Sports | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

Mud Maker: The Man Behind MLB’s Essential Secret Sauce  

For Sports Illustrated Emma Baccellieri portraits Jim Bintliff, the sole mud supplier for major league baseball. When someone asks him what he does on the banks of a Delaware River he tells a lie:

I’ve been sent by the Environmental Protection Agency, and I’m surveying the soil. Or: I’m helping the Port Authority, looking into pollution. Or, if it’s a group of young folks who look like they’ve only come out on the water for a good time: I take this mud, and I put it on my pot plants. They grow like trees.

It prevents anyone from exploring what he’s actually doing, which is what he’s done for decades, what his father did before him, and his grandfather before him: Bintliff is collecting the mud that is used to treat every single regulation major league baseball, roughly 240,000 per season.

How Jürgen Klinsmann Plans to Make U.S. Soccer Better (And Less American)  

The former German star hopes to keep expectations low for the coming World Cup. For now, Klinsmann will take the long view when it comes to soccer success for the United States.

One year since The New York Times Magazine wrote about Klinsmann. I’m not a soccer person but it seems to be going well.

Finals

When I saw the final of the Euro 2004 in the Bierzelt of a small town in Bavaria, I would have never thought where I’d end up four years later…

Sports Brands

People's Square

Nike

Nanjing Road

Sprite

Nanjing Road

Li Ning: Nike logo with Adidas slogan (“Impossible is nothing”).

Nanjing Road

Nanjing Road

Nanjing Road

A Chinese friend said most tourists take a picture of this plate. I’m not a tourist but hey: Just do it. ;-)

Sunday Morning, Heping Park

Heping Park

Tai chi?

Heping Park
Heping Park

Many people take their birds for a walk and hang them in the trees. Good for the sound, not so good for the birds, I assume. But if they’re always in the small cages then the new environment might be a welcome change.

Heping Park
Heping Park

Sunday morning, Heping Park Notice the old man at the beginning. He’s pushing his wheelchair. Seems to be some kind of hobby amongst older people. I see one or two of them per week.

Heping Park

Heping Park

Heping Park
Heping Park

What looks like a playground is a place where grown-ups exercise.

Heping Park
Heping Park
Heping Park

View to Rainbow City 2.

Heping Park
Heping Park

Transition

First snow here. Winter’s coming… Hopefully a not too cold one with a white christmas and enough snow (and time) for skiing.

A Past Summer's Tale

Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen (Germany. A summer’s tale) was on TV today. I hadn’t seen it before and it strongly reminded me of the great ambience in summer 2006.

Munich, Leopoldstraße

(Photo: chromoxidgruenfeurig)

Last Blade Night 2007

End of the Bladenight season for this year. Doesn’t seem like there’s anything similar in Shanghai.