Posted: August 25th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 90 Comments »
This is meant to pose a question about Tiger Woods. But let’s begin with Hal Sutton.
Hal Sutton was just 25 years old when he beat Jack Nicklaus by a shot to win the PGA Championship at Riviera in 1983. “I have a feeling this is the first of many,” Nicklaus said after it ended — Nicklaus was always so graceful in defeat. And there was a point to his words. Sutton had won the U.S. Amateur, the Western Amateur twice, he had been named college golfer of the year, had been called “the next Jack Nicklaus” so many times that it was kind of hard not to believe it. “The Bear Apparent,” Sports Illustrated called him. Others called him “Prince Hal.”
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Posted: August 8th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 140 Comments »
Here’s one of my strange opinions: I’ve always thought Emmitt Smith was a little bit UNDER-rated. It’s hard to imagine a Dallas Cowboys running back who is the all-time leading rusher being underrated … but it always seemed to me that Emmitt’s genius for getting the yardage necessary, for being at his unstoppable best in the playoffs and Super Bowl, for leading the Cowboys week after week tended to be under-appreciated.
For one thing, he happened to play in the time of the most dazzling running back in the history of the NFL, Barry Sanders, who could turn nothing into something, who could make 50-yard touchdown runs out of heavy traffic and chaos. Emmitt couldn’t really do that, not the 50-yard touchdown runs (he only had six of them in his whole career — Barry had 16). For another (at least it seemed this way to me), when it came to Emmitt people always talked about how good his offensive line was … how good his quarterback was … how good his fullback was … how good his team’s defense was … with Emmitt Smith you tended to hear a lot about how good everyone around him was.
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Posted: July 20th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 63 Comments »
Good days. Some years ago, I went to a North Carolina basketball game with a buddy who despised Dean Smith. Well, that’s not exactly right — he had nothing against the man. He despised the IDEA of Dean Smith. He honestly believed that Smith wasn’t really a great coach. He thought that Smith’s remarkable coaching record was the result of exceptional recruiting and his willingness to choke the life out of games. Also a bit of luck. He didn’t see North Carolina’s famous Four Corners offense as an innovation as much as a cowardly manipulation of the rules. He liked to make the point that both of North Carolina’s national championships under Dean Smith were haunted by spectacular last second gaffes by an opponent.
North Carolina was playing at Georgia Tech that day — this was another one of coach Bobby Cremins’ preposterously talented Georgia Tech teams. And my friend went to cheer for Georgia Tech and against Carolina. When I was in high school in North Carolina, they used to call these sorts of fans ABC fans — Anyone But Carolina. Maybe they still do.
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Posted: July 18th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 64 Comments »
My great good friend Michael Rosenberg wrote something last week that struck me wrong, and I could not quite figure out why. He was writing about Tiger Woods, and it began with how sick he is of reporters asking Tiger about his personal life. I agree entirely with that. But then Michael wrote this:
I have no idea how Woods will play this week. But I do believe two things:
1. The people who write him off are dead wrong.
2. Those people are doing him a favor.
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Posted: July 15th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 72 Comments »
There were so many interesting and surprising things about covering my first World Cup … but in the end, I would say what was most interesting and surprising was the really cool feeling of being young again.
Here’s what I mean: I know very little about soccer. Oh, I mostly know the rules, I have a rudimentary understanding of strategy, I can appreciate the skill in a basic way, I can get excited when someone does something remarkable. But I don’t KNOW soccer — don’t know the players, don’t know the history, don’t know all the great stories. And it’s the stories that for me bring color and light to a sport like baseball. I don’t think I could love baseball the way I do if I did not know about Babe Ruth’s called shot, Jackie Robinson’s refusal to fight back, Roberto Clemente’s arm, Roger Maris’ hair falling out, Hank Aaron’s box of racist letters, Ted Williams’ bold wish to want people to see him walking down the street and say “There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.”
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Posted: July 9th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 111 Comments »
So here it is, the next day, and, yes, the LeBron emotions out there are still a bit raw. Cleveland people are hurting (“Betrayal! Treachery! A stab in the back!”). Cleveland haters are gleeful (“Who would want to live in that city anyway?”). The Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has clearly lost his mind (“Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there*”). Commentators commentate on the megalomania of LeBron. James Tweets. And everyone takes their shot at predicting just how awesome or disappointing the Miami Heat will now become.
There are two lingering thoughts for me. One is about the owner. I have read Gilbert’s letter a few times now, and in addition to getting a few “rich people are crazy” chuckles out of the thing, I get a very bad feeling. As someone who grew up in Cleveland, this man worries me. I mean, hey, I appreciate that the guy is lashing-out angry. Even more, he’s a businessman who wants to heap all the blame for this Cleveland debacle on James, which is dishonest, self-serving and good business in equal parts. Gilbert was playing to the intense emotions of the base, which was a shrew move in a weird way. Gilbert probably doesn’t give a damn that he’s a national laughingstock; he incited a city that had been torn up by LeBron James’ decision to walk away. The city is on Gilbert’s side now.
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Posted: July 9th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 67 Comments »
The cover of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Reminds me of the cover when Bernie Kosar was released — “Dad, They Let Me Go” was one of the headlines on that one. This one is quite a bit more focused.
In case you can’t read the fine print, it says: “7 years in Cleveland. No rings.”
Posted: July 8th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 151 Comments »
There’s a handy little life trick you learn growing up in Cleveland. It’s called: Pessimism. And it can get you through a lot of dark days. I learned in Cleveland that the way to handle a foot of snow is to expect two feet. The way to deal with large potholes is to imagine them to be bigger than moderately priced New York City apartments. The way to beat an endless string of gray skies is to embrace the gray, cherish it, bask in it. And the way to overcome crushing sports defeats is to always, always, always see them coming.
And so, the person who let me down Thursday night was not LeBron James. No, it was myself. I knew what was likely going to happen — it was IMPOSSIBLE not to know. The Miami rumors had grown so loud that season tickets in South Florida were already flying off the shelf.
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Posted: July 6th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 137 Comments »
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — This is not exactly about cheating. Not exactly. This is about rules and their punishments and how those determine how we play at the edges of sport.
This is something I have thought a lot about — but it never really crystallized for me until the Uruguay-Ghana game here at the World Cup last week. To recap the moment quickly, the score was tied in the final seconds of injury time when Ghana, in one last magnificent burst, put a shot on goal, then another shot on goal and finally a third. The first was saved by the goalkeeper, the second blocked by Uruguay’s Luis Suarez. The third, a header from Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah, was almost across the line and in the net when Suarez, in desperation, knocked it out with his hand.
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Posted: July 3rd, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 64 Comments »
The great man — and Diego Maradona has never doubted that he is a great man — stood at the corner of the coach’s box and watched the disaster unfold. He looked entirely alone. The newspapers would call him a forlorn figure, a solitary figure, a desolate man. His Argentina was down to Germany 2-0 … no, it is 3-0 … wait, finally, make it 4-0 … and he so clearly did not expect this. He so clearly expected his great World Cup adventure to end with joy and hugs and vuvuzelas howling in the wind and a nation’s warm gratitude and heartfelt apologies from all who ever doubted him. Well, even before this game, he wanted those apologies.
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