How Many More "Good" Seasons Does He Need . . .

to make the Hall of Fame?

After this year, probably three.

Curt Schilling won his 20th game the other night, and he's won 20 in 3 of his last 4 seasons. ESPN published a stat recently which indicated that Juan Marichal holds the dubious record of having the most 20-win seasons without having won a Cy Young Award. His problems: Sandy Koufax was always the pitcher to whom he was compared, and he hit Johnny Roseboro over the head with a baseball bat in a game against the Dodgers. Ultimately, his prowess on the mound earned him his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.

This year, Schilling's fate is no different from seasons past. He's having an excellent season, but Buster Olney wrote in today's ESPN.com that he believes the Cy is Johan Santana's to lose. Which would mean that for as good as he is, Schilling could be a runner up. Again.

Which leads to a different question. Is he a Hall of Famer now?

No.

His career record is 183-123, he's 37 years old, and he has good stats, that's for sure. But he definitely needs to top 225 wins. And it wouldn't hurt if the BoSox have a post-season that gives him the chance for the limelight. Especially if it means winning several key games in the post-season, including, perhaps, the World Series clincher. Sure, that's a bit old hat for him, as he did the same in Arizona, but taking the title of Baseball's Number One Curse Breaker? The King of New England? That and about 42 more career wins just might do it, especially with his winning percentage.

There are only 66 pitchers in the Hall of Fame. That's a very small number. Some have unbelievable numbers, but many others had career numbers not that different from what Schilling's could be when he decides to hang them up.

So let's compare a few of them. In doing so, I'm not going to compare Curt Schilling with some of the best of all time, such as Cy Young, Lefty Grove (whose numbers are so great but who gets overlooked when people talk about the 5 greatest pitchers of all time), Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton.

I'll start at a different level of the Hall of Fame. Because there are levels within this pantheon, as not all Hall of Fame pitchers are as Hall-of-Fame-like as others. So here goes:

Remember Herb Pennock? Of course you do, if you played Strat-o-Matic or APBA, and the old-timers versions at that. "The Squire of Kennett Square" (Pennsylvania), Pennock pitched for both the '27 Yankees and the great Philadelphia A's teams of his generation. Pitched in 22 Major League seasons. Career record? 241-162, for a .598 winning percentage. Career ERA: 3.59. Won 20 games twice in his career. Pitched for better teams than Curt Schilling. Much better.

How about Eppa Rixey? Pitched for the Phillies and the Reds, with a career record of 266-251, with a 3.15 career ERA. Rixey didn't pitch for great teams (the '15 Phillies got to the World Series), and he did win 20 games in a season 4 times in his career. Good pitcher? Yes. Great? Hard to tell. Will Schilling be at his level if he has 3 or 4 more good seasons? Probably. Maybe even higher.

Jim Bunning? I'm still not convinced that Bunning made it in solely on his career record and that his being a United States Senator (and perhaps an early stalwart in the players' union) didn't have something to do with it. Bunning was the best of the second-tier pitchers of his generation. He wasn't Gibson, he wasn't Tom Seaver, Juan Marichal, Sandy Koufax or Fergie Jenkins. Good? You bet. A Hall of Famer? You decide. A career record of 224-184, for a .549 winning percentage. A career ERA of 3.27 in an ERA when parks were more spacious and the average batting averages were lower than they are now. Much lower.

And how about the Robin to Koufax's Batman, Don Drysdale? Career record of 209-166, for a winning percentage of .557. Career ERA of 2.95, but remember, if you had an ERA of 3.50 back in the late 1950's and 1960's you were a candidate for banishment to the buses of the bush leagues. Drysdale won 20 games only twice, and the Dodgers usually were in the first division if not first place when Drysdale played. He was a fierce pitcher at times, loved to throw inside (the writers, so many of them, wrote that if Koufax only threw inside the way Drysdale did, he wouldn't have lost a game) but he just might have made the Hall because the Dodgers back then didn't have much offense, and the voters must have figured that there was a great player other than Sandy Koufax who helped drive the bus. There wasn't. Good, yes (like Bunning)? Hall of Famer? You make the call. That said, he's in the Hall, and, therefore, should be used as a measuring stick of sorts for future candidates. (I can hear Bill James howling now that there has to be a more serious measuring stick for Hall admission than Don Drysdale).

Catfish Hunter was one of the best pitchers of the 1970's. I don't want you to get the impression that I'm knocking these Hall of Fame pitchers excessively; I'm not making any arguments that have not been made before. And I do believe that Hunter belongs in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the most dominating pitchers in the 1970's, and he got it done without much fuss for some championship teams in Oakland and New York. Career record: 224-166, for a .574 winning percentage and a career ERA of 3.26. Won 20 games or more 5 years in a row. Outstanding career on great teams.

There are others with comparable numbers, or at least numbers that will be comparable to Curt Schilling's if Schilling can put together a few more good seasons. My point is that the Hall of Fame most definitely is within Curt Schilling's reach. He's had a flaky career in terms of how his stats fall. It took him many years of professional baseball (and a wakeup lecture by Roger Clemens) to jump start his career (with a silver lining that he probably didn't throw too many pitchers before he was 25, meaning that his arm probably has more life in it at 37 than Doc Gooden's had in his at 30). And he's pitched for some bad teams and has missed some time owing to injury along the way (such as last season). And all that said, his career winning percentage is just about .600. His career ERA is 3.34. Not only did he pitch well in the post-season in 2001 with Arizona, he also was lights out with the Phillies against the Blue Jays in 1993.

I'll leave it to all of the websites, bloggers, actuaries and statisticians to tell me whether from a comparative decades' standpoing Schilling warrants inclusion in the Hall and whether his numbers stand up not only to existing Hall of Famers, but to his current peers. My bet is that they do.

If you play the game of "who would you rather have right now", who would you take over Schilling? Forget potential. Forget age. Let's talk about the here and now.

Greg Maddux? No, not now. He's a five-inning pitcher in 2004.

Tom Glavine? No, not now, and probably not over the course of a great career that should land Glavine in the Hall of Fame. The ultimate in crafty lefties? You bet. Today? Probably kicking himself that he left Atlanta for the steamship Titanic that is the New York Mets. Hitters don't fear Tom Glavine the way they do Curt Schilling.

Roger Clemens? Very close call. But, then again, Clemens well could be one of the five best pitchers of all time. Edge to Clemens, but, then again, with the exception of another lead-pipe cinch for the Hall of Fame, Randy Johnson, name another pitcher over whom, the way he has pitched this year, Roger Clemens doesn't have the edge? You can't.

Jason Schmidt? No, not now, because his performance has tailed off a bit since his injury earlier this season.

Kerry Wood? Mark Prior? They're not at full strength. Three years from now, pehaps. But not right this moment. And Prior is getting hit especially hard.

Mark Mulder? Tim Hudson? Mulder was up there for a while, but his ERA is much higher. And let's see the A's win a post-season series, while we're at it. (Yes, I'm being hypercritical, but when you're talking about the elite hurlers, it's harder to find distinguishing factors).

Johan Santana? Maybe. But he hasn't pitched in the clutch the way Schilling has. He hasn't had the opportunities, true, but Schilling has, and he's made the most of them.

Pedro Martinez? Close. Schilling's big-game record is better. (If you check out Hall of Famers' stats, check out Sandy Koufax's and Dizzy Dean's for careers that are similar to Pedro's). I'd take Schilling in the big game.

Randy Johnson? Let's give the edge to the Big Unit, who's pitched much better this season than his record otherwise would suggest and who is pitching now for one of the worst teams in baseball. A first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Mike Mussina? Orlando Hernandez (he is pitching great, is super-hot, but will he hold up)? Javier Vazquez? Fuhgeddaboutit. And Schilling, in the Bronx? He doesn't scare much.

And he's "only" 37 (he'll turn 38 in November). No pitcher prepares better for an opponent than Schilling. He needs to stay healthy (to his credit, he's in much better shape than he was last year), but let's say he pitches until he's 42, and let's say he goes 60-35 in that time frame, with an ERA of about 3.35. Let's say he has one or two more 20 win seasons during that time. That will give him a career record of 247-158, and that makes him a Hall of Famer.

At least in my book.

And perhaps that of everyone else.

The Hit Police

John Lynch has made a career of hitting people. Typically opposing wide receivers, tight ends and running backs. Hitting them hard.

Dare come over the middle? John Lynch will be there, waiting to unload. His aggressive play has made him a well-known and well-regarded defensive back. He helped lead Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl victory two years ago. 12 years in the league, 5 Pro-Bowl selections. An elite player.

After last season, Tampa Bay decided to move its defense in a different direction. Goodbye, Warren Sapp, goodbye John Lynch. So after a long career in Tampa, John Lynch signed with the Denver Broncos.

This past Sunday, John Lynch delivered a big hit on Dante Hall, the Kansas City WR who is better known as a punt returner. The hit made all the highlight shows. Why? Because Hall dared come downfield in Lynch's territory, trying to make a catch. And what happened?

Lynch leveled him. Big-time hit. Right up there with the Eagles' hits on Jeff Feagles (by Jeremiah Trotter) and Eli Manning (by Jerome McDougle, I believe).

Old-time football.

Smash-mouth football.

The type of football that fans pay to see.

The type of football that the NFL sells.

And the type of football that the NFL makes the hitters pay for. They fined John Lynch $7,500 for a hit that the opposing coach, Dick Vermeil, thought was clean.

Lynch, of course, is appealing. He rightfully points out the hypocrisy that is the NFL. Sell the hits and the hitting, but fine the hitters.

Promote the passing game, change rules to give the league more offense, but sell the violence. Except for one big problem, the premises cannot always co-exist. The fans may want more offense, but they don't want flag football. They want collisions, not just contact, good old American football, not ice dancing.

Which means that the desire for more offense will collide with the desire for hard-hitting action. Probably in every game, in every week. Which means, correspondingly, that the NFL has to figure out what to do about this tension. And quickly, before the Hit Police end up putting too many good DBs on the sidelines or in the poor house.

And the NFL needs to do something other than make public fools out of its administration to are doing some Monday-morning refereeing.

