Old friends (as in geezers and longtime friends) sports talk thread today.
Note: All four participants of this thread lived outside of the US during a banking career with Citi. I am ever amazed that these types of real-time connections can be sustained by tools (internet, social media yada) not available to those in previous generations.
America just won the gold in basketball, France gets silver. What a game!! 98/87, 5th Gold in a row for USA. Close game throughout. Steph Curry hit 3 3s within the last 2 minutes - freakin’ unbelievable!
Nathans, Orlando, FL
Yes, I watched. It was a cliff hanger.''
Panama, Los Angeles, CA
When I was young, basketball was an American sport. You did not hear or see it elsewhere. This close final shows how it has spread across the world. There are now countries like France who have developed into a highly competitive country.
When I was in graduate school, I had classmates tell me how important and global baseball was and how cricket was played in just a few countries. I researched and responded that baseball was followed in countries with about 250 million in population while cricket was filled by 1 billion in population. Admittedly India was about 700 million of those cricket followers. I also remember being in India when I was young and seeing children playing cricket in street after street. I played cricket in our backyard regularly with friends. By regularly, I played twice weekly at home at friends.
Also in graduate school, I played rugby. Rugby was expanding and we played a number of universities. It was tougher to win in the fall compared to springtime. In the spring with football being over, a lot of football players would come and play rugby. Rugby did not allow substitution, so you had to play 60 to 80 minutes. This was something the football players were not used to playing. They were big and tough which made playing a little more challenging. However, if we kept the score roughly even by halftime, we knew we could win. The football players would be bent over and puffing in the second half. One game I played we were down 10 to 7 at halftime. We won 57 to 10 as their players were unable to keep running in the second half and stop us from constantly scoring.
It was fun to see rugby played in these Olympics. Over time I can see America becoming more dominant in rugby much as Europeans get into basketball.
The Pope, Eufaula, AL
(The Pope is an OZ who is a naturalized American. He grew up Oz, South Africa, and UK and later came to the US, after graduating from the University of Witwatersrand, to attend the Harvard Business School).
I played in an obscure evening pick-up league in Sydney in 1975. Basketball in Oz in those days was in its infancy. Today there are three Ozes in the NBA.
I lived eight years in Oz and India (five years in Oz and three years in India). In Oz, I followed the highlights of the cricket test matches on the evening TV sports news, but I never attended a match. When I was operations head of the Calcutta Branches for Citi (1973), the Personnel Manager was Manab Chakravarti. In 1974 Manab left Citi and immigrated to Adelaide, OZ where, in addition to his regular job at a local bank, he was the Times of India cricket correspondent for OZ. TIMDT and Mwah (sic) visited Manab and Manou(?) in Adelaide circa 1982 before taking the Ghan Railway to Alice Springs. Cricket has since morphed, in addition to the international test match competitions, into a serious professional cricket league in India. India Premier League.
Indian Premier League Official Website -2024 (iplt20.com)
Beaucoup money... for players and owners in the Indian Premier League.
Circa 2010 TIMDT and Mwah (sic) were travelling in Karnataka. At a coffee plantation resort restaurant, seated alone a couple of tables away, was Anil Kumble, widely regarded as one of the best leg spin bowlers in cricket history. Our guide pointed Kumble out and took TIMDT to his table for an introduction. Kumble couldn't have been nicer to inveterate India traveler TIMDT. Referencing The Pope's comment about the ubiquitousness of cricket, I have no doubt that Kumble was known to more human beings on earth than even Michael Jordan.
Anil Kumble
On 06 April of this year (2024), we were staying with Koessler's family at the Rambagh Palace Hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The hotel was packed with fans of the Royal Challengers of Bengaluru (India Premier League) who had come up from Bangalore to watch their team play The Rajesthan Royals. Attending that match might have been something we should have done, but we didn't know about it when we planned our visit. The Royals won the match by six wickets.
Above; RR vs RCB Highlights, IPL 2024: Virat Kohli's historic century went in vain as Jos Buttler scored a sensational ton in chase to help Rajasthan Royals beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru. 06 April 2024.
Bishop, Park City, UT