Alligator in pond bites off part of golfer's arm in South Carolina - ESPN
Updated: October 9, 2009, 12:25 PM ETGolfer loses arm in gator attack
BEAUFORT, S.C. -- Officials say an alligator bit off part of a golfer's arm as he leaned over to pick up his ball at a private South Carolina course.
The man, who is in his 70s, was retrieving his ball from a pond when the 10-foot alligator bit him at Ocean Creek Golf Course in Beaufort County. The gator pulled the golfer into the pond and ripped off his arm in the struggle. His golf partners were able to free him.
Wildlife workers killed the alligator and retrieved the arm in the hopes it might be reattached.
The man has not been identified. He was being treated at the Medical University of South Carolina, but officials there would not release any information about him.
A call to the golf course was not immediately returned.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
This is reason #167 why I don't golf.
Boston Red Sox trading closer Papelbon? - Sports Rumors - MLB - Yahoo! Sports [LAME]
Closer Jonathan Papelbon(notes) has been an All-Star for the Boston Red Sox since he came into the league in 2006. He's saved 151 games for the team and is the owner of the record for the most consecutive scoreless innings in the postseason with 26. And now the team is supposedly considering trading him.
ESPN's Steve Phillips said as much in an interview on WEEI radio. He says Papelbon will be used to bring a big bat to Boston, which is good because Jason Bay(notes) supposedly wants to move back to the West Coast, where he has a home in Seattle.
After all, the guy has two more years on his contract and there aren't many good closers that will be available this winter through free agency. If Papelbon does get moved, though, he'll have to choose a new entrance song. He currently arrives at the mound to "I'm Shipping Up to Boston," by the Dropkick Murphys.
Source: WEEI
Related: Jason Bay, Boston Red Sox
Both the premise of this article and its headline annoy the heck out of me. Why? Because it's misleading, and the average person who doesn't look closely enough will assume that complete and utter speculation = proof that the Red Sox are exploring this deal.
Are any Red Sox team sources cited in this story? No. The linked post that is supposed to support the premise that "the team is supposedly considering trading him" doesn't even come close. The team isn't supposedly considering trading Paps... rather, Steve Phillips is saying they SHOULD consider doing this! Big difference, and it doesn't even qualify as a rumor IMO. Yet somehow this is enough to slap on the ridiculous headline. Why not go with something like "ESPN's Phillips: Red Sox Should Trade Papelbon"? At least this would be closer to the truth.
I want to like Yahoo! Sports because it's a nice alternative to the ad-intensive goliath that is ESPN.com. But they're going to need to do better than this if they want to win my eyeballs.
Fresh Kicks
Friends and loyal readers (all 3 of you out there), meet my new shoes: the Nike Free Sparq 09. And for all you jokers out there- no, they were not free. More like $85 at my local Sports Authority ($70 once I presented my $15-off coupon). Why did I buy these shoes? Well, I'm a little more than halfway into Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, and the case he makes about the evils of traditional running shoes was something I couldn't ignore. Here are a couple quotes from the book:
Runners wearing top-of-the-line shoes are 123 percent more likely to get injured than runners in cheap shoes, according to a study led by Bernard Marti, M.D., a preventative-medicine specialist at Switzerland's University of Bern.
In the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, Dr. [Barry] Bates and his colleagues reported that as shoes wore down and their cushioning thinned, runners gained more foot control... The puzzling conclusion: the more cushioned the shoe, the less protection it provides.
In a startling admission in 2008, Runner's World confessed that for years it had accidentally misled its readers by recommending corrective shoes for runners with plantar fasciitis: "But recent research has shown stability shoes are unlikely to relieve plantar fasciitis and may even exacerbate the symptoms" (italics mine).
The bottom line according to the book: running shoes are the devil because they alter the natural motion of your feet. Your feet do their best work when they can feel what's under them, and the best way to tell them what's beneath is to run barefoot. The studies cited in the book make a compelling case that the rise of running injuries over the past couple of decades can be linked to more expensive/supportive/corrective footwear. I've never had a major running injury, but as I get older I do find that I have occasional knee pain and back stiffness. My dad had to cut his running career short due to chronic knee pain, so I'm open to trying new things that might allow me to extend my own career into my 40's & 50's. When I saw that Nike makes a shoe that is supposed to simulate barefoot running (while protecting my feet from jagged bits of rock and glass on the roadway), I figured what the heck... let's try it! On Sunday I ran a 5-miler with these shoes and I have to say it felt great. At first I felt like I was running on top of frying pans because the shoes felt wider to me, but it it didn't take long to get used to it. No knee stiffness during the run, and less of the standard soreness when I got out of bed this morning. The only thing I noticed was some tightness in my left achilles tendon, but it wasn't painful and I attributed it to getting accustomed to running on less padding. It's tough to draw any broad conclusions after 1 run. I plan to keep running in these shoes on the treadmill and the road, and I'll update my progress here. Let me know if anyone else out there is trying similar footwear (or no footwear at all!)
About Me
Chad NorthrupCoreBlox co-founder, Dartmouth College '96, Boston sports lover, dad to 2 girls, contributor to EveryOtherThursday.com
Tags
- beer (13)
- christmas (4)
- football (4)
- sports (4)
- Twitter (4)
- fun (3)
- hops (3)
- Patriots (3)
- #redsox (3)
- Stone Brewing (3)
- View all 162 tags »