If you want to fine the John Lynches of the world, fine, but then don't feature the hard-hitting action as part of your sales pitch. If you want to outlaw that type of hitting, outlaw it, but have fun writing the rules to define what type of hitting is acceptable. And have fun putting red "hands off" jerseys on all skill position players on offense.

Otherwise, save the press releases and the fines for the really bad stuff.

And let the defensive players play the game.

Which is, lest the NFL administration need reminding, tackle football.

In Defense of Frank Francisco?

I'm becoming more of a headline writer, I suppose, in my later days as a blogger, and perhaps I just wrote this to get your attention. You can read a good analysis of fan incidents in today's USA Today by clicking here.

I am not here to defend what Frank Francisco did. What Frank Francisco did was wrong. Period. And after some jousting between the players' union and Major League Baseball, Frank Francisco will receive an appropriate punishment. The precedent is about 8 games (read the USA Today article), and it may be that Mr. Francisco, a good reliever who was the AL rookie of the month for August, is done for the year (thereby setting a new precedent). He's also facing criminal charges in Oakland, and he'll get slapped with a civil suit too. Fair enough, he transgressed, there were plenty of witnesses, and there is film of the incident. All of those processes will take their course.

But then the whole incident should be over. Mr. Francisco probably regrets what he did, and I'm sure that the whole Texas Rangers' team wishes that they could have handled the situation differently and that no one got hurt. Mr. Francisco is a good pitcher who did a bad thing. He didn't kill anyone, he didn't cripple anyone, he didn't crash a country's economic system. He just did something stupid, he'll pay in terms of forfeited salary, a fine, a plea bargain and a negotiated settlement in a civil case. But that should be it.

There has been a good deal of public outrage at what happened at the Oakland Coliseum, and many former athletes have been quoted as saying that regardless of the behavior of the fans, that players never should take matters into their own hands unless they have to defend themselves. And that advice makes a lot of sense. Complain to security, hope that the home team's personnel can handle the situation, and then walk away. One of the most notorious hecklers in the NBA was reported to be a Washington-area lawyer and Wizards fan who used to sit behind the visiting benches and mercilessly heckle visiting players. My guess is at times he said some pretty mean things (he was featured in reports on the major networks), but no one ever took a swing at him in the NBA. Ever.

Would you be able to do the same thing if a customer of your company or shareholder or vendor were at your cubicle or in your office not just questioning your company's product, but yelling insults about your family, about you personally? Are you sure?

I would be interested in the Sports Law blog's take on what speech the First Amendment protects at public stadiums and whether teams can deny fans their seating in certain areas based upon what they say, as almost anything short of terroristic threats is protected speech. That said, it could well be that there is language on the ticket that enables the home team to remove fans for unruly behavior (the question becomes, in essence, whether, despite the disclaimer on the ticket, the teams have the right under the First Amendment to remove someone for disagreeable speech directed at a visiting bullpen -- I am not so sure that they could do so and withstand a challenge in court). In short, I don't think that teams want to post speech codes because they'll get a lot of negative publicity and spends tens of thousands of dollars defending them.

There are three factors that can make it challenging, at times, for players to exercise restraint (but, given the rather large number of games and small number of incidents, pro athletes by and large have behaved themselves very well in this regard). First is the increased proximity of fans to players. Second is the relatively low priority home teams give to security. Many of the so-called security personnel, as Jayson Stark pointed out on ESPN Radio this morning, are retired people who make $25 a game and might need defibrillation after stepping into a melee. And many of the fans like to congregate near exposed bullpens in new stadiums to get close to the players. Case in point is the new Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, where the bullpens are stacked in left center, with, of course, the opposing team's pen on top of the home team's, meaning that the visitors are closer to the fans (which is probably good for the Phils, given that some of their so-called firemen have actually proved to be incendiaries this year). There is plenty of beer out there, and, well, the language can get pretty rough. I joked with my friends that when I took my young son to a game there in August, I told him that "You Suck" was the name of a Korean reliever for the Astros because of the number of times it was shouted at the visiting players in the bullpen. Third is the availability of beer. Jayson Stark reported this morning that while he is in favor of having beer served in ballparks, perhaps teams should eliminate vendors from the areas near the bullpens or at least try to reduce consumption there. His is a point worth studying.

Fan behavior, of course, has always been a problem and perhaps always will be. People pay a lot of money for tickets, life in the U.S. is stressful, people like to jeer the visiting team as a means of blowing off steam, and beer is available. It's probably a good time for teams to re-assess the security they provide in vulnerable areas, such as visiting bullpens, dugouts, benches, entryways to a field or arena and the like.

And it's probably also time to stop ease out of conversations about this topic. This really is an isolated incident, incidents like these don't happen that often, and once in a great while a player can lose his cool.

Albert Belle didn't get banned for life because he hit a heckling fan with a baseball. Juan Marichal made it to the Hall of Fame despite hitting John Roseboro with a baseball bat during a game with the Dodgers. Robbie Alomar spat on umpire John Hirshbeck several years ago and is still playing in the major leagues.

And, after the dust settles, and assuming that the incident was nothing more than a young man's losing his cool, a promising young pitcher named Frank Francisco should be playing in the majors too.

Is Mike Sherman a SportsProf Disciple?

You may recall an earlier post regarding the "Multi-Flex" offense, in which I elaborated on my view that all football teams need to disguise their offenses better given how athletic many defenses are and how by endless study defensive units can predict the movements of offenses based on prior tendencies. I called it the "Multi-Flex", perhaps in tribute to one-time Harvard coach Joe Restic, who had a complicated form of offense that actually was better in theory than in practice. Restic had some success in Cambridge, but he did not enjoy nearly the success that his rival Carmen Cozza did at Yale. I don't recall the exact tenets of the "Multi-Flex," except I do recall that one-time Cincinnati Bengal punter (and occasional WR) Pat McInally, a Harvard alumnus, wrote a paper on it but confessed that he had difficulty describing it (this begs the question as to how one could get academic credit for a sports-related endeavor at fair Harvard). I saw Coach Restic's offense in action a few times, but I suppose I missed the basic premise of the offense. At any rate, the purpose of my Multi-Flex, which, unless Harvard football alumni object, I will call the SportsProf Multi-Flex, is to run plays from symmetrical formations so that the defense cannot guess what is coming. In addition, and ever importantly, the SportsProf Multi-Flex requires the use of five or six multi-purpose backs who can run, pass and through. In this fashion, the defense cannot really guess who will handle the mail on a regular basis.

What I should have written, but did not, was something I learned while watching Sports Center on ESPN this morning. Mark Schlereth, the one-time Bronco and Redskin offensive lineman, broke down why the Green Bay Packers' offense succeeded against the vaunted Carolina Panthers' defense last night on Monday Night Football. You'll recall the kudos that the Panthers' defense got at the end of last season, especially the front seven. And, in case you missed the game, the Packers handled the Panthers, and Brett Favre "only" threw for 143 yards. What happened? The Packers, with a very good offensive line, ran almost at will on the Panthers. (It does helps if you have Ahman Green to carry the ball). How? By running many plays out of the same formation. The formation wasn't symmetrical, as I have touted, but it was the same one. As a result, the Panthers' front seven was kept guessing as to how the Packers would attack, and, of course, because they couldn't really get any reads, they guessed wrong.

Great credit goes to the Green Bay coaching staff and head coach Mike Sherman. By running many plays out of the same formation, Green Bay disguised what it really wanted to do. It helps, of course, if you have an offensive line as seasoned and good as theirs, a Hall of Fame QB, and a top RB. Put the two together, and your team has a potent formula for success.

While it helps to have strength and athletic ability on defense, it also helps to have some intelligence as to what the opponent's tendencies are. If offensive units continue to mask tendencies using the same formations, defenses will have to figure out better ways to stop the ball. Athletic ability and brute strength are great ingredients, but crafty offensive coordinators can make even the strongest and fastest defensive units miss through well-designed and well-executed game plans.

Long-live the trap, the counter-trey, the option pass, the inside reverse, smaller, quicker offensive linemen and multi-talented athletes who can throw, run and pass.

These plays, and those players, could well be the wave of the future.

After all, given the toll injuries take in the NFL today, if you can't run over them or through them, you might as well try to run around them.

Don't Pop the Corks Just Yet

Giddy.

That's what they are in Philadelphia after the Eagles' first opening day win since 2000 (and that game was memorable, when the Eagles, fortified by cramp-preventing pickle juice on a very hot day, waxed the Cowboys to start the season).

There are many reasons to be optimistic. A running game that showed no signs of missing Duce Staley. A high-octane passing game with a bona fide star receiver who did his college work at Tennessee-Chattanooga (yes, that's where T.O. went to school). A QB whose accuracy has been questioned who looked very accurate on Sunday. A second-year TE who made a nice TD catch. An offensive smorgasboard, an offensive juggernaut. People always wondered what Donovan McNabb could do with a first-line WR. Now they know.

Still, there are a few reasons to doubt in light fo three straight losses in the NFC title game. A defense, with undersized DTs, over-injured DEs, misunderstood LBs, questioned CBs, outstanding S's that bent but did not break, that defended well against the pass but still resembled more of a sieve than a dam against the run. A defense that didn't have all starters on the field together in the pre-season, a defense that thankfully had the Giants to defend in the first game and not, say, the Minnesota Vikings, whom they get in the second game. A defense that probably will improve against the run.

Their special teams played pretty well. True, Brian Westbrook isn't returning punts, but second-year player Reno Mahe, Westbrook's backup at tailback, had some nice returns. And rookie J.R. Reid (not to be confused with the former Carolina basketball player of the same name) had an inspirational kickoff return after the Giants' early TD, refusing to quit.

But before the Birds pop the champagne corks and take their place in the Super Bowl, there are key questions that need answering:

1. Injuries. So far, they've lost Shawn Andrews, the very promising starting G, for the season (broken fibula). Ditto for DE N.D. Kalu and backup RB Correll Buckhalter, who really was going to be more than a backup. How many more key players can get injured for this team to continue to strive toward the Super Bowl? Last year, they were banged up a bit, and this year, they've lost those 3 already and outside LB Nate Wayne couldn't go on Sunday, either. And starting CB Lito Sheppard is playing with a broken thumb, while back-up DT Paul Grasmanis didn't play because of an achilles problem. The offensive line now has no depth, as the first back-up lineman, Artis Hicks, will started at left guard, wtih Jermane Mayberry moving to right guard. And, of course, the big fear in the City of Brotherly Love is what would happen if Brian Westbrook, who at times looked like Barry Sanders out there, were to get hurt. What would happen then? Some observers say that the Eagles offensive line can protect anyone and create holes for anyone; they just might get the chance to prove it.

