Last night, I was at the Omar Vizquel Lovefest. They had almost 30,000 in attendance, so fans like Gale could go see their hero.

It was an awful game, to be honest. Of course, I go on a two-minute rant about pinch-hitting Casey Blake for Andy Marte without a pitching change. So, what does he do? Almost homers, that's what. As I said, that Eric Wedge is quite the manager!

Getting back to Omar. Uh, he's done. He's battling some injuries right now and age. He has absolutely no bat speed presently. He hit two weak grounders and a lazy fly ball, while stranding five runners in his first three at-bats. He also put down an excellent suicide squeeze in the ninth that Blake dropped, but still almost managed to throw him out.

I was concerned about Vizquel's defense. He was late on a grounder through the hole early and didn't dive for it. Apparently, that's been an issue with these injuries. However, he made a nice play late, backhanding a ball in the hole and leaping to throw a guy out at second.

Not sure he's got much left. He's hitting .167 and defense alone can't keep him in the lineup.

Meal of Links

SNL will rerun the first episode with George Carlin. It airs this Saturday and Andy Kaufman is on it.

19 stellar cinematic one-hit wonders (with some video). This is a great list. Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Fuck you!...That's my name!". David Lynch is represented twice with Dean Stockwell in "Blue Velvet" and "Billy Ray Cyrus in "Mulholland Drive". Chris Rock in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" kills me each time I see it. Bowie in "Zoolander" also makes the list. A personal fave of mine, Wilford Brimley in "Absence of Malice" did not make the list. He starts handing out "subpeenies". Thought I could find a clip of that, but cannot.

Figuring the Exxon Valdez case had been adjudicated years ago, this came as a surprise. The Supreme Court knocked down Exxon's punitive damages to $500 million. The original award of $5 billion had already been halved by an appeals court to $2.5 billion.

Exercise Yard

The semifinals of Euro 2008 started today. The Germans beat the Turks, so there is no party in Istanbul (not Constantinople). Did you know that the Turks are the largest ethnic group in Germany, that'll win you a bet someday. So, Germany plays in the final on Sunday. BTW, it's a soccer thing, but I am digging how the crowd has been singing along to "Seven Nation Army" throughout this tournament when the combatants enter the pitch. It will be the official song in World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Why the South Africans haven't picked up on this for 2010 is beyond me.



Today's match was pretty good and ended up with a score of 3-2. Looked like the Germans had it wrapped up late with their second goal, but the Turks were awfully resilient in this tournament. They tied it up late 2-2. Philipp Lahm (Lahm, Bam, Thank You, Ma'am) had the game winner in the last minute on a great run. That was his first goal for Germany since he scored the first one in World Cup 2006.

However, the highlight of the match for me was the difference in how the physios treated one of their players. After a clash of heads, there will be blood! The German had a cut over his eye, while the Turk had a cut on the top of his head. The German physio takes a look and immediately gets the stitching equipment out to patch the guy up. The Turkish physio gets a wipe for the guy's head then opts for the staple gun treatment. Yes, he stapled the guy's head together right there on my widescreen HDTV. We always joke about the magic spray and now the staple gun enters the picture.

Visitor

49 Across: "Roots" Emmy winner (7 letters) Answer: Ed Asner