The Boys Of Summer And The Baseball Phenom

Baseball season is about to begin once again. The Boys of Summer have returned to play our national pastime for the next six months. Of course, scandal continues to plague the game with steroid abuse once again in the news during the off season.

Since baseball is a game of records and stars, all those discredited home run statistics by star players are an incredible shame.

However, there is another story that has begun to gain national attention. Its a story of talent and a growing legend of a pitcher that can throw a baseball harder than anyone ever has. Even faster than Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson in their prime.

The baseball phenom of this spring has not even been in any major league camp yet. He pitches in college for San Diego State. His fastball is consistently clocked at 101 miles per hour and has hit 103 on the radar gun. Despite his velocity he has amazing control. In 210 innings of college and international competition since 2006, he’s walked only 45 batters while striking out 316.

Indeed, Steven Strasburg is dominating college like no pitcher ever has. He has 74 strikeouts in 34 1/3 innings, meaning only 29 outs have come via batted ball. He fanned 23 batters in one game last year, and in seven outings with Team USA last summer, culminating with the Beijing Olympics, he struck out 62 in 41 innings.

Baseball executives believe the asking price for the Washington Nationals who hold the first overall pick, will start at $15 million. So, its batter up for the new season but watch for this kid in the future. For now he is just a college phenom but he may well become the best pitcher major league baseball has ever seen.

Articles on eWorldvu Last Week: Read about the continued lack of sunspot activity in 2009 in

The Third Year Of A Blank Sun .

Also read about the cost of green jobs in

The Real Cost Of Five Million Green Jobs.

North To Alaska For Iditarod 2009

It has been frigid in Alaska this year. In fact, extremely low temperatures have grounded planes, disabled cars, and even canceled several championship cross country ski races.

Many people wonder if this unusally cold weather, even for the state of Alaska, will continue. After all, the extreme weather in Alaska becomes even more important since the days have begun to dwindle and time is beginning to grow short.

The calendar now shows that there are now only fifty two days to the start of the annual competition that is called the Last Great Race on Earth. The 38th Iditarod Dog Sled Race is currently scheduled to begin in Anchorage on March 7, 2009.

The Iditarod is a truly unique competitive event, a race of 1131 miles across Alaska in the frigid month of March through the roughest terrain on Earth. The race navigates terrain across a frozen tundra which includes rivers, windswept coastlines, mountains, and dense forests, all of which are covered with plenty of deep snow and ice.

The weather conditions during the race are often extreme with temperatures and wind chill that are far below zero. Certainly, its not unusual for dog sled teams to race through blizzards without visibility, and in sub-zero weather with gale-force winds which can cause the wind chill to reach -100 °F. Through the years, the length of time to win the race has varied between nine days and twenty days.

This year, seventy two mushers and their dog sled teams will be competing for victory in the 38th Iditarod. The problem for seventy one of these contestants will once again be current Iditarod champion, Lance Mackey. Mackey has won the race in each of the last two years.

Last year, Mackey lost a key lead dog early in the race and another dog ended up with an infected foot that made it difficult for him to continue on. In addition to the problems with the dogs, the race was very competitive throughout. Once Mackey took the lead at Ruby on the Yukon River, just past the halfway mark, he always had the 16-dog team of four-time champ Jeff King lurking close behind.

However, the weather during last years race was unusually warm for Alaska and Mackey used his racing skill and his gritty team of dogs to once again beat the field. So, the question this year is whether Lance Mackey will win again for a third straight time? Many will soon travel north to Alaska for Iditarod 2009 to find out.

Indeed, the competition is scheduled to begin in Anchorage, Alaska, in just fifty two days. Its the next chance to see the Last Great Race On Earth.

Beijing 2008 - The Final Medal Tally

The final gold medal tally of the 2008 Olympic Games was 51 to 36 in favor of China over the United States. The United States led in the overall medal count by 110 to 100 over the host city, China. Russia won 72 medals and Great Britian, host of the 2012 Olympic Games won 47.

The United States failed to medal in 16 of 38 disciplines or sub-disciplines, and in several sports was unable to achieve even a single top-eight finish. Weightlifting, track, and diving will need to be the focus for United States improvement in London 2012.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Game Highlights:

The Stars

Michael Phelps - United States - A human fish in the Water Cube in Beijing 2008. Eight Gold Medals

Usain Bolt - Jamaica - Fastest human alive even though she was competing in a Bird's Nest.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh - 108 match winning streak in volleyball is still in tact after Beijing gold. Great photo with President Bush as well.

Olga Kharlan - The Zorro of Sabre won gold for Ukraine.