2. Defense. We all know the old adage that "offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships." Defensive coordinator Jim Johnson has his work cut out for him, as the Giants, woeful offensive line and all (but with good RBs in Tiki Barber and Ron Dayne) at times went through the Eagles' front seven like it was a house of cards. The Birds will have to firm up their run defense, and they don't have any run stuffers on the defensive line. In an era where 330-pound linemen like Ted Washington have defined the position, only one DT in the Eagles' rotation, back-up Hollis Thomas, tops 300 pounds (starters Darwin Walker and Corey Simon weigh something like 297 and 288 pounds respectively). And the LBs will have to show that they are strong enough to stay in there when the going gets tough.

It's very early in the season, and every team has its challenges. The Eagles most certainly have theirs. Their offense was dazzling, and that unit looked to be in mid-season form.

Unfortunately, so did the Eagles' defensive unit, albeit mid-season 2003 form, where their run defense was, unfortunately, running out of gas with about half of the d-line rotation out because of injury.

If the Eagles can stay healthy, develop a little depth at running back and figure out a better way to stop the run, then they (and their fans) could well be popping the corks in the winter of 2005.

If they can't do some or all of those things, then the fan will popping off during what could prove to be a very long off-season.

To be fair, the Eagles' front office has done a good job of managing the team's roster and addressing weaknesses. The two most glaring weaknesses from last season were the lack of a game-breaking receiver and the lack of a strong pass rush. They remedied those issues with trading for T.O. and signing Jevon Kearse. The next weaknesses were the following: run defense and starting LBs. They got healthier on the defensive line with the return of Paul Grasmanis, Hollis Thomas, Derek Burgess and Jamal Green (and they'll have Jerome McDougle healthy for an entire season), so the interior line play should improve. Yet, they didn't markedly improve the LB position and they probably weakened a bit at corner, letting Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent to leave via free agency. That said, in the era of the salary cap, it's hard to field outstanding, deep units on both sides of the ball the way, say, the Steelers did in the late 70's and early 80's. The dropoff at corner isn't all that significant, as Sheldon Brown and Lito Sheppard are good talents, and the cognoscenti argue the LB is the least important position in the Eagles' defensive scheme. And, if the offense proves good enough to control the ball and keep the defense off the field, the defense should be better rested and better able to play at the top of its game.

On balance, the Eagles' offense is better than it was three years ago, when the Eagles went to their first NFC title game, while their defense is not as good. If the latter proves to be good enough, the Eagles will win their first Super Bowl.

So long as no other key players get hurt.

Only Wayne Gretzky Seems To Be Excited

And perhaps it's because he still loves to compete, doesn't want to or can't lace 'em up competitively anymore, and that's all well and good, but does anyone else really care about hockey's world cup? Excuse me, hockey's "World Cup". But clearly not, the World Cup. After all, there's only one of those, and no one will confuse hockey's summerfest with real (as opposed to American) football's extravaganza that halts commerce in whole countries every four years.

That's why the headline of Martin Brodeur's readiness for the final game doesn't excite anyone. Except perhaps Martin Brodeur, a few Finnish forwards who want to snipe at an all-time great, and perhaps the people who will be in the arena. Okay, and maybe the families of the players and certain hockey-mad Canadians and Finns.

But the rest of the world?

This event is a snooze.

The rest of the sporting world that can really help pay the freight to support this tournament, read, Americans? Fuggedaboutit, they're watching, in no particular order, the baseball pennant races and the start of the NFL season. And for those in the more genteel set, who actually sometimes do count ice hockey among the preppy sports because it's played at boarding schools, they're waiting for some smashmouth golf courtesy of the Ryder Cup, waiting for spouses of the U.S. lineup to pump up the players with the best pre-game rituals this side of Ray Lewis's sideline routines before your average Ravens' game. Waiting to shout cruel, elementary schoolyard names at the European players from the gallery, all in the name of patriotism. Or, they could be watching college football or even the World Series of Poker (not to be confused, of course, with the World Series).

But they're certainly not waiting for this game.

Or, for that matter, the upcoming NHL season (and, as I write this while watching the opening number before ABC's "Monday Night Football", doesn't Hank Williams, Jr. look like the former WWF wrestler Randy "Macho Man" Savage? See, it's just hard to focus on professional ice hockey for, say, more than 10 minutes in the summertime). Because, if they want to wait for the upcoming NHL season, they might have to wait until the ice melts. Reports in today's papers indicate that the NHL and its players' association are far apart, and that the season might not start on time. Big surprise there.

So, if you're a true hockey fan, you should drop what you're doing and watch this game, because it may be the last one you watch for a while.

Of course, if Canada wins, you can look forward to the obligatory shots of Wayne Gretzky acting like a little boy on Christmas Day, celebrating the victory.

And then, like the rest of us, you'll wonder when, and perhaps if, professional hockey will return in the United States.

And then, like some of them, you'll decide whether you really care.

Better Get Used to It

I had posted earlier on the women's final in the U.S. Open, and I had speculated that the two Russian women who made the final had nothing on two more glamorous and notorious Russian women who didn't (one bowed out early, the other was a never-was who had retired months ago). I speculated that the final would be boring, that CBS would be bumming, and that the affair would be a lead balloon that would further defeat the cause of tennis in the U.S.

And while I still reluctantly conclude that I may be right, I enjoyed watching the U.S. women's final last night on CBS. True, there were no Americans in the match, as Jen and Lindsey and Serena and Venus were all absent, and true the telegenic Maria Sharapova was absent. Ditto for former #1 Justin Henin-Hardienne and current #1 Amelie Mauresmo, and for injured top-10 player Kim Clijsters. What you had was a match between the crafty Eva Dementieva, the #6 seed, who had baffled her opponents with a three-quarters motion serve that could bearly break 80 mph and more frequently was in the mid-70s (reminiscent of watching Jamie Moyer pitch for the Mariners and throwing three speeds -- slow, slower and slowest), against 19 year-old Svetlana Kuznetsova, a free-swinging, hard-hitting player who counts among her mentors Martina Navratilova and Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario and whose parents are cycling coaches in Russia (her brother won a silver in cycling at the Atlanta Olympics). This player knows only one way to play -- hard.

It was a good match between the elegant 5'11" Dementieva and the relatively sawed-off 5'7" (or so) Kuznetsova, and the latter was the first opponent of Dementieva in this tournament who refused to get baffled by the softball serves and took advantage of them at every opportunity. The result: Kuznetsova in a straight-set victory, and she earned the observation from CBS's commentator Mary Carrillo that she may be the best Russian women's player, better than Sharapova (who won Wimbledon), Dementieva, Anastasis Myskina (who won the French Open), Nadia Petrova (who made it into the fourth round at Flushing Meadow) or Vera Zvonareva.

And that's saying a whole lot right there.

And what's more, these Russian women are young and hungry, and their best tennis is ahead of them. That's something you cannot say about Capriati, Davenport or even Venus Williams. And, as much as I like her athletic ability and her game, it regrettably may be something that you could say about Serena Williams as well.

I still believe that when she's concentrating totally on tennis, there's no one who can beat Serena Williams today. Except that's the problem, Serena's a very bright woman, has many interests, including designing, and she and her sister always have had designs to go to college. She's not totally focusing on tennis, and she has had her share of injuries, the types of injuries that wear young women who have played hours of tennis a day for years since they were young kids totally down and ultimately forces them off the tennis map. The Russian women, by contrast, don't seem to have the off-court distractions (everyone has her nagging injuries, and Dementieva probably has a shoulder that could use surgery, so that she can try to find a serve that is comparable to other top-10 players), and, as a result, could be concentrating better on tennis and working harder at it than Serena Williams.

Because for every meeting Serena takes with someone on a promotional idea, for every hour she sits at the design table, some of those Russian women (it remains to be seen whether Sharapova falls prey to the same distractions) are focusing on tennis all of the time. Kuznetsova seems like one of those women, and she's only 19 and is more jock than she is glamor girl. And she'll get better. And then Serena will have to determine whether she wants to be atop the tennis world, a rather parochial pursuit, or a well-rounded person, which may not give her some of the limelight that to which she has grown accustomed. And that's a hard call.

No matter how you slice it (or serve it at 120 m.p.h.), Serena Williams probably will be the sole American contender in a few years and for a few years, out there facing Sharapova, Myskina, Kuznetsova and the rest.

This may be a good thing for women's tennis, but not necessarily such a good thing for the major networks.

Unless, of course, Serena Williams stays focused and Maria Sharapova continues to play well, proving that she's Anna Kournikova with a game. If that happens, there will be great tennis.

And great television.

And if not, and Kuznetsova and others take charge, that could be pretty good too.

It just may take the organized tennis world a little longer to figure it out.

Not Only the Uniforms Are Dull

I don't want to pile on here, but Penn State looked totally lackluster and uninspired in its 21-7 loss to Boston College in Massachusetts. And it wasn't like BC is a pre-season Top 25 team, either. The Eagles gave a lackluster effort themselves a week ago against Ball State, and they played well enough to win against the visiting Nittany Lions last night.

It used to be that Penn State had the horses on both sides of the ball to control the game. Proof of that was the number of offensive and defensive linemen that made it into the NFL and had very good careers. Those numbers have dwindled in recent memory, and efforts like last night's are evidence as to why. Penn State just doesn't have the kids who can blow the other team off the ball -- either on offense or on defense. Behind the lines, they just don't have enough playmakers who can stop the other team on third and short or, conversely, can convert on a key third-down possession.

And if you look at the rosters of the Top 25 teams in the country, count how many of them have kids from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, formerly the most fertile recruiting grounds for the Nittany Lions. It used to be that if Penn State came calling in those areas, the other schools in the hunt were cooked. No longer. I did some informal looking a few weeks ago, and there are many of these players playing for better-ranked schools. The kids who formerly provided the core thirty or so players who made Penn State a perennial Top 25 team are now going elsewhere.

