Field Theory by Hadyn Green

Due to issues with my brain stabbing at my eye and punching my temples from the inside (or a "migraine") I wasn't able to get to the second coolest uniform launch of the year: The New Zealand Māori Centenary strip.

I'm not a fan of symbolic cultural designs on uniforms. Not for any reason other than I'm a fan of simple uniforms – plain colours and stripes – and cultural designs tend to be a bit... busy. Having said that I sort of like Te Ao Hou, because it's mainly black and white with the design embossed onto the jersey.

Here are the pics (click for a bigger look):

As you can see by the numbers on the design, EVERYTHING means SOMETHING. Even the adidas triple stripe has a deeper meaning:

In keeping with the rest of the jersey, the three adidas stripes on the arms of the jersey symbolically represent the Maihi (arms of the meeting house), and the three stripes also pay respect to the past, present and future of Māori rugby.

I don't buy it either. But continuing the stripes, like rope, down the sides to join the four winds is a nice touch. The jersey has some other nice aspects to it and each elements is chosen to either represent the past or the future.

As to whether the team under a new coach will fill it out properly is another matter. They've been given a good chance with a strong squad that is essentially an All Black B+ Squad (a little bit better than a B Squad). If they can gel over the next few weeks and work out their combinations in the New Zealand Barbarians game, then they have a real shot to beat Ireland and the English (who will probably front a mid-week team).

Since the great Matt TePou era (by the way, whoever has my copy of that book, I'd like it back please!), the NZ Māori have struggled through a lot. They did fairly well in the Churchill Cups (the ones they attended at least), and the 2008 Pacific Nations Cup. But recently the NZ Māori haven't even existed.

So it'd be nice to see this 100 year anniversary to really be Te Ao Hōu for Māori rugby.

Māori Centenary Series Itinerary:

• New Zealand Māori v New Zealand Barbarians at Northland Events Centre, Whangarei – 12 June
• New Zealand Māori v Ireland at Rotorua International Stadium, Rotorua – 18 June
• New Zealand Māori v England at McLean Park, Napier –23 June

A very strange thing happened at Yankee Stadium recently. A woman was refused entry because she was carrying an iPad. More hate from the Google-Microsoft-Sony Bloc or something else?

Turns out the iPad is considered a laptop and laptops are banned. Which is interesting in itself, that Yankees management would weigh in on a social-tech issue and declare the iPad a laptop. The reason for the ban is... um ... well that's not clear. It's unlikely to be a security risk as iPads are allowed on commercial flights, and unlike laptops they don't have to be taken out of their cases.

It should be noted that pocket-sized, telephone-capable iPads are allowed.

There is the possibility that they could be used to live blog the game which could be a breech of broadcasting rules. But then again the stadium provides free Wi-Fi (you hear that Westpac Stadium? Free!) and so enterprising bloggers could simply tweet the game from their non-prohibited iPhones. Maybe the Yankees don't know about Twitter?

In any case, it again opens up the age old nerd-jock hostilities.

A laptop, and especially an iPad, would be perfect to have a ballgame. It's slow, like cricket, so you know when to look away. And more over the iPad can run a fantastic little app called MLB At Bat, which is a bit like having cricket's Hawkeye system in your hand while you're at the game. And that doesn't even include the people who score the games (perhaps the geekiest things in the world).

But in general this is discrimination against the laptop-carriers of the world:

The biggest problem is not whether or not its appropriate to bring a laptop or iPad, but rather that it affects a large portion of attendees during the week. Because both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field [home of the NY Mets] are on commuter rail lines (subway for Yankees, LIRR for Mets), there are a lot of people that go to games directly from work, and they go via train, carrying everything with them when they go.

There's no car to leave your laptop or iPad, and you often times can't (or don't want to) leave this stuff at work. So you have a choice of going to a game and leaving your laptop/iPad at work and getting it the next day (which can be a problem if you need it that night), or not going to the game (or possibly going back to work after the game, but seriously who's going to do that at 11pm at night!).

