Favre's Newfound Legacy

Surely you’ve heard by now: Brett Favre has beaten every NFL team in existence during his hall-of-fame career, an accomplishment only he can claim, and a feat only complete after his two acts of vengeance over the Green Bay Packers in the last five weeks.

It’s obvious now this accomplishment never should’ve happened, and things should’ve never been this way. Favre should’ve never retired/been let go/forced out/asked to leave/left/whatever Green Bay the first time he “retired” in 2007. It’s now painfully clear that when Favre was waffling with his off-season decisions and wavering at his coming commitments towards the end of his Packer career, he wasn’t doubting whether or not he could still do the damn thing or wondering if he still wanted to.

He was simply contemplating whether or not he should still be doing it in Green Bay.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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Where to Go When You Don't Go Pro

Kids, I want you to stay in school.

Play an instrument, learn a trade, go to college, join the family business, start your own business, join the Peace Corps (not the Marine Corps), do whatever you can to diversify and maximize your youth.

Discover as many ways as you can to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Do something productive and positive with your life and try to make a living doing something you love, ‘cuz you ain’t going pro in sports.

Haven’t you seen that commercial during every college football game? “There are over 400,000 NCAA student-athletes, and almost all of us will be going pro in something other than sports.”

That commercial ain’t lyin’. Your odds of going pro are a little over 500,000 to 1, and unless you’re 6-foot-3, 215 with a 4.5 forty or a 40-inch vertical or a 60-percent jumper or a 95-mph fastball, you’re not that 1.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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Glad I Saw the Game, But ...

Watching Independence blow out to a 41-0 half-time lead (it was 27-0 before I got all the way in from the parking lot) and hold South Meck scoreless until 3:01 left in the third before having the reserves hold on for a 55-28 final tally isn't going to help me much in evaluating just how big a game the Butler-Independence shootout is going to be on November 6th. I got fully enlightened on that by the gentleman who was *very* ticked that even though he has obviously supported The Big I as completely as possible with "family packs" of tickets, he would be given no preference when tickets for that particular event went on sale.

That acknowledged "biggie" may well mark a changing of the guard in Mecklenburg high school football. While Butler has built a great rep, Big I has a fistful-plus of championship trophies to show anyone who thinks they rate being called the best. Langston Wertz Jr. (lwertz@charlotteobserver.com) has seen a lot more games than I and puts Butler ahead, and I wish his one man campaign to have the game played at 6000-seats-plus-great-scoreboard Providence High on Nov. 7th the best of luck. That he thinks the State selection committee will let them play Sat. and delay slotting the two teams for the playoffs even a few hours is probably a Quixotian quest.

(Continue to Baseline Shorks)

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Of Alligators and Gold Medals

There's always a few things you need to keep an eye out for on the golf course when it comes to personal safety.

The occassional golfer who does not know you are supposed to yell "FORE" when a ball is getting too close to another golfer, thus exposing you to an unexpected golf ball off the noggin. The occasional snake in the rough when you go searching for your wayward shot, especially in Texas and yes I speak from personal experience.

The other day I finished putting at my course's 13th hole, retrieved my ball and turned around to see an adult kit fox sitting on the green about 20 feet away. We spent about 30 seconds staring at each other before he decided to trot off, but it was a long 30 seconds as I was trying to remember if kit foxes liked to munch on humans or not.

(Continue to Par for the Course)

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Football's State of the Union

With both the NFL and college football seasons a quarter of the way done (or more), there are some interesting and inverted trends developing in 2009.

In the college game, anybody can beat anyone else anywhere at any given time. BYU beat Oklahoma, who lost to Miami, who beat Florida State, who beat BYU badly in Provo. That’s parity.

In the NFL, there are about a half-dozen teams who’re clearly better than the rest, and the players on the league’s lesser teams have a better chance of beating their wives after a 38-14 loss than beating any of the division leaders. There are five undefeateds and an astonishing six winless teams in the NFL right now, and half of last year’s playoff teams are a combined 6-16 at the NFL quarter pole. The Bengals should be undefeated, while the Patriots should be 1-3. That’s disparity.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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Purity of an Underdog's Effort

Having just watched the Twins survive a bases loaded top of the 12th against Detroit and then score to put themselves into an unlikely playoff against the mighty Yankees, I'm probably one of a thousand or so writers wondering what comes next.

Will the proverbial gas tank be empty of emotion and/or effort when they step into the magnificent $1.5 billion structure that is Yankee Stadium (and yes, like the 'Marvelous' that Marvin Hagler saw before his name so frequently that he finally added it legally, the price tag for the House that Steinbrenner built will surely always be there), or will they believe they are *Destined* and continue over-achieving?

(Continue to Baseline Shorks)

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The Serve in Modern Tennis

“Unless you're one of those rare mutant virtuosos of raw force, you'll find that competitive tennis, like money pool, requires geometric thinking, the ability to calculate not merely your own angles but the angles of response to your angles. Because the expansion of response-possibilities is quadratic, you are required to think n shots ahead, where n is a hyperbolic function limited by the sine of opponent's talent and the cosine of the number of shots in the rally so far (roughly)”.

If your thoughts on court are less analytical of David Foster Wallace's ones, the difficulties in answering increase. And the serve, as a fundamental of the game but principally seen as the stroke to start and determine your game, becomes more and more relevant. But how much? A possible answer, a first rough evaluation of the importance of service in determining the result of a tennis match, could arrive analysing the percentage of tiebreaks played out of the total amount of sets run off.

The data presented here consider this percentage only in Grand Slam tournament since 1980 to 2008, so considering also the not-so-world class last Australian Open editions at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. This index has the advantage of being simple to be read and immediate to understand, giving a clear image without implying an excessive sacrifice to heuristic deepness.