The Nittany Lions need a good year to reinvigorate their program, and they aren't likely to get it. What's worse, there isn't a likely successor to Coach Paterno in State College. And any possible successor will have to deal with the looming legacy of Joe Paterno, and that will be tough. Because State College isn't a bustling metropolis -- the Paterno influence is everywhere, and unfair comparisons -- to Paterno is his heyday -- will abound. Which means that any successor must have JoePa's blessing, a promise that JoePa will act like a statesman and not be too omnipresent as to the program, or else a very thick skin.

There are some very good coaches out there who could do wonders in State College, with Cal's Jeff Tedford being first on the list. Penn State will need a successor to Coach Paterno soon, and perhaps very soon. They still have this season to play, but if last night's game was any indication, not only is change inevitable, it also must be invited.

More quickly than the movement of the Penn State offense.

The Stopper

Teams make lots of moves in the off-season to try to improve their rosters. "Hope springs eternal," they say, and this is especially so in baseball, where hope springs up significantly in the spring. Teams sign the big free agent, make the big trade, do anything to get to the playoffs and then, hopefully, victory in the World Series. Every team has a 0-0 record to start the season, and many legitimately believe that if several things fall into place, they have a shot at the post-season.

Much of this, of course, is folly. The key free agent signing happens to be past his prime, doesn't have the same bat speed, shows up not with a ring around the head of his bat but one around his middle. The ace pitcher inexplicably has lost a foot off his fastball, or the hitters have figured out that if they can trust their coaches and take a few more pitches against this one-time ace, the sliders they swing at out of fear fall out of the strike zone as balls. Or the returning veterans just aren't good enough any more, or, worse, they are, but they just have awful years.

Yogi Berra was right on when he said, "You know, you never know."

Except, perhaps, in the case of the most key deal in the off-season. Because, in this case, everyone knew that the main guy in this big trade was the real deal, even if he was coming off a disappointing season (because of an injury and because he didn't watch his weight the way he should have). The trade was the real deal because the guy could still bring it, prepares like no one else in the game, and performs better under the bright lights than any other pitcher in the majors. The player: Curt Schilling.

I thought then as I do now that if the BoSox could stay close to the Yankees and get them into a short series, that the odds would have to favor the Red Sox, for the simple reason that if they could set up their rotation right, they'd have Curt Schilling pitching their most important game. Remember the 1993 World Series? The Phillies needed a win in Game 5, and Schilling, against a very powerful Blue Jay's lineup, threw a 138-pitch gem and beat the Jays 2-0 to force a Game 6. Big game, big performance. And the 2001 World Series? Who outdueled Roger Clemens in Game 7 after having won 2 games for the Diamondbacks up to that point? Curt Schilling.

So cut to yesterday, when the Red Sox needed a win? Who was on the mound? Who beat the Mariners? Who stopped Ichiro's 14-game hitting streak? Who is the first 19-game winner in the American League? Who's frequently in the late-season conversations about the Cy Young Award?

Curt Schilling.

Javier Vazquez, formerly the Expos' ace, got lit up yesterday for a ton of earned runs (7 or 8) in about 2 and a third innings. Mike Mussina does have 200 career wins, but he's not an "It" type of starting pitcher. El Duque can have his moments, but he's well past his prime, a prime that he had probably about 10 years ago pitching for Fidel Castro. And Kevin Brown? Well, when healthy, he is an "It" type of pitcher, except when he lost it, punched the wall, and then lost the "It."

Throw in Pedro Martinez, and the Red Sox have the most devastating one-two punch in the post-season since, well, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. (The ironic part is that Pedro and the Big Unit are locks for the Hall of Fame, while Schilling probably needs to pitch well through his early 40's to get a serious look). And they could be good enough to end the Curse of the Bambino. Martinez is one of the best, but he's had his health problems, and he may not be the same pitcher he was in his peak years. Schilling, though, shows every sign of getting stronger.

In the off-season, Schilling wanted to leave Arizona for the place that put him on the map, Philadelpia. He wanted to return to the Phillies, where he was beloved (at least by the fans), but a trade between the D-Backs and Phillies just didn't work out (the D-Backs wanted too many prime prospects, and the Phillies didn't want to part with two potential #1 starters in Gavin Floyd and Cole Hamels). Schilling would have loved to pitch in the new Citizens Bank Park on opening day, and he would have loved to lead the Phillies back to the post-season. And boy the Phillies could have used him, couldn't they? A Schilling-led pitching staff might have the Phillies atop the NL East or in the thick of the NL wild card chase.

Instead, Schilling gets traded to the Red Sox, and he's the one guy who loves the heat, loves the rivalry, and who has enough of a sense of history to know that there aren't many greater challenges in baseball than leading the Red Sox to their first World Series title since 1918 (the Cubs have a longer drought, but the sense of dread over their post-season possibilities doesn't rival the foreboding gloom that seemingly envelops New England every September). Curt Schilling knows that if he can help the BoSox achieve this goal, he'll be the King of New England in a town that was famous for dissing the King of England and starting the Revolutionary War.

Have a game seven? World Championship on the line? In St. Louis, perhaps, or in Fenway.

Curt Schilling will be ready.

Call him a stopper, a curse breaker, the King of New England, whatever.

Just give him the ball in the big game and let him do the rest.

Fields of Schemes

If you haven't checked out the Field of Schemes weblog, you should. This blogger does a good job of addressing the issue of building stadiums in various cities, and some of the pitfalls that await taxpayers if they believe that using they hard-earned tax dollars for these venues actually makes good sense.

Everyone thought the Greeks did a good job pulling off the Olympics, and you'll get no debate here (at least from the standpoint of putting on a good show that looked good on TV), except that it appeared that the Olympics were under-attended, probably owing to three main reasons. First, there was so much talk about security concerns and a terrorist attack that many people figured that they should go to a less popular place to spend their summer vacation. (When asked whether she was concerned about security at the Olympics, Martina Navratilova responded that she wasn't concerned at all, because the Olympics were probably the best-guarded place in the world and that terrorists usually strike less secure places. She had a good point). Second, many locals take August off, and this summer they fled Athens in droves. Third, the local hospitality vendors (read: hoteliers) jacked up their prices so much that some members of the press actually had to stay in converted hospital rooms because those were all they could afford. And they were subsized. The ordinary fan wasn't going to fork over the equivalent of $800 a night for an average hotel room. Other than that, the spectacle was quite terrific on television, and NBC did a fair job of not screwing up whatever drama could be preserved with built in time delays.

But when you say, "the Greeks did a good job," for whom did they actually do a good job? Probably not themselves, as the Field of Schemes blogger points out. The Greeks will have a big deficit, they don't have post-Olympics uses for many of the facilities, and they could be in debt for years. Just ask Montreal, which is still paying off the 1976 Olympic games. And you're talking serious debt here.

So, if you're a citizen of New York, which is bidding for the 2012 games, and you're already worried about very high taxes, the deficits the city is running, and the lunacy of the campaign to build a football stadium on the west side (figuring that whatever damage Robert Moses didn't already do to this wonderful metropolis, Woody Johnson and his new political friends certainly can finish off if they get the chance), be very careful here. Yes, you have a great city, but do you really want the Olympics?

After all, some things are truly better off if you watch them on TV.

A Funny Thing Happened at the U.S. Open

Poor Jennifer Capriati. She beat Serena Williams two nights ago in the quarterfinals, only to have the AP writer who penned the story write it from the angle that a bad linesman's call that the chair umpire refused to overrule cost Serena the match. Sure, the call was a bad one, but how about the eleventy billion unforced errors that Serena had in the match, probably more unforced errors than she had in her last five Grand Slam singles matches combined? Serena is a great player, Capriati the once-and-future great player who is now a very good one, but good 'ol Jen (on the verge of pro tennis tour AARP at the ripe old age of what, 27?) didn't get the credit that she deserved two nights ago. She won the match, deserved a few more accolades, but was treated like a loser.

Poor Jennifer Capriati. You fast forward to today's women's semifinal matches, and you had to like her chances. If she got past slightly higher seeded Elena Dementieva, she would face the winner of #5 seed Lindsay Davenport and #9 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final. And she'd have to like the odds. Except for one thing -- she had to get past Dementieva, and she didn't. What she did do was play win a 49-stroke point and play in one of the best matches in U.S. Open history, including, from what the commentators have said was one of the best third sets in U.S. Open history. She lost this match, got some nice accolades, and was treated like a winner.

Poor Jen Capriati. She lost the match, and she lost a golden opportunity to win the U.S. Open. Poor Lindsay Davenport. She did the same thing.

And poor CBS, who had hoped that at least they'd get one American male in the men's final and perhaps two American women or the telegenic Maria Sharapova in the women's final. And what could have been better than that (except, for male viewers, a Sharapova-Kournikova final, but the odds of that happening were probably as good as, say, an all-Russian final that didn't include, well, Maria Sharapova)? So there's no Andy Roddick on Sunday, no Andre Agassi, heck, no Vince Spadea. And there's no Serena Williams, no Venus Williams, no Jennifer Capriati and no Lindsay Davenport.

And ratings that probably will be only slightly better than those of color commentator John McEnroe's talk show on CNBC.

Which, several weeks ago, garnered a 0.0 rating.

You can just hear the chants now at the U.S. Open.

J-E-T-S, Jets! J-E-T-S, Jets!

Don't Hand Over The Ivy Hoops Crown to Princeton Just Yet

To say the least, the past five years have been chaotic for Princeton's men's basketball team. Five years ago, in late summer, head coach Bill Carmody opted to go to Northwestern to replace Kevin O'Neill. This was after top aide Joe Scott accepted the head coaching position at Air Force, which meant that the logical, and thankfully the correct, choice was second assistant John Thompson III.

On top of that, current Texas Ranger Chris Young, the Tigers' two-time all-Ivy center, left school, became a third-round draft choice of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and signed for a bonus of over $1 million. Top-notch shooting guard, Spencer Gloger, yo-yoed back to UCLA, which had recruited him out of HS, ostensibly because of the coaching change, a desire to play closer to his Orange County, California home and to play bigger-time hoops. A few others quit the team, got hurt, or transferred (including swingman Tommy McLaughlin, who transferred to William & Mary, only to transfer back to Princeton last year; he's eligible this season).

