Things We Learned on Bing Today_ Sports Edition

Two Turkish soccer powerhouses GalataSaray and Trabzonspor met in weekend play with GS pulling off a 2-0 victory; a week earlier GS lost to their main Istanbul rival Fenerbahce 2-1, but GS still won the Turkish Premiere League.

And, this leads us to today's Things We Learned on Bing Today entry, all of which deal with the whole wide word of sports:

1) Selcuk Inan, 28, a Turkish national, is the current captain of GalataSaray; he wears #8 and the teams' other star players on the team include Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast) and Burak Yilmaz (Turkey), who scored a goal versus Trabzonspor. Selcuk previously played for Trabzonspor.

2) Tolga Zengin, 29, (pictured) a Turkish national, is the captain of Trabzonspor and the team's goal-tender. The team is based in Trabzon, which is located in Turkey's eastern Black Sea coast.

3) Martin Gerber, 38, a Swiss National, was the goal-tender for the Carolina Hurricanes when the team won its first and only Stanley Cup in the NHL (the world's main hockey league); Gerber now plays pro hockey in Sweden.

4) Bill Russell, 79, is the NBA basketball player who has won the most titles, all 11 came with the Boston Celtics.

5) Leanza Cornett, 41, won the Miss America beauty pageant in 1993, 20 years ago. Cornett represented Florida, but she was born in the smal town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia; in 1994, the pageant actually made news as swimsuit contestants started going barefoot as opposed to wearing cumbersome high heel shoes.


http://www.turkish-football.com

http://www.bing.com

http://www.missamerica.org

Quote of the Day/Week-Larry Bird

First of all thanks to those of you in Armenia?!*, Nigeria and Venezuela who are checking out our blog today. In honor of the upcoming 2012 London Olympics, we are quoting American athletes who won gold or silver medals at previous Summer Olympics. Last month, we did quote athletes from other countries, just ask Belarusian gymnast Svetlana Boginskaya. (**and***).

We are going with NBA Boston Celtics great Larry Bird, 55, of French Lick, Ind., because he won a team gold as a member of the Dream Team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics; he is also one of the two subjects in a brand-new Broadway play called "Magic/Bird," which depicts the rivalry and friendship between Bird and Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson.

In an excellent April 23rd article in "The Washington Post" by Preston Williams, Tug Coker, 34, who plays Bird on stage was profiled. The native of Stafford, Va., relatively close to Washington, DC, and even closer to the historic city of Fredericksburg, Va., actually briefly played college basketball at William and Mary. Coker also had aspirations of being a big-time basketball player as a youth, so in a fitting irony, he ended up on Broadway instead.

As for Bird, he won won three NBA titles with the Boston Celtics during his career (1979-1992), including championships in 1981, 1984 and 1986. Bird is now an executive with the Indiana Pacers, a team that lost to the Miami Heat recently in the NBA playoffs. But, his old team, the Boston Celtics fared better as they won in Game 7 over the Philadelphia '76ers by an 85-75, with Rajon Rondo of the Celtics scoring 18 points. They will now face the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals.

Here is Bird's quote:

"It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer."

*-I am a Turkish-American, and there is a bit of a row between Turks and Armenians. I would go into more details, but I am not a history professor at Princeton University.

**-Yes, we seriously doubt that Boginskaya has time to read our blog; she is now reportedly a gymnastics coach in Houston, Texas.

***-We believe, however, that we did actually spell her name right!

Special Quote of the Week- Larry Bird

Gazooks! Originally, we were supposed to quote the late, great Italian filmmaker Frederico Fellini here, but we dongied up, so we are including a quote from the Boston Celtics great Larry Bird, who is also the pride of Terre Hautte, Indiana.

This sounds like something that the late Rev. Jerry Falwell who resided just down the road in Lynchburg, Va., might have said as well:

"I really don't like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it."

Special Quote of the Week- Bill Russell

Today's quote comes from Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, and it is about love, of all things:

"Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them."

SIDEBAR: We mentioned the Turkish music show on WUVT (90.7-FM), the student-run radio station of Virginia Tech two entries ago. There is also a Greek music show that airs right before it.

I must profess that I thought female Turkish pop singer Nil Karaibrahimgil's name was long enough, but Greece has two popular male pop singers with long names, including Notis Sfakianakis and Michalis Hatzigiannis.

Major NBA Games Friday Night

As many who follow this and my other blog The Daily Vampire regularly (all three of you) might know, I have REALLY gotten into sports a lot within the last three or four months.

I am really following the NBA like a hoops fanatic, even to the point where I stay up late to check the score of a meaningless L.A. Clippers game on the West coast.

On Friday night, there will be 13 games, which means all but four NBA teams will be in action.

ESPN will televise the game between the L.A. Lakers and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden starting at 8 p.m. The late game will be between the visiting Chicago Bulls and the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers should win even they're on the road since they have a better team than the Knicks, even though the New Yorkers have improved this year.

I think the Suns will probably beat the Bulls though they had an awful East coast road trip, and the Bulls are better this year though they have a long way to go before replicating the glory years.

Other games will include a talented young Sacramento Kings squad visiting Florida for a game with the Orlando Magic. The Milwaukee Bucks go to Canada to face the Toronto Raptors, which features Turkish player Hedo Turkoglu, one of my favorite players in the NBA (alas Toronto is not scheduled to be on national tv in the United States this year). The Bucks have a great rookie player named Brandon Jennings, whom I'm told is a delight to watch (the Bucks aren't on tv much either).

The struggling Miami Heat head to DC to play the Washington Wizards, who are also having hard times since star player Gilbert Arenas is indefinitely suspended for a gun-in-the-locker-room fiasco. The Portland Trail Blazers play the Boston Celtics in bean town. Both teams are playing well right now.


A hot Charlotte Bobcats team travels to Georgia to play an exceptional Atlanta Hawks team. And, the game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Memphis Grizzlies in Elvis country should be a dandy as the Thunder has a terrific second-year player named Kevin Durant (who you can follow on Twitter) and the Grizzlies have an exceptional young player out of USC named O.J. Mayo.

Here are my picks for Friday night's games. The star denotes an upset pick:

Orlando Magic over Sacramento Kings
Dallas Mavericks over Philly '76ers
Toronto Raptors over Milwaukee Bucks
Miami Heat over Washington Wizards
Charlotte Bobcats over Atlanta Hawks*
Boston Celtics over Portland Trail Blazers
Detroit Pistons over Indy Pacers
Ok City Thunder over Memphis Grizzlies
New Orleans Hornets over Minnesota Timberwolves
New York Knicks over L.A. Lakers*
Houston Rockets over San Antonio Spurs*
Phoenix Suns over Chicago Bulls
Golden State Warriors over New Jersey Nets

UPDATE_ I went 7-6 with these picks, which is pretty bad but not as futile as the New Jersey Nets' record which is like 3-40 (not kidding!).

The Friday night winners were Orlando, Philly, Toronto, Miami, Atlanta, Boston (in OT), Indy, Memphis, New Orleans, LA Lakers, Houston, Chicago and (of course!) Golden State.

The