The biggest game you probably didn't see...

6/29/09 2:25 PM

Post by David Helman — Though I write this with a broken heart and a bitter mind, I can only feel gratitude for the U.S. men's soccer team's appearance in the 2009 Confederations Cup. With almost no one at home even aware of it, the U.S. soccer team spent its past two weeks facing powerhouses like Italy, Spain and Brazil in a tune up for the 2010 World Cup. The U.S. team was considered 'minnows,' not quite on par with the soccer elite by the worldwide media and most fans at home (including myself), and for the first week of the competition, the team lived up to those expectations. The U.S. gave up an early lead in a 3-1 loss to the defending world champion Italians forgot to show up in a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of Brazil. Then something pretty amazing happened. In the course...

Clothes may make the man, but they don't help make the man's decision

6/28/09 3:31 PM

Post by Jerit Roser — Saturday ... fewer than 24 hours after I had a chance to talk to Garrett Temple about his excitement to be joining the Houston Rockets summer league team ... I get a call from a friend who's spotted G.T. at Perkins Rowe in an Atlanta Hawks T-shirt. That Friday night, I had a chance to say hi to Jared Mitchell, who's wearing a Kansas City Royals hat — and probably not one he borrowed from Louis Coleman. Thursday night, Jared might have been wearing a Twins hat, actually, if not the same Royals cap. Both teams are division rivals of the Chicago White Sox system that drafted him No. 23 overall in this month's draft. One baseball player — I forget who — was wearing a Toronto Blue Jays hat Thursday night. It wasn't Sean Ochinko...

Marcus Thornton and New Orleans could be a match made in heaven

6/28/09 5:34 AM

Post by Jerit Roser — So Marcus Thornton is the newest New Orleans Hornet. The 2009 NBA Draft probably couldn't have worked out to be any more intriguing for Hornets fans than it did — certainly not in terms of second-round action. New Orleans could use some shooting, especially with Peja Stojakovic getting older and closer to the end of his Hornet run. And Thornton could have the potential to bring even more interest to a team hailing from a city which people question as a long-term home for an NBA franchise. For as late as Thornton, who for a stretch leading up to the draft was being tossed around as a possible first-rounder, went and as little as New Orleans gave up for him, Thornton could turn out be a nice addition — if he makes the team. After all,...

Welcome...

6/25/09 2:41 AM

Post by Jerit Roser — Now that the LSU baseball team's wrapped up its sixth national championship, we figured it might not make too much sense to keep the baseball-specific "Extra Innings" baseball blog running on the lsureveille.com homepage as the most features sports blog. Instead, we came up with this little number, the "Dog Days" summer sports blog, where the sports writers and I will have a chance to touch on some sporting issues that we cover in the paper, as well as maybe some that we don't for whatever reason. Maybe some posts in here won't be long or newsy enough to make their own stories. Maybe they won't be relevant enough to LSU to put in the paper, but they'll still be interesting enough to touch upon. In any event, I guess we'll find...