pieces

Well, I was excited at the prospect of a Tour de France without Lance Armstrong, if only because the winner wasn’t predetermined. But now all the favorites are out of the race. Because of drugs. And has anyone failed a drug test? No. But they’ve been accused, which seems to be enough. Marion Jones can commiserate, but even she got to run in the Olympics.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/5132320.stm

Why exactly do I watch sports? Is it just to torture myself?

Cat Osterman and the Texas Longhorns were just eliminated from the Women’s College World Series. Cat led the Longhorns to the WCWS in three of her four years at Texas. Her sophomore year, she was one pitch away from making it the championship game. Although I was disappointed, I figured that she’d be back eventually. And yet for the last two years, the Horns have ended up in third place, defeated each time by UCLA.

I found myself getting so frustrated by the lack of offense. Texas was ranked the lower than the other seven teams left in the tournament in nearly every offensive category, despite playing in a relatively easy conference. Cat can only do so much, and last year she pitched a shutout in a must-win game, and then came out of the bullpen in the first inning of the next (back-to-back) game to pitch a perfect six-plus innings. However, during that part of the first she was not in the game, the other team mustered the only run they’d need to win. No run support.

This year, they went with her for every inning of the postseason. But once again, the run support was nonexistent, and she wasn’t able to hold teams scoreless into extra innings to allow her team to get one across.

I’m really upset for her, because she has had such an amazing career. Olympic gold medal. NCAA record for strikeouts and strikeouts-per-seven-innings. Three-time National Player of the Year. They should retire her number at Texas, but they won’t. She never lit the tower orange.