Should the Head That Wears the Crown Really Lie THIS Heavy?

Believe it or not, LeBron James didn't drown any kittens yesterday. But from the tone of most of the media coverage he's received you couldn't really be blamed for thinking he'd done something at least that bad, if not worse.

What he did was change employers. After seven years with the company who hired him out of school, he thought he'd have a better chance of reaching his personal and professional goals somewhere else. That's it.

OK, so he also happened to be working in the same area where he grew up. Much has been made that because of that he somehow had more responsibility to stay there. Really? I wonder how many folks suggesting that are still in THEIR hometowns. How many people reading this even are? Fact is, I know a lot of people who couldn't wait to get out of wherever they grew up and experience life somewhere else. It's a mighty big world, after all. But if you're LeBron James I guess that's not acceptable. Not even after seven years.

Bad, bad LeBron.

He must be greedy then, right? Just chasing the almighty dollar?

Uh, nope. Because of how the NBA salary cap works, he actually would have made the most money staying right where he was. More than $30 million more. Instead, of the six teams he was reportedly considering he ended up going with the team that will likely pay him the LEAST.

Terrible, terrible LeBron.

Surely he just craved the spotlight. He wanted to go somewhere he could hog all the attention and just pad his personal stats. Be a big fish in a small pond.

Wrong again. In signing with Miami, he's going to a team with a superstar already firmly ensconced in Dwyane Wade. Someone who's already been there for seven years and won a championship. LeBron is likely to never has as many titles or team records as D-Wade when all is said and done. It's equally unlikely he'll supplant Wade in the hearts of Heat supporters. The best he can likely hope for is to one day be side-by-side with him on the fan pedestal.

Evil, evil LeBron.

But what about that one-hour televised special where he announced his decision? That was arrogance personified, wasn't it?

Actually, the show supposedly wasn't LeBron's idea. It was sportscaster Jim Gray's. If anyone in this thing is a self-absorbed, narcissistic egomaniac let me respectfully suggest that it’s the guy who thought people were tuning in last night to see him ask questions. They’re called “follow-up questions” for a reason, Jim. They’re not supposed to be asked BEFORE the question everyone actually cares about.

What did LeBron get out of the event? Just $2.5 million for the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Wicked, wicked LeBron.

It was completely classless of LeBron to show such disrespect to the Cavaliers and their fans, though. The way he said things like, "At the end of the day, I feel awful. I feel even worse that I wasn't able to bring an NBA championship to that city. I never wanted to leave Cleveland. My heart will always be around that area."

Maybe he should have followed the example of Cavs owner Dan Gilbert instead, who posted an open letter on the team's web site referring to LeBron and his recent actions as "cowardly," "shameful," "heartless" and "callous." Someone who quit not only in this year's playoffs but last year's as well.

I doubt he called LeBron those things last week when he was waving $120 million in his face to stay with the Cavs. But hey, if I was Gilbert I'd want to deflect attention away from the person really responsible for LeBron leaving Cleveland, too. The person who had the ability to assemble a championship-level supporting cast around him and couldn't do it. DAN GILBERT.

Not too long ago, it was considered a noble act for players to sacrifice money and stats for the chance to win a title. It supposedly embodied everything that was good about sports, and the people who played them.

Just apparently not if you're LeBron James.

Love the Olympics, but Still on the Fence About One Sport

I love the Olympics. I only care about most of the events once every four years, but so what? The pageantry, the patriotism, the emotion -- I get sucked in by it all.

Yesterday we watched some fencing, with the Americans ending up sweeping the medals in women's individual sabre. Fencing's something I don't even watch every four years. Frankly, it may have been the first time I ever watched it. Here were some observations from a neophyte:

- I thought fencers wore tight white suits with something that looked like a strainer over their faces. Instead, the competitors yesterday were all wearing silver haz mat gear with beekeeper hats that lit up like Laser Tag vests when they scored a touch.

Most of the time the competitors themselves didn't even know who had scored, because their hats often BOTH lit up and only the first one to touch gets a point. They'd both pump their fists, and then wait to see the judges' ruling.

