B & G Imagination Junction

Sports Commentary October 3, 2005

2005-10-01T12:21:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Down the stretch they limp ……………………..

On Tuesday the Major League Baseball post season tournament will begin ending with crowning of the World Series champion by month’s end.

Surely, the end is closer in view now than when the thirty MLB clubs went to spring training in late February. Yet, being clear on who will win the big prize is still not a given though the crème de la crème are rising to the top.

As this column reaches your view there are just two days remaining in the regular season with, still, three of the eight invitations to the post-season yet to be handed out.

MLB begins hyping the latter part of the regular season and the post-season before opening day in April. The media will always have you believe that every team but the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will still be in contention in this final weekend.

Some years there are more races still to be determined than others but since first divisional play was created in 1969 and the wild card added, in 1995, no final weekend has been as crowded as a Los Angeles freeway at rush hour.

Yet, this year will do just fine for excitement in the last few days, five clubs remain in battle for the three remaining slots.

The national media that claim never to promote but only report the news should be as pleased as MLB, which is allowed to promote itself, in that all three of the nation’s top television markets are still in contention. Two of the three top markets are already in the post-season and the rivalry that drives the television ratings is center stage once more.

New York Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox forever. Frankly, I am sick of seeing those two clubs constantly butting heads and being brainwashed that those are the only two clubs that really matter.

Yet, MLB and the television networks that show MLB games cleverly had the two both opening the season against each other and closing the season in a stare down.

The strategy has worked as the series, this weekend, has major meaning for both clubs and one other.

After leading the American League East by at times a large margin the Red Sox lost the lead to the Yankees in the past week but hung right on their tail. So, as the two square off in Boston, the defenders of the World Series still have a chance to win the East from the Bronx Bombers.

Yet, the one that loses this battle might not lose the war as the American League wild card berth is still available but it is no given that it will go to the runner up.

About three hundred miles, to the west, the Cleveland Indians are hosting the Chicago White Sox in another big series. This could have been as big as New York at Boston as the two AL Central rivals had been waging their own war but, on Thursday, Chicago won the Central.

Yet, the Indians entered the weekend tied with Boston for the wild card lead and still can wedge themselves between the two media darlings and keep one of them out of the post-season.

The Indians are an exciting young team that is reminding many of how Cleveland looked a decade ago when they were the best team in the AL yearly but just fell short in two World Series. This group just might be the team to beat, in the American League, for the remainder of this decade.

Yet, their bid this season, took a hit last night as they lost to the White Sox while Boston beat New York. If the Indians had won, all three clubs would have had identical records. The Red Sox and Yankees are now tied both for the East lead and the wild card with the Indians just a game behind—it is big-time drama if somewhat made for television.

At one time the White Sox lead the Indians by fifteen games in the Central—the Indians got very hot, the Sox turned into ice and nearly became a club for the history books but collected themselves just in time to not need to win these games in Cleveland.

In all the media hype, on the east coast, not only the Indians but also the White Sox have flown under the radar all season. Yet, despite its near-collapse, the pale hose will begin the post-season with the best record in the American League and second finest in MLB.

The Chicagoans are not glamour and do not bash the ball as do the other Sox and Yanks but they win and have won more often.

Being a native or Chicago my sexy American League choice, to play in the WS, would be my hommies but someone has been forgot in this discussion and to forget this other team would be a huge mistake and I have not.

The Los Angeles Angels at Anaheim won the West Division fighting back a surge of the Oakland Athletics and are my pick to win it all, as they are the strongest and best-balanced club in the AL right now.

Most of the country has likely not seen these Angels play but the 2002 World Champions are back

What were you doing way back in 1990? Except for the baseball lockout year, of 1994, it was the last time that anyone wearing an Atlanta Braves uniform was spending the first weekend of October booking tee times at the golf course.

For the fourteenth consecutive full National League season the Braves have won a Division title once more being the best in the East.

When not thinking about the Red Sox and Yankees the experts thought, surely, this unprecedented streak would end this year and by all rights should have as the Braves-nightly-trot out a lineup heavy with those that should have been playing at Atlanta’s top minor league affiliate in Richmond, Virginia.

Yet, there they are back at the party. In its thirteen prior trips, the Braves have been in just three World Series being edged by the Minnesota Twins-in the worst to first Series of 1991- edging the Indians in 1995 and losing to the Yankees in 1996.

The Braves likely will not play late into the month again but its remarkable record, in regular season play, is truly something.

What truly is remarkable has been the ineptitude of the NL West in 2005—it was truly the division that no one wanted to win. The San Diego Padres have led the division most of the year because no one else wanted to. The Padres did clinch the honor of representing the NL West, on Thursday, but might end up with a losing record.

Yet, on Tuesday, all eight party goers will be dead even so the Padres still can dream and though it does not seem fair they will be in the post-season while other much better teams will not.
The NL wild card race is as hot still as the AL. Last night the NL wild card leader, the Houston Astros, lost to the Chicago Cubs while the only remaining wild card challenger-the Philadelphia Phillies- beat the Washington Nationals and are now separated by just one game.

The Astros were last year’s wild card and my pick to win the ML but fell just a game short of facing the Red Sox. The Phillies are back in contention for the first time in many years.

This year has been much as last, for the Astros, as a terrible first half has been followed by a strong second half. If they can figure out how to finish off the Cubs watch out for them again.

Yet the best has been saved for the last, as the eighth playoff team might just be the finest of them all. Seemingly the St. Louis Cardinals clinched the NL Central in July—it was, actually, in September but the defending NL champ has never been seriously challenged.

The Cardinals are so deep in talent they still had the best record in baseball despite injuries, at various times, to nearly every one of its stars and they have many.
The Cardinals fell apart against Boston, in last year’s World Series, as they were swept in four games.

As written about, in this column a few weeks ago, this is the last year for the Cardinals Busch Stadium home as-in 2006-they will move next door into a new state of the art nest.

With the memory of last year’s WS sweep and closing the old barn the Cardinals are my choice to win it all and defeat the Angels.

Except for my two final picks every other team either already in or still in contention have been limping into this last weekend.

Hype gets TV ratings, sells cars and beer but titles are won on the field. Last year the Red Sox lived up to the hype and maybe they or their media-darling partner Yankees might do it once more but while most look to the Eastern seaboard I look farther west.

Ah, but as each three-hour plus marathon of TV commercials and plugs for hot Fox shows unfolds it will be the usual fun and drama.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary September 26, 2005

2005-09-25T12:17:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Still Searching ……………………..

Last Sunday-at North Loudon, New Hampshire the first of the ten playoff races to determine the 2005 NASCAR racing champion took place.

The New Hampshire International Speedway hosts two events during the major leagues of stock cars season—this was the second of the current campaign.

NHIS is a favorite stop for most in the NASCAR nation as it is a modern, demanding but fair circuit that is known for the hospitality showed by the track’s owners and people of the area. Throw in the beauty of New England and most need not force themselves to shows up at North Loudon.

New Hampshire is a state of small population—the two NASCAR events are, annually, the state’s largest big time athletic events.

NHIS has been a cursed track, as well, for racing deaths including that of Adam Petty five years ago. Adam was the grandson of NASCAR legend Richard Petty and son of veteran driver Kyle Petty.

Understandably, thus, this is not a favored track for Petty Enterprises—Kyle runs the races there but does not arrive until race day. Another driver qualifies his car.

Yet, all else look forward to the northern most stop on the thirty-six week tour.

NHIS opened in the 1980’s as one of NASCAR’s attempts to expand beyond its Southeastern United States fan base. Part of the boom of NASCAR into the incredible athletic and business success story that it has become, in the past fifteen years, had its roots in New England.

In a 2002 column I expounded on the incredible rise to power of NASCAR and how it moved from a strictly regional sport to become one of the top sports leagues in the country.

The rise was meteoric but I questioned whether NASCAR truly had a grip on, exactly, what it envisioned itself to be for the long-term as clearly there were signs of its past clashing with its present—image is everything but NASCAR was still searching for what it thought that its true image should be.

After last Sunday’s race, at North Loudon, this question must be visited once more.

The outcome, of the race, almost was secondary to the shenanigans and tomfoolery that occurred during the event.

That is a pity as Ryan Newman edged Tony Stewart in a terrific stretch run dual. Stewart, the race for the chase regular season champion still leads the points race. Newman, who just barely made the playoffs at number ten, jumped to third in the points.

Stewart, the 2002 series champion, has been known as one of NASCAR’s bad boys for past on and off track behavior—Newman has had his naughty on track moments especially lately after a Bristol, Tennessee two-step with another veteran driver Dale Jarrett.

Yet, last Sunday, both Stewart and Newman displayed choirboy manners and great racing.

The same could not be said for others.
In one incident Robbie Gordon, he of the big mouth and very short temper, felt that Michael Waltrip intentionally ran him off the road so he sought retaliation instead wrecking his own car and taking him out of the race.

During the caution period, to clean up the wreck, Gordon walked into passing vehicular traffic and threw his helmet at Waltrip’s car as it passed by.
After returning, to the infield, Gordon dropped the dreaded F bomb word in a live television interview.
Later, young Kasey Kahne felt that defending series champion Kurt Busch intentionally ran into his car so-during another caution period-he purposely veered into Busch’s car. Kahne is not eligible for this year’s championship but Busch is so this hurt the defender’s chances.

“Boys will be boys,” you say? In these two cases hardly because they occurred during caution periods. Cautions occur because of on-track accidents—rescue workers who, often, must be on foot to clean up the mess clear up these accidents.

Imagine an automobile accident in your neighborhood with the ambulance and its crew on the scene then passing motorists decides to act out road rage as they pass by the scene.
NASCAR fined Gordon $35,000 and took away fifty championship points while Kahne was lighter $25,000 and twenty-five points—neither driver was suspended.

All week racing fans have been debating whether the penalties went far enough but I, rather, see the New Hampshire melt downs as the biggest recent challenge to the dilemma of whatever NASCAR is trying to be.

Stock car racing began on dirt roads between less than sophisticated types that were racing not so much for the money but manhood—it was the eight-cylinder Hatfield and McCoy saga.

The fancy types of American auto racing were the open wheel and sports cars—all the others were Friday and Saturday nights at small and dimly lighted half mile ovals with earthy down to earth types both on the track and in the grandstands.

Then this culture went Madison Avenue and the five hundred pound gorilla was born.

Yet the basic character of most of the drivers and fans, of NASCAR, still is the same as those myriad dusty tracks that still dot the country.

NASCAR has the huge television contract and the biggest corporations trip over themselves to throw its money into sponsorships.
NASCAR promotes family entertainment and a God Bless America opening to every race with military aircraft flyovers, invocations and apple pie renditions of the national anthem.

Yet there are the movie stars, politicians, military heroes and CEO’s that jockey for photo shoots.

At each track the rich and famous sit in luxury suites but the infield and not as cheap as before seats are still populated by beer-guzzling fans that made the sport.

Down and dirty free-enterprise fuels the gorilla but its lifeline are still those southern rednecks.

I heard NASCAR sarcastically called this past week, by columnist Ed Hinton, as the National Association of Squeaky Clean Racing. Of course Hinton had his tongue in his cheek as he pointed out that even the best of families fight with each other and even drop the F bomb once in a while.
The race, at North Loudon last Sunday, was great theater and so much like we know stock car racing to be—yet, the bigwigs of NASCAR were not amused.

The penalties handed out were not as harsh as many would say that they could or should have been. Why is this, because NASCAR still is torn between where it has been and what it wants to be in the future.

Each week it seems that the major league of racing in America wrestles with these clashes of culture and desire. Each year we think that they will finally figure it out yet they still have not.

Very little of real life is squeaky clean and surely drivers running into each other at one hundred ninety miles per hour will never be as well.
The invocation is the last pious moment of Sunday in a Cup race so why be pretentious? The answer is because of all that corporate and television money floating about.

The golden goose is far from being on life support but please NASCAR do make up your collective minds what type of show do you really want to offer us.

If NASCAR president Mike Helton keeps pleading with the race teams to behave define good behavior then put teeth into the words. If it is every fire suit to itself then say that as well.

If you want your races to be Grey Poupon back it up—if it is still just plain mustard, a burger, a six-pack and Willie Nelson then let it be just that.

Is Robbie Gordon a plaque on the house or a delightful rogue?

I love you NASCAR but whether squeaky clean or down and dirty fess up or all of us fans might need to spend time with a corporate shrink at $500 an hour and frankly I would rather be at the track.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary September 19, 2005

2005-09-19T12:08:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Roger Is It And It’s Not Even Close ……………………..

This year we have been following the exploits of cyclist Lance Armstrong with many anointing him the best current individual sport athlete in the world.

Except in France there are many that will say that Armstrong is the best athlete in the world at this moment. True, Lance just retired but had briefly left the door open to returning-for the Tour De France-in 2006. So, the paint is not dry on Armstrong’s career quite yet perhaps.

Saying that anyone is the best in anything is purely subjective and numerous others could be placed in front of Armstrong in such a race though I would say that Lance still beats them all with the intangible traits that must go with the physical.

We will not even dignify the argument, of whether cycling is really a sport, with discussion but others will look in other directions for the best athlete.

Because each sport is so different the question should be who is the most accomplished current athlete, in an individual sport, in the world? So, if not Armstrong, who?

A list need not be made, as the winner should be a young man from that emerging world athletic power nation of Switzerland. Switzerland? Well, the tiny land-locked country still, incredibly, holds the America’s Cup of yachting so why not?

If you continue to think that improbable there is nothing improbable about tennis player Roger Federer—clearly-at the tender age of twenty-four-he is already the best tennis player in the world, is well on his way to being the best tennis player ever and just might be our finest of all current non-team sport athletes.

Last Sunday, Federer beat the amazing Andre Agassi to win his second consecutive United States Open tennis championship and the sixth major title of a still-young career.

Just last year this column debated the best tennis player of all time—the finalists were Rod Laver, of Australia and American Pete Sampras. I decided on Laver but added that this, probably, was only until Federer completed his tour.

Sampras holds the open-era record of fourteen major titles. With Federer’s New York moment he pulls even with Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg while just one short of John McEnroe and Mats Wilander for open-era Grand Slam crowns—the kid is walking in tall timber.

Agassi has been around for so long that he has faced everyone listed above except for Laver so who better to ask where Roger rates.
Andre says, “He’s the best I ever played against. Pete was great. No question. But there was a place to get to with Pete. You knew what you had to do. If you do it, it could be on your terms. There’s no such place like that with Roger.

“He plays the game in a very special way that I haven’t seen before.”

Federer is not falsely modest admitting that he is the best current player but says it is way too early for the big picture. He is right in that he has five to six years more of prime time tennis remaining on his racket.

Just as Tiger Woods should surpass Jack Nicklaus, in major golf titles, so should the young Swiss hit a passing shot on Sampras’ mark and might go after all existing tennis records even from before 1968 when the open era began.

Federer is that good.

Statistics and a litany of facts can be better than warm milk as a sleeping pill but slurp up this one fact: Federer has six Grand Slam titles while playing in only six Grand Slam final matches—yep, the kid is batting 1.000 when the big money is on the line.
It has been babbled that there is no excitement or glamour in men’s tennis these days—all the best tennis players are female. Men’s tennis is thought dead, in these parts, because no American is on top.

Well, Andy Roddick still has time to make his mark and we are just discovering James Blake. As for the ladies I will confess that Maria Sharapova, Lindsey Davenport, this year’s US Open champ Kim Kjlester and the Williams sisters Venus and Serena are tremendous court talents and all better looking than Roger.

Yet, Federer now must be thought the gold standard of this sport and perhaps the top athlete playing an individual sport today.

In writing about Armstrong I said that we should all feel fortunate that we have been able to watch him in the present tense and not just on grainy film or video—so it is with Roger Federer.

Is Roger better than Pete or the Rocket? Perhaps, it is not for me to say but Andre knows and that is not such a shabby source.

