OBITUARY NUGGET!!

The 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes from USA Today
"Sample: The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."
There's one missing from the list: "Yeah, the food at that restaurant  is terrible and the portion sizes are so small."

BASEBALL NUGGET!!

Billy Beane’s Ascendant A’s Are Playing a Brand-New Brand of Moneyball (Will Leitch) from New York Magazine
"Beane’s A’s are comfortably atop the American League West—the division they’ve won the past two seasons—and have the best record in Major League Baseball. They’re still in the same stadium, with the same uncertainty, with the same owner. They have the sixth-lowest opening-day payroll in the game. Everyone knows their old tricks. And yet here they are: on top of the baseball world again.  How have the A’s done it?"

Sochi: Deserted and Already Falling Apart

Winter Olympics Seem a Lifetime Ago as Photographs Reveal £31bn Sochi Ghost Town from the Daily Mail [of the UK] 
"Just a few weeks ago it was the centre of the sporting world, home to some 6,000 athletes, buzzing with excitement, the shining showpiece of Vladimir Putin's £31billion Winter Olympics extravaganza.   But today the Russian resort of Sochi resembles little more than a ghost town with deserted buildings, empty streets and a few stray dogs basking in the sunshine the only signs of life."
I guess Sochi was a Potempkin "Olympic Village."  How appropriate.  Given the tens of billions Putin spent on the Olympics, one has to wonder if he got anything like the payoff in legitimacy and prestige he had hoped for?  I doubt it.