Category: Sports

Setanta San Diego Gaelic Football and Surf Club Does It Again!

By Nate Bazydlo

“To win the second championship is infinitely harder than the first.” Magic Johnson. Fending off angry competition, keeping satiated players hungry, and maintaining laser-like focus in the
midst of fanfare all mount in opposition to the conquest for a back-to-back championship. In the face of substantial obstacles, the men of San Diego Setanta Gaelic Football Club entered the
2018 campaign with their sights set high on the Junior A North American Cup.

Last year, San Diego went to San Francisco and ended a 7-year drought

By Women Occupy San Diego

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer touts the 640 of 3000 miles of City street repaired during his 32 months in office. Good for you, Mr. Mayor, this shows you can accomplish something when you set your mind to it.

NEXT UP: Get people made homeless by the past 6 years’ replacement of 10,000 units of affordable housing by market-rate housing, vacation rentals, hotels, offices and retail OFF THESE STREETS.

Now that the Chargers have announced they are moving to L.A. — YOU can make that GARGANTUAN parking lot at City-owned Qualcomm Stadium into a network of SafePark (people sleeping in their vehicles),

COME INSIDE FOR THE PETITION

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego

Let’s cut to the chase. San Diego must have a new football stadium for five good reasons.

1. We have already solved the problem of homelessness.

The mayor has made it his priority this year; so that is fixed. Forget that the official count of those on the streets is now 8,700 — an increase of almost 3 percent from last year.

The city can and does just move them out of sight (so if you can’t see them, they don’t exist). Move them from downtown to Hillcrest. From Mission Hills canyons to the bridges and overhangs near Fuller Liquor and along the San Diego River. Ocean Beach doesn’t count because everyone there looks almost homeless.

No need to waste precious money on the homeless. Build a stadium. Let the homeless sleep in the old one.

By Frank Gormlie

On Friday, November 4th, the California Coastal Commission finally gave SeaWorld what it wanted. In what veteran San Diego Union-Tribune writer, Lori Weisberg, called an “easy approval“, the Commission okayed new decorations for its old Orca tanks.

Call them a new backdrop for the set, call them a new stage for a new Orca encounter, call them whatever – the new decor – which will include a “Northwestern” motif, complete with fake fir trees, fake waterfalls, and a fake rock fiberglass facade – will be for the patrons, the visitors – to make them feel better – it won’t be for the Orcas. They’ll still be in the same old tanks.

Via UrbDeZine

By Mario Torero, Brent Beltrán, and Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

Barrio Logan is little known to most San Diegans – beyond being a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood near downtown. Yet it is one of San Diego’s most historically significant and culturally important neighborhoods.

In particular, it has national prominence for its role in the Chicano / Mexican-American civil rights movement. However, more than a Chicano historic asset, the neighborhood and it’s history stands as a monument to the resilience and survival of the nation’s minority and working class populations in the face of assaults and exploitation by the overwhelming power of the state and business interests.

In particular, many ethnic working-class urban neighborhoods across the country were destroyed or severely damaged by en masse relocation of their residents to build freeways and other neighborhood-destroying and suburb serving facilities.

Beyond Baseball
Originally published October 2016.

by Scott Stephens

Vin Scully called his last game in San Francisco Sunday. The following are some of my personal thoughts on the man and the time period in which he prevailed as the very best sportscaster in the biz.

The Dodgers were more than just baseball. This is the team that broke the color barrier and signed the league’s first black player, Jackie Robinson, in 1947. Three years later (1950) in the heyday of Jackie’s career, Scully began his tenure with the Dodgers that has lasted until this year (2016). Signing Robinson to the then Brooklyn Dodgers was largely due to the efforts of general manager Branch Rickey. Rickey was a member of the United Methodist Church, who were strong advocates for social justice and had a large role in the civil rights movement. The team has also been at the forefront of the signing of Asian players. Hideo Nomo became the league’s first Japanese star; Chan Ho Park became its first South Korean star amongst many others.

Part I – The End of an ERA

By Scott Stephens

In this unstable and unpredictable world, Los Angelino’s have always had one consistency since 1958. Vincent Edward Scully has called Dodger games every season since the team came to Los Angeles. His 67 seasons with the Dodgers (1950–present) is the longest tenure for any broadcaster with a single team in professional sports history. He is little more than a year away from his 90th birthday!

Scully never had an RBI; never scored a run and never hit a home run for the Dodgers. Despite not being on the playing field, he was the most recognizable sports personality in the history of Los Angeles. He was bigger than the Dodgers; bigger than baseball. Through the years players came and went but there was always Vinny. It is difficult to comprehend what he meant to this city.

San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick continued his protests in support of Black Lives Matter by taking a knee during the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner” Thursday night, September 1st, at Qualcomm Stadium. And alongside him was teammate, Eric Reid.

Kaepernick told the press ( Reports the Daily News: ) that he and Reid had discussed the protest, and the quarterback:

“He approached me and said I support what you’re doing, I support what your message is. Let’s think about how we can do this together

And dropping to one knee was intentional and symbolic. Going to one knee was his way of showing respect to the military while still expressing a protest. Kaepernick said:

“We wanted to make sure the message that we’re trying to send isn’t lost with the action. At this point, I think it will be taking a knee.”

by Ernie McCray

This is so deja vu, this state of affairs with Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49’ers quarterback who sat when one is “supposed to stand” in honor of The Star Spangled Banner that heralds a time when non-white people in our county were not seen as human beings.

I fully understand and appreciate this man’s stance although I stand whenever the anthem is played out of respect for those who get goose pimples in such moments. However, I bow out at singing about “bombs bursting in air” and “flags still being there” and the empty promises inherent in the braggadocio “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” at the end of the song.

That aside, I can’t help but think back to the 68 Olympics, when the quest for “liberty and justice for all,” in a spirit of today’s “Black Lives Matter” movement was pursued like never before. My soul still fills with pride remembering the image of Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the ceremony for handing out the gold and the silver and the bronze medals for the men’s 200, standing on their podiums with their heads bowed and their hands raised in the “Black Power!” salute.

By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

“Why does Chris Cate want the Chargers to leave San Diego? Please call and ask him.”

That was the headline in an ad Dean Spanos, the Chargers owner, ran this past week targeting 2nd year City Council member Chris Cate, who is on the leadership committee of the No Downtown Stadium – Jobs and Streets First! coalition.

Nearly all of the City Council members have voiced opposition to Spanos’s audacious public money grab to fund a downtown stadium for his pro-football team (Ballot Measure C. – disingenuously entitled “Citizens Initiative” – full text).

But Cate has taken the extra step of being a leader on the coalition.

Interview by Jeffrey Siniard / Bolts From The Blue

Please provide a little background on the group Barrios Against Stadiums (B.A.STA!). Who is involved, and what are the aims of the group?

B.A.STA! is a grassroots, barrio based, loose knit formation of residents, artists, activists, small business owners and allies creating a movement. The sole purpose of this movement is to prevent a football stadium/convention center from being built in the East Village of San Diego, just a few short blocks from our historic barrios.

RIO DE JANEIRO — American Cody Miller won bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke, finishing behind Britain’s Adam Peaty, who set a world record in 57.13 seconds.

Cameron van der Burgh of South Africa took silver in 58.69, .18 seconds ahead of Miller.

Cody Miller is a local OB celebrity – in a real sense – as he is the son of an Ocean Beach homeless man, Craig Miller, who died last year on Christmas Day.

Writers Vera Sanchez and Sunny Rey wrote about it for the OB Rag a couple of weeks ago. They described it then:

The road for Cody did not come easy.