And he is from that athletic superpower. So, let us not quibble and just enjoy a once in a lifetime figure.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary September 12, 2005

2005-09-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Stretch Runs And Take Offs ……………………..

September’s song, in the sports world, is a time of coming and going—just as one season, of the year, changes to the next so do the season’s on the fields of sporting competitions.

There are campaigns soon to end with others on the horizon of beginning. Early September, for some, is a time to call the opponent’s hand and see what they have.

I like this time of year-athletically speaking=because those in a manner say, “Put up or shut up.”

There is but one month remaining in the regular season of Major League Baseball before the playoffs begin. In my way too many years to admit and try to snow you that I am still young the September pennant runs might carry more drama than the playoffs or the World Series itself as if you cannot produce now you will not get to produce in October.

There are six MLB divisions with eight teams qualifying for the post-season with the division winners and the best second place teams, in each league, moving on.

At this juncture, there are only two clubs that are virtual locks to get in, a couple more that look fairly comfortable and a whole bunch that are having many a sleepless night. More than likely, a number of berths might not be determined until the final outs are recorded on October 2.

The two almost certain qualifiers are the defending National League Champion St. Louis Cardinals, well ahead in the NL Central division, along the Chicago White Sox running away with the American League Central.

The defending MLB Champion Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves are not well ahead, in the AL and NL East, but should hang on.

The Los Angeles Angels have led the AL West most of 2005—they briefly were supplanted but are back in control.

Then there is the NL West, the division that no one wants to win. The San Diego Padres have led, for most of the year, only because the other four members are worse. The Padres just reached the break-even mark and it is still a possibility that division could be won with a losing record.

The best second place finishers, in each league, are called the wild cards and here is where the real drama of September baseball seems to occur. In most years, the divisional races are settled by the final week but the wild cards go right down to the wire.

If today were the last day the New York Yankees and Houston Astros would be your wild cards but uneasy lies the crowns of both as both races are still full of contenders.

In the AL are the young and exciting Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics. The Athletics were the team that briefly caught the Angels but have fallen back but have come a long way from a dreadful start to the season. The Indians never challenged the runaway White Sox but have progressively improved to where they can now beat any foe in the AL.

The Yankees pitching will be its downfall if, indeed, they fall. The Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays are outside possibilities but now true long shots.

In the NL, after the Central division Astros, all of the other contenders are the remaining East division foes chasing the Braves.

Though the Braves seem in control, of the East, it is still baseball’s tightest race as even the last place New York Mets still have a chance to win the division. Yet-along with Houston-the NL wild card will likely come from the Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals or Florida Marlins.

The hunt for October is always fun to watch in September.

The hunt for the chase starts its engines in September. Tonight Richmond, Virginia is the site for the twenty-sixth NASCAR Nextel Cup stock car race of 2005 and the final race of its regular season. After tonight the top ten, in points accumulated throughout the year, qualify to compete for the championship through the final ten events of the season.

In an oddity, unique to NASCAR, though only ten drivers will remain eligible for the championship all regular drivers will continue to race.

When the green flag waves, tonight, seven of the ten spots have already been determined but oh what a war looms for those last three spots. Mathematically, eight drivers are still eligible but, reasonably, only six have a real chance.

The seven-already in-are Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Jeremy Mayfield. If you will note that the sport’s two biggest names, Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jeff Gordon are missing. Gordon is still in the hunt for the final three places but Junior has had his worst year since coming to the Cup series level in 1998.

Along with Gordon-a four time series champion-are Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Jaime McMurray, Ryan Newman and Elliott Sadler.

Much as getting into the baseball post season can be more dramatic than the playoffs so is this new creation, of NASCAR, in just its second year. The fenders should be flying in Richmond tonight.

The National Football League season began on Thursday night as the defenders, the New England Patriots, began this season as last season ended in Jacksonville, Florida—the Pats defeated the Oakland Raiders.

As all the other clubs get going tomorrow and Monday, of course, the question is which two will don the pads in the fortieth Super Bowl in early February? We shall see.

Oh all right, as long as you insist, the Indianapolis Colts and the St. Louis Rams will make it to Detroit. Now, are not you sorry that now that you know watching all those NFL games-on your satellite dish, will seem a waste of time?

College football is now in full swing from coast to Hawaii.

The Women’s National Basketball Association playoffs are in the conference finals and the United States Open Tennis Tournament concludes tomorrow.

Earlier this week, the US clinched a berth in next summer’s World Cup of soccer and Mexico got in as well.

So, as the leaves begin to change color so do the seasons on the field.

No, the Gulf coast has not been forgot but the healing has begun and as always sports helps to close the wounds.

So, let us enjoy the excitement of athletics.

To every season turn, turn turn.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary September 5, 2005

2005-09-05T15:54:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Again A Reminder Of What Is Real ……………………..

Monday is the American holiday of Labor Day.

Labor Day and the first week of September represent a number of things from year to year in this country.

For this reporter the thought of the beginning of the school year on Tuesday can never be wiped out from the memory bank—as one, that was never a whiz in the classroom, I dreaded Labor Day for such a forbearing reason.

Though not officially, for all intents, Labor Day marks the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.

The Labor Day weekend, in America, means the annual telethon hosted by comedian Jerry Lewis to raise money to eradicate muscular dystrophy.
In sports, September’s dawn marks the beginning of baseball’s regular season sunset as this final month will decide which clubs get to battle to reach the World Series in October.

Hockey teams begin training camp heading for an October opening—a tradition renewed this year after a one-season hiatus.

Finally, September’s arrival marks the start of both the collegiate and professional football seasons.

This week, in the routine proper order of things, would be this column’s preview of the pigskin madness to come and an opinion offered whether the University of Southern California and the Hew England Patriots would extend its dynasties another campaign.

So, yes, in the proper order of things the birth of September is many things but though all of the above are happening once more the pigskin preview shall be placed on hold because-in 2005-the proper order has been cruelly broken.

School days, ball games, telethons, changing seasons and football seem not to matter as-once more-the stark darkness of reality has blown away the fantasies and romanticism of our ideals.

On Monday a devastating hurricane-named Katrina-roared through the Gulf of Mexico then battered the coastline of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana with winds up to one-hundred forty five miles per hour.

Even for a region well used to enduring hurricanes Katrina was too much to bear—New Orleans, the largest city in the affected area, was virtually destroyed.

With literally thousands of lives feared lost, from the flooding, Katrina is already thought the single worst natural disaster in American history.

We have been down this road before and it was not all that long ago. Earlier this year the tsunami ate up a number of national shorelines in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. We wept for the terrible devastation of mainly poor underdeveloped countries but smugly thought, “But this can’t happen to us.”

Well, Mother Nature is the most democratic of all forces as she cares not how high or low you sit on the society’s totem pole. A lack of advance warning was blamed for the high death toll of the tsunami yet a high death toll is mounting along the Gulf coast among victims that knew of the coming of Katrina a week or more before arrival.

Many did evacuate the area in time—there are the stories of ten people in a hotel room in Houston and a shelter set up at the massive Louisiana Superdome.

Yet, for those able to escape, there will be the return to homes and towns destroyed. Those, in the mighty New Orleans sports stadium, are now at the Houston Astrodome as Katrina blew off a portion of the Superdome’s roof making one of the biggest buildings in the world unsafe for habitation.

Those were the lucky folks.

All the rest were either too stubborn or just not able to run. The result is people perishing in floods or desperately seeking rescue from rooftops.

Technically, New Orleans has always been under water as it is considered ten feet below sea level with the dangerous Gulf and the mouth of the Mississippi River. Just a few years ago came dire predictions that within fifty years the city of New Orleans would sink—the future arrived early.

Two other cities, east of New Orleans, Mobile and Biloxi are very hard hit as well but ancient and inadequate levees-around New Orleans-made the damage there the worst.

It cannot happen in America but it did.

Of course it did not happen in all of America and not in the most heavily concentrated areas, of the East Coast, so while we all weep life is proceeding unlike the days after September of 2001.

Americans and the world were swift to help the affected areas of the tsunami and now are being generous with the recovery after Katrina.

I have been through flooding, a major hurricane and for a short while resided near New Orleans so know some of the pain felt there right now.
I never, though, had my home destroyed or clung to a rooftop awaiting a helicopter to pull me to safety. I was never close to being struck by a falling tree or flying debris. I was never in fear of drowning in my own house. So, I do not really know what is going on in the Bayou and in Dixie.

More than likely none of you have been through such horrors either so maybe this explains why we are so wanting to assist but cannot halt our lives, for a few days, as we somehow did in 2001.
I am not one to always yell, “Stop the world I want to get off” but sometimes we need to if only for a short time.

I promise that I will not get political but, at this moment, war seems very trivial. There is a new war and it is on our soil and seemingly more important. Katrina was the terrorist but now the enemies, in New Orleans, are the looters and rioters of the streets that have taken over the abandoned city.

The situation is so severe that the mayor and governor are saying that priority needs to be given to rescue efforts and not stopping the violence.

Even the mighty are so vulnerable—this is not a third world nation but America and though just a relatively small portion of America it should make us all feel some of what we felt four years ago--two completely different situations? Yes and not really.

The affected region will rebuild but it will take years as no town or home can be rebuilt in a day.

There is a spirit in New Orleans perhaps unlike anywhere else in America—that spirit will not be lost. Southern Mississippi and Alabama have rebuilt so often they know the drill.
The rest of America and the world do care and will help—even my relatively small city of Yuma have rescue personnel on call to head for the area if needed. Marines just returned, to our local base, that were in Iraq are being deployed to New Orleans.

My questions are what can we learn from the tragedy that is Hurricane Katrina and what can the answers do for us in the future?

We all became somewhat introspective four years ago and then earlier this year so, maybe, it is time to go to that mirror again and take stock.

I will not trivialize the full spectrum of life and can understand our lives not being completely put on hold this week. Yet, after we give thanks that this time it was not we, are we as caring for those that did not luck out?

Let us hope that the survivors can return to some semblance of the normalcy that we enjoy as soon as possible.

For them let us hope that the day comes soon that telethons, Major League Baseball, college football and the National Football League can be of interest to them.

This past week they had enough reality.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary August 29, 2005

2005-08-29T05:02:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

The Sensitivity Of Fighting An Indian War ……………………..

It is so easy to be insulting while so hard to be politically correct.

One of our flaws, as human beings, is to mock—in fact we are quite good at it. We will mock anything or anybody on the slightest whim. There seems to be a gene in each of us that allows us to make fun of as easily as we breathe.

Why people make fun of others is one of those deep complex psychological study questions that are for the research experts to unravel. To attempt to cut to the core I would offer fear as a reason but maybe I am too simplistic.
No matter, since time began, insults have flown and mockery has been routine.

Yet, nothing is forever and succeeding generations have realized some of the errors of their ways and attempted to correct them.

Common words of past generations are taboo today. I need not list the forbidden as you could probably think of, at least, a half dozen or more words or phrases perhaps ordinarily spewed just twenty years ago that one would not dare utter today.

Though insults, mockery and hate always will seem to be around as a species-in some ways-we have grown up if only a little bit.

The cliché can be that we have come far but still have far to go as, after all, mockery seems to still be second nature.

The questions of what is insulting and what is not might seem simple but, sometimes, is as complex as why we mock at all.

In our country a prime example are Indians……I am sorry, Native Americans. See how quickly I seemed to insult and how swiftly I tried to repair the damage and be politically correct?
It was not that long ago that uttering the word Indians raised no eyebrows or ruined no ones dinner. From the time that Europeans began settling the North American continent Indians was the normal way to address those that were here before the white man—no longer. In more recent times Native Americans is more appropriate.

Seemingly everything is symbolic and though it is more accurate to use the latter term it is, also, more respectful as the white man’s treatment of those that lived here long before us has seldom been anything but respectful.
For one, having lived in Arizona the past ten years has made me more respecting of the Native American culture as it exists all about me here and seemingly, in the Western United States, is treated better than elsewhere if hardly far from perfectly.

I must trot forth another overused cliché as a means to insert Native Americans into my normal area of discussion: Sports is a metaphor for life.

Though not in large numbers Native Americans have made their mark, in North American athletics, for over a century. In fact there was sports integration of Native Americans, into the mainstream, before black Americans or Hispanics.

In the lore, of American sports history, the name Jim Thorpe is as well-known as any other—there are still those that would argue that Thorpe is still the greatest of all American athletes ever to come along.

Another commonly accepted tradition has been the naming of athletic teams with Native American references both at the professional and amateur levels of competition.

For nearly one hundred years this was not thought at all degrading or insulting—or, at least, it was not by white Americans.

Yet, as the civil rights movement opened our eyes to how we have acted badly, it was brought to the surface that this practice of calling your favorite team Indians, Braves, Redskins or the like was not such a good thing--we were told this by Native Americans as they flexed their political muscle in a more enlightened time.

It is not just a nickname, that insults the Native Americans, but the mascots used along with the name as embarrassing mockery is mixed with insult with grossly distorted depictions.

Thus, in the past twenty years or so, many colleges and high schools that used any sort of Native American athletic team nickname have dropped them in favor of other less abrasive identities.

At the professional level no club has changed its team name though each, that still use Native American related team monikers, are a bit more sensitive to how the name is portrayed.

So, is it now all peaches and cream between the Native American tribes and sports? Hardly. Efforts are ongoing to get the professional clubs, which use such team names, to change and there are still eighteen major universities that continue with Native American nicknames and mascots.

If one had thought that this political storm had blown out to sea received a shock just a few weeks ago. The governing body of most of America’s collegiate athletics, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, announced that no school that uses a Native American nickname would be allowed to use that nickname or display its mascots in post-season competition in any sport.

Whoa has the fur flied over this one.

Mostly, the howls are loudest at the two largest remaining schools that use such nicknames, The University of Illinois and Florida State University.

FSU has screamed the loudest because they are the mightiest on the totem pole. FSU’s athletic teams are known as the Seminoles, which is a Native American tribe, located both in Florida and Oklahoma.

At home football games the Seminoles have a pre-game ritual that is quite impressive to us white folks but quite insulting to Native Americans.

After the team comes onto the field a student, dressed as a Native American warrior, rides onto the field aboard a beautiful appaloosa horse. The warrior is carrying a flaming spear.

When he and the horse, named War Paint, arrive at the center of the field the warrior thrusts the spear into the turf—even if not an FSU fan it is quite a stunning performance.

This type tradition will not be changed, during the regular season, but nothing of the sort was declared allowable in football bowl games or playoff games in other sports.

In FSU’s case, for example, no television or radio announcer could refer to the team as the Seminoles.

The edict has been made and for now, apparently, will still go into effect with all the affected schools….except one.

The NCAA should have known better than to mess with politics in Florida. FSU brought legal action against the NCAA and have already won—FSU will be exempt from the nickname ban.

For the record, the Seminole tribes in both Florida and Oklahoma are fine with the school continuing to use the nickname and the white kid playing the warrior. A cynic was heard to suggest that a few football tickets, on the fifty-yard line, made everything politically correct.

So, the NCAA is stuck with a decree that has already been dismissed by its strongest affected member yet will still apply to the others—is this fair?

Some Native Americans are not as bent out of shape over athletic teams degrading them as perhaps we are led to believe—in fact, I am guessing that with the myriad other daily problems affecting tribes throughout the country whether the Cleveland Indians or FSU Seminoles pretending that they are one of them does not get discussed at the dinner table.

This twenty-year old campaign, to rid sports of Native American references, does not seem to be a rank and file movement.

Yet, is it a tempest in a teapot? Yes and no might be an accurate reply. Yes because there are so many worse injustices, to Native Americans, than the names of sports teams. No because sports is so high profile and symbolic of life in general.

In the category of they should have left well enough alone the NCAA has opened both a Pandora’s box and a messy can of worms.

As so often happens, by trying to do the right thing something went quite wrong.

