July 6th update

Wednesday spotlight: Jeter nears Major Milestone

- Derek Jeter has had a pretty nice career. He has been part of 5 World Series championships and 12 All-Star games. He's won 5 Gold Gloves Awards (given to the best defensive player at his position) and 4 Silver Slugger Awards (given to the best offensive player at his position). He was the 1996 Rookie of the year, the 2000 World Series Most Valuable Player, and the 2009 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. And now the Yankee superstar is coming very close to becoming just the 28th player ever to get 3'000 hits, one of the most elite milestones for a baseball player.
- The long time shortstop already has more hits than any Yankee and is now hoping to become the first player to make it to 3,000 since Craig Biggio in June of 2007.
- Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada have been teammates longer than any 3 players in the history of any of the big 4 American sports (Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey).
- At least one of us here at Sportico hopes Jeter plays until he patrols the field in a walker, and bats with his wooden cane instead of a bat. He has had a long list of celebrity beaus (including Jessica Kelly and Mariah Carey), and has most recently been linked to actress Minka Kelly to whom he is engaged. He is also worked for years with his “Turn 2 Foundation” to help teenagers fight the influences of alcohol and drugs.


Djokovic Takes Wimbledon and World #1 Ranking

- Serbian-born Novak Djokovic bested Rafael Nadal for his third major and rose to the world number 1 ranking. This is the first time since February of 2004 somebody other than Nadal or Roger Federer has been #1 in the world.
- Djokovic is on enjoying a fantastic year having gone 48-1 this year, with his only loss being in the quarterfinal of the French Open. Djokovic also won the Australian Open, and will be the top seed going into the US Open (which starts August 29th)
- On the women's side, Petra Kvitova became the next in a long line of champions with difficult to pronounce names over the past few years, defeating Maria Sharapova in the finals. It was Kvitova’s first major and interestingly enough it was very similar to the way Sharapova won her first major. Being a tall left-hander from the Czech Republic, Kvitova has drawn many comparisons to Martina Navratilova, the greatest champion in women’s tennis history.


MLB All-Stars Announced

- On Sunday, Major League Baseball released the results of their fan-chosen All-Stars. As always there are players on the squad who experts believe should not be, and those left off the team who experts believe should be on. Unsurprisingly, 4 Yankees, and somewhat more surprisingly, 3 Milwaukee Brewers made the starting lineup for their respective leagues. *Note this is only surprising because Milwaukee is a small market and generally gets less votes, the players themselves probably deserve to start moreso than their Yankee counterparts.*
- The All-Star Game matches up the “best” players from each of the two leagues in Major League Baseball (the American League and the National League). Fans vote for the All-Star Game starters and the managers from the previous year’s world series manages his respective league’s team and gets to select the bench players.
- By rule, each team in baseball must be represented in the All-Star game by at least one player. Additionally, the league represented by the winner of the game gets home field advantage in the best of 7 World Series, a recent twist that no sport other than baseball employs.
- There's still one spot per league to be determined, as 5 players from each league will be competing for the final spot in another vote. Check it out here until Thursday at 4 pm at which point that vote will end.