Congratulations to Bobby Valentine and the Nippon Series Champion Chiba Lotte Marines.

Chiba Marine Stadium will likely be rocking next spring….

The Chicago White Sox win their first American baseball championship since… 1917!

The “Black Sox” scandal of 1919 was then…

…1959 was then…

THIS is now!

On The Call: Pujols’ home run

10/19/2005
St. Louis Post Dispatch

ON THE CALL

How broadcasters described Albert Pujols’ series-saving home run for the Cardinals on Monday night:

Mike Shannon, Cardinals Radio Network:

“Swing and a long one. There it is, baby! The Cardinals take the lead as Albert Pujols comes through … What did I tell you, folks? … This could be a crushing blow, a crushing blow, to the Houston club.”

Milo Hamilton, Astros Radio Network:

“Brad Lidge ready, delivers. Fly ball, it’s a long home run. It’s clear up on the railroad tracks. And the air just went out of the balloon here.”

Thom Brennaman, Fox television:

In the air to left field, and Pujols has given St. Louis the lead! A dramatic, towering, three-run home run! Stunned in disbelief here in Houston. … How about Albert Pujols!

Dan Shulman, ESPN Radio:

Lidge sets … and fires … and a slider is hit to deep left field. … And this ball is gone! Albert Pujols hit it up above the seats, above the train tracks and off the glass in deep left field, and the Cardinals have taken the lead 5 to 4 in the ninth inning. Unbelievable!

English turn a deaf ear to Scottish Sunset Song
The Times
April 25, 2005

PLANS to film a classic Scottish novel have collapsed after the project was turned down by English backers.

Terence Davies, who was to direct Sunset Song, based on the novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, had secured Scottish and international funding. But the project has been postponed after the BBC, Channel 4 and the UK Film Council rejected it.

Davies, who won international acclaim for his adaptation of The House of Mirth, had planned to cast an American actress, such as Kirsten Dunst, in the lead role of Chris Guthrie.

The book was one of the 100 Best Scottish novels in a poll by The List magazine. It was written in the Doric dialect, which would had been watered down for an international audience.

But Bob Last, the film’s producer, said yesterday that it looked as if audiences would have to wait. “This would have been a major film for Scotland. “We had international money, but neither the Film Council nor Channel 4 nor the BBC could be persuaded to get involved. Until we figure out a way of getting another partner in the UK then it’s on the back-burner.”

Sunset Song was published in 1932 and provoked controversy because of themes of incest, suicide, infanticide and alcoholism. It has since become one of Scotland’s best-loved titles, studied in schools across the country and turned into a BBC drama in 1971….