I am expecting this new post-season no talking about Native American nicknames or showing mascots and logos to be rescinded within a year if not sooner. FSU has already taken the edict down a few notches and Illinois is yet to step up yet but likely will.

We, as a people, have come as long way and the sensitivity-in principle-is a good one—yet, using sports is not necessarily the means to the end as the do-gooders must realize.

Am I wrong and am I unfeeling because even though I am not an FSU fan I get a rush when I see that spear stuck in the ground? I hope not and I do not think so.

It is not easy to be politically correct sometimes when what is and is not is not clear.

I do not think that I will be more enlightened if next spring I do not hear the word Fighting Illini when watching Illinois in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

We do want to get it right but, this time, the NCAA did not.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary August 22, 2005

2005-08-21T12:13:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Memories Of A Soon To Be Extinct Busch ……………………..

The question of the moment might be why do us homosapiens get so emotional about the buildings and stadiums, which athletic teams play within?

Actually to ask this question is to revisit old ground as it has been asked and discussed in a prior column.

In brief and in review the answer is that sports stadiums are symbols of who we are, civic pride, local shame, where we have been and who we wish to be.

A stadium can impact us much as our own home dwelling as far as telling part of our life story and surely that of the athletic clubs and its individuals. We might put a disproportionate importance on these structures but there are worse personality traits, which we carry about, so this one seems excusable.

Obviously, such subject matter would not be broached unless a confession be made of my guilt of such flaws. Yes, I can become as teary-eyed as the next chap when pontificating on sports stadiums and arenas.

Because we have been down this path before, generalization of the whole is unnecessary—for purposes, of this week’s edition, the spotlight shall shine on but one of these edifices soon to take its final bow.

Busch Stadium, in St. Louis, is in its final year before a new sporting palace debuts in April of next year—the new structure, also to be called Busch Stadium, is currently still being built next door to the old one.

Busch is the home of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club. This automatically puts whatever stadium on a higher plateau, as the Redbirds are one of baseball’s elite organizations. The Cardinals are currently the defending National League champions, have the best record in all of baseball this season and historically the most successful of National League franchises.

Until baseball sent the Dodgers and Giants from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco, in 1958, St. Louis was the western most major league city—thus the Cardinals were the franchise close to the hearts not only in the Midwest but nearly all points beyond the gateway.

This Busch Stadium is actually Busch Stadium II as the prior structure was rechristened as such when the beer-brewing giant, Anheiser Busch, bought the club in the 1950’s.

Busch Stadium I was known as Sportsman’s Park, before that, seeing plenty of history of its own.

Until 1954 Busch I housed both the Cardinals and Browns, of the American League, until the Browns left in 1954 to become the Baltimore Orioles.

Though the Cardinals were highly successful the Browns were in the World Series just once…in 1944 against the Cardinals—it was the only World Series where every game was played in the same stadium.

Busch II was part of the 1960’s building boom opening a month into the 1966 season with a 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves.

When the explosives implode Busch II, next spring, only one of the so-called “cookie-cutter” fully circular 60’s outdoor stadiums will remain, Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. The Astrodome in Houston still stands though the Astros now play at a new stadium but the Astrodome, though it is round, was never cookie-cutter.

This reporter was in the current Busch Stadium once in 1967—it was my first time in a new major league edifice. Up to then, I had only attended big league games in three of MLB’s oldest arenas Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park and Detroit’s Tiger Stadium.
To walk into Busch was quite the thrill—because the building boom was still in its early stages my September evening, at the new ball yard, was like visiting a futuristic exhibition.

New history was already being created, in the new stadium in ’67, as I saw a young New York Mets pitcher named Tom Seaver beat the team that just a month later would defeat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

Busch II was the home of Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, the latter part of Roger Maris’ career, the Whitey Herzog Cardinals of the 1980’s and now the Tony La Russa Cards of a new century.

It was where, in 1998, Mark McGuire first tied then broke Maris’ single season home run record on consecutive nights.

It is the stadium of the sea of red as most fans attend home games dressed in the appropriate hue—such sophomoric habits would be corny to the hilt elsewhere but plays just right in St. Louis.

Busch is that Chamber of Commerce dream of seeing the Gateway Arch peering over the upper deck roof.

Both Busch I and II housed football, as well, with the pigskin Cardinals from 1960-1992 when they left for Arizona. As reported, last week, the football Cardinals were generally terrible except for the mid-1970’s when the Don Coryell led Big Red made Busch II a fun place for football as well.
Ownership has spruced up Busch, in recent years, to where it has looked as spiffy in its old age as it did as a youngster.

Co hosting the World Series, in each of its final two seasons, would be the grandest of ways for the old yard to go out.

Except for its years of the playing surface being artificial turf and a malfunctioning underground storage flap for the tarpaulin eating up Willie McGhee, knocking him out of the 1985 World Series, Busch has been hallowed ground for those treading upon it.

Busch III looks to be a jewel of a stadium—it will have all the modern amenities, an unobstructed view of the arch and unlike most of the other new stadiums one pretty successful tenant right from the start.

In 2006 new memories will be made on the banks of the Mississippi River. Yet, the soon to be no more Busch has had plenty of its own and will be missed not just by Cardinal fans but those beyond.
I never got to many of the now gone historical sports palaces but, at least once, I was inside this one so will be sorry to see it go.

I am not really a Cardinal fan but if they win the World Series I would be fine with it as a wonderful going away present for a wonderful stadium.

Yes, we homosapiens get funny about odd things but allow me this one as Busch Stadium says its farewell.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary August 15, 2005

2005-08-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

By The Time Phoenix Gets To Me ……………………..

OK, so I took a liberty with Jimmie Webb’s lyrics and Glen Campbell I ain’t but our headline, this week, gently leads our minds into the opening portion of this edition of my mish mash of random thoughts on the sporting world.

Though, technically, Phoenix is southwest the Valley of The Sun has many a southern night and if you walk downtown you will probably see a rhinestone cowboy or two.

In fact, Mr. Good Time Hour Campbell resides in the area.

However, if any of you know Mr. J, Webb please do not tell him what I just did to his classic words and phrases.

Yet Phoenix and Valley sports are on my mind for two stories, from the past week, that should be of interest beyond the capital of Arizona—one involves a name that you think that you know but really do not while the other is one so well-known that many that cannot spell sports might recognize.

Both have been in the news and both deserve comment.
Phoenix has franchises in all four major sports and big time collegiate athletics.

The professional franchise longest in the Valley are the Phoenix Suns coming off its best season, in over a decade, having gone to the National Basketball Association Western Conference Final.

The oldest franchise, overall, are the National Football League Cardinals—having had prior homes in Chicago and St. Louis the Big Red flew into the Valley in 1993. The Cardinals have been one of the worst teams, in pro sports, having just one NFL championship (1947 in Chicago) during its history.

Yet, there is that eternal optimism for better and a brand new stadium to romp in beginning in 2006—whether the Cardinals play in the game or not the Super Bowl makes its second Valley appearance at the new stadium, in suburban Glendale, in 2008.

The Cards currently play on the campus of Arizona State University where the Sun Devils are coming back to life after a number of down years.

ASU won the Pacific-10 football championship in 1996 with an undefeated regular season before losing the Rose Bowl. Times had been lean for years before and up until last season. The Sun Devils, this year, might be the top challenger to two-time defending conference and national champion Southern California.

In 1996 the National Hockey League’s Winnipeg Jets left Canada and became the Phoenix Coyotes. With the NHL returned from its labor dispute, that cancelled all of last season, the Coyotes will finally play an entire season in its new arena-located near the Cardinals new nest-opened in December of 2003.

The Jets were part of the old World Hockey Association from the 1970’s merged into the NHL in 1978. Since becoming a part of the NHL the Jets/Coyotes have never won a post-season series. The past two completed seasons have found Phoenix watching the playoffs on television.

The club had become one of the weakest in the league with all the losses, financial woes, an ownership change, coaching changes and massive player turnover.

Now that the Coyotes are in the new building they can keep most of the money coming in and have used it to restock the roster with proven veterans such as Brett Hull, Mike Ricci and Peter Nedved.

Yet, the biggest change is behind the bench as The Great One takes the head coaching reins. The Great One is Wayne Gretzky, the sport’s all-time leading scorer and already the team’s managing general partner.

Gretzky has never coached so will have help in long-time Detroit Red Wings assistant, Barry Smith, along with ousted head coach Rick Bowness.

None would ask why co-owner Steve Ellman was able to talk Gretzky into doing this if anyone saw Gretzky agonizing over loss after loss since buying into the new ownership in 2002.

Gretzky thought long about agreeing to take this responsibility as he already has a full plate. He, his former actress wife Janet and five children (from three teens to two toddlers) live in Los Angeles,

Gretzky’s teen daughter is an aspiring singer, the teenaged boys are athletes, Gretzky is already in charge of Team Canada readying for next winter’s defense of it’s Olympic championship and his mother is fighting cancer in his native Ontario.

Yet, Gretzky could not resist the challenge and with his going behind the bench has caused a buzz not only around Phoenix but all of North America. The Coyotes, coming to town, will be front-page news at every stop.

Can The Great One coach? Well, we will soon find out when the season begins in October.

How long will The Great One coach? My guess is no more than two years and even if he backs out sooner the Coyotes already have Smith in place and Smith can surely coach after many years under Scotty Bowman.

Are Coyote fans excited about having Hull, Ricci and Nedved on the ice and Gretzky behind the bench? What do you think?

Are the Coyotes a Stanley Cup contender now? Probably not but they should return to the playoffs and the makeover has given a hockey team, playing in the desert, a look and feel like clubs in the traditional hockey markets.

The newest kids on the Phoenix sports block are still Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Only in its eighth season the D’backs accomplished something not done yet by any other major sports team in The Valley, win an ultimate championship.

In just its fourth year Arizona won the 2001 World Series in a thrilling seven game series over the New York Yankees helping to heal the country just weeks after 911.

In 1999 the D’backs were in the playoffs in just its second season and were in the post-season again in 2002 and 2003.

Success so soon is not supposed to happen for any professional sports club. Many, of course, were responsible for such quick success but a salute should go out to the only general manager that the club has ever had, Joe Garagiola.

“Oh I know him, he’s that bald-headed guy that used to be on television,” you say. Well, not quite. In fact this Joe Garagiola is bald but he is not that Joe Garagiola—this is Joe Garagiola Junior.

Dad was a major league catcher with the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs and Giants in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The elder Joe G. has had a long career as a broadcaster of baseball, game show host and even for a few years co-host of The Today Show on NBC.

Garagiola Senior is now eighty-years old, has lived in The Valley for many years and is one of the rotating Diamondback television analysts.

His son never played professional baseball or was a broadcaster. The younger Joe G. became an attorney eventually rising to legal counsel for the Yankees.

When Diamondback founder, Jerry Colangelo, secured a baseball team for Phoenix he surprised everyone by naming Garagiola general manager—snickers could be heard throughout the baseball world.

Appropriately, in 1998, Arizona played like a first year club losing one hundred games—yet, there was a solid master plan in place.

In 1999 Matt Williams was acquired from the Cleveland Indians for veteran leadership, solid defense and hitting at third base.

What turned out to be the biggest heist, for Garagiola, also came in ’99 when he traded with the Detroit Tigers giving up a hot young prospect, Karim Garcia, for a good but not spectacular journeyman outfielder.

Luis Gonzalez became one of the very best hitters in the game and two years later became immortal for his World Series winning single off Mariano Rivera. Gonzalez still patrols left field for Arizona.

Oh yes, forgot that other 1999 addition—one Randy Johnson signed as a free agent. The six foot ten left-handed fireballer won three Cy Young awards while in Phoenix before leaving for the Yankees this season.

Garagiola did it again in 2000 sending another hot young prospect, Travis Lee, to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitcher Curt Shilling. Schilling and Johnson became the best starting pitching tandem in baseball for the next three years. The pair was the co-most valuable players of the World Series victory.

Schilling went to the Boston Red Sox last year and led them to its first World Series win in eighty-seven years.

No general manager bats a thousand but, overall, Garagiola had more than his share of sales of the century to paraphrase the name of one of his father’s game shows.

In the past two years the wheels have fallen off the Diamondback wagon as all but Gonzalez and Craig Counsell remain on the field from the championship season. Last year Arizona lost one hundred eleven games.

This year the club is much better and though under .500 are still in contention for the National League West title. Garagiola’s magic was working again

Yet, it will work no more as last week the builder of the expansion-era club to win the World Series the fastest resigned to become the director of baseball operations for Major League Baseball.

Former Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies GM, Bob Gephard, is the interim successor.

Never in the spotlight, often criticized yet highly respected Garagiola leaves Phoenix having left a huge impression.

He never did seem to get his due but looking back now one cannot deny the younger Garagiola’s impact on Valley sports.

I thought it fitting if, for only a moment, he get some glare of the spotlight considering that when he was hired I was among the doubters.

Phoenix is not one of the largest cities, in the country, though trying to drive around there might make you think differently. It is not New York, Chicago, LA, Boston or Philadelphia.

To many, it is that nice place to visit but dang if you want to live with that heat.

Yet, Phoenix is a thriving metropolis that really is a great place to live—I was a resident for three years.

Sports-wise it is a big-time town that is now producing its share of success stories.

So, we wish Wayne Gretzky well as he ventures into new territory and Joe Garagiola well in his new position—both are part of that thriving metropolis and Phoenicians should be proud of each.

So, you see this local tale is really national which is the way those proud to be out here want it.

Heck, how much more national is Glen Campbell—he not only sang about Phoenix but hangs his cowboy hat there.

Please, though, do not tell Mr. Webb how I butchered his lyrics in my effort to glorify Valley sports.

Whew, thank you.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary August 8, 2005

2005-08-07T14:07:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Trust Strikes Out Again ……………………..

It was just three weeks ago that this column was dedicated to a number of feel-good stories in sports. As a preamble, to the tales, I said that with all the less than favorable things that occur it was high time to spin some positive thoughts.

Also, I said that in time more disturbing headlines would be made so this was brief rest from the aggravation.

Then, just last week, was the telling of Lance Armstrong winning his seventh and final Tour de France--what better feel good story could there be?

I felt-in my bones-the need to get these upbeat sagas told, as doom seemed to be just around the bend because in sports it always seems to be.

Sadly, I have been proven so right.

This spring Major League Baseball at last instituted a get-tough drug testing policy after years of accusations and innuendos about drug usage by many of its players—the main focus was the use of performance enhancing drugs meaning steroids.
All sports have been wrought with illicit drug and steroid usage for decades. The other major North American professional sports leagues and the American colleges began to implement various versions of testing and policing but baseball resisted.

The death of Ken Camanniti and the tell-all book, by former player Jose Canseco, made it impossible for MLB to continue to hide its head in the sand.

In his 2004 State Of The Union address US President George W. Bush made an impassioned call for all sports to clean up its act.

Baseball, through its powerful player’s association, continued to be defiant. Finally, this past winter, a drug-testing plan was implemented for major league players that went into effect during spring training.

The United States Congress still wanted answers, on drugs in professional sports, beginning with the defiance of baseball.

On March 17 a number of past and current major league players testified before a congressional hearing.

Congress was ridiculed for putting on such a show as baseball had already made a move to clean up.

Yet, Mark McGuire soiled a spotless reputation by refusing to answer any questions. Sammy Sosa hid behind his attorney and said little.

Two players, with clean reputations, spoke for themselves and others saying that not only were they clean but most of their brothers were as well and they wanted the rest of baseball shined up—Curt Schilling and Rafael Palmeiro sounded very convincing.

Drug testing has worked as, up to last weekend, six major league players had been caught with positive tests for drugs and steroids. All, though, were basically unknown young athletes that only those that follow their clubs would know.

An eighth, Ryan Franklin of the Seattle Mariners, was nabbed on Tuesday and was suspended for ten-games as were the other basic unknowns.

It seemed inevitable that, sooner or later, a star player would test positive and number seven was indeed a star.

