Archive for June 25th, 2012

WATERCOOLER CHAT: ITALY MOVES ON, SANDUSKY GUILTY, YOUKLIS ERA OVER

SOCCER

The United States may not give it much media attention, but most of the world is abuzz about Euro Cup 2012.  Remember, this tournament is exclusively for teams in Europe, so garnering American interest is challenging, but as a contest itself, this has been an amazing spectacle.  And Sunday, England was trying to sneak into the semi finals against Italy.  The problem with England is that they have a bad habit of leaving a game to be decided by penalty kicks. England played marvelously again, but couldn’t get a go-ahead goal in a 0-0 tie.  You know what that means… penalty kicks.  England fans held their breath, and once again came up with heartbreak when Alessandro Diamanti hit the deciding penalty kick shot to give Italy the victory.  England will have to wait another year for glory, and will need to practice winning the game in regular time.  Italy 4, England 2.

FOOTBALL

And in the latest from the Jerry Sandusky Penn State Scandal, after the jury found Sandusky guilty of 45 of 48 counts of child molestation, Sandusky’s own lawyers told radio and TV talk shows that they wanted to resign during the case.  Sandusky’s defense said that given the breadth and scope of this case, they felt that the case was rushed to court far too quickly in order for them to give an adequate defense; that there were many different witnesses, and they didn’t have a chance to dive into their character in that short amount of time.  However, Sandusky’s own defense said of the victims that their testimony did sound very convincing and genuine.  It looks like pretty much the whole world is against Sandusky on this one — even Sandusky’s lawyers.  Sandusky now faces up to 600 years in prison for heinous crimes.

BASEBALL

And finally, in Boston… the end of an era.  Kevin Youklis was a centerpiece of Boston’s phenomenal World Series run in 2004.  He was a slugger who smashed home runs, and was even referenced in last year’s film MONEYBALL as “The Greek God of Walks”.  In other words, he was very valuable to the Red Sox over the past 8 seasons.  But, Sunday, the Red Sox decided that it was time to trade Youklis away to the White Sox.   The trade allows Boston to give more playing time to their hot-hitting rookie Will Middlebrooks and allows an unhappy Youklis to leave the team (Note:  Youklis had been publicly feuding with Red Sox management for a while now).  When that happens, sometimes its good if a player moves on.  Sunday at Fenway, the crowd gave ‘Youk’ a standing ovation in his last at bat with the team.  But that’s professional sports — one day your favorite player is there, and the next day he’s been traded.

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