Here's what was weird. Despite all the wires and sensors, the judges seemed to go to video replay when it was really close to determine who was first. There's really no way for that technology to record that? We can time the swimming races to thousandths of a second, but this is decided by a person looking at a tiny monitor? Just seems odd to me.

- I'm sure fencing takes a lot of skill, but the participants looked like solid contestants for the "least athletic Olympians" award. No significant strength involved, a little bit of speed with their weapons and probably some degree of stamina to move around in those suits. But in contrast to the male gymnasts we watched later, not even close. Based on my preliminary observations, fencing isn't making the cut for me on the sport/not a sport debate. Good old Nike still had a presence, though. Everyone I saw had swooshes on their shoes and socks.

- Speaking of contrasts with the gymnasts, despite all being from the USA the three fencing medalists could not possibly look like they liked each other any less. I swear two of them didn't even acknowledge each other after one of their matches. Granted it was a team competition and not individual, but the gymnasts were rooting for each other, congratulating each other and pumping each other up. The fencers looked like they'd just shown up at a party and seen each other wearing the same dress, or with their ex-boyfriends. Not a lot of camaraderie on display, for sure.

- The three medalists were a Yale graduate, current Notre Dame student and entering freshman at Duke. The lack of camaraderie with each other smelled a little like an air of entitlement, too. Didn't seem to be any heartwarming, inspiring, sacrificial Lopez Lomong stories in the group.

Still and all, it was fun to watch something I don't get a lot of exposure to. Fencing may not have clicked for me, but I still have high hopes for modern pentathlon.

It's Always Better to be "The Hammer" Than the Nail

Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton's amazing performance in last night's Home Run Derby is a storybook tale of redemption -- a former heroin addict turning his life around and and becoming a Major League All-Star. I was saddened to learn courtesy of Deadspin yesterday of another such tale involving another Texas sports figure who's ending has yet to be written, that of former SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket host Greg "The Hammer" Williams.

I was living in Dallas when The Ticket launched in 1994, and like many who tuned in I was immediately hooked. The locker room humor, the frequent forays into pop culture, the great feeling that you were part of a community of like-minded idiots individuals who were also "in on the joke." And all neatly tied together by the twine of sports! Just tremendous stuff.

I dragged Danelle to the inaugural Ticketstock at the Dallas Covention Center, essentially a glorified autograph and memorabilia show. The station had a promotional Hummer they called "The Panther," so I dubbed my 1996 RAV-4 "'Lil Panther." When my co-worker Kevin Prescott and I spotted morning show co-host George Dunham at the Southwest Conference baketball tournament, we yelled his name and proudly gave him the "Ticket Salute" -- essentially an upward extension of one's middle finger.

I listened to the morning show pair of Dunham and Craig Miller more regularly than Williams' midday show. Dunham & Miller's shtick had more to do with mock interviews with personalities like Ribby Paultz, a phony "draft expert" patterned after ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. who made up terms like "arm coefficient" for his analysis. They also had "the fake Jerry Jones" on regularly to discuss the Cowboys. My friend Adam Hill and I still laugh about their Reader's Theater bits which included very-un-PC characters like "freaky homicidal cop Johnny Hernandez" and his vows that he "will keeeellll the Playmaker!", based on Michael Irvin's bizarre saga of cocaine and Penthouse Pets.

Writing about this stuff doesn't do it anything remotely resembling justice. It was usually hilarious, and it definitely formed bonds between listeners.

During one of my first NFL drafts with the Broncos I was discussing the Cowboys with some of the media folks, and I dropped a line that "the fake Jerry Jones" used, complete with the bad impression. A voice behind me exclaimed, "That's YOUR car with the Ticket sticker!" And that's how I met Blake Olson, who had joined KUSA in Denver as a sports reporter after five years in Dallas with KTVT. Like I said, the stuff formed bonds.

Williams' show with co-host Mike Rhyner, "The Hardline," probably had the most tight-knit community of listeners within the larger Ticket family. Many callers became personalities themselves. There was Herman in Oak Cliff who called Rhyner and Williams "Mahmoud and Abdul" in reference to the NBA player who went by the name Chris Jackson before his conversion to Islam, and the provocatively named Naked in Bed. The conversations between callers and hosts sounded more like something you'd overhear between friends in a sports bar than the condescension and air of superiority other sports radio hosts gave off.

