Despicable Behavior

I had never heard of Tripp Isenhower before this incident. Probably because he sucks.
But what he did at a Florida Golf Course in December is beyond reproach. Granted, I am a little biased because the Red-Shouldered Hawk is my personal favorite bird of prey, but I think we can all agree that hitting multiple golf balls at a bird and shouting excitedly “I’ll get it now!” when it moves to a different tree is pretty juvenile. The fact that he actually left the hawk dead with blood bleeding through its nostrils is just plain sick.
If there is one really annoying thing about a Red-Shouldered Hawk, it’s the noise. Unlike many birds of prey, Red-Shouldered hawks make extremely loud and annoying high-pitched shrieks that could definitely prove as a distraction. But that’s no excuse for hitting golf-balls at one with an intent to kill. What’s even more abysmal is this guy saying he is an animal lover. Maybe he loves his pet cat or dog, but what he did is an example of somebody who has no respect for nature or the ecosystem. He deserves all of the negative attention he is getting.

Pac-10 Champions!

What a game. In a battle of top-10 teams that would decide who won the Pac-10, UCLA was losing to Stanford by 11 with five minutes left in the game.

Been there, done that — if any team knows how to come from behind, it’s UCLA, closing on a 18-7 run to send the game into overtime and win 77-67. Watching the game, even though Stanford was dominating at times and the Bruins weren’t looking like they usually did, I kept waiting for the comeback. We’ve all seen this before. UCLA gets down early, and comes back to win.

So many players were key to the big run. Darren Collison, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Josh Shipp and Kevin Love had some big baskets and played great defense. So did Russell Westbrook, and his getting the rebound and the basket after Luc’s missed free throw to cut the lead to one was one of the biggest plays at the end of regulation.

Three straight conference titles is an amazing achievement in the modern-era of basketball. This year’s conference title is even more sweet considering how incredibly deep and tough the Pac-10 is.

Of course, their work isn’t over yet. It would be nice if they beat Cal on Saturday and won the Pac-10 Tournament next week heading into the NCAA Tournament. But even if they don’t, I figure they’ll be at worst the #2 seed in the West barring the NCAA doing anything weird. That’s still pretty good.

Bruins Nation’s Telemachus already has some video highlights of the game here, including the foul on Collison which really was a foul — look at the rest of the body, not just the hand on the ball. I got the photo here.

24 days ’til Opening Day: Willie Mays

There are 24 days left until that best day of the year, MLB’s Opening Day.

24 was the number worn by Willie Mays, one of the greatest players to ever play the sport. He’s famous for being the “Say Hey” kid, for hitting 660 career home runs and for “the catch”, which is shown in the video above.

If you want to read more about him, here’s his Baseball Library page, his Wikipedia entry and his Hall of Fame page.