bonglonglong

There's a really fun article on Yahoo! Sports written by 11 year old Will Jauss. Of course, one of the other nice things about being the son of a major league coach is that when you write an essay about something, there's a chance a major new outlet might run it. This never happened to me as a kid.

One of the fun things I did last summer was spend time in the outfield shagging fly balls during batting practice. I had a lot of fun talking to J.D. Drew, who now is with the Boston Red Sox, while waiting for fly balls. When a ball would come my way I would try to make a diving catch unless it was coming directly to me. I was able to shag fly balls in places like Arizona, New York and Colorado, but the one thing that remained the same in every stadium was that kids and adults in the stands always screamed at me, asking for baseballs.In the clubhouse, I liked to do surveys with the players, asking them to vote for their favorite things. Two of the surveys I did were, "Who's better, David Ortiz or Albert Pujols?" and, "What's better, Dr. Pepper or root beer?" Pujols and Dr. Pepper won. I was rooting for David Ortiz and root beer.

On the account of our upcoming trip to China, I bring you this sports update (Via Imagethief)

Today's Bank of China box score:

• My place in the lineup: 297


• Batting when I went on deck: 204


• Time on deck: 75 minutes


• Time at the plate: 45 minutes


• Total game time: 2 hours


• Autographs signed: 10


• Transactions swung at: US dollars to reminbi (ed note: another name for yuan)conversion, renminbi withdrawal, US dollar to Singapore dollar conversion, wire transfer to Singapore


• Record: Four for four!


• Errors: One (wrote out figure in words when numerals were requested)


• Total receipts given to me at the end of the transaction: Eleven


• New vocabulary added:剩余 (sheng4yu2 -- "balance remaining")


• Teller courtesy level: Suspiciously good. No curveballs pitched.

All in all, pretty good as these things go. A marathon game, but it's rare that I have no strikeouts.

Duke beats Gonzaga in the first ever meeting of the two teams, improving to to 11 and 1. The best part, though, is that Greg Paulus finally had a strong, breakout game.

Greg Paulus had five stitches in his chin and a wide smile on his face.

The sophomore point guard scored a career-high 20 points and combined with Josh McRoberts on three big plays in the second half to help No. 6 Duke beat No. 22 Gonzaga 61-54 on Thursday night in the Aeropostale Classic at Madison Square Garden.

Paulus' career night paces Duke past Gonzaga