: AUTUMN 2001 Up from the ashes with a toss from Jeter coming from nowhere to save the game and the season (the best play ever?), The Men in Pinstripes rising from the dust of buildings and lost lives, The American Spirit resurrected with The Sport of Baseball and The New York Yankees and The Miracle at Home. (October 18, 2001)

NFL Preseason Football : So Far, So Good

This year's preseason football games seem to be of a higher caliber; example: the recent Giants-Jaguars game.

Maybe it is the economy -- these guys need jobs. And for most of the rookies the economy was screwy throughout their college careers. And now done with college, there aren't many parks & recs jobs they can fall back on.

-- Heidi

Needed ASAP: An NFL Fans Union

All-Star, All-Sports Beer
Internet Photo Debut in Honor
of Super Bowl XLV

(Note: This blog entry for NFL Fans is for Super Bowl Week

and every other week of the year)

After turning on NFL Super Bowl television coverage on February 3, 2011, the first thing I heard was discussion about the current dispute between the filthy rich NFL owners and the filthy rich NFL players, and conjecture about whether a strike will zap the next NFL season.



Enough is Enough.



The Time has come.



The Time is now.



This is it: a union for NFL fans; for the working stiffs, and others, who have supported this game for decades.



FIRST DEMAND: A 30 TO 40 PERCENT REDUCTION IN NFL OWNERS INCOMES FROM THIS "SPORT" AND A 30 TO 40 PERCENT REDUCTION IN PLAYERS SALARIES.



That money will go directly to lowering exorbitant ticket costs; and, while we're at it, let's work on reducing these ANNOYING ads -- all but the fans must give up something for a change. If you think the lessening of ads is impossible, look at U.S. TV coverage of English Premier League Soccer. You've got ads before the game, and at halftime and after the game. Otherwise, fan-friendly NON-AD INTERRUPTIONS.



What these players make in comparison to NFL players of other eras is OBSCENE.



While working as a sportswriter in the 1980s at a major South Florida daily, I did a feature on a man who was a lineman for the Los Angeles Rams in the NFL in the 1940s. This big bear of a man, who happened to be my next door neighbor in a very country-like section of unincorporated Broward County, rushed to a closet during my interview and came back with a tattered piece of paper.



What was this cherished souvenir? His contract for a game played with the Los Angeles Rams. What did this man who took fists to the face and dirt in the eyes many times make for a game? Seventy five bucks....Seventy five measly dollars. Compare that to what some of these guys get for a game now. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.



Inflation does not figure into it...what they make is obscene, especially when many Americans are struggling to keep their homes and many more are out of work -- and the employment picture will not be improving substantially anytime soon.



While watching a rebroadcast of the NFL Network's Top 100 NFL Players show, I was amazed to see the bio of one of these men, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Chuck Bednarik, Number 35 on the list, selected by the network ahead of such greats as Joe Namath and Roger Staubach.



According to the NFL Network, Bednarik supplemented his measly NFL income by working as a cement salesman to help feed his family. This wasn't in the off-season -- this was when he was taking his lumps and bruises IN THE REGULAR SEASON. AFTER A TOUGH PRACTICE, HE WOULD GO SELL CEMENT.



About the time I did the feature on my former NFL player neighbor, I did the first story, or one of the first for sure, on an up and coming player at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale.



His name: Michael Irvin.



This was Irvin's senior year and I had just seen him play his first game for the school (he had transferred from Piper High School in Broward, and upset coaches at his former school had made the state enforce the sit-out-a-year rule).



We sat on the concrete steps of a stairway outdoors at St. Thomas Aquinas High and talked for more than an hour. When I saw how glib he was, and thought about his raw talent, I told him:



"You're going somewhere."



I guess I was right on that call.



Michael Irvin is one of the rare ones who excels in high school and in college and in the NFL.



He has plenty of friends from Piper and St. Thomas Aquinas who are former high school football stars working at parks and rec jobs and other kinds of non-glamorous work.



What do you say, Michael?



Do you think NFL owners and players should drop down the greed levels, give up some of that greed money, and get ticket prices lowered so people such as your old friends and many others could afford to catch some pro football games each season?



Well, even if Michael Irvin doesn't feel that way, we can get things going by starting a UNION FOR FANS.



You start by boycotting games, if necessary.


An idea for all true football fans: If there is not a players' strike next season, then let's bring on a fans' strike. Do not buy single-game tickets. Do not buy season tickets. Do not watch televised pro football, and let the advertisers know same.



Am I being tongue-in-cheek with all this?



No comment.



Oh, yeah. For those such as Dallas Cowboys fans in this disastrous Cowboys season, there has always been the call: "There's always next year."



Well, if these greedy owners and greedy players don't get it together, there may well not be a next year, NFL fans.



Ok, look at this photo I took in Germany of a good case of beer. Pretend to take a long drink and it may help you forget about the greedy NFL owners and the greedy NFL players.





Note One: To read author Heidelberg's Sports Illustrated article about author Ernest Hemingway's Key West years, including why Heidelberg's friend Kermit Forbes, aka Geech, came to take a punch at Nobel Laureate Hemingway while Hemingway was refereeing a Key West outdoor prizefight in the 1930s, "google":



paul heidelberg ernest hemingway



That will take you to www.si.com/vault and Heidelberg's Sportsman of the Year issue article.


Note Two: Info on the aforementioned beers. You can enjoy them vicariously -- 20 half-liters of great-tasting Lowenbrau Oktoberfestbier. I have never seen a 20-bottle case like this stateside; you might have to charter a jet to fly to Germany to get some. If you are an NFL owner or player, that would be no problem, right? You've got more than enough money.