So what happened? After that tumultuous off-season, the Tigers somehow upended the Penn Quakers and won the Ivy title in the 2000-2001 season. Outright.

Fast forward five seasons, and you had John Thompson III leave Princeton for Georgetown, a step up in anyone's book, where he can try to rekindle the rich legacy that his father created when he was the head coach there. Exit Thompson, enter Joe Scott, who probably would have gotten the Tigers' job five years ago when Carmody left had Scott not taken the Air Force job after the college hoops season ended in the spring.

Tiger fans are excited. They liked JTIII, were okay with some of his innovations to the Princeton offense, and that were satisifed that in JTIII's four seasons in Tigertown, he won 2 Ivy titles outright (in his first and last seasons) and tied for another one (although in that season his squad did not advance to the NCAA tournament). And they like Joe Scott, perhaps even more, for two main reasons. They believe that Scott is more traditional, will stick to the more classic Princeton offense, and will serve up teams that shoot the ball better and turn the ball over less (last year's Tiger squad was successful, but it didn't display the usual crispness for which a Princeton team had come to be known, especially under Pete Carril and Bill Carmody). And, they also expect that there will be less in the way of roster turnover. Fewer kids transferring, fewer kids taking years off for personal reasons, more predictability as to who will be on the squad from year to year.

There is some merit to the first expectation, as Scott's teams will probably innovate less and turn the ball over less, and play a more traditional Princeton style, and because of what I am about to write, there is much urgency to this expectation. As for the second expectation, well, the Tiger faithful just received some bad news. Very promising sophomore Harrison Schaen, from Mater Dei HS in Orange County, CA (he played for a nationally ranked squad that included Maryland's D.J. Strawberry and Minnesota's Wesley Washington) has opted to take a year off from school for "personal reasons." Under the Buckley Amendment, Tiger coach Joe Scott cannot say anything more, and Schaen was guarded about the reason for his wanting to stay closer to home.

Schaen was somewhat buried on the Tiger bench early last season, but by the second half he was the first big man off the bench and looked to be the best inside defensive player and rebounder in the entire Ivy League, a 6'10" kid with a good frame who blocked shots, threw a few 'bows and grabbed every rebound in sight. He would have played that role again this year behind returning first-team all-Ivy C Judson Wallace and PF Andre Logan, both of whom are seniors, and, in all likelihood, would have gotten a lot of playing time (at least 20 minutes per game). His loss doesn't decimate the Tigers inside (his offensive game needed work but showed promise), but they did benefit last year from having four kids 6'8" or taller playing the 4 or the 5, with the fourth player being C Mike Stephens, who also will be a senior. Stephens, who was vastly improved last season (but who played better early in the season than late), will definitely get playing time at the 4 and 5. And several sophs -- Patrick Ekeruo, Mike Rudoy and John Reynolds -- also will get a shot to be the fourth inside player in the rotation.

How big a loss will Schaen be? Well, the Tigers still have Wallace and Will Venable, another returning first-team all-Ivy player, and they will get good guard play. Still, losing a defensive and rebounding force such as Schaen (such a force was he that for the first time in a very long time the Tigers outrebounded their opponents) will hurt Princeton. Perhaps Wallace and Venable will give the Tigers enough star power, but the mandate to cut down on turnovers and shoot better from behind the arc becomes more pronounced.

And the difference between defending champion Princeton and its archrival Pennsylvania becomes smaller.

Intercollegiate Athletics and You

Move over Bob, because this time there's a whole commission studying intercollegiate athletics, and it's called the Knight Commission. And no, Myles Brand isn't on it, neither is Murray Sperber, former Indiana English professor, recurring Bob Knight critic, and author of a book called "Beer and Circus," an unscientific study as to why "big-time" colleges offer robust football and basketball programs and turn a blind eye toward partying -- so as to anesthetize the kids from realizing that they are getting a bad education. And neither, for that matter, are the
Washington Post reporters who discovered that many of the Top 25 football teams actually give their players academic credit for playing college football (Rick Reilly has a fun piece on this topic in this week's SI). And no, this commission doesn't answer the riddle as to why it's okay for undergraduate newspaper stringers to make money writing stories for the wire services while on campus but it's not okay for Jeremy Bloom, the erstwhile Colorado football player, to play football for the Buffs and not accept endorsement money because he's an outstanding professional extreme snowboarder (or something like that). And finally, this commission doesn't even begin to approach the question as to whether JFK was really killed by a single bullet.

No, this commission had a less lofty goal -- studying whether intercollegiate athletics had an effect on alumni donations or attracting better students. And the survey said: a resounding no.

So forget the Flutie Factor, which either is an aberration or an urban legend, depending on how you look at it. BC didn't become the Stanford of the East because of Doug Flutie's gridiron heroics 20 years ago, and neither has Duke displaced Harvard as the place many elite students want to attend because Coach K has turned the hoop program into a dynasty to be admired and emulated by all. Florida State hasn't received more alumni donations because Bobby Bowden has had a great run there, and it's unlikely that Princeton raised more money because it's men's lacrosse program has won 6 NCAA titles in the past 14 years. Ditto for the baseball schools, the ice hockey schools, the women's curling schools or the schools that sponsor first-rate rodeo teams. And it's probably unlikely that a student wanting to attend a Virginia, Duke or Carolina turned those schools down in favor of Bowden's beloved FSU because he wanted to go to a school with a Top 10 football team (unless, of course, he was a Top 100 football recruit or because FSU offered a needy non-footballer a full ride and the others schools did not).

You can click here and read all about it.

So rest assured that the evanescent success of a power forward (watch out UConn), a quarterback (hold on, Ole Miss) or a pitcher (don't try the comparative ad campaign targeting Stanford just yet, USC) won't turn your alma mater into a megabucks mind factory that steals the top undergrads away from the schools with wimpy football programs, basketball players who can't go to their left and pitchers whose fastballs can't break 80. You don't have to worry about turning yourself into Cal Tech, MIT or Yale anytime soon.

So what's the justification for intercollegiate athletics?

There really isn't one, is there? (Okay, I won't be a total killjoy; they can be fun).

Intercollegiate intramurals?

You bet. The kids get exercise, they stay in shape, they blow off steam, and yes, they participate. Perhaps learn a little teamwork, make some friends. And given the story today that 38% of school-aged kids in Arkansas are obese and the big national health issue that diabetes is spreading at an academic rate, all young people should be encouraged to engage in physical activity.

And not only watch it.

So let's take intercollegiate athletics for what they are, and not try to attribute salutary benefits to them that just do not happen. Like your school's QB, fine. Think he'll draw the great minds to your school because he was a great QB? Think again. Think he'll cause alumni to donate more money to the general fund? Not much of a chance. The general alumni might buy some more school shirts and football memorabilia after a national championship, and the football boosters might kick more into the kitty, but the benefits, according to this study, don't go beyond that.

Dreams Coming True

Everyone remembers "The Catch", the late fourth quarter pass that Joe Montana threw to Dwight Clark in the 1982 NFC championship game against Dallas that put the 49ers into their first Super Bowl (which they won, 26-21 against Ken Anderson, Icky Woods and the Cincinnati Bengals). The Catch came to represent the starting point for the 49er dynasty under Coach Bill Walsh and one of the best QBs of all time, Joe Montana.

Last night, ESPN had a shindig in NYC to celebrate its 25th anniversary. ESPN has had many great accomplishments in the past quarter century, and they also have not been shy about celebrating those accomplishments, talking about their humble origins and now how they probably changed the whole way sports are viewed. I like ESPN, like much of what they do (although their made-for-TV specials so far have been lacking to say the least), and do not necessarily care for some of their self-promotion (even though I will conceded that some of their commercials are hilarious).

But that's not the point of this post, because, as I said, ESPN has done a lot of great stuff. And one of the silver linings of that great stuff came out last night in the limo that Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic were riding in to this blessed event. As you know, the two Mikes host Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, and if you haven't caught their act, you should, because it's the best sports talk show in the country, bar none (and, yes, when I say bar none I mean including Mike & the Mad Dog in NYC, whose knowledge is first rate, whose guests are excellent, but who have way too many commercials, have become a little too big for their britches, and who sound absolutely idiotic when they talk about anything other than sports, and sometimes their tangents have strayed way far away from sports).

Well, Golic and Greenie are in the limo, and riding along with them was Nancy Kerrigan and her husband and Dwight Clark, whose most recent gig was as GM of the Cleveland Browns. And the story that Mike Golic relayed that Dwight Clark told was a gem.

Apparently, at some point in the early-to-mid 1980's, Dwight Clark was riding around with Joe Montana in Santa Rosa, California, a northern California town south of the wine country whose claim to fame had been as the host of the training camp for the Oakland Raiders. Montana was looking at some property in Santa Rosa, and they happened to drive by an empty lot where kids were playing pick-up football.

Their windows were down, and they witnessed these two kids talking about who would play Montana, who would play Clark, and how they would re-enact The Catch. Montana and Clark watched the kids for a while, and then they decided to get out of the car and say hello.

Of course, the kids easily recognized that the guys who were joining them were actually talking to their 49er heroes, Joe Montana and Dwight Clark. The 49er stars talked with the kids for a while and played catch with them, giving the kids the time of their young lives.

As Mike Golic said so wonderfully and simply in his enthusiastic voice, "How great was that?"

And he's right. Even today, twenty years later, kids still do a few things on the playgrounds and the sandlots, at least when they're not being scheduled for travel games and town leagues and lessons. They pretend to hit the last-second shot, score the game-winning goal, catch the game-winning TD. Or they imitate their favorite stars, who were doing just that in some big game in real life.

But how great is it that when you're an eleven year-old kid, outside with your best friend, in a relatively small town, talking about your hopes and dreams and your favorite teams, that all of a sudden two stars from your favorite team show up at your favorite place to play? No entourages, no agents, no flaks, no security guards. Just them, real people, coming out of their car to toss around the pigskin and to chat about what it's like to be a 49er, what it was like to beat the perceived-to-be-unbeatable Cowboys and then to conquer the Bengals in the Super Bowl. What it's like to play for the beloved hometown team.

