After reading this great story about Caron Butler attending the birthday party of a fan, I'll settle for nothing less than Johan Santanashowing up at my house wearing a party hat on January 3.
Longtime AG.com reader Thayer Rasmussen has made it to the final 10 players at the World Poker Tour's Mandalay Bay Poker Championship. We chatted over instant messenger late Wednesday night, with Thayer telling me that he knocked Patrik Antonius and reigning World Series of Poker Main Event winner Jamie Gold out of the tournament.
His run of sending big names home continued yesterday, as Thayer knocked three-time WSOP bracelet winner John Juanda out in 12th place.
(Proof that reading this blog makes you a good poker player.)
Thayer began yesterday in the middle of the field, but went on a huge run late last night, knocking players out in 16th, 15th, 14th, and 12th place before the tournament ended for the day with 10 players remaining. He currently sits second in chips with 685,000, which is just 13,000 off the chip leader. Two big names are left in Barry Greenstein (375,000) and Chau Giang (318,000), but Thayer is in great position to make a name for himself in the poker world. The winner receives $768,775.
The Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, shows how he earned that status with an excellent article on the pitcher who makes his big-league debut tonight, Kevin Slowey. LEN3 also has an interesting theory about Batgirl's recent "retirement."
When he's not producing the videos at NBCSports.com, Matt Casey also provides some of the links you see here each week. For instance, yesterday he gleefully passed along this amazing video showing the "Running of the Urinals":
In addition to having the unenviable task of making me look and sound presentable on video, Matt also runs his own blog and recently wrote his first column for NBCSports.com, in which he breaks down where each team stands through one-third of the season.
If the Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com had a "45-and-over" division, the titleholder would look like this.
Following in the footsteps of Pat Neshek, Gilbert Arenas, Curt Schilling, and Curtis Granderson, Kevin Youkilisis now blogging. Oh, and amazingly so isBob Ryan of the Boston Globe, who Tony Kornheiser dubbed the "quintessential American sportswriter." Somewhere in Outoftouchville, Patrick Reusseis freaking out.
Add "growing a beard" to the incredibly long list of things that Joe Mauerdoes much better than me.
Reason No. 1,853,089 why cultural differences and speaking through a translator are amusing: Daisuke Matsuzaka blamed some of his recent struggles on poor sleeping conditions on the road, but declined to discuss what changes he plans to make with his routine. According to the Boston Herald:
Matsuzaka told reporters he may have come up with a solution for the next road trip. He did not wish to share it, Japanese reporters said, because he preferred not to have people wondering or imagining how he looked while he slept.
How very thoughtful (or incredibly weird) of him.
I attended a little league game last night that was played by 11- and 12-year-olds, and included the losing team holding a lengthy "player's only meeting" in the dugout after getting blown out. Seriously, they kicked the manager out and the no-door session lasted over five minutes. I don't really have a point, but I felt the need to share that. I'm amazed that no one tested positive for performance enhancing drugs or fired their agent before the game.
This isn't actually a link and it's probably of little interest to anyone except me, but I'll bore you with it anyway: AG.com's May readership was up 19.6 percent compared to last May. On a related note, this blog should surpass three million total visitors at some point next week. The entry you're reading right now is No. 1,231 in the nearly five-year history of this site, which means the average entry has been read by a little over 2,400 people.
That may not seem like much, but the average daily readership during the first six months of this blog's existence was 90, 107, 135, 147, 213, and 252. AG.com averaged just 390 readers per day for the first year and didn't surpass a 1,000-visitor daily average until the second year. After starting this site way back in August of 2002, it took 30 months to reach one million visitors. From there, it took another 17 months to amass the second million.
The two-million mark was cracked last June, which means it will have taken almost exactly 12 months to rack up the third million. Whether or not those readership numbers are impressive depends almost entirely upon what you're comparing them to, but I've long since passed the point of being amazed. Of course, I never imagined that I'd be approaching my five-year blogging anniversary either. As always, thanks for reading.
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