If one were to predict whom it might be many would come to mind but the star, caught in the net, was a total shock—it was clean as a whistle Palmeiro.

Earlier this season, sometime after appearing on Capitol Hill Rafael Palmeiro failed a random drug test and on Monday was suspended for the same ten-games as the other seven violators.

It has sent shock waves through not just sports but the whole of America.

At the March 17 hearing Palmeiro was, clearly, the most outspoken athlete about eradicating steroids and other illegal drugs from baseball. A few weeks ago Palmeiro appeared in a national conference call, of professional athletes, again strongly supporting doing away with drugs on the field.

At the hearing-at one point-Palmeiro angrily shook his finger at his inquisitors and said, “I have never used steroids. Period.”

In Canseco’s book the former slugger and ex-teammate says different of Palmeiro claiming that while with the Texas Rangers he injected a steroid into Palmeiro.

When Canseco’s book hit the shelves many thought the volume pages full of fabrications as, for years, Canseco denied his own steroid use until in the safety of retirement and in need of cash. Canseco also implicated McGuire and now after recent events the never to be trusted Canseco is looking a lot more credible.

Rafael Palmeiro is a highly accomplished long-time star of baseball. Last year he hit his five-hundredth-career home run and on July 15 stroked his three-thousandth hit—only a small handful of players have ever achieved this double.

Until Monday, the only question regarding Palmeiro was his worthiness for the Hall of Fame. He had successfully risen above the steroid accusations and was thought one of the true good guys of the game.

On Monday, Palmeiro said that yes he took a steroid but had no idea how. Former teammate, Mark Grace, said that every player is responsible for knowing what he puts into his body—though he considers Palmeiro a friend Grace was not buying the plea.

On Tuesday, reporters asked President Bush his reaction to the Palmeiro situation. The president is also a friend (he called Palmeiro to congratulate him after the three-thousandth hit) and his former boss when the then-future president owned the Rangers in the early 1990’s.

Mr. Bush said, *I don’t believe it.” Drug and steroid use could not have been as rampant without owners that knew what was in the locker rooms but looked the other way. Also, admitted steroid user, Canseco, also was employed with the Rangers at the same time.
President Bush’s 2004 words, in the State Of The Union, rang true and this column praised his stating them. Perhaps they were not just spoken sincerely and because of the prevailing mood but from first-hand knowledge of what some of his employees were doing back in the early 90’s.

On Wednesday, Palmeiro’s defense was shattered when an anonymous source revealed that the steroid found in Palmeiro’s positive test was stanozolol. Stanozolol is considered a very powerful steroid and here is the crushing fact, it can only be applied by injection.

So baseball is again dirtied though it is dirtied this time by doing something right—the testing is working and down the line will clean up the game.

Palmeiro’s reputation is, likely, permanently ruined. His suspension ends this coming week—will he even return to his current club, the Baltimore Orioles? The Orioles, after leading the American League East for most of the first half of the season, have fallen apart and on Thursday fired manager Lee Mazilli.

Will Palmeiro want to endure the media crush? The Orioles would have a hard time keeping him away as the player’s association would interfere.

As if things are not bad enough, for Palmeiro, Congress is involved again wanting data from the positive test and MLB’s investigation to determine if Palmeiro should be charged with perjury.
In light of all this it again presents the questions of who can we trust and why did Palmeiro take steroids at all and certainly after testifying?

In all sincerity I have always claimed to be 99.9% honest because there is not a living soul that is 100% honest. If you debate different, even about yourself, deduct .1 from your score.

Sadly, though way too many are far less than 99.9 and when it is someone we have and want so much to trust it stings even more—Rafael Palmeiro is just one more that has burst our bubble. Whether it is athletes, actors, politicians, educators or even friends and family it hurts more each time.

It happens so often that we ask, “Whom can we really trust” and find ourselves answering, “No one.”

Why did Palmeiro do it? I do not know for sure but I think that I might have a clue and it is a story heard and told way too often. Be aware that this is my sole theory and not even one that I have heard from anyone else in this week of shock.

Rafael Palmeiro was born in Havana, Cuba in September of 1964. As with thousands of others, his family defected to the US and settled in Miami. Palmeiro was only three years old, at the time, so grew up a South Floridian.

Yet, being both a baseball player and a Cuban put Rafael in the position of privilege in his community. Baseball is the national sport and passion of Cuba. Every father wants their son not just to play baseball but also to live and breathe it and attain all that they could not achieve.

Yes, there are over-protective fathers that push their kids into sports or other pursuits in every town on earth—recently, I wrote the story of golfer Shawn O’Hair. Yet, there might be no father like a Cuban father of a baseball player.

I lived in Miami for twenty-five years and announced hundreds of high school and college baseball games—thus I saw hundreds of fathers of baseball players.

I never announced a high school game, of Rafael Palmeiro, but the reputation of his father is legendary even in a community full of over bearing fathers. This week I heard a quote that Palmeiro’s father was “a typical Cuban Father turned up 100 degrees.”

Palmeiro signed with the Chicago Cubs after a stellar career first at Miami Jackson High School then Mississippi State University where, in 1985, he played on one of the best collegiate teams ever.

It was well known that Palmeiro went to MSU as much to get away from his father as anything—he even was known as Ralph Palmeiro, at MSU, to try to Americanize himself.

After Palmeiro reached Chicago, in 1987, his father ordered him to return to being called Rafael as you see the father never really was far away.

Every single day, whether during the season or not, papa was on the phone having his son dissect every move that he made rarely praising.

This has continued throughout what is now a nearly twenty-year major league career. That is right, though he will be forty-one years old next month the paternal pressure remains.

Despite the stellar career it is still thought that Rafael has never been good enough for his father.

I see it as the reason that he started on steroids whenever that might have been and the only reason that I can surmise why he continued after the MLB policy went into effect and after he appeared before Congress shaking that finger.

Despite all, to him, father knows best. I am not saying that papa told him to do steroids but the influence has to be part of the reason.

Note that I have called this a reason and not an excuse—whether it is Ryan Franklin or Rafael Palmeiro there can be no excuse.

The Palmeiro suspension is huge news as much for the questions as for the hard facts—in the days ahead more hard facts should surface and I am not so sure we will really want to know.

Trust is such a fragile thing and to me this is what has taken another direct hit from Mr. Palmeiro.

So, think about and ask yourself, “Whom can I really trust?”

If you think that you know of anyone I hope that you are right as in my mind trust has struck out again.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary August 1, 2005

2005-07-31T08:45:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

The Remarkable Peddler Says Farewell ……………………..

We have never seen anyone like him and we very unlikely will ever see anyone like him again.

Often, the word dynasty has been tossed about when reporting on sports organizations or individuals—a past column was devoted, solely, to the subject of sports dynasties.

Of course, the focus of attention this week has appeared in this space more than once before. Yet, some devotees might say that he is such a powerful and dominating sports figure that as often as he has appeared here it is not frequently enough.

There always seem to be stories connected to a sports star beyond just the victories and defeats and so it is with the peddler though hardly any of his making—what he has accomplished, on the battlefield, should serve as his singular athletic legacy--now he has done it all and rides off into the sunset of athletic retirement unrivaled not only in his chosen sport but, arguably, in any sport at the highest level.

Last Sunday, in Paris, Lance Armstrong completed the final stage of his seventh consecutive overall victory in the Tour De France—previously announcing his retirement from cycling Armstrong will race no more.

Armstrong is at ease with the scope of his accomplishment as are legions of fans and most of his colleagues in the sport—in ones wildest imagination such domination, of not just cycling’s premier but far and away its toughest event, would be extreme daydreaming.

Yet, it has been a run filled with controversy that should never have been or perpetuated to the extent that it did.

Armstrong has always projected the image of the ultimate sportsman but some have attempted to make him the ultimate cheater accusing him of being cycling’s Superman with the assistance of performance enhancing drugs.

The peddler has been tested and tested and tested and in this era of drug testing could never slip through the net as often as he has if not clean and clean he has been each time. Lance Armstrong became the greatest bicycle racer, of all time, by just working harder and wanting it more than anyone else.

Armstrong’s supposed crimes seemed to be his nationality and the health issue. Prior to Armstrong only Greg Lamond, among Americans, has won the Tour.

Cross country bicycle racing is not supposed to be dominated by an American as it is a European sport and the Tour De France is about as French and European as it comes. So those in cycling and the Euro media kept throwing stones at Lance—they tossed but were tossing in vain.

How could anyone (except maybe a Frenchman) win the sport’s most coveted prize, year in and year out, when he nearly died?

Yes, the Armstrong legend is even further enhanced by the well-chronicled battle back from what was thought to be terminal cancer in 1996 and 1997—he not only beat the big C but every other challenge seven times over.

From 1999 through last weekend Armstrong has won every Tour De France and doing it by dominating the event’s toughest test of the monstrous mountain climbs through the French Alps.

In his run he has won twenty-two stages—not all were in the Alps though it seems that way. This year, ironically, Armstrong took just one stage and it was on the next to final day outside of Paris yet he was consistently strong throughout.

Now-at thirty-three years of age-the competitive athletic career of Lance Armstrong has ended in the manner that each would wish to go out, on top.

Finding a provable flaw is hard—perhaps the one flaw might be that his hard work and celebrity status cost him his marriage and even a subsequent romance. Yet, Armstrong is fully committed to his three children who shared the victory podium with pop last Sunday.

What is next for Lance? Most often discussed, for the Texan, are a run at politics and full involvement with being a front man in the fight against cancer. Chances are slim that Armstrong will just fade into the scenery.Interest with bicycle racing used to be down near the bottom of must see sports for Americans and still will never send worrying chills down the backs of football, basketball, baseball, auto racing or golf executives.

The snobbish American media have continued to hold cycling interest underwater in the same manner that they do with soccer—the routine is they say cycling and we wait for the punch line.

Armstrong’s retirement, likely, will not help his sport’s visibility in the US yet Armstrong will be in our sight lines for years.

If he were a baseball player he would be bigger than Barry Bonds. If he were a football player would overshadow Peyton Manning and dare I say if a basketball player might even have been bigger in America than Michael Jordan.

Make no mistake that in Europe Armstrong is as big as any athlete.

What Lance Armstrong has done is nothing short of extraordinary and anyone that says different is a fool though fully entitled to his or her opinion.

We got to watch Lance do his thing live, not just on grainy film—all sports fans and/or fans of anyone beating very long odds should feel most fortunate.

The peddler’s final ride was a grand one and now he can relax. Lance can now be proud of his triumphs and maybe even make light of his detractors—whatever his future path, he has earned it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary July 25, 2005

2005-07-24T12:16:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Sonny Thoughts ……………………..

Once In a while I like to write about where I live.

I do not compose about Yuma, Arizona often because most that read this column-live somewhere far from Yuma and could not care less what happens here--fair enough as I would only have scant curiosity about the day-to-day goings on in your town.

Stay with me, this week, as though the subject this time concerns my town it really concerns every town and what happens in every town should be of interest to all.

My story is about a man of Yuma named Sonny Frazer and why Sonny is so important in my thoughts and why he should stick in your thoughts as well.

Even to those of us that reside here (we are called Yumans) the name Sonny Frazer is unfamiliar to nearly all yet is a man known to nearly each. Sonny is, in fact, one of the best known of all Yumans.

Most of us have never spoken to Sonny and likely never will. If you ask all one hundred fifty thousand of us Yumans about Mr. Frazer likely you would hear the same number of opinions.

None of us need Sonny in our lives and if truth serum were taken we would probably confess that we do not want the man in our midst.

Yet the real truth might very well be that Sonny Frazer represents the mirror of our conscience and we are all better off for his presence.

Sonny Frazer is a homeless man who, for the past few years, had lived at the intersection of Fortuna Road and Interstate 8. His home was a folding chair—the roof and wall, of his home, was an umbrella. Plastic bags containing his worldly possessions surrounded him
Nearly twenty-four hours each day Sonny had just sat there and watched the hustle and bustle of life about him. He had seen us Yumans going to and from our jobs, school, shopping and to visit our friends.

Many that are just passing through, en route to Phoenix or San Diego, know Sonny as Fortuna and I-8 is near a large truck stop and popular roadside restaurant.
Children impolitely have no fear or good manners to know not to stare at others and have at the odd appearing man. Us adults, trying to be subtle, only took quick peeks when we passed his spot.

Sonny Frazer is one of millions of men and women, throughout the world, that are homeless and are seen on street corners in any city and many small towns—how they get this way is usually a mystery to others.

Unlike many, that squat at crossroads, Sonny never has had his hand out—he does not beg. Somehow, he always seemed to have enough to eat.

Though, like all of us here, I have seen the man for years I would not dare have invaded his world to speak with him though there is no doubt that he has many tales to tell.

In the late 1970s a movie was made for television starring Leslie Nielsen about a homeless man that possessed extraordinary intelligence. A do-gooder woman, played by Beverly Garland, tried to befriend Nielsen’s character and save him from his life of despair. Nielsen wanted none of it and Garland’s persistence destroyed him in the end.

Frankly, it was a terrible film but it held my attention because it showed that homeless persons-for whatever the reasons that are as they have become-do not seek our pity and prefer to deal with their fate privately.

No doubt they would be quick to say that we do not understand and they would be absolutely correct.

Yet, Sonny has become important to me because every single time that I would pass his spot he would get me thinking.

At first I think, “I’m glad that I’m not in his predicament. I have a roof over my head, a nice car to drive, plenty of food to eat and can afford all of my essentials and desired luxuries. In the past year my financial situation has become such that I’m even more safely distant from his existence—aren’t I the lucky one?”

Well, of course, I am very lucky but then I look around-at my fellow Yumans and those just passing through-with thoughts of whether each of them realizes how lucky that they really are.

Still I keep thinking, “Though we don’t ever want to occupy Sonny’s spot maybe he has life figured out far better than we do.”

Our lives are so complicated and filled with tension from the workplace, family, friends, bills to pay, kids to raise and myriad other headaches.

While, daily, hundreds of cars with those much more fortunate hustled and bustled our way past him Sonny seemed not to have a care in the world. How did he view us and does he think that he really has it better than we have it?

Again, I do not know Sonny’s story but when I saw him I saw beyond the despair and kept thinking simplicity.

My intent is not to paint Sonny Frazer as either a sympathetic or personable individual—in all these years, I never saw him smile or give a friendly wave to the hustle and bustle.

What is known, about Sonny, would paint a different portrait.

Two years ago Sonny squatted at Fortuna and North Frontage Road, just a few steps from his more recent home. until he caused disturbances with nearby merchants. Things seemed to have been smoothed over with the compromise being that Sonny would move and behave better.

All seemed to be going well as he appeared to hold up his end of the bargain while the police and other authorities both watched him and also looked out for him.

In the past couple of weeks, though, Sonny Frazer has vanished and there is no given reason.

The Yuma Daily Sun reported that Sonny is safe and at an undisclosed local location yet he was not found at the hospital, jail, morgue or local mission. The news report said that this disappearance relates to the incident two years ago.

All I know is that Sonny is gone from Fortuna and I-8 and I miss him.

Seeing Sonny made me think, look within myself, feel fortunate and feel humble—how many individuals, in our lives, can have such a singular impact?

How can we not view someone as that and not think? Again, my thoughts are not sympathetic as likely Sonny is no angel and if we did knew how he became as he is we might imagine much different thoughts.

Yet, encountering the Sonny Frazer’s of the world is good for me and should be good for us all just to assist us in keeping the whole craziness of life in some clearer perspective.

The other day I passed Sonny’s spot and saw, instead, a young man hitchhiking—it was like seeing a new neighbor in the house next door.

There are other Yumans that read this column—maybe you do not miss Sonny Frazer, as I do, but let us hope that he is safe and someday might even return to make us give some hard thought when you zoom by him on the way to your maze of activities.

After all, how many people that we know can keep us wanting to find a mirror to check on ourselves for reasons other than vanity?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary July 18, 2005

2005-07-17T10:33:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

Midsummer Feel Good Stories ……………………..