(Continue to ATP Tennis 360)

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Greinke for President

KANSAS CITY--Zack Greinke made his final home start of the 2009 season Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, and it has been quite some time since sports fans in Kansas City have rallied around a cause like this.

The Chiefs have made just two playoff appearances in the last decade (and lost in the first round both times), while the Royals have just two winning seasons in the last 17. There are no NBA or NHL teams for the small-market Kansas Citian to pass the rest of his or her time with.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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This Is Why I Love Sports

It's fall, and fall is when I fall in love with sports all over again. Some people don’t understand why I love sports the way I do. They just can’t fathom calling in sick to watch game seven. They can’t empathize with a fan spending his entire vacation and most of his savings to follow his alma mater to the College World Series. They can’t believe I schedule my entire Saturday around Miami Hurricane games throughout the fall. They can’t relate to a person whose wardrobe allows him to go half the year without wearing the same jersey twice. They would never be able to justify the cost of season tickets. Sure, real life is more important than sports, but they were dumbfounded when I found that dumb. They could never rationalize spending an entire Thanksgiving on the couch in front of a TV, and they can’t comprehend someone making $25,000 as a sports writer instead of $50,000 as a sheep.

When faced with the obligation of such a complex explanation, I often resort to poetry, and that’s when they know it’s me … that’s when they notice me. Sports may not make cents to them; sports might not mean much to them; sports isn’t school, church or work to them, but sports are to me what all those are to them. I study sports in lessons, I work within sports for little or no wealth, I have few favorite teams but I worship the game itself. When you have an athlete in your blood and a fan in your heart, sports are your life, and ‘til death do you part.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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R.I.P. Tiger Stadium (1912-2009)

Tiger Stadium, which stood watch at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull for nearly a century, will most likely be laid to rest today or tomorrow.

All that remains is a portion of the lower deck wall at the corner of Cochrane and Michigan.

The official age of death will be 97.

The corner of Michigan and Trumbull, known as Bennett Park, became the Tigers’ first home on April 28, 1896 — a 17-2 win over the Columbus Senators.

(Continue to Michigan and Trumbull)

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Umpiring Softball ... Much Easier

Without belaboring the Serena Williams situation TOO much, because I believe she is starting on the right path to having this judged as "one of those things that sometimes happens", I'd like to put a few situations I ran into as a softball umpire out there for consideration.

There are four or five particularly relevant moments that come to mind, and up front, arc or slow-pitch softball is MILES away from hard-core NBA, NFL or even tennis tournament umpiring. When you do leagues, you *almost* become friends with the players; the greatest compliment I ever got was the player who said, "I hate the way you call the high strike, but you call it the same all the time." That's essentially what both umpires and refs of any station should be shooting for, because there is NO doubt that players will always want to question your basic fairness if you deviate slightly either direction for or against us or them. You see an NBA ref that seems to be explaining things with a coach while watching a free throw, well, sometimes you have to invest some explanation time vs. just saying, "I made the call."

(Continue to Baseline Shorks)

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Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

Unbelievable as it was to see, Serena Williams *did* do and say all those outrageously bad things that ended her US Open match with Kim Clijsters, and nothing about it being a terrible foot fault call or the subsequent penalty point that ended things can overcome my dismay about the situation. For someone who is almost always a rock mentally and physically to go off in as public a display as Serena did is kind of unthinkable, close to that moment that Woody Hayes belted a Clemson football player for intercepting a pass that sealed a loss for Ohio State many years ago.

That long ago event is still stuck in my memory banks, and I have a feeling Serena's abusive acts are going to stay with me quite a while too. Soooo out of character, because the Williams sisters have done an exceptional job of being quality competitors and people. Whether you give their father credit for putting steel into them that allowed extreme calm or awareness so they wouldn't be overtly controversial, resulting in careers relatively free of finger pointing, they've weathered some career ups and downs. At one point it seemed they would totally dominate the sport with their speed and power, but they've always been diplomatic at all points. That Serena was obtuse and somewhat evasive during the post match press conference, I am just flat out stunned about the whole affair.

(Continue to Baseline Shorks)

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Why Football Matters

As is the case with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, football has always been – and will always be – a big part of life in Pittsburg, Kansas. Unlike its more metropolitan namesake, Pittsburg, Kansas, has no ‘H’ at the end, and this town of just under 20,000 is located northwest of Joplin, Missouri, across the state line in southeast Kansas.

Pittsburg sits off the northwest corner of the Ozark Plateau, and the area is heavily wooded – even swampy in some parts – with another organic feature similar to western Pennsylvania: coal mines. These mines once dense and rich throughout southeast Kansas offered employment for European immigrants coming to America around the turn of the 20th century, and many Italians, Austrians and other Balkan refugees found their piece of the American dream in the middle of the Midwest.

They poured into southeast Kansas (commonly known as SEK) from Ellis Island by the hundreds leading up to World War I, giving Pittsburg its strong ethnic identity and a heritage that still lingers today.

(Continue to Sport Imitates Life)

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Former UFC Fighter 'Throws' Fight?

No, it doesn't just happen in Boxing! For any Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fans who might have missed it, Sean Salmon penned a very interesting article on MMA Junkie's website earlier this week.

And if I was a fan at the North American Allied Fight Series on June 6th 2009, I'd feel pissed off!

Whether it's Gary Sheffield admitting that his hate for Brewers' manager Harry Dalton (1992) was so great during his rookie season that there were many nights when he gave it a little less than than the 'ole college try.'
(Continue to Sportacus)

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