Weekend Fun: Fighting off the hordes

July 14th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Oh, to sum up the week. Easily done: Zidane. All-Star boredom. Nostalgia for a barely mediocre hometown golf tournament. Oh, and the Jesus. Yep, I think that about covers it. If you don’t believe me, just go ahead and scroll down the page. I dare you.

Anyway, there is much to celebrate this weekend. There is the return of baseball, after all, including plenty of games today and throughout the weekend. So maybe that’s the obvious one.

Well, then, how about a little football? That’s right - as you shake violently, waiting for your new copies of NCAA Football 2007 and Madden 2007 - NFL training camps are getting back in business and college campuses are starting to fire up some offseason non-workouts. Auburn students, on the other hand, are hanging out, playing some video games, getting good grades all the while.

Ok, so maybe that was obvious too. Football is coming back, you say? Whatever. C’mon E! Give us something off the beaten path. Something that we might not normally care about, if it weren’t for your hometown ties to it.

Well, I already did that yesterday. But it’s true, the John Deere Classic continues throughout the weekend, and though Michelle Wie is looking pretty screwed at this point - she’s tied for 142nd, forcing me to use Ctrl-F to find her in the leaderboard - Joe Ogilvie seems to be playing pretty well. He’s winning, and isn’t that exciting.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. If you can’t get with the Quad Cities, well, may god have mercy on your soul.

Also, um, please come back Monday. We got some love from Sports Bloggers Live this week - blog of the week, actually - so we need plenty of our loyal fan base to come back and fight off the hordes of new readers, all in the name of mutual Postmen-drivel consumption.

Ha. Yeah, right. But really, come back anyway. See you Monday.

Sweet salvation in the good ol’ Quad Cities

July 13th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

I’ve been a little tortured over here, struggling to find something to post about today. Well guess what? I found it.

Michelle Wie. She’s golfing this week in a PGA event - and not just any PGA event, this Postman’s hometown PGA event, the John Deere Classic. (Yes, I’m from Iowa, and yes, it is really named the John Deere Classic. No, I am not from a farming community. Thanks.)

It’s a great course and an OK event, but its profile will be considerably raised again this year thanks to Wie, who seeks to make the cut at the JDC. It’s a big deal, actually; ESPN.com even has a poll about it! 71% of people say no, she won’t make the cut. Haters.

I would assume my compatriots in the Quad-Cities Area don’t agree. Last year, they turned out in droves - with the media on the case as well - for every Wie drive, approach and putt. Such is the situation this year, too.

Besides Wie, though, there’s actually a pretty decent field for this tournament again, and of course, the obligatory one or two big names to get all the locals excited. This year? Chris DiMarco and David Duval. Also, Jason Gore, if you’re feeling generous. Notah Begay? Not bad.

Another plus about the John Deere? Why, the brilliant, insightful writing of the Quad-City Times sports desk, of course. We won’t pick apart those boys here - I mean, they gave me a job last summer - but they’re not always the um, (how do I put this?), most sophisticated bunch. Lots of tacky short one-sentence paragraphs with that crew. And lots of columns by my main man, editor/I’ll do whatever the hell else I want around here including columns aficionado Don Doxsie, which kind of remind me of the things my high school journalism advisor always said not to do - you know, spending 600 words or so without really making a point. You know, like almost everything I put up on this site.

But yeah, some Quad-Cities love. Couldn’t be happier. Makes me nostalgic for home, actually.

By the way, the tournament has been going on for a while. I’m a bit slow. J.P. Hayes - who? - is winning, and Michelle Wie is +5. Eesh.

Also, that is a photo of Davenport’s historic and illustrious skyline. Beautiful, iddn’t it? No? I know. Go easy on us. We’re plucky, if not grandiose.