Rhyner played the part of the crotchety contrarian. He tried to dismiss all the fawning over Tiger Woods that had already begun with a dismissive growl of "What has he ever won?" I remember him ranting about being tricked into taking his daughter to a No Doubt concert when he heard "Don't Speak" and assumed all their songs would be mushy ballads, only to find a pierced, manic Gwen Stefani bouncing around the stage to the band's ska-punk repertoire (Editor's Note: I saw them open for Fishbone in 1992 before they got big. Phenomenal.).

Williams, for his part, was Everyman. A blue-collar good ol' boy and drinking buddy. One of my favorite pieces of Hammer wisdom -- though not one I subscribe to -- was his explanation of why he always sought out chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday when eating on the road. "It ain't gonna be great, but it ain't gonna suck," was his defense. That sort of logic was Hammer in a nutshell.

The one Hardline bit I loved was a weekly competition of sorts simply called "Y'know." They played a short snippet of an interview with Cowboys linebacker Dixon Edwards where he said "y'know" about a zillion times -- sometimes twice in a row and even a few "rare triples." Then they played another interview clip with somebody else and scored it based on the number of verbal pauses that person used -- "um," "like" or whatever. Edwards was never defeated. Again, something that probably doesn't seem that funny when you read about it but was absolute hilarity to hear.

More than his actual commentary I remember some of the advertisers Williams shilled for. Like North Main Barbeque, home of "the great Ray Green." "Don't forget that $10 bill," Williams would say, which was the price for their buffet. And Maury Lowry of Dalworth Auto Electronics, the "King of Free." My buddy Adam had to stop me from going there one day not too far before Christmas to take advantage of one of their too-good-to-be-true car stereo specials because he knew Danelle had already bought me one. And the Big Apple Sports Cafe in Arlington, where Rhyner & Williams did a Rangers' postgame show and Adam, my best friend from high school Dan Gibson, my dad and I gathered to watch the Rangers clinch their first playoff appearance.

The fact that Williams' wounds are mostly self-inflicted doesn't prevent me from feeling empathy for him, especially given all the joy he and the rest of The Ticket brought me. He may not be able to hit 500-foot home runs, but I'm hoping he continues down a similar path to Hamilton and gets another chance to do what he loves and excels at.

Stay hard, Hammer.

Favre and Away

I like Brett Favre. As a Broncos employee for more than 10 years and prior to that a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan that may come as a surprise. But I honestly do. I even still have a Favre jersey I won in a bet at least 12 years ago. But for crying out loud, can we PLEASE just end the seemingly never-ending saga of is-Brett-going-to-play-or-not, with the added wrinkle this time of if-so-where?

Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano and Britney Spears making us think she's finally hit rock bottom, Brett announcing whether or not he was going to retire had become quite the annual ritual. A ritual that had apparently finally come to an end when he said in March that retire was exactly what he intended to do. Four short months later, and the rumors are moving at breakneck speed that he wants to un-retire, but the Packers don't want him back, so he wants them to release him only they have no intention of doing that, either.

Brett, the Packers organization and goodness knows the fans all deserve a clean resolution to this increasingly messy situation. Fortunately, I have the answer.

Danelle and I had a system we used to use when we were trying to decide where to go to dinner. We retired the system once issues like whether or not the menus could be colored on became critical factors, but up until that time it served us well.

Basically, we'd each throw out a few options and then we'd take turns ranking them all on a scale of one to 10 with one being "would rather eat dog food" and 10 being "would pick this for my last meal." Whatever place ended up with the highest combined score is where we'd go.

I know what you're thinking -- it's way too easy for one party to manipulate the numbers so that their favorite option ends up winning. Sure, Danelle and I both may have fudged a teeny bit to tip the scales the way we wanted them to fall. But for the most part we played it straight. Besides, the fudging on each side usually just ends up cancelling itself out.

