The "offseason"

I'm referring to this period of inactivity for American football and NASCAR (Before I knew it, NASCAR has become my most-watched sports!) I re-read some of my old posts and found a few interesting points:
I wrote a mini-review of 2004 trends in the world of sports. That's also a year Brady (barely) won a SB. Brazil (barely) defeated Argentina in Copa America. Greece (barely) won the European Cup. I was moaning the lack of superstars and plays dominated by defense. I guess I was too harsh to Brady as he led his teams to 4 more SB and won 2 (not all of those teams had a lot of talent) so Brady definitely qualified as an elite QB. Of course, defense is still as important as ever. The defense-less Brazil fared poorly in the 2014 World Cup. On the contrary, the eventual winner Germany has a much more balanced team. This team may not have any FIFA player-of-the-year since it's more about team work. Still, there were quite a few stars from European power house Bayern Munich (e.g. Thomas Muller, Mario Gotze, Toni Kroos) and the all-time WC goal scorer Miroslav Klose.
I also wrote about major competitions on odd years: Ryder Cup used to be one but not any more. The aforementioned Copa America switched between odd and even years. There'll be one this year and also one in 2016 (to celebrate the centennial anniversary. It's a big accomplishment to have a tournament lasted 100 years :) Cricket World Cup is still an odd year event. I'm looking forward to its start this weekend!

This could be a very good baseball team

Talking about the San Diego Padres, which is in the same division as the SF Giants. They have just added James Shields, who helped Kansas City reach the World Series last season, to their roster. And prior to this deal, they have already got Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, as well as Derek Norris, the former A's catcher who I think was pretty good. The rest of NL West should watch out!

Grammy and non-Grammy Jazz

The 2015 Grammy Awards was announced last night. As usual I checked out the jazz nominations before the show and tried listening to as many as I can via Rhapsody, the radio and podcasts. The most notable ones to me were:
Chick Corea's Trilogy album (winner)
Conrad Herwig's Latin Side of Joe Henderson: The trombonist has done a series of "the Latin side" albums for Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock. I listened to their awesome rendition of "Recorda Me" with Joe Lovano on sax on the radio. Corea also played the same tune on the Trilogy album, which is equally amazing. What a coincidence! THE jazz pianist who appeared on the show (which is rare these days) was Herbie Hancock, who accompanied Ed Sheeran. What a waste of his ability though. (I wasn't the only one who thought so) The other accompanist John Mayer did get a chance to solo a bit.

Kenny Barron with Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio featuring Ron Carter on Bass. Barron also have another album out: a duet with bassist Dave Holland that is worthwhile to check out.

I would also like to mention the latest release by Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet, "Intents and Purposes," which should have got a nomination IMHO but didn't. It's very interesting to hear the tunes from the electric jazz/rock fusion era reinterpreted in an acoustic setting. In fact, Rez Abbasi's use of flat-top acoustic guitars is one of the best I heard in jazz recently. Highly recommended.

Demolition of Candlestick Park has started

...... since last Monday. As a fan of the SF Giants, the Beatles (but not 49ers), this certainly stirred up some nostalgic feelings. I watched my first and many baseball game there with my then-gf. I also watched my one and only NFL game with the family (vs Atlanta Falcons featuring Michael Vick in his best QB form) For sure, it's cold and windy (compared to it, the AT&T is a paradise) And it's not fun to park at the bumpy hillside lot then walked back and fro to the stadium (which was ironically better than AT&T's ridiculously expensive parking) But it's where the great Beatles played their last concert! (Too young to be there.) And the last concert at the Stick was also played by a Beatle (Sir Paul) I read that the plan is to build houses and shopping mall once this is done.Very curious what type of shops will be there. A sports memorabilia store would be fitting for sure.