Pretty neat stuff, huh? Joe Montana and Dwight Clark made those kids' day, month, year and probably young life.

How many times does that happen?

Probably as often as plays like "The Catch."

Baseball Roundup

There are several topics worthy of discussion today, so here goes:

1. A Tale of Two Cities. Both of these teams were struggling at the time of the trading deadline, and the speculation ran rampant that one of them would peddle its ace back to the American League, while the other was looking to make a big enough trade to put itself back into contention. So what happened? The former team stood pat after making a huge trade before the trading line hot-stove talk even began in earnest, while the latter traded for two relievers who were having good seasons (at least before the trade). And what has happened since then? Well, the former team has won 18 of its last 21 and is in the thick of the National League wild-card race after having been written off for dead -- the Houston Astros. The latter team has floundered miserably, hasn't pitched consistently, and hasn't hit well with runners in scoring position all year -- the Philadelphia Phillies. Astros manager Phil Garner just might shed the interim tag, and about a month ago the cognoscenti speculated as to who Drayton McLane might hire in the off-season for the job. Phillies manager Larry Bowa, hitting coach Greg Gross and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan probably will take the fall in Philadelphia, where Phillies' GM Ed Wade gave Bowa a vote of confidence only through the end of this season. And who are the fans blaming in Philadelphia? Ed Wade.

But the thing, as it were, about baseball is that you cannot pin the success or failure of one team on just one player or one manager, even if closers who don't close out the game (Mariano Rivera in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series), bad fielders (see Leon Durham in the 1984 NLCS and Bill Buckner in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series) or managers (see John McNamara in Games 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series and Grady Little in the 2003 ALCS) can get a good-sized share of the game. Which means, of course, that because you cannot fire players with guaranteed contracts, you fire the manager. But it's only even money that an Uncle Robbie-type of friendly manager will help make the Phillies' team, as currently constituted, play any better next year. They need a few more "live" bats, a few more guys with good OBPs, and better pitching.

But doesn't everyone? Okay, mostly everyone?

And then there's a lineup with Jeff Kent, Craig Biggio, Carlos Beltran, Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman. And how about pitching Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt in a short series?

All of a sudden, the Astros are looking pretty good.

2. Alibi Ike (or, perhaps, A Few People Who Didn't Read "If"). I won't get into the arguments about what happened at Yankee Stadium yesterday, whether the Devil Rays caused the stress on the schedule by not evacuating Tampa Bay early enough to make their double header with the Yankees on-time yesterday, or how much money the delay cost the Yankees by a) agreeing to a single game (how generous of them), b) postponing that game until 7 p.m. (and providing free hot dogs and sodas to those who came on time for a 1 p.m. twin bill, only to have to wait more than 6 hours for a single game (and, at Yankee prices, that's a good chunk of change) or b) how much money the Yankees will lose through the largesse they showed these fans by rendering their tickets for yesterday good for an additional game this season or next season (good business move). But where I will comment was on the quickly nixed (by Commissioner Bud Selig) request by the Yankees to forfeit the not-played second game in favor of the Yankees.

The only thing more ridiculous than reading about the Yankees' request at the expense of a team that just fled a hurricane was hearing Yankee president Randy Levine give his press conference on the topic. The request was ridiculous, and it shows how much panic must be going on in the executive suite in the Bronx. The BoSox are hot, they've captured the uncommited (i.e., non-Boston/non-Yankee) fans' attention, and they are closing fast on the Yankees' tail. The Yankees, meanwhile, have all sorts of pitching problems, and when you see C.J. Nitkowski and Tanyon Sturze out there you wonder whether the Columbus and New York rosters pulled a switch as a form of a bad practical joke. Sure, pull 3 ahead of the Red Sox by getting that forfeit. That's really tough, shows what a great team you have on the field.

If you can't beat 'em on the playground at recess, go complain to the principal. Gee, that always works.

Instead, the front office's short-sighted move, which never was going to get approved, makes the Yankees look like a once-proud and mighty business trying to hold onto the last bit of supremacy they had (can you hear Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" playing in the background now?). But that supremacy ended three years ago, and if I were to write this post a year from now, I'd say four years ago.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, are charging, and they have two money starting pitchers who will take them far in a short series, including the best clutch pitcher in a long while, Curt Schilling.

It's bad enough for Yankee fans to know that their team is struggling, that A-Rod is having a down year for A-Rod and that perhaps even the beloved Jeter and the always reliable Bernie may not be able to drag them to another World Series title.

It's worse, though, when the front office blunders and lets everyone know that they're having a panic attack in the corporate suite.

3. The Sun Also Rises. "Also" is the key word here, because there is so much other good stuff going on that Ichiro's attempt to break George Sisler's 84 year-old record for most hits in a season isn't getting top billing. And it should be. He has 226 hits now, has 25 games left in the season, and is on pace to get 267 hits, which would top Gorgeous George (that was his nickname) by 10 hits. If Ichiro Suzuki hits slightly above .300 for the remainder of the season (based on an estimated 4.2 at-bats per game from his leadoff slot), he'll get 258 hits and the record. And yes, he's now hitting .379.

TigoBlue posted a thoughtful comment on Ichiro's overall worth in the realm of MLB outfielders, how his slugging percentage isn't great and how he doesn't walk a lot. In short, TigoBlue believes that there are many outfielders whom you'd rather have on your team than Ichiro. And I'm sure that Billy Beane probably could name you a few more. And there are great arguments as to why you'd rather have Barry Bonds, Carlos Beltran, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield or Vladimir Guerrero, to name a few.

But the ironic part of it is, the one they're all watching now is this throwback-style player who plays for one of the worst teams in the big leagues.

Go figure.

At least 257 figures.

Bizarro World

That's what they should call the sitcom based upon Bob Knight's coaching life that they're developing in Hollywood, but the country's precious few remaning sitcom fans would object because it's not original. Still, what on earth is Coach Knight thinking? And whoever would put the words "fun" and "Bob Knight" next to one another? My bet is that a Google search on those words would come up relatively empty.

Why is Coach Knight doing this? Let's give a Jim Harrick, Jr.-like multiple choice question:

a) for the money;
b) because it's fun;
c) because he can;
d) because he shouldn't, but no one can tell him what to do; or
e) because the naughty little man dancing around on his left shoulder just threw a chair at the good little man on his right shoulder and knocked him out; or
f) because he has converted to the dark side and actually desires to become a part of some media?

Because he's certainly not doing this for dignity, for the purpose of burnishing the legend of someone who has put integrity (in terms of graduating players) above many other things in his coaching life, for the purpose of demonstrating that Lubbock actually can be a college hoops hotbed or for a way to donate the proceeds of what he earns to a foundation to help poor kids who don't play basketball get a college education.

Could you imagine Dean Smith doing this? John Wooden? (Okay, so Wooden never was a role model for Knight because one of Knight's mentors, Pete Newell, was an archrival of Wooden's in the early 1960's when at Cal and won many more games against the Wizard of Westwood than he lost). Pete Newell then?

No, not a chance.

Which makes Bob Knight very hard to figure. Hopefully, this endeavor will be fun for him, as his public persona resembles more a man looking for an argument if not a fight than someone looking for a knee-slapping laugh. Because he's so hard to figure, and such a contrarian, he's probably doing this because deep down he knows it's something that no one would expect of him, he can make a few bucks (and most big-time college hoops coaches find nothing wrong with that) and perhaps he can even have some fun, which, as he approaches advanced AARP status, might be one of his goals in his golden years. Because it would appear that the only way to ever joke correctly about Bob Knight would be for the man himself to crack the jokes. Not a player. Not an opposing coach, and most certainly not a member of his university's administration or a member of the media. Just the coach himself.

So who will play Bob Knight? Brian Dennehy? (No, save him for the next generation of reality TV shows, called "Celebrity Human Sacrifice," where Bob Knight is one of the guests). Perhaps Bill Clinton will after he recovers from open heart surgery. The former President has a good sense of humor, is good in front of the camera, knows hoops and has the right color hair. Craig T. Nelson (he's played so many coaches before that if you fit him up with the right padding he probably could pull it off)? Or how about former Senator Fred Thompson, who would need a toupee but who has the voice of authority? There are many possibilities.

Most of which are unappealing.

Especially given how bad sports-related TV shows have been. Have you seen the guy they chose to play Pete Rose in ESPN's latest venture into docudramas? Did you hear the Aussie actors try to speak like Texas country boys in the ESPN movie "The Junction Boys"? Given the reality associated with those ventures, perhaps they'll coax Woody Allen to play Bob Knight. Or Jerry Orbach.

You can see the writers for Jay Leno and David Letterman warming up already.

Bob Knight as the focal point on a situation comedy.

What's next?

The Jim Boeheim Cooking Beat? (The late Julia Child, after all, did hoop at Smith College in the 1930's, so there is a culinary/roundball connection).

Water Gardening with Bob Huggins?

Creative Origami with Rick Pitino?

Stay tuned.

The Wright Stuff at Villanova?

The College Basketball blog has a nice discussion of the future of Jay Wright at Villanova. I think that this is a very important year for Jay Wright at Villanova. The Wildcats have endured a bunch of problems (last year's knee injuries of prized center Jason Fraser being paramount among them, along with what seems to be every 10 years' problem with players' access to phone credit cards), and the administration and alumni expected Jay Wright to be a big improvement over Steve Lappas. After all, only 20 years ago the Wildcats won their only NCAA title, and it seems longer than that.

On the one hand, Wright created major expectations because of his ability as a recruiter. He did bring in some big names, and the College Basketball blog makes note of that. That said, he really hasn't delivered with the big names, in the Big East or even in the Big Five. The biggest bruise to the once rather large collective ego of the Villanova fan base over the past several years has to have been the success that Phil Martelli has had at St. Joe's. While the Hawks have a wonderful tradition of their own, the Wildcats' fans would argue that it's a no brainer for a recruit to pick the Big East over the A-10 and, to them more importantly, Villanova over St. Joe's (the location in the Phila. suburbs is a bit nicer than St. Joe's on City Line Avenue). The success of Jameer Nelson and Delonte West has had to stick in the craw of the old 'Nova faithful, for one simple reason -- the premier program in Philadelphia over the past several years has been none other than the St. Joe's Hawks. Before that it was the Temple Owls.