So in the Favre-Packers scenario, I can see Brett presenting options like guarantee me the starting job, give me my unconditional release or trade me. The Packers would counter with choices like stay retired, come back as the backup or accept a trade.

You can already see where this would end up. If both parties played it straight -- or at least fudged to appreciably the same degree -- some sort of trade would likely end up the winner. And that's pretty much how I expect this to end up, though unfortunately I doubt the path it takes to get there will have as little acrimony as this method.

As for how to decide where he should be traded? Well, we employed rock-paper-scissors pretty regularly when dealing with dirty diapers...

I'll Bet He's Had More Memorable Athletic Moments

So, I hear that the Gentlemen's Singles Final at Wimbledon yesterday was pretty good. Once upon a time I would absolutely have made sure to watch it. I was captain of my high school tennis team back in the day and a big fan of second-tier players like Yannick Noah and Pat Cash. I even had a picture of Cash on the dashboard of my car for some awkward man-crush reason. I used to have fairly long hair and wore a ridiculous checkered headband like him when I played, so maybe I thought we had some sort of bond.

My family used to spend a week in Lake Placid every summer. I remember all of us going to the public courts there together when I was younger and my parents would play each other while my sister and I just goofed around. When I got older I'd often just take my racket and a can of balls and go by myself to hit against the boards.

On one such day in the summer of 1987, there was another guy there doing the same thing. Sort of an awkward dude with a moustache and big glasses. Playing against someone else is always more fun, so we introduced ourselves. In a British accent he told me that his name was Eddie and that he was training for the Olympics.

I was less impressed by this than you might think. Lake Placid is home to a U.S. Olympic Training Center, and running into Olympic hopefuls there was sort of like running into actors in Los Angeles. So I just nodded. I didn't even ask what event he was training for. He looked more like a member of the A-V club than a jock, anyway.

We hit for a while and then decided to play an actual match, which I won pretty handily. Something like 6-2, 6-3. I thanked him for the match and he mentioned that there was a doubles tournament coming up in a few days at the local Holiday Inn, and asked if I would be interested in being his partner. I had nothing going on, so I said sure and gave him the number where I was staying.

He called that evening to say that the tournament was unfortunately full, and we couldn't work out another time to play again before I was headed back home. So that was the last I ever saw of Eddie. Or so I thought...

Jump ahead seven months to February and I did see Eddie again after all. On TV, competing in the ski-jumping event at the Winter Olympics in Calgary where he captured the hearts of the world. Yup, I had played tennis with Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards.

So in addition to winning a race against an NFL quarterback, I can add beating an Olympian in tennis to my lengthy list of proud athletic accomplishments. I'll take some comfort in those feats as I'm rehabbing from my upcoming wrist surgery.

Like a lot of people, tennis fell off my must-see sporting event list a while ago. From what I hear about yesterday's five-set epic between Nadal and Federer, I missed out on a doozy yesterday.

I'll say this much, though -- if Eddie ever jumps again, I'll be glued to the set.

$209 Million is OK, but Somehow Emery Boards Provide an Unfair Advantage

Danelle walked by as I was sitting at my laptop earlier this evening and asked what I was chuckling about. "Red Sox beat the Yankees," was my reply.

It doesn't matter that it's only July. It doesn't matter that neither team is even in first place in the American League East. It doesn't matter that most casual fans are equally sick of BOTH teams. I think as long as I'm alive the Red Sox beating the Yankees will always be a Very Good Thing.

Let me pause here and try to dispel the notion that the Red Sox are "just as bad" as the Yankees. People often try to paint them as equally guilty of somehow buying their recent championships, mainly because they're both "big market" teams. The Red Sox don't even have the second-highest payroll in baseball. They're fourth behind the Tigers, Mets and of course the Yankee$. In fact, the difference in payroll between the two squads is a whopping $75 million. That's more than the TOTAL PAYROLL of 13 other teams, nearly half the league. The gap in spending between the Yankees and everybody else is so huge it just defies logic to lump any other club into the same category with them.

Mind you, I don't fault the Yankees for dishing out the salaries they do. The system allows it, and as a fan I would want the owner of my favorite team to do everything possible within the system to win. It's clearly the system that's flawed.