Yeah, they don't need you fancy macbook-toting web-designy types in The Bronx.

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On a side note. During the recent Cricket T20 World Cup on ESPN Sportscenter the two presenters bantered about how they didn't understand cricket because it was too confusing. And while it is compared to baseball, it's nothing compared to football, hockey and basketball.

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On a side note and a complete tangent. You know when C3P0 and R2D2 get turned away from the Cantina in Mos Eisley? I always figured that was because it's a working man's club. The droids represent a real risk to the livelihood of the average working class schmo who is just trying to earn a living for him and his family/brood/clutch of larva. So naturally droids aren't allowed, it'd be like John Henry having a beer with the steel driving machine.

Although I will concede that no one in the cantina looked like they were a translator though there had to be at least a few astromechs in there.

The derby season started last weekend with a total humdinger of a bout in Auckland. I couldn't go but it just so happened that Mike was going up any way:

By a happy coincidence I was in Auckland at the same time as the Pirate City Rollers held their first bout of the 2010 season, "2010: A Skate Odyssey" (great name, and a great poster).

Feigning a light carry-on bag at Wellington's domestic check-in, I managed to get my camera gear up to the big A and along to Skateland in Panmure for what turned out to be a thrilling start to the Aucklanders' season.

In a re-match from last year's final, champions Dead Wreckoning took on Mascara Massacre. The match was pretty close all the way, and it came down to the last jam.

Behind 102 to 103, Dead Wreckoning showed their champion qualities to win the ultimate jam with 8 unanswered points to take the match 110–103.

A big thanks to Scheisse Minnelli and the rest of the Pirate City crew for letting me take these photos.

Miss Minnelli (pictured above) assures me that the high scores were not so much due to leaky defence as the fact that there were so many power jams (where one jammer is in the penalty box). It's the first bout of the year for many girls and so rough-housing was to be expected. I'm sure as the season goes on the play will get cleaner, with fewer hits and blocks.

The Pirateers are also having a fundraiser quiz tomorrow night. Get along and rock out with your doctorate out.

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We're down to that part of the Super 14 where you have to decide whether you'll swallow your pride and actually support the Crusaders (even though you live in Christchurch and always meant to get along to game this season but never got round to it), or just not be bothered with the whole thing.

I found the "terror" amusing earlier in the season when it looked like no New Zealand team would make the finals. It was like we would have to face the sneering of the Aussies and South Africans for those times when we laughed at their inability to complete the season in the top four. Like we did in 1998, 2007 and 2009 to Australia and in 2002 and 2003 to South Africa. If we needed any more self-love, we are the only country to get all of it's teams through to the final (it could've been all of us if the others hadn't been greedy and wanted more teams).

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The World Cup Finals are nearly here and the best parts are already starting: the advertising!

Here's Nike's new "Write the Future" ad, showing what will actually happen to Wayne Rooney whether he's any good or not.

It's going to take a lot to be better than the Eric Cantona and the Joga Bonito ads:

Commentary? Dude, it's Friday. Just enjoy the pretty pictures.

South Africa did it first. They shuffled gingerly up to the microphone a week ago and said "sorry". That morning the NZRU released a press release saying to the effect of "no comment". Then today, this morning in fact, the NZRU did what it probably should've done a while ago. They apologised.

Today, on behalf of the New Zealand Rugby Union, we wish to say sorry first and foremost to those Maori players who were not considered for selection for teams to tour South Africa or to play South Africa.

We apologise to the families of those players and to the wider Maori community who were affected directly or indirectly by the decisions taken to not include Maori players for those teams and tours. It was a period in which the respect of New Zealand Maori rugby was not upheld and that is deeply regretted.

We also wish to take the opportunity to apologise to New Zealand as a whole for the division that rugby’s contact with South Africa caused across the country over many years.

This is of course the new NZRU. The NZRU of the infamous Springbok tour would not have issued this statement at all. Personally I like that they apologised to the country as well.