Whither Villanova?

That's the question that Villanova fans and college hoops fans in Philadelphia beyond are asking. After this season, the 'Nova faithful and everyone else will have their answer. Will Jason Fraser, Curtis Sumpter et al. lead the Wildcats back to the NCAA tournament, or will their performance cause Jay Wright to update his resume?

It says here that it's even money, but with this talent, Wright should get the Wildcats back to the Big Dance. (And I'm not a huge Wright fan, as so far I believe he's proven to be a much better recruiter than he is a coach, and I laugh when I think of what might have happened had former LaSalle coach Speedy Morris had Wright as a recruiter years ago -- with Morris' coaching ability, the Explorers would have been a perennial Top 10 team).

If not, a premier coaching job will open up again, and the speculation will run rampant.

For unlike the LaSalle job, which has had its limitations over the years in terms of relative compensation and the lack of a solid recruiting budget, the Villanova job is definitely akin to the successful family's move to the suburbs say 40 years ago. It's a job that many will want.

But, in all likelihood, a job that Jay Wright will get to keep, perhaps for a while.

Itching for a Major Record

Ichiro Suzuki went 5-5 today, so with 27 games remaining he needs only 35 hits to break George Sisler's record.

I posted on him the other day, September 1, when I wrote that he needed 46 hits in September to break George Sisler's record of 257 hits in a season. He's well on his way, as in the past four games he has had 11 hits!

Keep on watching Ichiro Suzuki. As I posted the other day, he's moving with great speed toward a record that has stood for over 80 years.

Mighty Chris Young

Big day today in baseball. Red Sox, having a chance to once again close the gap on the Yankees, faced a rookie making only his third start in the majors. I posted about the kid a few weeks ago, a 6'10" righty in his third organization in four years, Chris Young, the one-time center of the Princeton Tigers' basketball team.

Young's first start went rather well in Texas, even if he didn't get the "quality start" stat against the Twins. He next faced the Orioles in the launching pad known as Camden Yards, and he had one of those ugly 4 1/3, 5 ER, 5H, 3W type of lines that might have caused a less patient or more timid manager to start some grey-at-the-temples veteran on his sixth major league team in the past 8 years with a career ERA of 4.89 and a winning percentage of .423 just because he's hoping and praying to get to his bullpen in the 7th inning.

No one would have blamed Buck Showalter if he did that, but he didn't, and he's in the middle of a wild card chase that no one had predicted for this team at the season's outset. No, Buck Showalter started Chris Young in Fenway Park against the fearsome BoSox lineup, and all the kid did was go 5 2/3 and give up 1 earned run, earning top props from his manager. And the Texas Rangers won 8-6.

So Chris Young could be a keeper after all.

And, in the meantime, the Yankees are on the ropes. Sure, they can hit, they always could, but their starting pitching is starting to resemble that of, say, the '67 Yankees instead of the '27 Yankees. Today, their 39 year-old would-be ace, the oft-injured Kevin Brown, did something that you would have thought only HS kids with mullets and souped-up old TransAms would do, or rookie ball HS phenoms who realize that kids a few years older actually can hit a curve ball.

He punched a wall in the clubhouse and broke his hand. Oh, yes, and the Yankees lost, 7-0, to Sidney Ponson and the Baltimore Orioles.

At least it was his non-throwing hand, but he might well be out for the rest of the season. Including the playoffs.

You don't have to have a degree from Princeton to know that you shouldn't punch a wall if you're a baseball player after a frustrating game. And Brown was a chemical engineering major at Georgia Tech, which is an excruciating major at any school.

But the rookie, Chris Young, kept his cool in front of the feisty partisans at Fenway today, while Kevin Brown, one of the best players of his generation, couldn't do the same.

Pressure?

Who would have thought that Chris Young wouldn't have felt it today as much as a former Cy Young winner?

No one.

Long Live the Single Wing

Tigerhawk's guest poster, Charlottesvillian, wrote recently about the single-wing offense. This should be required reading for all students of football.

I have thought for a long time that the quarterback-dominated offense has limited the options a team can have, especially in terms of deception, and, especially when facing linebackers who weigh 250 pounds and can run a 4.5 forty. If quarterbacks are fleet, they usually aren't good throwers, and if they can pass, so the legend goes, they are not fast. Michael Vick is an exception, of course, but he's not off to the best pre-season, so those who have reserved his bust in Canton should wait just a little bit. So offenses become easier to predict as the defenses get quicker.

Hold that bit of information in the RAM part of your brain, and think about the recent article in SI's preview issue about how Pete Carroll and Nick Saban recruit athletes. Kids who are fast, kids who are tough, some of whom play QB in high school. These kids are the best athletes on their teams, so their coaches pick them to run the show. They pitch, play shortstop and bat cleanup in baseball (if they still play 3 sports), and they run the point in basketball (again, if they play three sports). And there are many kids like this all across the country.

It's hard to find true innovation at the major football programs, because they always get enough kids to dominate both sides of the line of scrimmage. Sure, they might run some counter treys, some reverses, and an occasional flea flicker, but if you can grind it out and simply have better personnel, you do not have to get that fancy.

The problem is that even the lower DI schools don't get that innovative. Why? Because they're hoping to get the key recruits on offense too, and you won't necessarily win over those recruits with unique innovation. Those key recruits are kids, and those kids dream of the NFL whether they're getting a scholarship to Akron or to USC. The fleet QB wants to play QB, he doesn't want to be Antwan Randle-El (whose career has turned out fine) or Michael Robinson of Penn State, the man without a position. He wants to play a position that is played in the NFL. After all, the college coaches are the ones who recruit the athletes who can play many positions; the NFL GMs aren't looking to do that except in an exceptional case.

As a result, the lower echelon DI schools are lemmings, and their futility is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Temple, for example, doesn't have a great tradition, and Bobby Wallace, who was successful in DII, won't build one if he tries to follow the prototypical offensive schemes that the more successful schools do. So Temple will finish 3-8 perenially, and there will be occasional hues and cries to drop the sport or drop down a division.

I am not that familiar with Division II, but Division I-AA might fall prey to a similar analysis, unless, perhaps, you play in the Patriot or Ivy Leagues. So, in a way, I took to DIII for the ultimate in offensive innovation, an innovation which will be copied, no doubt, at least in part, at the higher levels. And some coach in DIII might take the chance, precisely because it's DIII, it's more cerebral, and while the passion for the game is there, the "must-win" aspect of it is not.

If you've read this far, your logical question is, "what the heck is he talking about?" And, that's a good question, because you must think that everything that has been invented in football, with the long hours coaches put in, has already been invented.

But it hasn't. I'd been meaning to write this post for a while, and Charlottesvillian's post spurred me on to doing it now. The mention of the single wing got me to thinking. And I'm not looking to reincarnate that once-mighty offense.

What I am looking to do is to play about four to six players at a time on offense who all can run, pass and catch. They all don't have to be former HS QBs, but prior experience as a HS QB surely wouldn't hurt. I'd also have the offensive gurus contemplate running all plays from either the same formation or, at least, different formations, all of which are symmetrical, so that the defenses can't anticipate based upon weak- or strong-side tendencies. You'd also have quick linemen, even if they're smaller, who can pull, sweep and run the counter trey. And you'd dazzle the opposition with players in motion, so that you might have different "utility" players taking the snap on successive downs, and you don't know what the player who receives the snap is going to do with the ball. Deception. Execution. Keeping the bigger, more-talented teams guessing.

Of course, this type of offense would require a great deal of unselfishness and choreography, but at the end of the day you'd be maximizing your athletic ability and you wouldn't place all of your eggs in one basket -- that of the star QB. The system would be paramount, and inevitably you'd have several stars, but the bottom line is that you'll have many skilled players generating all types of offense.

I don't know whether you could create this offense, whether you could sell it to any recruits, or whether it would work. What I do know is that in today's game, you need a sterling QB or two to have a shot at a national title, and it's hard to find more than one of those players. And it's also hard to find outstanding RBs, QBs and WRs on all but say the top 10 teams. So why not innovate? At least part of the time. Get the ball to your great athletes and see what they can do with it. And, in the process, don't worry about the possibilities if an injury would happen to the star QB, star RB or star WR. With all of these good athletes, you'll have several kids who can help take your game to the next level.

Because unless you're a perennial top 25 team, you're always going to be looking for the once-in-a-generation player who could help take you to the next level. And, unless you find that type of savior, or maybe a few of them, even in this bowl-happy era in which we live, you'll always be looking to even get into a pre-Christmas bowl game sponsored by some company that won't outlast the next stock market crash. And once in a while, you'd be lucky to do so.

Call it the Multi-Flex, the SportsProf Formation, call it whatever you will. But with all those good athletes out there, you would think that someone might want to try it.

The West Coast Offense can't possibly be the last innovation on offense, and neither can the Cover 2 be the last innovation on defense.

So what's next?

Bet on the Multi-Flex.

And long live the Single Wing!

Gone Fishing

Fathers and sons. You read stories about fathers and sons all the time, about rites of passage, and coaching games, driving to travel team games, being a fan at games. Those are fun times. I wrote a post on August 19 about taking my preschool-aged son to his first baseball game at Citizens Bank Park. It was a great time for both of us.

You read some about mothers and daughters, and probably far less and mothers and sons and fathers and daughters, and how they interact on various activities. Yes, we read and watched at length about Michael Phelps' relationship with his mother, but in large part you don't read about kids' relationships with parents of the opposite sex.

And you wonder, sometimes, about whether or not those relationships are strong, whether the dads consciously or unconsciously gravitate to their sons, as they have a built-in buddy to go to a game with, have a catch with, or coach in Little League. Are the daughters forgotten, cast aside with very little positive attention from their dads? With Title IX, those girls get a much greater opportunity to participate in sports than they ever did. But, then again, Title IX is more about getting girls and women involved in sports, playing with other kids, than it necessarily is about bonding with their parents.