Yukiko Ueno - Japan - Threw 21 innings in a single day and the last 28 innings overall to win gold for Japan in softball.

Maarten van der Weijden - Netherlands - overcame long odds battling leukemia in 2001 to win Olympic gold in 2008.

Other Notable Medal Winners:

United States’ Jason Lezak - Two swimming Golds and a Bronze

Australia’s Stephanie Rice - Three swimming Golds

China’s Yang Wei - Gymnastics - All Around Gold

United States’ Nastia Liukin - Gymnastics - All Around Gold

China’s Guo Jingjing - Two Diving Golds

British cyclist Chris Hoy, won three gold medals in Beijing, and British sailor Ben Ainslie, has now won gold in three straight Olympic Games.

Future Story To Watch:

He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin - China - gymnastic team won gold but these three gymnasts were probably all under the age requirement of 16.

The 2008 Olympic Games Can't Fill The Stadium

In truth, it seemed like only yesterday that confident predictions of full houses at every Olympic event were being advanced by organizers of these Olympic Games.

However, the predictions have not proven to be accurate with a noticable lack of spectators attending most competitive venues.
In fact,many events in Beijing 2008 have been held in front of empty seats. This has lead Olympic organizers to admit that they are using "volunteers" to fill some of those empty seats at different Olympic venues.

After computer animated fireworks and lip syncing little girls in the Opening Ceremony in Beijing 2008, the world should not really be to surprised by China's use of fake fans at many of the Olympic Games venues.

These fake fans are easily recognizable and have been attending in large numbers. These yellow-shirted "cheerleaders" are recruited to create an atmosphere and to prevent the embarrassing spectacle of empty seats from appearing on television.

Meanwhile, the world has been told that all 6.8m tickets for the Games have been sold. So, what is going on here? The vast majority of tickets have been sold to Chinese nationals but despite the assurances of the organizers, Olympic enthusiasm has not been sufficient motivation for them to take up their seats.

Also,consider that global sponsors, who are each paying tens of millions of dollars to be associated with these games are reportedly complaining that few visitors have been let through to see their pavilions.

It is a spectator no show of Olympic proportions. Tight security, difficult access to the Olympic location and ticket scaping by Chinese officials that were given free tickets are contributing factors. In addition,humid,rainy weather and an apparent lack of interest in the preliminary events are also being blamed.

The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China can't fill the stadium, even with the help of all those fake cheering fans.

(Photograph of empty seats at the women's beach volleyball tournament by: Georgios Kefalos/EPA)

China And Russia Use The Media As Olympic Sport

It is often said by media professionals that if you want to announce something damaging or have a particularly negative thing to hide or disclose, the best time to do it in the perpetual media news cycle is late on a Friday afternoon. Of course, its even better if late Friday afternoon comes just before a huge international news and sporting event like the Olympic Games.

The idea is for the bad news and publicity to become diluted and eventually forgotten over the weekend or in the constant media news stream to come. This is exactly what Russia hoped for last Friday afternoon. With the world's attention focused on the 2008 Olympic games, Russia invaded Georgia and as a result nearly 2000 people are feared dead, today.

Of course, the invasion itself was several years in the making and the formula for conflict was already in play. An independent Georgia was seeking inclusion into NATO, had supported the U.S. military in Iraq and had recently launched an invasion of its own into South Ossetia. The truth is that Georgia had become a painful thorn in the side of the Kremlin. Therefore, the timing was perfect for Russia to make an agressive military move against Georgia under the international news cover of the 2008 Olympic Games.

So, last friday evening as the world watched the opening ceremonies of China's international propaganda game, Russian tanks were on the move against the country George Bush once called "The Beacon of Liberty".

Indeed, while thinking of the President, liberty and basic human rights, exactly what was George W. Bush, doing attending that opening Olympic ceremony in Beijing, anyway? He would spend much of the evening like the rest of the international community watching China's showmanship and empty propaganda about the importance of human rights. In addition, he could also be seen smiling with Vladamir Putin as Russia's military invasion of Georgia was well underway.

The truth is that if you include the names of countries like Tibet, Myanmar, Darfur, Zimbabawe, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Georgia to this administration's eight year resume, it all adds up to an American foreign policy that is in complete and total disarray. Bush would have been much better off staying home as a protest to China's cyncial use of basic human rights in these 2008 Olympic games.

In retrospect, it was a weekend that highlighted China and Russia's intent to exploit the news media. Indeed, China presented their best artificial image to the international community while Russia would use international Olympic news coverage in an attempt to cover an ongoing military conquest.

As China and Russia used the international media as an Olympic sport, their opening weekend extravaganza was there for everyone in the world to see, in color, on split screen T.V.