The Tampa Bay Rays having the best record in baseball to this point in the season and the 29th highest payroll is absolutely a great story. But why should the Rays and so many other teams have to start with such a huge disadvantage over other clubs in bigger markets or with more favorable economic situations? Sport is supposed to be decided on the field, and not influenced to such a ridiculous degree by the size of an owner's wallet.

Granted, being able to spend more doesn't guarantee you anything. Despite their huge payroll advantage, the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000 (that was SO much fun to type). But as I've heard some members of the sports media point out their ability to outspend the competition gives them a huge margin of error compared to other teams.

If the Yankees drop a ton of money on a pitcher who doesn't perform up to expectations -- or perhaps given their recent track record in this area (Brown, Clemens, Johnson, Pavano, etc.) I should say WHEN they do -- they can just go get somebody else. Most teams simply can't afford that luxury. When the Yankees can afford to pay more than anybody else to acquire talent, they end up with better players which puts them in a better position to win. The math really isn't that hard.

It's like everybody's running a 100-yard dash, and the Yankees get a 10-yard head start. Sure, they MIGHT not win. But given the option of being in their position or back at the regular starting line with everyone else, which would you choose?

That's why I prefer salary caps. The NFL has it right when teams in markets like Indianapolis, Denver (2007 notwithstanding) and Green Bay can be perennial contenders mainly because they make good personnel decisions and have good coaches. When teams can quickly turn their fortunes around by making a few good moves and not languish in last place season after season because they can't pay for top talent. When fans of every team can go into each season with legitimate reasons to be optimistic that this might be their year.

How a sport that is so obsessed with "the purity of the game" can focus so much attention on the unfair competitive advantages supposedly gained by things like cork and Vaseline but continue to ignore the payroll disparity elephant in the room is simply beyond me, and a disservice to all its fans.

This post was supposed to be about my long and usually disappointing history of rooting against the Yankees. I'm not sure how it took a left turn into the larger issue of labor models in professional sports leagues, but I guess that's all right.

Actually, everything's all right. The Red Sox beat the Yankees. :)

God Knew What He Was Doing When He Didn't Make Me a Salmon

Zak and Taryn had their weekly swimming lesson today. We have plans to go to Hawaii for a vacation in December, and we really want them to be fairly comfortable in the water by then. Fortunately one of our neighbors used to swim competitively and teaches kids in the pool at a local health club called Club USA, who graciously allows non-members in for the lessons.

Danelle's a much better swimmer than I am. She had a big in-ground pool at her house growing up and spent a lot of time in it. We had an above-ground pool for a while when I was growing up that was more for just cooling off on a hot summer night than actually swimming. I started wearing glasses in third grade, and since I obviously couldn't wear them in the water I couldn't see very well and that made me sort of uncomfortable. Or I just suck at swimming and my vision makes for a convenient excuse.

I'm proud of both of the kids for their progress so far. Taryn's not doing as much as Zak since she's a couple years younger, but she's still putting her whole face in the water and blowing bubbles, floating on her back and so on. I think her favorite part is soaking in the hot tub. Poor kid slipped on the wet concrete last week and cracked her head pretty good, too. But after a few minutes of TLC she got back in the water and finished her lesson.

Zak's doing actual swimming -- well, he's moving his arms and legs in the water anyway. He's still reluctant to look down at the bottom of the pool when he swims. He wants to pick his face up and try to look ahead as he's swimming, which makes his legs point down to the bottom. Reminds me of me when I was learning, which makes no sense since as I said I couldn't see anyway.

He started jumping in the water today, too. His instructor wanted him to jump in "like a pencil" -- straight up and down -- then bob up, take a breath and swim to her. He thought it seemed like a much better plan to jump out as far as he could towards her. Made sense to me -- less distance to actually swim. So she tried to move him straight to diving, but he was reluctant again to put his chin down and not see where he was going. But his belly-flop technique is pretty solid.

Danelle's been swimming a lot lately as training for her triathlon in August, knocking out a half-mile swim two or three times a week. She challenged me to a race, which seemed like a lose-lose proposition for me considering she's still also rehabbing from her ACL surgery in February. But I did a lap up and back against her in the pool a few weeks ago, and let's just say it's a good thing we didn't go one more length.