Photograph:

"Good Beer"

aka

"Gut Bier"

and this article

(c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Formula 1 Returns to USA With Races In Austin, 2012-2021

Far Out, to use a term from the era when I was in the U.S. Air Force, and a friend of mine from the base in Italy planned his leaves so he could attend Formula 1 races in Europe, including Monza in Northern Italy.

A course will be built near Austin for the event.

First, let me say, not unlike E. Hemingway writing THE TORRENTS OF SPRING to "cool down" after working on THE SUN ALSO RISES, I am writing this to cool down from a heavy duty fiction writing project that is taking a lot of my time and thoughts lately.

And, I thought I had already put on this SPORTSBYHEIDI BLOG some notes on my riding in TWO circa 900 Horsepower Porsche Turbo 935 race cars. I did not, so will paste below.

Also, I have filed somewhere a very neat photo I took at the 24 Hours of Daytona, in the pits, as I stood in front of one of those Porsche 935s on raceday. I thought a nearby race official would "bust my chops" for standing in front of the Porsche in the pits, but he let me do my photography work; I guess he figured if the driver ran me over as he hurried to get back to the race, it was my own fault.

So I thought today I had to find this photo of an Audi I took in Salzburg not long ago. You can look at this photo and know this car moves.

I had forgotten the Porsche dealership reference surrounding the license plate; it goes with this story.

Be assured this A6 can haul you know what; and be sure you will not find one in the States that could match it -- there would be too many constraints to meet U.S. specs, etc.

So enjoy this read.

Re: the Austin races, take my word for it -- just listening to the Ferraris and other cars screaming around the course will be one of the thrills of your life.

Make your plans now to attend this great Sporting Event.

So, pasting what I thought I had put on this blog earlier:

RACING STORY BY WRITER/ARTIST PAUL HEIDELBERG
(Punctuation, capitalization, etc., is in notes format.)


ph notes: 2100 pounds only for weight of porsche 935 turbo.....from www, viper, featured on SPEED channel tv program, weighs more than 3000 pounds for one model; cars on show had much bigger engines than normal, meaning more than aforementioned weight.
by 1982, when ph rode with michael andretti in broward county for press day for the inaugural grand prix of miami, and with tom blackaller at press day for the 1983 imsa 12 hours of sebring, the porsches ...both owned by fort lauderdale businessman preston henn, were rated at ca. 950 hp.

thus while it took 1,000 hp viper and 1000 hp super ford 7 seconds or so, or longer, to get from rolling start 60 mph to ca. 160, heidelberg went from 60 to 170 with michael andretti in circa four or five seconds.....this was the first time michael andretti, future indy car champ, had driven anything more powerful, any race car, than a ca. 160 mph super vee, vw powered open wheeled race car.

one driver on the SPEED tv show mentioned being thrown back in his seat in his car. that was nothing like what heidelberg experienced when andretti nailed it, as heidelberg sat on a piece of foam rubber to andretti's right, holding onto roll bars -- there was no seat; a second or two later, heidelberg lurched forward as andretti braked and downshifted.

blackaller, also a yacht racer who raced in such events as the america's cup, approached or exceeded 200 mph on the long straightaway at sebring, an old airplane runway (heidelberg did have a passenger seat and seatbelt for this ride)....blackaller also took a bad four wheel slide in turn 11 when he almost flipped the auto, heidelberg realized about three days after the race's end (most of the accidents in that race that Heidelberg covered came at turn 11).

after learning of the ride, and that heidelberg had said to blackaller, "don't worry about going too fast, i have been in one of these before," fort lauderdale race car driver bob lee told heidelberg two things:

"never tell a race car driver not to worry about going fast; and i would never get in a car with that guy. he drives like crazy."

also, heidelberg made a tape recording of the lap at sebring raceway by placing a tape recorder on floor in front of him. the whine and noise of the transmission was surprising, at times making more noise than the powerful engine.

to hear similar sounds, search the internet (you will probably go to youtube)
for "video with sound porsche 935 turbo going fast"

one video of a silver porsche reminded heidelberg of the sound of the transmission and the normal high-pitched whine of porsche race cars, distinctly different from big American v-8 powered cars, for example. the video reminded heidelberg of his ride with blackaller at sebring.

Note: To learn more about Formula 1 racing in The Lone Star State, "google":
austin formula 1 races

PHOTO: FAST AUDI A6 "AT REST" IN SALZBURG
COPYRIGHT (C) PAUL HEIDELBERG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SPORTS BY HEIDI (MY OLD NICKNAME AS SPORTSWRITER AT THE SUN-SENTINEL NEWSPAPER IN FLORIDA)

Euro Sport Live television in Europe had phenomenal coverage of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege cycling race in Belgium Sunday, April 26 -- won by Andy Schleck of Luxembourg.

The television station had 53 kilometers of the 261 K race (at least -- that's when I tuned in) WITHOUT ADS, and the video work was great, including a taping crew moving over one tire-hauling vehicle who had come too close to a competitor minutes earlier in the race.

I kept waiting for Schleck to hit the wall but he didn't; and that includes during a monstrous climb with about 5-6 Ks to go in the six-hour-plus race that had to be really TOUGH.

Heidi From Europe
(On this first post for my new sports blog, let me say Hello to a great editor at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale -- the man who gave me a job back in the economic crisis days of the early 1980s, former Sun-Sentinel Executive Sports Editor Fred Turner: Hello Fred -- Heidi says Hello.)