Stranded At Second Base: Ochoa, Liotta Hang ‘Em Up
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010“Culling the thoughts that occur when you’re standing around waiting for something to happen”
Gilbert Arenas wasn’t paying attention one afternoon while strutting through the student union and plowed a shoulder into my solar plexus.
A lunch lady whistled me for the foul; said my feet were moving.
For some strange reason, I was a fan of Arenas ever since. We tend to love the pro athletes we went to school with, even if sometimes they let you down.
A judge recently sentenced Arenas to 30 days in a halfway house on gun-possession charges.
Luckily, for every Gilbert Arenas, there’s a Lorena Ochoa.
The former Wildcat is set to announce on Friday her retirement from the LPGA, where the 28-year-old currently resides as the No. 1 ranked female golfer in the world.
In eight short years, Ochoa earned 30 professional wins and held a stranglehold over the world’s No. 1 position after wresting it away from fellow Wildcat alum Annika Sorenstam. She’s a slam-dunk to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame when she is eligible in 2012.
For those of who attended the UA in the early 2000s, Ochoa is one of our best chess pieces in the game of intra-school alumni rivalries.
Sure our classes accomplished a lot more than just athletic feats, but lording over fellow Wildcats that your class ‘discovered how to turn single molecules into working transistors’ just doesn’t cut it during heated bar-room banter.
Who are the former UA athletes you went to school with? What was the best era for UA sports? Send me your responses and we’ll get a debate going.
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Speaking of great Wildcat golfers, did you know that Annika Sorenstam hails from a Swedish town named Bro? I believe it’s neighbors with Sistah in Dude County.
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Sticking with great UA golfers, former Wildcat Jim Furyk used the term “awkward” 11 times in the span of a minute on Sunday describing his playoff-hole win at South Carolina’s Verizon Heritage. Opponent Brian Davis flagged himself with a penalty in the extra hole, effectively handing the tournament and its $1 million purse to Furyk.
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This week’s reminder that I’m no longer in the Old Pueblo…
The new sign posted across the street from my South Carolina home.
The next time the National League West bottom-dwelling Arizona Diamondbacks have you bummed out, think about this…baseball in the desert hasn’t been all that bad. Lest we forget that little World Series run in 2001.
When it comes to expansion teams, D-Backs fans can’t complain too much.
Arizona (6-9) is 24 wins shy of becoming the second-fastest expansion team to reach 1,000 franchise wins — a slot temporarily fastened down by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The Angels reached the 1,000-win plateau in 12 seasons, 161 games. The Diamondbacks — who have averaged 80 victories a year — have roughly 145 games to eclipse the Halos.
The Kansas City Royals became the first expansion club to reach 1,000 wins, doing so in 11 seasons, 124 games.
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Ray Liotta is heading back into the corn. Liotta called it a career on March 10, falling short on his five-year journey to reach the Major Leagues. The Southpaw rose as high as Triple-A Omaha (Kansas City Royals), but couldn’t crack the pros. He’ll have to refer to actor, namesake and distant cousin Ray Liotta, who starred in the cult baseball classic ‘Field of Dreams,’ to learn about life in a Big League uniform.
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My daughter called ‘dibs’ on the television at 8 p.m. to watch tonight’s brand-new episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. The direct time conflict with the NFL draft leaves dad pondering whose wingspan will be of more interest: that of Squidward Q. Tentacles or Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh.