One thing I don't get about swimming is all the different strokes. They just seem like someone arbitrarily decided that there needed to be more water events. Seriously, why would anyone ever do the butterfly or breaststroke if they had to swim from Point A to Point B? And the backstroke? Can you imagine a 100-yard dash where everyone was required to run backwards? Then again, I suppose race walking doesn't exactly make much sense either.

Frankly, I'll be happy if Zak and Taryn master the dog paddle in the next few months. I've never been to Hawaii, and I'm not too proud to go as the fourth-best swimmer in the family.

They make adult-size arm floats, right?

Fortunately He Couldn't Care Less About Dinger

One of our neighbors organized a trip to Coors Field to watch the Colorado Rockies play the New York Mets today. We have a pretty tight group on our street; a lot of us are about the same age, in the same place in our lives and have kids also about the same age.

The response was great -- eight families, 28 people total. We got a group of tickets together in the center-field bleachers, affectionately known as the Rockpile. Most of us took the light rail together and after baking in the 90-degree heat for the first couple of innings we got some relief from wind and cloud cover. We made it all the way to the bottom of the eighth inning, which isn't bad for a group with 13 kids between the ages of two and eight.

I was fortunate to go to a few major league games when I was a kid. They were always a really big deal, since they started with a three-hour drive whether we went to Boston or New York. I remember one trip to Fenway Park in particular. The Red Sox were taking on the Mariners, and my dad's bowling buddy Tommy Shramm came along. Just to bust my dad's chops he bought a Mariners hat and rooted for Seattle. I think the Mariners even won.

Tommy tragically passed away at a young age, I believe from brain cancer. But watching and listening to him and my dad jaw at each other during that game proved to be a good introduction to the fine art of talking trash.

Today was Taryn's first major sporting event of any kind in person, and she correctly identified what watching baseball was good for by falling asleep about halfway through. Zak was also four the first time he and I went and I managed to get him all the way to the end of the game with the lure of different concessions. "Just six more outs and we'll go get ice cream, Zak." We went again when he was five and he was done by the fifth inning that time. Then we were blessed with the opportunity to get to see game four of last year's World Series together.

Zak knows I like the Red Sox and has always been somewhat partial to them himself too because of it. When he was just a year old Derek Lowe of the Sox was the starting pitcher for the All-Star Game. I raced home from work, put him in his Red Sox onesie, grilled up a couple of hot dogs and we ate them together while we watched the start of the game.

The week before the World Series game he said to me, "Daddy, I still like the Red Sox. But I think I like the Rockies a little bit more..." I laughed and told him that was fine, and he could cheer for any team he wants. He already had a Rockies hat, but we went out that afternoon and got him a t-shirt with Troy Tulowitzki's name and number on the back and a hooded purple sweatshirt to go with it.

The fans in our section were great to him, high-fiving him whenever the Rockies did something good (which wasn't often). I told him how special it was that he was getting to see his first World Series when he was only six years old and another guy in the section said, "I'm 66 years old, and this is MY first World Series!"

He decided he had to go to the bathroom during the seventh-inning stretch, of course. The only time during a baseball game that the men's room actually has a line. And six-year-old boys don't give you a lot of warning when they have to go. So he's doing the pee-pee dance at the end of the line when some guy up ahead of us notices his distress. He shouts, "Hey, we got a little kid back here!" and the line parted like the Red Sea to let him to the front. Not sure if that would happen in many cities besides Denver.

When Jonathan Papelbon struck out Seth Smith to end the game and clinch the series most of the Red Sox fans in attendance congregated behind the visiting team dugout. I didn't think the newly minted Rockies fan needed to have his nose rubbed in it, so we just watched the celebration from our seats for a few minutes before heading home.

Zak was more interested in goofing off with his buddies today than actually watching the game, but that's fine with me. The social aspect of sports is part of their immense appeal, even when you're in second grade. He did pay more attention than I thought, though. He said tonight that the best part was when the Rockies hit a home run, which is how they scored their lone tally.

