John Furrier

Back from San Diego: golf at Del Mar CC and lunch with Duke Snider the legend

Thanks to Mike Dorvillier and Dennis Wise I had the pleasure of playing a nice round of golf at the Aztec Classic held at the Del Mar CC.  The biggest one day fundraiser in college sports.  Nice to meet the key business players in the San Diego area.  What was more interesting was to see Bill Gates name on one of the member lockers.

The next day was a nice lunch at the Hall of Champions with Duke Snider and the GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Great baseball stories and a great perspective on the game and how it has changed.  Very inspirational and entertaining.

In the split second from the time the ball leaves the pitcher's hand until it reaches the plate you have to think about your stride, your hip action, your wrist action, determine how much, if any the ball is going to break and then decide whether to swing at it. ....
Duke Snider

The big bummer was that I forgot to bring my digital camera.

Golf: When it rains it pours...lots of golf coming

I have so say that I love golf.  Being an exhockey player I play like Happy Gilmore.  Great sport.  I could play every day.   We'll it's hard with four kids and work.  But now that I'm a free agent and doing some interesting things I'm getting tons of golf invites from VCs.  Hey maybe I could win myself some funding :-)  I could hear it now...in classic Rodney fashion..."bet you $20m pre (pre-money valuation) you don't sink that putt.." 

I've played one round in six months (the photo above was my drive on 18 at Mayacama in Napa).  I'll be playing golf tomorrow at Palo Alto Hills CC, next week I'll be on Sand Hill Rd at Sharon CC with some other VCs, then off to SoCal at the Del Mar CC for the big San Diego State Aztec mega fundraiser with some other investors that I do due dilligence for. 

When it rains it pours... lets see if I could muster up my "A" game... my "A" game is mid 80s.  One of my life goals is to get the the 70s.  .. yeah I'll keep dreamin

Palo Alto Little League - 2004

Were into our 5th game this year in little league and Alec's team is on a 4 game winning streak.  Good set of kids, coaches, and parents. 

Not bad form for a 9 year old.  Future Red Sox player in development.

2004 MLB World Champs - Party Like It's 1918

Nice to get the rings with the Yanks watching!!   Go Sox

Masters Weekend - Tiger's shot heard round the world

Tiger Woods won his fourth masters.  The Masters tournament is an annual rite of passage that kicks off the golf season and in classic Masters fashion Tiger hit a shot on 16 that rivals Jack's 1975 putt that all but sealed the deal.   We can expect this to  appear soon on Nike commercials.  This is reality TV and advertising at its best,

Here is the video clip of the Masterful shot on 16.

Patriots Dynasty

What's the debate?  The Patriots are a Dynasty.  They don't need to win the Superbowl at this point.  These past two games against the Colts and Steelers puts this discussion to bed.  Brady: clutch in big games and undefeated 8-0 in postseason with two superbowl rings already, Belichick is undefeated 9-0 in post season with the Patriots and also 14-0 in rematches with quarterbacks, and the team can flat out play football and any kind of football.

The Patriots are good, and I mean really good. They are amazingly well coached, and they are even more amazingly united. They simply come to play every Sunday. They embrace their game plans, and they do everything in all their individual powers to execute those plans.

A week ago they were supposed to lose to the highest-flying offense in the league. The Colts didn't score a touchdown that afternoon.  Last night they were supposed to be in a street fight with the top-seeded 16-1 Steelers. They turned it into a case of assault and battery.  The Patriots trampled the Colts last week and mauled the Steelers last night, more than matching their well-publicized physicality.  That won them the right to represent the AFC again in the Super Bowl and they accomplished it the way they should have -- by beating up the two best teams in the conference. Well, the second- and third-best teams, because the best team was and remains the defending Super Bowl champions.

The best team, the one that drove loyal Steelers fans into the frigid night long before the game was technically over but long after it was finished, was the Patriots. Just as they were a year ago when they embarrassed the Colts in a similar AFC title game before a dramatic last-second win brought them their second Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Time for the final statement in Jacksonville on Feb2.  The Dynasty debate will finally be over then.

Red Sox land David Wells

The Red Sox came to terms late last night with free agent lefthander David Wells on a two-year contract for a guaranteed $8 million, plus an additional $10 million in performance incentives that could make the total package worth $18 million.

The Sox will also pursue right hander Pavano.  Pavano has strong interest in the Sox.  It can sum it up in one word, `Schilling,' .  One thing about baseball and life is that winners attract winners.  Schilling is a winner and the Sox will esemble a team of winners.  Winning is contagious.

Land Pedro and the rotation is complete (Pedro: don't be stupid make a deal with the Sox - retire a winner not a chump).  Repeat in 2005!  Go Sox beat them damn Yankees.

BLOHARD Revenge

"BLOHARDS" (The Benevolent Loyal Order of the Honorable Ancient Red Sox Diehard Sufferers).

Thanks Joe (my brother) back in Massachusetts for this link.  I just have to keep the memory living.  Go Sox.

http://www.theremyreport.com/pages/28/index.htm

Growing up in NJ in the 70s and early 80s we had our share of 'in your face' Yankee fans over the years.  Jackson, Chamblis, Nettles, Dent, Bobby Mercer..etc

And of course my good friend Brian O'Shaughnessy sent me this

http://www.hexachord.net/alcs/

Schilling and Leadership

What can you say ... Curt Schilling is the epitome of team and leadership. I have always been amazed how sports is the ultimate reality. Here you have Curt Schilling doing what he's doing to make the Red Sox so dangerous plus only two games away from their 1st World Series since 1918. It's all about leadership. What makes leadership so huge here is the performance and the conditions surrounding it. In all walks of life you have leaders who say their leaders but just don't perform. To me the definition of leadership is: stepping up and leading then following through with performance then elevating the rest of the performance of the rest of the team. Kudos to Schilling and the rest of the team.

Leadership example for all professions.

Sox Make History - Yankees Collapse Huge

Mark it down. Oct. 20. the date goes into the New England calendar as an official no-school/no-work/no-mail-delivery holiday in Red Sox Nation. It will always be the day that Sox citizens were liberated from 8 decades of torment and torture at the hands of the New York Yankees and their fans. Boston Baseball's Bastille Day.

The 2004 Red Sox won the American League pennant in the heart of the Evil Empire last night. In the heretofore haunted Bronx house, raggedy men wearing red socks embarrassed and eliminated the $182 million payroll Yankees, 10-3, in the seventh and deciding game of their American League Championship Series.

I remember where I was in 1986, my Fenway apartment with my NU crew, when Dave Henderson hit the game winning homer against the Angels. Now I'll never forget yesterday as it goes down as the best comeback story by the Sox and worst collapse by the Yanks in baseball history.

Party like its 1918