It is time to get happy.

No, I have not been raiding granny’s joy juice in the wine cellar again. I just realized that there is too much negativity being written about, in sports, with it high time to make a change and compose nothing but upbeat news……..at least for one week.

In the interest of proper reporting the good should be mixed with the bad and ugly for balance yet I see this week’s effort as a midsummer’s supper—it is too hot outside to eat a full meal so a less complicated feast will digest just as well.

For sure, in the weeks ahead, there will be stories to write upon that will make ones hair stand up and curl because there are always such stories. Yet, for now, I will put those eye-rolling items away in the freezer and present only a few moments of feel good.

Appropriate to trying to chill, on these hot summer days, is the story of a league where icing is a way of life. I see that you need no more clues and yes there is rejoicing from Vancouver to Sunrise as-apparently-the better than yearlong National Hockey League lockout is over.

The NHL and its player’s association have reached an agreement to resume action in October after losing the entire past season. Both sides still must ratify the new collective bargaining agreement but, at the moment, all looks good for the resumption of the highest level of the sport.

As you know, from prior columns, I love the sport of ice hockey. As a fan I have felt cheated that the NHL was snatched from me last season and feel that the league owes me.

I had planned to attend three games and of course saw none. The best that I did was sit in the empty home arena, of the Buffalo Sabres, staring at the ice rink and imagining a game going on while visiting the city in April.

I will be in Columbus, Ohio during Thanksgiving week and hope that I can do a make-good for Buffalo and the other games that were not by attending a Blue Jackets clash.

The NHL has major fence mending, with its fans, ahead but just maybe the league will come back a lot more humble and thus stronger to where it will attain the widespread acceptance that it has for forever sought. In my optimistic tone, this week, I can hope.

Yet that is a subject for October and beyond but this is July and there are ongoing feel good tales.

The best of these, in the team division, is happening in our nation’s capital with the reborn baseball team known as the Washington Nationals.

The Nationals are not a new franchise though it seems that way. From its birth in 1969 through last season the club was the Montreal Expos. The team that brought Major League Baseball to Canada had become a hollow shell of what glory it had generated in the past.

The Expos never played in a World Series and only saw the post-season once in a convoluted playoff system following the 1981 baseball strike.

Another labor stoppage, in 1994, was the beginning of the end for the team. When the season was halted, in August with no playoffs or World Series, Montreal had the best record in baseball. Though, eventually, fans elsewhere forgave fans in Montreal did not.

Attendance plummeted and ownership deserted the franchise. The past two years the Expos split its home schedule between Montreal and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Even with a new home, Major League Baseball still owns the Nationals while searching for a buyer.

The Washington Senators were charter members of the American League. The original Senators won only one World Series from 1901 through 1960 before becoming the Minnesota Twins.

Immediately, in 1961, the new Washington Senators were born as part of the first expansion of MLB. The Senators, part two, were pitiful in its ten-year existence—in 1971 Senators II became the Texas Rangers and Washington went without big league baseball from then until now.

Not only is baseball back, with the National league, but the formerly woeful Expos are now the fire breathing Nationals—Washington has led the National League East for most of the 2005 season and though the halfway point has been passed Frank Robinson’s combination of veteran castoffs and talented youngsters have yet to buckle in the summer sun.

A new stadium will be ready in a few years but the first of the modern generation of baseball parks, Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, is again alive with the game that it was built for.

No matter ones cheering interest I think that all baseball fans are glad to see what the Nationals are doing.

Just forty-five miles from DC is Baltimore where the long-established Orioles play. This year the O’s are going through a renaissance as well. Though now third, in the American League East, Baltimore did lead the division early on and are still having a solid season.

Miguel Tejada is the Orioles best-known player and also trot out future Hall of Fame stars Sammy Sosa and Raphael Palmero.

Yet the feel good story, in Baltimore this year, is second baseman Brian Roberts who currently leads the American League in hitting and has emerged as a consistent homerun threat as well. Roberts just played as a starter in this past week’s All-Star Game and is now established as one of the best young players in baseball.

Roberts is a feel good story not only for his play, on the field, but for what he overcame to reach that plateau.

Roberts was born with a hole in his heart and had major heart surgery at age five. Obviously he recovered and twenty years later might be the best player on the team though he positions himself next to the marvelous shortstop Tejada.

Along the shores of Lake Michigan the Lees are making fans feel awfully good.

Carlos Lee, of the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs Derrick Lee are not related but are both having career seasons that have the two National League Central club’s fans enjoying its summer more.

Carlos, traded last winter from the Chicago White Sox, is currently tied for most home runs in the NL and has made the Brewers if not a contender a much better team. Carlos was a very good player, for the White Sox, but now is a star in Milwaukee.

The Cubs were supposed to contend again, this year, but have fallen flat…..except for Derrick. Always thought a top-notch defensive first baseman his bat came alive in 2003 as a member of the World champion Florida Marlins.

The Cubs have been known, over the years, for making terrible trades—not this time as Derrick was exchanged for Hep Sop Choy in 2004.

This season Lee is in position to do something no one in baseball has done since Carl Yastremski in 1967, win the batting triple crown, Derrick is just behind Carlos and Atlanta’s Andruw Jones in homeruns, second in runs batted in and leading the league in batting average. Success lagged behind potential, for Derrick Lee, but now both he and Carlos Lee have arrived.

On the distaff side is the growing feel good and remarkable saga of golfer Michelle Wie. Wie is only fifteen years old and is not only playing with grown men, on the course, but beating them and venturing into unheard of territory.

She is a true athletic miracle unfolding before us.

She nearly won the Women’s United States Open this year, has played in men’s professional tour events and this week is playing in the men’s National Amateur Public Links Championship—if she wins the event she will qualify for next year’s Masters.

Oddly, Wie has never won any of her high profile appearances-playing either men or women-but her ability is strikingly obvious and made all the more amazing by her age. Wie will change the sport in ways that not even Tiger Woods can.

Wie, from Hawaii, certainly has more dues to pay but she is on her way to being one of the most special ongoing sports stories and for the moment one to feel good about watching.

This week is the British Open, at St. Andrews, Scotland and Jack Nicklaus farewell from competitive golf. It is bittersweet as Nicklaus is still the greatest golfer ever and we hate to see the greats hang it up but Jack is sixty-five years old and it is time.

So, as the Golden Bear walks the fabled birthplace of golf for the final time, we should feel good for the moment in remembrance of the finest of golf careers.

In my mind the top feel good story, of the past week, involves another player in Scotland. No, I refer not to Tiger even he was to once more win at St. Andrews as in 2000. Sean O’Hair is in the field and maybe no one deserves it more.

A few weeks ago we wrote O’Hair’s story when he led after the third round of the PGA Tour stop in Memphis then finished third.

O’Hair suffered a childhood under a dominating and cold-hearted father that thought of his son solely as a golfing commodity to make him wealthy. Sean was raised with no life of his own and bristled under the pressing thumb.

O’Hair did become a professional golfer, at age sixteen, but finally separated himself from his father just two years ago.

Now twenty-three, married and at ease with himself O’Hair has become what his father demanded but on his own terms.

Though he did not win, at Memphis, his story went public and made him a fan favorite—we all wanted him to win.

Well now he has as last week O’Hair came out on top, for the first time in his career, at the tour stop in west central Illinois—the victory qualified the young man to play in his first major this week across the pond.

So as the July sun beats down there are these few morsels of sporting good news to bring a grin while wiping the sweat from the brow and trying to think our world better than some have made it.

Sports can make us growl and dull the line with the rest of the mundane but then can give us people to look at, if only symbolically, thinking that things are not all that hopeless.
So the NHL, the Nationals, Brian, Derrick, Carlos, Jack, Michelle and Sean might not change our lives but just a grin in appreciation will suffice for now I would think.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary July 11, 2005

2005-07-11T18:54:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

The Greatest Athlete Ever To Wear Greasepaint……………………..

This reporter is just returned from his annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas. Yes, it was enjoyable as always to venture into a world very different than the normal. I call Las Vegas a Disneyland for adults and just like the real theme park it is good for a few days before returning to the real world.

Las Vegas is best known for gambling but is also one of the top entertainment centers in the world. Stage shows, of all types, play each day of the year catering to just about every taste.

Annually I now visit two cities where if one can sing, dance, act or otherwise entertain that is where one wants to end up. When one visits Las Vegas and New York one has no trouble finding great performances.

As mentioned, Vegas is an escape from normal reality—my normal reality is observing and writing about sports. To be sure competitive athletics is part of the city’s entertainment as Vegas is a thriving metropolis that is much as any city once away from the fabled Strip.

Over the years both outstanding athletic teams and individuals have come out of the city—among the city’s best known sports stars are the recently written about tennis star, Andre Agassi and baseball player Greg Maddox.

Yet, I can attend sports events anywhere but when in New York it is Broadway and when in Vegas it is its varied forms of stage shows—both cities might be the only places that I can travel to and care little who is home that week. If you know me at all you know that surely makes both destinations escapes from my reality.

Ah, but now I am back from Las Vegas and memories of entertainment and sporting thoughts have returned.

One form of show business talent, that there is plenty of up in Nevada, is dancing. I always enjoy watching show dancing because of the beauty of the art and because it, very definitely, is athletic.

To me, dancers are athletes. We often marvel at the artistry of a great athlete so why not think of a dancer as an athlete?

So having just been in a town full of outstanding dancers the question came to me who might be the greatest athlete ever among dancers?

Ever covers a lot of years and there are many candidates. Whether one likes classical dance or not observe the athleticism of the ballet dancer.

Watch the Russian Ballet and those fellows leaping over teammates in a line standing up and tell me that they could not compete in the long jump.

How about a night at Riverdance or any other number of folk dance performances? Go to just about any Broadway musical and tell me that those kids in the chorus are not athletes.

Yet, there has always been a sort of reverse snobbery that if you are into sports then you look at those that dance as sissies.

Every now and then we read or see stories of athletes taking ballet classes to improve their coordination—seemingly, such stories always put the athletes on the defensive that they would be involved in such “non-macho” activity.

So though the dancer surely knows that he or she better be a good athlete to be a good dancer society, in general, is slow to accept such an equation.

For the male dancer acceptance has been harder to come by and might never have ever even been on the table for discussion if not for one man and thus his extraordinary ability and impact as a dancer makes him the hands-down winner of the best athletic dancer ever, Gene Kelly.

Kelly had a goal, well beyond just being a star, of taking the “sissy” art of dance and making it cool to the crowd judging macho by how bloodied the athlete gets in trying to win a game.

Only an unknowing fool would think Kelly a sissy and if you had tried to confront him with such a charge he might do the same as an NFL lineman and knock you into next Sunday—the man had an attitude and took it to the stage with him.

Kelly was qualified to prove his point because he began as an athlete.

Gene Kelly was born in Pittsburgh in 1912. One of five children Kelly was a typical boy playing baseball, football and hockey. He was on the varsity baseball team in high school and hoped to be good enough, someday, to play for the hometown Pittsburgh Pirates.

Meanwhile, though, Kelly’s mother was a lover of the arts and made all of her children-including the boys-study ballet. So, as a youth, Gene lived the experience of fighting the tag of being a sissy.

As Gene got older he realized that he might not grow big enough to be a good major league baseball player and anyway he actually enjoyed dancing discovering it was not a bad way to meet girls.

All five Kelly kids formed an amateur vaudeville act that played around town—later, Gene teamed with younger brother Fred for a song and dance act.

Gene had become so good a dancer, at so young an age, that at the age of twenty the family opened a dance studio—never lacking bravado the kid insisted that it be named the Gene Kelly Dance School as he was well-known around town and his name out front would bring in customers.

He was quite right. Along with just ordinary folk, the still young man was sought out by professional dancers to assist them in improving their own acts.

In 1933 Kelly graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in economics—he tried law school for a while but it just was not him as the man was meant to dance.

Yet, it was now the depression and money had to be earned—the dance school helped but was not enough so Gene the college graduate took what jobs that there were including ditch-digging.

Kelly never stopped dancing and teaching others how to dance so, in 1938, he and Fred headed to Broadway.

After landing a couple of minor roles Gene hit the big time, in 1940, cast as the despicable night club singer Joey Evans in the new Rogers and Hart musical Pal Joey.

Kelly’s energy and ice-breaking performance shot him to the top in New York not only on stage but as a choreographer as well.

Hollywood beckoned Kelly and in 1942 he debuted in the film musical, For Me And My Gal with Judy Garland.

MGM locked Kelly up to a long-term contract and after a few more films Kelly began to flex his muscles and reinvent how dance was perceived and performed on film.

The tyrannical head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, never got along with Kelly and vice versa but Mayer loved money and Kelly’s ground breaking movies were starting to make money and heaping artistic praise on his empire—so, Mayer mostly let Kelly alone.

Good thing that he did as Kelly did a string of classic musicals that changed how we looked at men that dance—Kelly brought his athletic talent and blue-collar mentality to the dance floor.

It was said then and is still said that there were just two male dancers of significance, Kelly and Fred Astaire.

Their styles were vastly polar opposite but both cut their deep niche. The media tried to say that the two were hated rivals but in fact they were the best of friends with obvious mutual respect.

Kelly was very hard to work with or for not only because he was a perfectionist but also because he had that athlete’s competitive spirit.

In the 1940’s Kelly hosted parties, at his home, where the main activity was volleyball—even at volleyball Kelly hated to lose. One day his team was defeated—Gene went into the house and kicked a wall in disgust breaking his foot. If you ever see the film Easter Parade remember the volleyball player as Astaire, instead of Gene, starred with Garland because of Kelly’s Irish temper.

Kelly recovered to do three films that absolutely defined he and his style forever. In On The Town, An American In Paris and Singing In The Rain Kelly was at his very best—the latter film is considered the best musical ever made.

The best musical number, ever filmed, is thought the title song from Singing in the Rain—it seemed to combine all the traits that made Kelly great.

All the time we hear about athletes playing hurt—on the long day, of the principal shooting of that classic song and dance, Kelly was sloshing about in all that water with a one hundred and two degree fever. You try that sometime.

No, you cannot because you do not have the gifts that Gene Kelly had but like all great athletes and artists he made it look so easy that we all think that we can do it.

Kelly, single-handedly, brought dance to the masses and literally put an American stamp on a European art form and he did it by being an athlete not wearing tights but dressing and acting just like the average guy.

By the mid 1950s Hollywood was changing and Kelly was now in his late forties. He turned to directing and playing non-musical roles including a heralded performance in the 1960 film, Inherit The Wind.

Gene Kelly died in 1996 and I mourned his passing as I have for any of my sports heroes because that is how I thought of him.

I have always separated the sports greats that changed the way that their game is played from the other greats.

In my opinion no one did more to change dance in America than Gene Kelly and he did it by being an ex-baseball player that took his swift turn, of a double play, to the stage and screen and did it seamlessly.

So, now returned from Vegas, my thoughts return to sports and in homage to the greatest athlete ever in show business.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary July 4, 2005

2005-07-07T21:17:00.000-05:00

B&G Imagination Junction

Words And Emotions From The Mouths And Hands Of Athletes ………………

Sometimes it could be said that an athlete should be seen and not heard as one cannot be reasonably sure that whatever comes out of their mouths will make any sense.

Of course, to the media whose jobs are not to care if what an athlete says is as important as long as they just babble anything, IQ or insight is not a prerequisite.

The stereotype is of an athlete being all brawn and no brain but, as we know, stereotypes are just that and far from reality.

In fact, athletes can get a perspective on life so involved and so different from us mere mortals, that only observe, that what they utter can-at times-actually be profound.

Yet-sometimes-we scratch our heads over both the words and actions of athletes and end up asking, “What were they thinking or doing?”

In a past column I pontificated on what might it really feel like to be an athlete? Unless we walk a mile in another’s shoes we cannot know. Still, although their shoes can never be for us to wear, we have enough common sense to know that what they are saying or doing is wacky.