Unlike Tommy Shramm, I didn't buy a Mets hat to taunt him. He's probably still a little young for that sort of induction into talking trash.

But if the Sox and Rox ever meet in the Fall Classic again, all bets are off.

I Prefer to Think of Him as the Guy Who Was Good to a Child

So apparently former Bronco Mike Anderson has been suspended from the NFL for at least a year for a repeat violation of the league's substance abuse policy. It's unfortunate for a guy who had such a great story -- plays drums in his high school marching band, doesn't start playing football until after he joins the Marines, sets school records at the University of Utah, gets drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 draft by the Broncos, then goes on to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.

The guy was a tremendous team player while he was in Denver, willing to do whatever was asked of him on the field. Sadly, he was suspended for four games in 2003 for substance abuse issues and now he seems to have succumbed to drug problems again. He was already without a team since the Ravens released him in February, and at the age of 34 his NFL career is likely over.

I remember escorting a VIP group of corporate sponsors at training camp in 2001. There was one kid in the group who was very excited to get player autographs on a football he'd brought, and got several as the players headed to the locker room after practice was over.

I then took the group to eat in the lunch room where the players also ate. The rule in the lunch room was no autographs, which I explained to the kid and his dad. Lunch was supposed to be a time for the players to relax.

We sat right next to the tray return, and as we were eating Mike Anderson walked by. After he'd returned his tray he noticed the kid with his football, and asked with a smile if the kid would like an autograph.

Before the kid could respond I hastily thanked Mike, told him we appreciated the offer but that we knew the rules in the lunch room. Some folks in Football Operations were very touchy about that stuff, and I didn't want there to be any misunderstanding about how it all had come down and the kid or me getting into any trouble.

But Mike insisted. Even reached into his bag and pulled out his own Sharpie to sign the ball with.

The kid was smiling from ear to ear as he handed Mike his ball, which Mike signed and handed back to him. As the kid looked at Mike's autograph, though, his smile faded. He looked up at Mike and asked, "Do you know where Terrell Davis is?"

This could have easily gone south from here, but Mike just laughed and said he wasn't sure -- thought maybe Terrell was getting some treatment and would be in for lunch later. He waved and went on his way and we finished up our lunch.

I think the kid's dad was mortified. I was just grateful that Mike didn't make an issue of it. I'd seen other players go bananas over lesser slights. It impressed me that he was able to succeed in maintaining his humility when so many athletes struggle to do so. Too bad that he doesn't appear to have been able to avoid another common pitfall of professional athletes.

Best wishes getting clean and staying clean and in whatever else the future holds for you, Mike. Hopefully there's at least one kid and one dad out there who appreciate the time you took to make a visit to training camp even more special.

At Least Boxers Get Paid To Do It

I saw something so unexpected during yesterday's Euro 2008 quarterfinal match between Germany and Portugal that I had to rewind the broadcast and watch it again to make sure. A soccer player was fouled and drew a free kick without writhing around the ground like he'd been hit on the knee with a club.

The player was Germany's Michael Ballack, who drew a foul early in the match. He didn't let out an anguished scream like he was auditioning for the role of Stanley Kowalski. His face didn't contort into a grotesque grimace as if he'd done a stunt on Jackass. He just got up off the ground and went about his business, and let the officials go about theirs.

Of all the reasons why Americans have supposedly failed to embrace the world's game, the one that resonates the most with me is distaste for all the "diving" that goes on -- exaggerating the effect of contact with another player in the hopes of getting the refs to call a foul on that player. Participants in the major U.S. professional sports tend to go out of their way to look like they're NOT in pain, yet their footballing counterparts seem to be polar opposites.

In the NBA they have a similar practice known as "flopping," and fans dislike it so much that the league is taking steps to eliminate it. Is it just a coincidence that some of the players most closely associated with this tactic are natives of Europe (Vlade Divac) or South America (Manu Ginobili, Anderson Varejao), where soccer is the number one sport?