But why not apologise years ago? Or even at the start of the season, this being the 100 year celebration of Māori rugby. The NZRU oddly shifts blame here to the NZ Māori Rugby Board by saying that the NZMRB thought that the previous Māori rugby administrators might be blamed.

We recognise the very difficult situation that our predecessors were faced with, including those members of the NZMRB, the NZRU Council and administration and, indeed selectors, coaches and players, during that time.

We also acknowledge that throughout the apartheid era some of the decisions were taken with good intentions, which included protecting Maori players from insult and vilification. We acknowledge the complexities of the issues that they faced and today’s apology is not intended to be a criticism of those involved at that time.

But this is an apology, someone has to be at fault. A real apology doesn't say "Sorry, but it wasn't really our fault" and it definitely doesn't say "Yeah we would've apologised earlier, but we decided to try and forget it because it might make some people look bad". Any apology is going to make you look bad, because you are apologising for something. The redeeming apology is definitely in style. The apology that makes you look good for saying sorry.

It should be pointed out that South Africa is not playing the NZ Māori this year. That honour goes to Ireland, England and the NZ Barbarians. And while that is pretty cool, South Africa could've sent a rep squad while they were here for the Tri-Nations at least. Because a real apology has some payback in it too.

Speaking of the centenary, on Maori TV there is a wonderful documentary, Beneath the Māori Moon. I recommend catching it if you can.

I have recently come to love baseball. Like a fractal it has an incredibly simple form, which, upon closer inspection, reveals an amazing complicated structure, which is itself based on very simple rules. Throw, hit, run.

And it is pure Americana. The National Pastime, not a sport mind you, simply a way to pass the time. Playing catch while chewing gum, taking some swings in the batting cage in the afternoon sun, going to the game and eating a warm pretzel in folded paper. And the guys on the field, these are the guys who pass time for a living.

Get good enough at it and you become an immortal.

If the lamented Shakespeare were a baseball writer he might use a line that he vested upon some more or less obscure hero of antiquity and say of "Babe" Ruth, "He doth bestride the narrow baseball fields like a Colossus." For "Babe" Ruth is Hercules and Thor reincarnated, the Colossus of Swat. His bat is the club of Hercules and the hammer of Thor, the symbol of sheer, primitive might before which the puny folk bow and offer worship.

A boorish lout, who smoke and drank and played ball. And Joe DiMaggio, the sad giant who fell in love with America's princess and had his heart broken, but not his hitting streak. A nation turned its lonely eyes to him.

No other country has the gods of sport like the Americans. Sunday is a holy day as thousands decide to skip church so they can catch the game.

Here at the end of the earth, in a new country filled with strange animals and dark woods, you'd think we would create similar gods. But we don't. Our closest immortals are squeezed into simple parodies of themselves, shilling for bunkum science or bunkum finance.

Our Gods own myths are those of quiet self-deprecation. A "good game mate" mumbled under the breath; something that doesn't really lend itself to ten-foot tall bronze statues. And of course it is a myth. If they were really humble their words and deeds would be celebrated by our culture.

I can only think of two who are still revered in some way: Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Peter Blake. Both are dead and both did work overseas.

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But back to real sport. The NBA playoffs are heating up as… ZZZZZZZ. Sorry I dozed off.

The Celtics-Cavaliers series seems to be more interesting for determining the future of LeBron James than for finding this year's winner. The internet was asking the question over and over: was that LeBron's last game in Cleveland?

The answer is of course: shut up and let the guy play at least one more game in Boston!

Also I can't help but feel that hockey would get a lot more viewers if it didn't schedule its playoffs at the same time as the more popular NBA.

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Hear that sound? That rumble on the horizon? That's the brand (fucking) new Roller Derby season!

This weekend the Pirate City Rollers kicks off their three team league under the rather awesome name (and poster) 2010: a Skate Odyssey (tickets from Under The Radar). It starts with the grudge match bout between the Mascara Massacre and Dead Wreckoning.

Will it be good? Will it fuck! … that means yes, yes it will be good.