There must have been something in the water coolers of a number of sporting figures as this was one of those weeks.

Speaking of water coolers the top wacky and weird sports star going around the bend story began with a water cooler—here, words was not the tale but reactions and actions.

This is not about Kenny Rogers the singer/actor but Kenny Rogers the left-handed baseball pitcher. Rogers is forty years old, is currently employed by the Texas Rangers and has been rather good at his trade for nearly two decades for many prior employers—among his many past victories, in the major leagues, was a no-hit game.

In fact, even at such an advanced stage of career, Rogers is having one of his best seasons for a Rangers club that is a genuine contender in the American League West division.

Rogers has not been a happy Ranger, though, this season. Last winter Rogers was looking to extend his current contract and negotiations bogged down—Rogers still is not extended beyond this season.

During the negotiations news reports came out that upset the veteran pitcher. Becoming so upset with what certain media said about him, Rogers decided to not speak to all members of the print or electronic media. Rogers is hardly the first athlete to clam up to us journalists and will not be the last.

Though Rogers has maintained his no-talk ban, through the 2005 season, it had not affected his pitching.

Last week, however, Rogers had a rare bad performance. When removed from the game, by Texas manager Buck Showalter, Rogers took out his frustration by smashing his non-pitching right hand on a water cooler in the dugout—the hand was broken requiring that he would miss his next few starts.

If punching out a water cooler were all to the story it would not be such big news as athletes have showed similar stupidity often in the past the same as not speaking to reporters.

Yet, on Wednesday night before a home game against the Los Angeles Angels at Anaheim, Rogers snapped and no one seems to know why.

When the Rangers came onto the field, for its pre-game stretching out exercises Rogers attacked and shoved to the ground a news video cameraman from a Dallas television station and then a few moments later went after another TV cameraman first shoving him then pushing him to the ground and grabbing his camera and throwing that to the ground as well.

Finally teammate, catcher Rod Barrajas, restrained the incensed pitcher and got him off the field and back to the clubhouse.

The attacks were obviously pre-meditated as the video shows Rogers emerging from the dugout and going right to the first cameraman then later doing the same to the second. Both cameras were rolling and other news video showed what happened after the attacks.

One of the cameramen needed medical care, at a nearby hospital, though not seriously injured—he is threatening a lawsuit and the possibility of assault charges is still present.

What penalties the Rangers and Major League Baseball will impose are still pending.

Rogers does have a long-standing reputation of being surly but not violent—why he did this no one yet knows and that is what makes this so bizarre. Though Rogers was looking to rough up some media members he had no known beefs with the two victims.

Such is the mystery of the athlete.

The other strange tales from this week, involving athletes, concern only words but headline-making and head-scratching words they were.

Moises Alou is one of the best veteran baseball outfielders of this generation—he won a World Series as a member of the Florida Marlins in 1997. If not for injuries, during his career, he would be a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate.

As with most professional athletes Alou is very competitive.
This season Alou is playing for the San Francisco Giants, a club that has struggled mightily without the mighty Barry Bonds who has yet to play a regular season game in 2005 due an injured knee. With Bonds and Alou in the lineup the Giants would have contended—without the injured slugger, Alou and the Giants have not been very good.
In all fairness, the current Giants lineup is sprinkled with both young and journeyman players.

Yet, this week, Alou popped off that this Giants club has the worst team chemistry than any other club that he has ever been on. Though all have a right to express an opinion this hardly qualifies as showing team espirt de corps.

Even in an era where professional athletes are thought selfish there is still the unwritten rule that thoughts as that should not leave the locker room—if Alou has an issue he should deal with his mates privately. If he made the comment publicly to light a fire under the Giants it likely will not work.

By the way the Giants manager is on record as disagreeing with the evaluation. In this case the manager could heap revenge by changing his will as San Francisco’s skipper is Moises father Felipe Alou. Bizarre.

Are professional athletes selfish, as I posed above, or are they spoiled as many have thought?

In writing about sports unions, just last week, I pointed out how well the modern major athlete has it.

Yet, in a past column and already mentioned briefly this week, I wrote about us really not knowing what it takes to be a top of the line athlete—yet the media and public still have put the spoiled tag on these elite figures often.

So, are major athletes spoiled? Hockey star Jeremy Roenick very emphatically says no.

Roenick has played a long and productive National Hockey League career previously with the Chicago Blackhawks and Phoenix Coyotes—he is currently a member of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The yearlong NHL player’s lockout that wiped out the 2004-2005 season might soon be over allowing for next season to begin on schedule in October.

Holding a news conference this week, at a charity golf event run by Pittsburgh Penguins owner and star Mario Lemieux, Roenick spoke intelligently about many aspects of hockey trying to restore itself with the public.

Then, though, he lost it with his tongue as Rogers lost it with his hands by saying repeatedly that if the fans think that NHL players are spoiled they can just kiss his behind (only he did not say behind). Jeremy continued on that those folks should not even bother returning to the arenas if that is what they think as Jeremy does not want them there.

Yes, there is this thing about free speech but this does not seem the best approach for getting the fans to forgive and forget not having an NHL last season.

If Mr. Roenick does not think that he and his mates are spoiled he did nothing to eradicate the stereotype of his breed being stupid.
When all-star games approach it can be hard not to think of some of those star athletes not being spoiled. Stories of players opting out of playing, if they play not playing for long, leaving the stadium well before the all star game ends and feeling that being an all star means a fat bonus are numerous.

The annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be held a week from Tuesday in Detroit and it has already begun though the rosters do not begin to be filled until tomorrow.

New York Mets pitching star Pedro Martinez says that he doubts that he will be available on July 12—Martinez is having another outstanding season and likely would begin the game, on the mound, for the National League.

Starting pitchers, in the All-Star Game, rarely pitch more than two innings—it is hardly as if Pedro would be overly taxed. Martinez is currently healthy and he is the best yet Pedro knows that he is the best so might not want to break up his three-day holiday for an exhibition game.

The All Star Game is for the fans to see the best all in one spot but without using the same words as Roenick Martinez seems to be saying that those that worship him can also kiss his behind.
One more grouping of words from an athlete, that made headlines this week, seemed to raise eyebrows but I wonder why.

Like Rogers Jeff Kent, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is a long-time baseball player with a surly disposition with the media—Kent will talk to them but he would rather not have to do it.

The press wants to speak with Kent because Jeff is a terrific baseball player who will someday be on Hall of Fame ballots.
This week, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kent announced that playing baseball is hard work and not a lot of fun—this caused a stir. My question is why?

Kent did not say that he did not like being a major league baseball player but was only saying that to do it, at that level, is not easy and quite a chore.Again referring to my past piece on not really knowing what an athlete goes through are we so naive and stupid to think that when the very best make it look so easy that we actually think that it is easy?
Jeff was telling it like it is. What he said was not bizarre as with Rogers meltdown, Roenick’s misguided missile, Alou playing left field with blinders or Martinez not wanting to play at all.

With the Kent quote, what is bizarre is such a statement of the obvious is thought newsworthy.

Maybe us fans are really the ones that are spoiled.

Anyway, surely, this was a week of odd happenings around and about the sporting life.
No matter what, it again proves that sports and its athletes are never dull—sometimes dangerous but never dull.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary June 27, 2005

2005-06-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

What Is Very Wrong About Sports Unions ………………

The National Basketball Association season at last ended on Thursday night as the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Detroit Pistons 81-74 in game seven to win the Finals series four games to three.

This was not a classic series but did go the limit for the first time, in the Final, since 1994. These are the two best teams, in the current NBA, but only in the fifth and sixth games did they put on truly virtuoso performances from start to finish.

It was a series of smothering defense and at times ugly offense—the first four games were blowouts. The last three contests were, at least, close on the scoreboard.

With the success of the Phoenix Suns one wonders if the NBA will return to the wide open run and gun style, of the pre 1990s, or will future Finals feature the bump and grind that tough defensive units such as the Spurs and Pistons feature?

Though both of these clubs can score the winner of all seven games played the harder nose defense that is what wins championships.

San Antonio has now matched Detroit’s three NBA championships and still the only former American Basketball Association team to win an NBA title.

This week was also a big week, for the NBA as a whole, as a lockout by the owners was averted by agreement being reached on a new six-year collective bargaining agreement—the current pact expires on Thursday.

Both the owners and players fared well in this pact. The owners won its main push to raise the player age limit minimum to nineteen years of age and shortened the length of player’s rookie contracts to a maximum of three years.
The player’s main victory was in raising the salary cap.

So, fortunately for fans, another ugly work stoppage was avoided. The National Hockey League’s lockout drones on after more than a year—the NBA is to be commended for getting this done and not risking killing its golden goose, as did hockey.On occasion this column has written about sports unions and how they can be so out of step with the real world.

Unions, in general, exist for good reasons—if managements treated and compensated its workers fairly then there would be no need for trade unions.

Yet, of course, unions do exist. Though sports unions, very rightfully, began for all the same reasons as other unions they have taken on a life very much different than its brothers in other industries.

The goal of most union members is to earn a fair livable wage, work under humane workplace conditions and be taken care of with a good pension plan after retirement.

In the major North American sports leagues the minimum wages are better than one million dollars a year, nearly all of the work places are modern facilities, they stay in five-star hotels (the United States Olympic men’s basketball team, all NBA players, lived on the Queen Mary while in Athens) and fly on charted aircraft and with some clubs private aircraft provided by the owner.
The blue-collar factory worker cannot relate.

The pension plans, of these leagues, are nearly as generous as what that factory worker makes still working nine to five. The new collective bargaining agreement has even sweetened that pot.

Yet, where the NBA Players Association might have gone wrong, once more, is in remembering its roots. There was no announced sweetening of the pension pot for NBA players that retired before 1965—their pension plan is an embarrassment next to those for those who played later.

George Mikan must be spinning in his freshly dug grave.

Mikan passed away, just days before his eighty-first birthday in Arizona, on June 1.

George Mikan was the NBA’s first true superstar and a groundbreaker as the first big man that combined his size with athletic ability during the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.

After an All-America collegiate career, at De Paul University, Mikan went on to a stellar and dominating professional career with the league’s first great team, the Minneapolis Lakers.

In his long post-playing life Mikan was one of the sport’s true ambassadors. Though a fierce competitor Mikan was a gentle giant with that type of quiet charisma that seems in short supply among modern athletes.

Mikan had many jobs, after the NBA, including being the first commissioner of the ABA in the late 1960’s. Mikan never was a wealthy man but he did all right.
Yet, in his last few years, life became very difficult fighting illness—the medical bills mounted to where Mikan and his family were selling off his memorabilia to pay hospital and doctor’s costs.

It still was not enough as Mikan died unable to afford a proper funeral.

The modern Mikan is Shaquille O’Neal of the Miami Heat. O’Neal and Mikan met, on many occasions, with Mikan serving as a mentor. Being a current NBA star O’Neal has plenty of money—he stepped in and offered to pay the funereal and burial costs—reluctantly but gratefully, his proud family accepted the offer.

In his last years, Mikan quietly lobbied the NBA and the Players Association to make life easier for the now approximately seventy surviving players from before 1965.

These seventy are receiving two hundred dollars per month for each year that they played in the league. So, at his death Mikan, who played for eight and a half seasons, was receiving seventeen hundred dollars pension per month. Now that he is gone his widow, of fifty-eight years of marriage, will receive half of that amount.

In reporting the terms, of the new agreement, an increase in pension benefits, was included but I have not seen any mention as to whether the pre-1965 retirees are accounted for—I hope so.

The NBA is not alone, in this black mark, with any union anywhere that short changes any of its retirees open to feeling shame.

To forget a company’s roots is unforgivable. Many “old-timers” lament being born too early to swim in the pool of current luxury but being members of the same union entitles them to some decent fallout from the riches.

The key word is decent—I hope that all sports leagues look to their past and treat their surviving members with decency.

That is all that Mr. Mikan was asking—that is all that any old union worker asks.

Anything less underscores what is very wrong with sports unions.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary June 20, 2005

2005-06-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

A Rousing Sporting Weekend ………………

Another one of those weekends is upon us, in our country, where if one is a sports fan there are a number of high quality tasty entrees to choose from on the menu.

I suppose that it is true in other nations that a number of big time athletic events all seem to occur on the same day or same grouping of days but, maybe because this is where I live and because of the size and diversity of the United States. It happens more often within our borders.

This weekend three high profile events of note are taking place and become our focus.

Two of these three events are not just domestic in taste but are followed worldwide while the third is such of slice of Americana that a foreigner might do well to observe this sports festival as a study in how us Americans project ourselves.

Of course, first is the ongoing National Basketball Association Final series between the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs.

Last week this column previewed the clash and now four games have been played in the best of seven set. With game number five to be played tomorrow night the two clubs are as they begun, even.

In each game the home team has won, each contest was one-sided and each losing side looked worse than the Atlanta Hawks on its best night.

In San Antonio the Pistons looked as if they still had a hangover from rallying to win the Eastern Final over the Miami Heat while the Spurs, if possible, played better than in its Western undressing of the Phoenix Suns.

Then the NBA rock concert moved to Motown and everything has been different. At the Pistons home, called the Palace, the real defending kings have reawakened.

As another monarch in the King and I might have said about how this series has gone, “It’s a puzzlement.”

It is the Final so it all gets the brightest glare of the spotlight but, unless you are cheering for whichever club is on that night, this has not been a great series.

The hot team, right now, is Detroit and when the Pistons are on this is exactly what can happen so maybe these last two games make sense. Detroit plays a smothering defense and for the second year in a row, in the Final, show that they can put points on the board as well.

Yet, the Spurs play a total game as well plus are more athletic as they showed in the first two games.
So in tomorrow’s pivotal fifth game, at the Palace, maybe both clubs will bring it’s A game on the same night and produce the type of close series that we expected. Yet, the series is tied so how dare I complain?
Not only basketball fans in the US have been scratching their heads, over this hard court puzzlement, but millions around the world as well. Over one hundred nations are televising this series and it can be heard in more than 50 different languages.

On the American telecasts we have spent minutes hearing the French gush over Tony Parker and the Argentineans sing the praises of Manu Ginnobli.

Another event being held in Pinehurst, North Carolina has worldwide eyes watching and ears listening. At the United States Open the crème de la crème of the golf links are at work deciding the second major event of the year in this sport.

Of course, we who watch care who win—most often the drama of the final round of a major is top flight entertainment as it usually comes down to the last stroke from the last player on the course.

Yet, major golf tournaments to me are as much a study of the theater as much as the performers.

The theater, this week, is Pinehurst Number Two—surely one of the classic and wicked tests of golf in the world. Phil Mikelson said last week that if the weather acted up the winning score will be well over par. Even with good weather the winner might not be in double figures under par.

The current big five of golf are all having solid years and each is a good bet to win. Yet the fab quintet of Woods, Singh, Mikelson, Goosen and Els are no sure wager as, there are plenty of solid golfers primed for glory.

Goosen is the defender while Woods won this year’s Masters so before the Spurs and Pistons tip off we should know this year’s national golf champion.
Ah, in this country at least, better keep that remote ready because we might be taking many side trips to Omaha, Nebraska as the College Baseball Word Series is now underway.

I have written on this very special ten day event the past few years because it is the best in the amateur level of baseball, in the US, while being one of those places that if you want to see what Americans are supposed to be about you must attend.

Though it has been many years since, I have attended twice and always recommend it as a travel destination.

As usual, the eight best college baseball clubs have gathered but the defender is not among them as California State Fullerton was knocked out by Arizona State. Last year’s runner-up is back and we hope that Texas head coach Augie Garrido left his boorishness, of 2004, back in Austin.

Florida returns, for the first time in a while, while the stands will be jammed with red as Nebraska is there for the third time in five years.
Tennessee is due as its been a baseball program on the edge of fame for nearly a decade.