Some bonding, of course, does occur in the very, if not over-, organized world of kids' sports. Dads who pitching batting practice, rebound for their daughters, drive them to 5 a.m. ice hockey games and sit in the stands at travel soccer tournaments. No one will argue that this type of stuff isn't any good or doesn't count. Of course it does. And it's great. Men who might not have paid attention to their daughters two or three decades ago now do so, and an age where students of the world question the strength of the family unit, this type of involvement for the most part is a force of good (unless the girl has a dad like Mary Pierce or Jenna Dokic).

It is a little different, though, from the simple joy of just doing something with your kid, without anyone else around. And that's where the parent-child bonding can be different -- for some dads and daughters, moms and sons. It just may be easier for the generic dad to go to Cub Scouts with a boy or to coach a tee-ball team than, say, to take his daughter to dance class. But what about one-on-one bonding, of really taking the time to be with your daughter, to get to know her on her own terms, doing something she wants to do.

It's probably all about making time for all of your children, and I had the opportunity to do just that on a vacation to the mountains that we took just last week. We went to one of these places that offered a bunch of activities, including day-camp-like activities for children, and the kids swam, played pinball, played miniature golf, tried ping pong, shot archery and generally had the run of the place.

The most fun I had, though, took place at the lake, when we went fishing. We rented two fishing basic rod and reel combinations for $10 apiece and spent $3 for a small container of live bait. The fishing lodge loaned us a knife to cut the worms, and we then ambled out onto a pier to try to catch some fish.

As it turned it, the day was much more fun for my seven year-old daughter than my four year-old son. My daughter loved the pier, the calm of the water, the scenery in background, and after watching me and some others cast for about twenty minutes, began casting like a pro. She had so much fun casting that we had to counsel her that the best way to actually catch the fish was to let the line stay in the water for a while. She was a good pupil and did just that, catching a sun fish, a perch and a blue gill in about 2 1/2 hours. She had many more fish on the line, but the crafty occupants of this nice lake knew full well the tricks of the trade, and they were good at stealing the bait. (Mom and Dad got the dirty work of cutting the worms, baiting the hooks, unhooking the fish, putting them back in the water and untangling the lines). It was a great morning, watching this not-so-little anymore girl casting out her line, fighting occasionally with fish, and trying to reel them in.

The next morning the kids wanted to go back, even on a hotter, sunnier and especially more humid day. The sun was out in full force, and there was nowhere for us to hide in the shade. After forty-five minutes of having the fish steal his bait (probably because dad didn't do the best job of baiting the hook), my son asked my wife to take him to the playground, so there we were, just my daughter and I, trying to beat the heat, and trying to find fish who, acting smarter than us, were seeking shade at every opportunity.

We stayed on the pier, as we weren't familiar enough to walk down the trail about a quarter mile, across the main road, near a bridge where the large stream that fed the lake was, replete with lilypads, which probably meant that many of the lake's bass were there grabbing some desperately needed shade. No, score one for the fish in this bit of evolution; they knew where to seek shelter, but we didn't know where to chase them.

So there we sat, father and daughter, right next to one another, casting our lines, re-baiting our hooks, talking about the nuances of baiting the hooks and catching fish, and searching for spots around the pier where the fish were. We were totally zoned in on fishing, and we did figure out at one point that while casting far out was fun, the best place on that muggy day was right near the pier, which did offer the fish some shade. And, after two and one half hours of hard work in the heat, my not-so-little-anymore girl, she with the long legs and coppery red hair set aglow in the bright sun, decided to get a cold drink and call it a day (most of the cold drink went on my daughter's head to provide instant relief from the heat). She had worked hard at her fishing, and on this difficult fishing day (according to the guide at the fishing lodge), she had managed to reel in three more fish -- a perch and two more sunfish.

We returned the fishing poles, disposed of the bait container, and gave back the borrowed knife to the proprietor of the fishing lodge. And then we set off, down the trail to the main road, and then up the steep hill to the main building of the place we stayed at.

Hand in hand, talking about casting, talking about the different types of fish, talking about where to fish the next time and how much time to allot for it.

Just my daughter and I, walking and talking. No phones, no interruptions from a little brother wanting attention, no television in the background, no traffic noise.

Talking about, well, things. Anything. Everything.

As we were driving home from our vacation, my wife and I asked the kids what there favorite activity was. My son replied "pinball", as he had become particularly fond of the game room at the place. My daughter said, without hesitation, "fishing."

As I write this, I think about the beautiful setting that surrounded the lake and the sun reflecting off of it, and the determination and happiness that a young girl had gracefully casting her line into a calm, clear lake, I can only smile.

We sports fans watch others, root hard for the home team, feel a little better about life when the alma mater is poised to win the championship or when the home team is on a winning streak, and talk about big games we were at and the great players we saw. NCAA Final Fours, World Series Games, NHL and NBA playoff games, college games against the archrival. Did you see Flutie's pass to Phelan against Miami? Laettner's shot in the regional final against Kentucky? Were you there the night Bill Walton shot 17-21 from the floor against Florida State? Do you remember Garo Yepremian's attempted pass, or that Mike Bass intercepted it and ran it back for a touchdown in the Super Bowl? Ruslan Fedotenko's two goals in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals?

Yes, we do, and we feel good for the players, such as Ray Bourque, who at age 40 waited for his final season, his 21st I believe, to win his first and only champoinship. We loved watching Mark McGwire break Roger Maris's record for home runs in a season, and we had fun watching Cal Ripken, Jr. break Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played.

And we revel in the upsets, when our favorite team isn't supposed to do much but somehow plays the game of its season and beats the archrival, who was favored by three touchdowns. We'll e-mail friends about the game and bore our spouses to death about the play on 4th and 26 that helped our team get to overtime and win the game (okay, that play was so unique that even the spouses warmed up to the game). We'll do all that, each season, watching our favorite teams.

And that watching is a ton of fun. No one will dispute that. It's great to see the pageantry of the big games, the "big event" quality of championship events. There's nothing quite like it.

Except, perhaps, throwing the lacrosse ball around with your kid while you're wearing your loafers after you've just gotten home from a busy day of work, the wetness of the grass from a late afternoon shower wetting the cuffs of your chinos, having that catch, throwing the frisbee or casting for whatever type of fish show up in your part of the world.

No, that's stuff's better.

For the simple reason that it's not about your alma mater, the home team or the team that your college roommate's nephew plays for, the team that the kid who used to deliver your newspaper stars for.

It's better because it's about your kids and you, or, in my case, about a smart, determined, freckled little girl and me.

The Throwback

He's not a five-tool player, and he doesn't hit home runs, so he won't get the publicity that the Cardinals' trio (Jim Edmonds, Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen), Barry Bonds or Albert Beltre, among others, are getting. He runs like a deer, has a good arm, fields his position well, and is perhaps the best pure hitter in the Major Leagues today, a complement to his soon-to-retire teammate, who for years was labeled the best right-handed hitter in the game.

His name: Ichiro Suzuki.

His issue: he plays for a lousy team in one of the most remote parts of the country, especially as far as ESPN and the East Coast papers are concerned. So, he won't get the attention that even the Yankees' shellacking at the hands of the Cleveland Indians last night (22-0 for those of you who missed) it, got. And there are wild card races in both leagues, there's a race in the AL West and, lo and behold, the once dismissed and often dissed Boston Red Sox are now only 3 1/2 games behind the starting pitching-challenged Yankees in the AL East.

Except for one small thing.

Ichiro has 212 hits on September 1. In most seasons, as a fan you're lucky to see say 3 or 4 guys get 200 hits -- by the end of the season. Ichiro has 31 games left and needs 45 hits in September to tie Hall of Famer George Sisler for the record for hits in a season. He had 56 hits in August, a record for most hits in a month, and he hit .463 for the month. He's hitting .371 for the season. Let's say he has 130 at-bats in the next 31 games (an average of 4.2 per game). he'll need 46 hits to break Sisler's record, and that would mean, for him, a very doable .354 batting average. Can he hit .400 for the year? That's doubtful -- he'd need to get 69 hits in September and a .530 batting average -- lofty numbers even for Ichiro. If he gets 46 hits and breaks Sisler's record by one, he'll end up hitting by my estimate .368 for the season (so, believe it or not, his average would drop three points from its current perch of .371). If he hits .463 or so in September, he'll end up with 272 hits, shatter Sisler's record, and end up with a batting average of .387 for the season. A .255 batting average in April is the only blemish on this outstanding record. Get all of us some oxygen -- these are pretty amazing heights!

Have you ever seen him play? In person? I haven't; I've only seen him on TV, but he hits the way you imagine Honus Wagner, Paul Waner, Ty Cobb and, of course, Wee Willie Keeler hit. Quick slashes, hitting the ball to openings, running to first almost at the same time as he's finishing his stroke, and since he's the fastest player from home to first, the combination of his battting eye and speed is a lethal combination. He's certainly fun to watch on TV.

Ichiro now presents baseball's best individual drama since 1998, when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris's record for home runs in a season. And while I appreciate home run hitters, I also allow for the doubting that it wasn't only their batting eyes and talent that helped them reach prodigious numbers, it also, for some, was banned substances (McGwire took the now-banned Andro, Bonds is under investigation, and many wonder about the 50-HR season that Brady Anderson had years ago).

But this isn't about raw strength or hitting the ball over walls. It's about batting eyes and the ability to do perhaps the hardest thing in all of sports -- hit Major League pitching. And, unless there's some genetically modified carrot juice that Ichiro has made for him by a mad scientist in Ottuma, Iowa to improve his eyesight, there's nothing out there other than good training methods and the maximation of talent that helps someone approach, if not break, George Sisler's record.

In other words, this quest seems as pure as it gets. We loved McGwire, we loved Sosa, and we loved that great home run chase. We stand in awe of Bonds, who accomplishments are unmatched.

And we should afford Ichiro the same amount of appreciation. Even in the era of Moneyball and on-base percentage, there still is (and boy does this sound trite) great value for good, timely hitting. Otherwise, we'd have to question our overall sanity, that somehow good hitting didn't mean as much anymore. Of course it does. Walks help, sometimes very significantly, but hits are what makes the difference between a good team and a great team, a good player and a great player.

And, no matter how you look at it, this lithe, acrobatic outfielder is as good as it gets.

I look forward to the cutaways on ESPN and Fox to Ichiro's at-bats come late September.

Tune in, because this is one quest that you surely want to watch.