Just got back from Europe where I languished for 30 days trying to find American scores and details about baseball, football and the NBA basketball fiasco.
Of course I had to know how USC, UCLA and Notre Dame are doing in college football and I was able to keep up on Garden Grove area football through the GG Journal webpage. That is, when I could get on the ship’s Internet computers.
In my journey aboard the Crown Princess we ported in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Nova Scotia and New York, USA!
I think I missed a few countries but this gives you the idea.
I was told the ship had “updated TV” so I eagerly turned on ESPN to find out how football was going in the U.S.
Well, I did find ESPN but football looked exactly like soccer even though they called it football.
Then I saw a game that looked something like football, even the ball looked like a football. But it turned out to be rugby! That is a rough game. Even more so than our American football.
But it is big in Europe. In some places rugby is bigger than futball, football or soccer as I call it.
And not just in Europe but all over the world. In New Zealand and Australia it is number one, played before thousands of fans in big cramped stadiums!
If you’ve never seen rugby you might want to try it. It is as brutally physical as our football but no one wears pads or helmets.
I really don’t know how they survive this sport.
Scoring still baffles me. It appears they get three points for field goals but the goals are made apparently while a lot of players are huddling.
If someone out there knows the rules, please send them to me.
Anyway, I still wanted American football and baseball scores. Remember, when I left the Angels were climbing to the top of the American League-West standings and all football teams were undefeated!
But NO! I got Barcelona and Manchester United soccer scores in that little strip at the bottom of ESPN.
Thank goodness for son Dan for keeping me up to date via Internet but that didn’t work all of the time because of the weather.
But when I did get home Dan told me about the bizarre football game with Utah. If I got it right, USC, leading, holds Utah on downs late in the game but the referees are overruled on the ball placement, gives Utah a first down and they eventually try a game-tying field goal.
The Trojans block the try and score a touchdown. But the referees take away the touchdown because the Trojan sideline players celebrated on the field. Then the game is declared over and USC wins 17-14.
Then two hours later the league reverses the referees and give the Trojans a 23-14 win that coincidentally barely covered the spread in Las Vegas.
Some casinos paid the Utah side and others are paying the USC side if they haven’t thrown away their tickets yet.
Later the referees said they always allowed the touchdown. If so, why wasn’t the extra point tried? This was not overtime but the end of regulation.
The scene at the Coliseum must have been as turbulent as the weather near the North Pole. The wind rose to 75 knots over the decks and the waves reached our ninth deck cabin. Water sloshed out of all the pools.
Did I tell you we were also dodging icebergs and listening to lectures on the Titanic? But since we survived it I’ve got to say it was really neat to see all of that. Quite a sight!
By the way, part of the problems were caused by hurricanes off of our East coast.
Next week I will write about Time Warner’s announcement they are entering into high school sports in a big deal with the CIF. Oh, pardon me. Journal editor and publisher Jim Tortolano and I did that in the Eighties along with producer-director John Borack. Nice to see they finally got wise!