Maybe the magic dust that propelled Baylor to the women’s basketball title will spill on the baseball team.

Despite being ranked in the top ten all season Oregon State still might be this year’s Cinderella in the field. All of the other seven teams are thought annually strong in baseball but the Beavers have come out of nowhere to make it to Omaha. OSU has not been to the CWS since 1952. If one does not have a bunch of boys already to cheer for maybe the Beavers might be the group to show some love.

Yet, maybe the team to beat is Tulane—the Green Wave have been ranked number one for most of the year and seem primed.

The CWS, as with any championship clash, can bring out the best or worst—Tulane is good and the title is theirs for the picking.

No matter, it will be a fun time in Eastern Nebraska because it is always fun there in June.

So, again, we have a weekend where we can have fun either channel hopping or discussing the future of Michael Jackson—I prefer the former.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Sports Commentary June 13, 2005

2005-06-12T07:37:00.000-05:00

B & G Imagination Junction

The Two Best T E A M S In The NBA ………………

When a sports season reaches its final stage people tend to say, “It’s about time.” The National Basketball Association has begun its championship series and there is the urge to think that it is a long time between November and June.

The defending champion Detroit Pistons are facing the champion of 2003, the San Antonio Spurs.

November does seem a long while ago. As the 2004-2005 season got underway this column gave its prediction—though not right on I did play horseshoes.

My finalists were forecast to be the Spurs and Miami Heat. Miami darned near made me look good as they fell to the Pistons in a seven game Eastern Conference Final. I, as most, correctly thought that would be the Eastern match up

The joker in the final four was the Phoenix Suns. Until the Spurs ended the Suns rags to riches campaign, in the Western Final in five games, the Suns amassed the best record in the NBA and played the most exciting and entertaining basketball seen in the league in recent years.
Yet, the Spurs caused the Suns to set for the same reason that the Heat was chilled by Detroit. Miami has Shaq and Dwayne Wade while the Suns have Steve Nash, Amari Stoudemeir and score one-hundred fifteen a night but, simply put, total basketball still wins and our finalists are the two best true teams in the current NBA.

The Pistons were a surprise winner, last year, but showed that substance and unity will beat flash and acrimony nearly every time.

In his first year, as Pistons coach, Larry Brown preached the team concept and found answers to piece the puzzle together. General Manager, Joe Dumars, has made all the right personnel moves.

Maybe the current Pistons have one legitimate future hall of fame player in forward Ben Wallace but even he is not mentioned in the same breath as the other marquee names around the league—Ben Wallace is a great player among a bunch of very good players that all play the roles that Brown casts them in to play.

It is old-fashioned and at times boring to watch but is highly effective.

If it seems a long way from last November it can never be long enough for the Pistons. Injuries and illness caused the defenders to begin the season as a battered victor—even Brown missed a few games because of surgery and might need more that could force retirement after this series concludes.

Late in this season’s first month Detroit was under .500 when the vanquished Eastern finalist, from a year ago, came to town. The Indiana Pacers won that night but no one will ever recall that.

What will, forever, be recalled was The Brawl. The brawl will live in infamy but, for the near future, nearly ruined the Pistons season.

Somehow, though, Detroit pulled itself back together and got back to being the team that they were the season before.

At season’s end they were playing as well as anyone in the NBA. The Pistons won its division and finished with the second best conference record behind only the Heat.

The Spurs dipped some, last year, being eliminated in the Western Final by the Los Angeles Lakers.

San Antonio was still a good team but in transition after the retirement of David Robinson and the further development of Tony Parker as its playmaker.

The Spurs had the incomparable Tim Duncan and the emerging superstar Manu Ginobili so the falloff was not that severe.
This season did not begin as planned, for the Spurs, as it did not in Motown. The Spurs struggled early but, by season’s end, had all the pieces back together.

Duncan was still a few games returned from a foot injury, when the playoffs began, but he showed that he was fit and the Spurs showed why they are so very good.

Parker grew up in France. His father was a professional basketball player who played, for many years, in Europe and married a French woman--Parker was drafted by the Spurs after a brief but spectacular run on the French national team. He returned to play for France in last year’s Summer Olympics.

During the Spurs championship run, two years ago, the club nearly grew impatient with the young Parker as there was a poorly kept secret of a flirtation with free agent Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets, the team that the Spurs swept in the 2003 Final.

Kidd spurned the Spurs staying with the Nets, Parker kept his job and now it looks like the best deal that the Spurs ever failed to close as Parker is-perhaps-the most important player on the floor for San Antonio.

Soccer/football is, unquestionably, the biggest sport in Argentina yet Manu Ginobili is-currently-the South American nations biggest sports star. Last summer, in Athens, he led Argentina to the basketball gold medal and now in his third year, with the Spurs, already wears an NBA championship ring.

Apologies to that group of thrill-seekers in Phoenix, Allan Iverson, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony or even Kobe Bryant but Ginobili might be the most exciting complete player in the league right now.

Ginobili brought to the Spurs seasoned international experience and has adapted quite well to the grind of the NBA. In the Spurs run, two years ago and though a guard, he picked up much of the lost scoring of Robinson who-in his last active season-came off the bench.

Now Ginobili is one of the stars.Yet, he is not the man because only Duncan can hold that title. Yet, only on the Spurs, could a player as Duncan be just one of the boys.

The Spurs are the best organization, from top to bottom, in the NBA. Players are treated with class and dignity, of course paid very well and toil in a less pressurized player-friendly city.

The coach and general manager is Greg Popovich who has emerged as the best active coach, in the league, this side of Larry Brown—that is not coincidental.
Brown and Popovich are long-standing friends. In the 1980s Popovich was a college coach in California. He took a one-year leave of absence just to study the coaching of the University of North Carolina’s Dean Smith and Brown who was then at the University of Kansas.

Brown later coached the Spurs and hired Popovich as an assistant. For the past two summers Brown and Popovich have been together with the US national team including the Olympics.
A few years ago Brown remarried—Popovich was his best man and during the NBA season they talk, on the phone, nearly each day.

As with Dumars in Detroit, Popovich has crafted a marvelous aggregation—coaching-wise he is Larry Brown West.
Brown has plenty of bullets to fire at his friend. Along with Ben Wallace is Dumar’s key acquisition, from last year, Rasheed Wallace. There is last season’s Finals most valuable player, Chauncey Billips. Toss in Richard Hamilton and Keyshown Prince and this is a worthy defender.

Game one of the best of seven series was played on Thursday with the Spurs holding serve at home—game two will be played, back in San Antonio, tomorrow night before three games in Michigan this coming week.

Way back in November I predicted that the Spurs would win it all and will remain firm in my conviction.

This is a clash of two clubs that truly play as teams. Coaches like to say that there is no I in the word team. Brown and Popovich get that message across and they do have some fair talent.

San Antonio is more athletic but I think that the difference, in these two clubs, is the bench. One of the reasons that the Spurs slipped last year was a weaker bench—led by free agent Brent Barry that is no longer the case.

Detroit will not relinquish its crown easily as they showed in rallying from 3-2 to win the Miami series and from fighting back after that horrible night in November.

Yet, relinquish they will and I believe it will be in six games.

The run and gun style, of the Suns, was a breath of fresh air for the league but the Spurs reminded the Suns and us all that scoring more points is great entertainment but one still must play the total gamed to win.

So, now we get to watch the two best butt heads and remind us that basketball still is a team sport with no need to dot the I.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com
Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Commentary June 06, 2005

2005-06-05T11:19:00.000-05:00

Sports Commentary

B & G Imagination Junction

Gearing Up For A Very Odd Battle? ………………

Last weekend was the biggest day in auto racing, of each year, in America. In the afternoon was the Indianapolis 500 followed-under the lights=by the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Self billed as the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indy 500 is still one of the biggest single day events on the yearly sports calendar as open wheel vehicles roar around the most famous race circuit-in North America-at speeds exceeding two-hundred twenty miles per hour.

The 500 is part of the schedule of the Indy Racing League.

Until getting a corporate moniker the night race used to be known as the World 600 and is still stock car racing’s longest event and one of the jewels of the thirty-six-race NASCAR schedule.

For this reporter, it is the one Sunday of the year when the entire day is dedicated to viewing nothing but the worshiping of speed.

In years of yore Indy and open wheel racing was king—in Europe it was what is now known as Formula One and here it was the Indy cars. Clearly, all of the best-known figures in auto racing toiled in those two forms of the sport.

NASCAR was established in 1950 but, through the 1980s, was mainly the property of the Southeastern US.

Formula One, worldwide, is still the top auto-racing league yet in the colonies NASCAR has taken the spotlight from the Indy Racing League since the early 1990s. The Indianapolis 500 is still a huge single day event but every NASCAR race is the near equal of Indy.

American open wheel racing shot itself in the toes, during the early 90s, with a nasty split between feuding factions. Since then there have been two competing organizations, the upstart IRL and the established CART group.

It has caused nothing but confusion, for the casual race fan, while nearly killing that form of the sport. The upstart has gained the upper hand of consciousness because most of its events are on oval tracks and IRL runs Indy while CART (or CHAMP as it is now known) tries to be the poor man’s Formula One by running solely on roads and streets.

Meanwhile, the good ole boys of NASCAR have become the five hundred pound gorilla just getting larger by the year.

On television, where it ultimately counts the most, NASCAR has been wiping out the IRL. Yes the Indy 500 is still big but, to that casual fan, that is the beginning and end of the IRL season while every week is like Indy over at NASCAR.

The stock cars always get high TV ratings, for a sports event, while the low to the ground swifter machines have seen declining numbers for its showcase event.

IRL is not without star power but since the split with CART have been slow to establish enough featured performers to get more than a casual glance while NASCAR is loaded with familiar faces.
In recent years IRL has done better at marketing itself. If total victory, in their war with CART is not yet achieved, IRL is solid enough to have turned its attention away from the bickering and back to trying to regain its racing preeminence in America. NASCAR still is many laps ahead but IRL seems back in the race.

Dan Wheldon, of England, won last Sunday’s 500 while Jimmy Johnson won at Charlotte. Wheldon has done a terrific impression of Formula One king, Michael Schumacher, by winning five of this season’s first six races while Johnson leads the NASCAR point battle.
The race team owned by Kip Green and Michael Andretti employs Wheldon. The latter was a long time driver and is the son of former Indy champion Mario Andretti yet Michael never won, at the brickyard, in the cockpit. So, Wheldon’s victory was as big for the car’s owner as for its driver.

The TV ratings, for this year’s 500, were up forty per cent but it had nothing to do with Wheldon, Andretti, driver Dario Francini’s wife-actress Ashley Judd-or even celebrity car owners David Letterman or Paul Newman.

This year it was all about Danica Patrick and through her, IRL might have discovered a means to make up those lost laps.

Patrick is a very talented twenty-three year old rookie driver from Illinois that has been a factor in every race this season. She drives for another former 500 winner Bobby Rahal and Letterman and is a teammate of last year’s winner Buddy Rice who missed this year’s event because of a crash during practice.The Danica story was the story at Indy this year mainly because she’s a very good young driver and of course because she is a she.

Patrick is not the first female to race at the brickyard as she follows Janet Guthrie, Lynn St. James and Sarah Fisher. Yet, Patrick caused more of a pre race buzz because she actually was thought to have a chance to win the race.

Patrick, in fact, qualified fourth starting on the outside of the second row.

No woman, of course, has ever won the 500—in fact none of Patrick’s female predecessors had ever even led a single lap until last Sunday. Patrick, at about the midway point, made history when she was ahead during a yellow flag lap while the leaders were in the pits.

Late in the race, though, the impossible nearly happened as Patrick’s blue Rahal/Letterman car went to the front and stayed there through eighteen consecutive laps. The fairy tale ending was not to be as the car ran out of fuel and succumbed to Wheldon’s late charge.

Patrick finished where she began in fourth place—still, by far, the best finish ever for a female driver at Indy.

Patrick was a hotter sports story, in May, than Shaquille O’Neal and just the marketing tonic that IRL needed. IRL took her to New York, between qualifying and the race and in one day she did forty-seven media interviews including a guest shot on her boss’ late night TV show.

Patrick’s strong finishes all season shows that there is substance to go with the style. Danica is hardly camera or microphone shy and is a publicist’s dream—IRL has struck a publicity goldmine with a good-looking young woman driver that once strapped into the car can actually compete.

Patrick still has not won an IRL event so, until she does, the question will be if she is for real or just a racing version of tennis sex bomb Anna Kornakova or golf knockout Laura Baugh neither of which ever won a single tournament?

The next question is whether more attention will come to the IRL’s other races and help to put American open wheel racing back on the sports map—the answer might very well lie in the hands of a twenty-three year old rookie.

Back to NASCAR might they be worried that Danica might snip the bloom from their rose? Silly question but, just in case, NASCAR might soon have its own female bullet.

Fisher has left IRL and is now in NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick’s driver development program in the western US. Yep, it might not be long until a gal might run with the good old boys and if Sarah can be the distaff Jeff Gordon it might be back to the drawing board for IRL.

To an auto racing male chauvinist pig this might be a big nightmare but dueling female drivers, on the two top American racing circuits, would be fun stuff to watch.

So go for it Danica, good luck Sarah and zip it Robbie Gordon. Mr. R. Gordon, a driver both in NASCAR and IRL, last week said that Ms. Patrick had an unfair advantage because she is lighter in weight than her male driving colleagues. Aha.

IRL has needed that one positive thing to get them back in the ball game and perhaps NASCAR has been getting a bit too smug with its lofty status. As with so much in life, leave it to the ladies to set things right.

So-from now on-let us hear more of, “Gentlemen and ladies start your engines.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Commentary May 30, 2005

2005-05-29T09:20:00.000-05:00

Sports Commentary

B & G Imagination Junction

A Farewell To The Image? ………………

If you are a fan of tennis you probably are not a fan of this column as the sport has rarely been mentioned in this space.

It is not as if tennis is on my list of sports that I love to hate the most because I, actually, do like the game.

Yet, there is a gap between like and love that has kept me from being an ardent follower of the serve and volley set. I have not completely ignored what happens on the court but, frankly, have treated tennis as a father with way too many children might treat the offspring somewhere in the middle.

The last time that I gave considerable space to the male side of the sport was a discussion of who is the greatest player of all time is upon the retirement of one of the candidates, Pete Sampras—I voted for his opponent in the debate, Rod Laver.
Often, in regards to both individual and team sports, I have written how champions are best made by worthy adversaries—seemingly, without an arch rival, lasting fame is harder to achieve without at least one foe to push the eventual champ.

Laver had Ken Rosewall, Jimmy Connors had Ivan Ledl-Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, Billie Jean King had Margaret Court and then there were the Chris Evert versus Martina Navratolova duels of yesteryear.

If Sampras is even worthy of discussion then who were his rivals? For a while it appeared as if fellow Californian, Michael Chang, would be the man but his star faded as mysteriously and swiftly as did that of golfer David Duval.

Yet, Sampras did have his rival and it was a rival directly out of central casting as not only was this a player that could push Sampras to the athletic limit but also was a personality the polar opposite from the quiet and unassuming Pete.

Pete Sampras was only a truly great tennis champion that should have been enough. Yet, his accomplishments were first not taken seriously but later underscored by Andre Agassi.

Sampras was vanilla while the young Agassi was all the known colors, in the rainbow, with a few new ones tossed in. Sampras played a game of incredible precision combined with power while Agassi, though hardly weak, was flair.

Pete would not think of donning anything but the white garb of the traditional tennis player—with Agassi one never knew what he would wear…..or not wear.

After victories Sampras would politely shake the hands of the vanquished and the referee and quietly slip away while Agassi would rip off his shirt and toss it to his squealing female fans before the handshakes.

Sampras was Rush Limbaugh and Mozart while Agassi was Howard Stern and Motley Crew. Sampras married his childhood sweetheart while Agassi married actress Brooke Shields.

With Agassi it was all about the image.

Andre was a marvelous tennis talent of appreciable accomplishment with eight major tournament championships so it would be grossly unfair to say that he lacked the substance to match his style.

Yet, on the courts, he was always just a step or two behind Pete.

Both Agassi and Sampras came along as teenagers into the big time just as McEnroe’s career was wrapping up. So, along with Chang, Andre and Pete became the future of men’s tennis in the late 1980s.
Agassi got all the publicity and most of the endorsements while Sampras just won matches.

Agassi’s critics said that the American, born in Italy, would easily be the better player and perhaps the equal of the great Laver if he had a bit less style to raise the substance.

In fact, Agassi was a young man that had it all but did not have what Sampras had among his peers and true tennis fans, respect.

By the late 1990s it seemed to be crashing down on Andre—though always a threat he went through the realization that image is not everything.

He was losing more often and continued to lose to Sampras in particular, slipping in the world rankings, and going through a divorce—all before the age of thirty.

It was time for the image to go through one more major overhaul.
The hair went from long and flowing to none at all and the outfits though not vanilla were less gaudy. More importantly he worked harder on his tennis, took much better care of himself and remarried to a woman who understood absolutely everything about the pressures of tennis fame.

Just as Agassi was never thought a bad boy and even Brooke is thought a delightful lady they were not the best of matches—Former women’s champion, Steffi Graf, seems to have been the finest of tonics for Agassi.

As the century turned so did Agassi’s fortunes on the court—with a new family, a reworked image and dedication the now more mature Andre showed some of that so long expected promise. Though Sampras still could beat him Agassi was now sharing Sampras respect.

Ironically, the two rivals from different approaches to life have always got on with each other well—they were hardly close buds but were and are still friends.

Sampras music stopped two years ago but Agassi has played on. Andre is now thirty-five years old that is ancient for a professional tennis player. Yet, until the last year, Agassi still was still winning and being the Andre we all thought that he could be.

Then came the back.

For quite a while Agassi has had an inflamed sciatic nerve. Earlier this year he received a cortisone shot but it has not really helped.

Yet, Agassi has played through the pain and fighting father time.

Tuesday, at the French Open in Paris, Agassi lost a five set match in the first round to the number ninety-five ranked player in the world, Finland’s Jarkko Niemien.

Agassi was wincing with each movement yet, actually, was ahead two sets to one. The pain was so fierce, at that point, that he considered forfeiting though in the lead. He won just one game in the final two sets.

Now the question becomes retirement—Andre does not know yet. For now, he will rest the back and hope that he will be fit for the next major event, Wimbledon in July.

In his comeback, of the past few years, Agassi has accomplished what seemed elusive when he was a young man. He has showed that he really is not just an image but also a man of substance. As with so many of us, we need the lessons of life to be experienced.

If I were he, that I definitely am not, I would play Wimbledon if all right but then make a grand exit at the US Open in August. If reality ever fits the image Flushing Meadow and Andre Agassi are one and that should serve as his farewell.

I did not like the young Andre as I thought, as others, that he was more full of himself than of talent.

Yet, the older and wiser Andre has got from me what he has sought from many much more important than I.

Pete is still the best ever or, at least, until we count up what Holland’s Roger Federer accomplishes. Yet, Andre Agassi has cemented his spot among the best.

In the end, does not that make for the best of images?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G

Commentary May 23, 2005

2005-05-21T19:23:00.000-05:00

http://www.bgimagination.com/

Sports Commentary

May 23, 2005

A Legend Bought, Departing And Maybe Arriving ………………

Legends come in all sizes, shapes and forms. A legend can be animal, vegetable, mineral, human or just an entity.

The term legend can be and is one of those often over used words such as great. We attach such lofty descriptions to individuals and the like at the drop of a noun. Few are truly great and legends do not simply fall from trees as leaves in autumn.

This week we report on two that there can be no real debate are legendary and perhaps a third, that is a legend in the making, with a story that makes one hope that the subject can even have a future flirtation with legendary status.

We begin with a reclusive multimillionaire sportsman and businessman, from Tampa, who has an entire nation wishing that he had never made a single dollar.

Outside of the Tampa Bay area, on Florida’s Sun Coast, few had heard of Malcolm Glazer and even fewer would know what the gentleman looks like even if he walked into the room where you sit with a big name tag pasted to his suit jacket.

So, how can such a figure now be public sports enemy number one in England right now? Well, the man just made a little purchase while on a shopping trip. The English are in favor of free enterprise as much as the next nation but not when the purchase is of a legend and somewhat of a national treasure.

No, Mr. Glazer has not bought Buckingham Palace or even Windsor Castle. Malcolm might be toasted, in the pubs, if he removed each brick of the London Bridge from spanning the Colorado River in Arizona and returned it to whence it came but he did not.

The American owner of the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers has purchased the controlling interest in the Manchester United Football Club.

Just this week Glazer acquired 2.3 million more shares, of the club, to bring his interest to seventy-five per cent giving him the keys to the most hallowed doors in English sports and one of the few genially legendary athletic organizations in the world.

In North America when we think of legendary professional sports organizations there is a short list of candidates but only three that all would agree on. Still-to the rest of the world where soccer/football is bigger than anything we think large here Manchester United dwarfs the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics and Montreal Canadiens.

United is not the best football club, in England or the world, every year—in fact, this just concluded season, they finished third behind Chelsea and Arsenal and have not won a league title since 2002. Yet-as with the Yankees, Celtics and Canadiens-no matter whether defender or not United remains as one of the legendary for all the many years that they were the best.

Though United, as with most top clubs, employs players from many countries the organization is thought property of England—now, a foreigner and a foreigner from a country where football is treated so second-class that it is not even called football will call the shots for a club he likely never heard of until he studied the financial pages.

Frankly, I do not see why all the fuss but then I am an American albeit one that knows and is a fan of the style football that is round instead of oval. Glazer is highly successful, loves sports, saved the Buccaneers from a dark time when he purchased them and celebrated a Super Bowl championship the same year that United last hoisted the English Premiership League trophy.
It is highly unlikely that ugly mascots, beautiful cheerleaders or uncoordinated marching bands will invade Old Trafford, United’s legendary stadium.

The franchise will remain in Manchester, not share Raymond James Stadium with the Bucs and transfer from the EPL to Major League Soccer. United has toured the colonies a number of times and likely might stop off in Tampa yearly perhaps.

Glazer is not particularly known to be overly protective of his wallet so the standard of Man U should be maintained.

A few years ago Glazer tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club but was rejected. Now he has caught an even larger fish. Will the very rich, carpet bagging, national pride ruining Yank ever be loved in Manchester? My guess is that if United rises back to the top of the EPL and in Europe the steins will be raised in toast and not to toss for the Florida man of mystery.

Heck, the Brits might even forgive that bloke that moved the bridge to not too far from my home.

Give Malcolm the Yank a chance.

Not all Floridians are despised in the United Kingdom and perhaps no sporting Floridian-or American in general-is more loved and admired over there than another genuine legend, golfer Jack Nicklaus.

In July the sixty-five year old native of Ohio will play his final full competitive golf tournament and to the delight of the British and most appropriately it will be this year’s British Open.

The British Open rotates among six courses in England and Scotland. The last Open at the most legendary golf course in the world at St. Andrews, Scotland was in 2000—next year was to be its next turn.

Yet the organization that runs the Open, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, has a rule that all past Open champions can play the event without qualifying but only through the age of sixty-five. Knowing that Nicklaus is sixty-five this year the R & A moved St. Andrews up a year.

Why St. Andrews? Nicklaus has won three British Open titles with two of them at the great venue in 1970 and 1978—with this being the Golden Bear’s last tournament hurrah legend had to be matched with legend.

With eighteen major golf championships and close to eighty tournament wins Nicklaus is the most legendary of golfers ever. The British do know something about how to deal with royalty and Jack is the most regal of all in golf.

Nicklaus golf game is pretty good for a man his age but well over par for the standards that he set—he is wise enough to know that it is time to quit.
Yet, what a grand exit that he will make. He will not win a fourth Claret Jug but would not it be one marvelous kick if the legend made the cut and might even appear on the first page of leaders at some point?

Yes, when we think of the current golf greats seeking the tag legend Tiger Woods name is front and center. It is good for the sport that Woods has true challengers with the likes of Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Ratief Goosen.

Yet Singh is in his 40s while the others are well past thirty—who, among the twenty somethings, will be rising to the top in the near future?

For a few years now we have been waiting for the breakout of Spain’s Sergio Garcia but it still has not happened. For a short term hope rested in American Charles Howell III but he still only has one tour victory.

Earlier this year I mentioned Australian Adam Scott and hopes are still high for him with most experts thinking Scott as the best of the current young guns.

Yet among the deep pool of other up and comers is one that I now find myself cheering for because any success will be his and his alone and in the singular sport of golf legendary status can only be attained by ones self.

Sean O’Hair is a twenty-two year old American who is just emerging on the PGA Tour. Last week O’Hair stepped into the spotlight, for the first time, as he was the leader after three rounds of the Byron Nelson tournament in Texas. O’Hair finished third but he gained legions of new fans as his story went public.

Though just twenty-two years old and in his rookie season on the big tour O’Hair has been a golf professional for six years. O’Hair turned pro and quit high school at the age of seventeen not because he wanted to but because he was forced to by a dominating father.

No love can be lost when there is no love to begin with. Sean O’Hair’s father raised his son only for the purpose of becoming a golf professional to make he and the family wealthy whether the boy wanted it or not—as young O’Hair himself puts it, “I was raised as a commodity.”

Without a high school diploma and under the thumb of the father O’Hair had no choice but to slave away.

One never thinks of playing golf as slave labor but unless you play in the big time big money is hard to come by and riches, if at all, can take years—do not ask Woods about struggling but, certainly, you can quiz Singh on such struggles.

O’Hair was a good enough player but no Tiger. So, with the tyrannical dad plotting each step in his life the kid hit the dusty trail of golf. Pop required, by contract, that Sean turn over ten percent of his winnings—not leaving much for Sean on that dusty path.

A couple of years ago Sean had enough and jettisoned the father not just from the clutches, that he had the kid in, but completely from his life—the two have not spoken since.

Not coincidently Sean’s quality of golf improved after the split and now the kid is in the big time, gets to keep his money and darned-near won his first tournament last week—by all accounts Sean O’Hair now loves playing golf for a living.

As of his good showing, at the Nelson, O’Hair has risen to twenty-third on the money list with just under $1 million earned this season.

Will O’Hair ever be a legend--maybe, maybe not? Yet, his story makes one cheer for the kid to make a good run at it because now he gets to do it his way.

Sadly, O’Hair is not the first or will he be the last to go through what he did—Woods, himself, went through the same thing but did not seem to mind it. Yet, it is not the norm and not generally right—there is a long-standing reason for child labor laws.

We wish the mega millionaire luck with owning his legend and dealing with those British fans. We salute the legend, of the links, on his final stroll down the fairway, while only wishing the very best to a young man who if never a legend deserves to be happy.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G.

Commentary May 16, 2005

2005-05-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

http://www.bgimagination.com/

Sports Commentary

May 16, 2005

The Life Of A Gamble ………………

This time around the subject is gambling but the question is whether I refer to the actual playing the games of chance or simply gambling as a metaphor for life?

What this is not about are the illegal acts of gambling or even the morality of placing a bet.

There are way too many manners, in the modern world, to gamble very legally to be concerned with the illegal forms for the purposes of this particular discussion. In prior columns I have discussed former baseball great Pete Rose and his celebrated gambling activities of the past much of which was illegal.

Yet most of us have placed bets, in our time, that will not land us in prison or get us banned from our chosen field of endeavor.
If gambling is not the oldest social activity or profession it is in the top five as people have wagered, seemingly, forever. When we think of gambling we think of casinos and sporting events but just about anything is ripe for a wager.

Before modern medical technology took the guesswork out people would bet on the gender of unborn children. We will place bets on whether someone we know will do something or other or not. Will something occur before or after a certain date or even a most spontaneous guessing of which raindrop on a window will reach the bottom of the pane first?
Yes, we will bet on anything but why? There are myriad reasons but only one really cuts to the truth, the human trait of greed. Winning a bet is a shortcut to increasing our riches with minimal effort—if not getting something for exactly nothing it comes pretty darned close.

Many so-called “friendly wagers” are not so much about getting rich quick but getting the better of a friend, relation or colleague.

Recently, I moved into a new home that took way too long to build--expected move in dates changed as often as the weather in Chicago.

At one point I made a wager, with a friend, on one of these announced dates. In my jaded pessimism I said that the deadline would not be met. If I was wrong I would have to spring for a dinner for the two of us yet, if correct, the friend would bake me a cake—the cake was delicious.

So, this was hardly about the high stakes of big time gambling but more the type that each of us involves our self in from time to time.

Yet, just as money is said to be the root of all evil it is at the core of most real gambling and here the question-again here-is not necessarily the morals of the act but its bringing out our greed whether thought moral or not.

The cliché says, “It takes money to make money.” For just a few dollars more we believe that we can if not become wealthy can surely come out ahead so we wager.

Some gamble obsessively and more often than not to their detriment. Gambling, for many, is a disease that can destroy a life as thoroughly as any cancer would.

To categorize there are professional and recreational gamblers. The true professional gambler plays for high stakes but never for the cash needed to feed, clothe or house he and his family. The wise recreational gambler knows not to cross that line of danger either.

The unwritten rule is if you cannot afford to lose it do not bet it.

Again, speaking solely of legal gambling activities, I have been known to place a wager. I am a recreational player and I hope have never put cash in a pot that I could not afford to lose. I play the lottery, blackjack and on the results of sports events.

The latter two forms I only partake in when visiting Las Vegas—when I am home I only play the lottery and when new homes will be finished. Regular gambling does not appeal to me but I will participate in Sin City because when in Rome………

I avoid the two local casinos and feel no tug to find an illegal bookmaker on a street corner. I do not gamble online and even when in Rome always set limits.

Yet I do gamble and that alone would cast me in a bad light with many—perhaps even with a few of you.

My rebuttal would lead me into gambling being a metaphor of life. Those that preach against the evils of gambling will, on the other hand and always amusing me, say for all to strive to be the finest and reach great heights.

Well, how does one achieve goals? One achieves goals by taking risks—risk-takers are admired but gamblers are not. Is not risk-taking just another form of gambling?

As I said, gambling is a shortcut but we have seen other risk-takers build a better mousetrap to bring success without as much sweat.

Once more, I wish not to debate the morality of gambling as if done within the bounds of set laws and not performed in excess or harm should not be thought more than just a tad…….risky.

What participation in gambling should be is fun. As with any chosen recreation if it is not fun then do not do it--even for those that gamble professionally choose another line of less risk-taking employment if you do not get the buzz.

Soon I will be making my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas—while there I will enjoy myself in a number of ways and yes, I will not just use the casino as a route to get to the restaurant. When I sit down to play blackjack I will have fun and not wager more than I have to wager.

Make no mistake, I have a touch of greed in me just like the next fellow—I will have a lot more fun if luck runs my way and I turn a healthy profit.

Yet, when playtime is done I will return to my home in no dire straights but only with another page of enjoyable gambling moments and stories.

Very sadly, to millions, gambling is no fun and is a blight on their lives—yet to the majority to wager is what it should be, a nice past time.

I have chided myself, over the years, for not being enough of a risk-taker yet-when looking back-I had taken my share of chances to succeed. In my self-analysis I came to the conclusion that some of my other risk-taking was bolder than any purchased lottery ticket or session at the tables.

So, keep gambling in perspective and it becomes just another day in our lives.

Now, if I could only hit that big one………………..

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you would like the commentary to arrive in your email inbox every week, please email to subscribe@bgimagination.com

Remember that no purchase from B&G is necessary to receive these inspired thoughts of mine.

Still, though, do tell all that have eyes about our website.

These thoughts are B’s and are not necessarily shared by G.