What's really mystifying to me is how inconsistent diving is with other attributes commonly asssociated with soccer players like toughness and stamina. I've seen guys take free kicks right in the face from point-blank range and shake them off without missing a beat. One of the stats I've enjoyed seeing during the UEFA broadcasts is the amount of distance covered by players during the course of a match, which regularly exceeds six miles. These guys can do that stuff, but if someone breathes on them they act like they've been shot in the stomach with a cannonball?

I have to wonder if the refs aren't somewhat culpable in this practice. Players probably wouldn't do it if it didn't yield the desired outcome, right? Maybe the size of the pitch makes players feel they have to embellish to a Shatner-esque degree to get the attention of an official who may be 50 yards away. It's amazing how quickly they spring back up when their histrionics DON'T get the desired results and play moves quickly past them, though.

So here's the deal, soccer players. As long as a golfer is regarded as tougher than the lot of you, accept your status on the same tier as bass fishing and bowling in this country's sports heirarchy. Get some guys with the stoicism of Patrick Swayze getting stitched up in Roadhouse, and you may earn a little more respect from the American viewing public.

ARRGHHH! Typing cramp! I don't think I can fini

If It Has Cheerleaders, That's Just A Bonus

The Celtics' beatdown of the Lakers last night to clinch their 17th NBA Championship has been all but drowned out in the sports media by the continued dumbfounded amazement over Tiger Woods' U.S. Open victory on Monday. I even got in on the act of singing his praises, which is sort of the blogging equivalent of pouring a bottle of water into the Pacific Ocean.

Tiger's accomplishment seems all the more remarkable now that's its been revealed that he was playing with two stress factures in his left shin and is going to miss the rest of the season to have reconstructive surgery on his left knee. My buddy Derek Thomas actually got to see Friday and Saturday's rounds in person as his Father's Day present and could only come up with the world "unbelievable" to describe what Tiger did. Until we invent a better word I guess that will have to do, but it certainly seems woefully inadequate.

As an aside, I got a bike pack and a kitchen garbage can for Father's Day. But Danelle astutely pointed out that it's not like I wanted to go to the U.S. Open anyway. And it is a really nice garbage can.

Something else that's been brought up a few times in the wake of Tiger's triumph is the always lively debate about whether or not golf is a sport. There's no denying Tiger is an athlete, but if you can do something for five days on one leg (or with the benefit of a cart), is it really a sport?

I'm always amazed at how fans of almost every competitive endeavor seem to desperately crave being acknowledged as a sport, like it somehow makes the activity more important or worthwhile. At the same time, people who think something SHOULDN'T be considered a sport are often just as passionate about their stances. As if its going to personally cost them something to let another pursuit into the exclusive "sport" club.

I had a boss once who had been a competitive figure skater, and we had a number of spirited debates about its inclusion in the "sports" category. Thanks to her, I was able to graduate beyond the compelling assertion that "it just doesn't seem like a sport" to something a little more concrete -- a set of criteria for making this important determination.

Without further ado, here's how to definitively determine whether a particular diversion or pastime qualifies as a sport. Well, as definitive as most things on the interwebz.

1. The outcome has to be determined significantly more by objective factors than subjective ones. Granted, there's a level of subjectivity in everything -- Was that holding? Is the ump's strike zone a little wide today? Block or charge? But at the end of the day, the outcome of something like a football, baseball or basketball game is decided by who has the most points (or runs). A completely objective measurement.

But things like figure skating and gymnastics have judges who employ fairly subjective criteria to make their evaluations. How "artistic" was that performance? Basketball teams don't win games if one of their players has the prettiest jumpest shot, nor does a baseball team if its player has the sweetest swing. So my boss' activity was knocked out of the debate right out of the gate.

Note that professional boxing also fails this test. How "well" did someone box? What the heck does that mean? Amateur boxing, however, gets it right. You land a punch -- which is well-defined -- you get a point. You have the most points, you win the match. How well judges adhere to the established criteria is another debate entirely.

2. The amount of energy expended has to exceed a certain threshold. I don't know exactly what that threshold is. But I've decided in my own head that bowling and golf don't make the cut, let alone things like chess and tiddly winks. They can be competitions, contests, even battles. But not sports. I'm willing to bet that if anyone who feels differently about golf ever saw specimens like John Daly or Phil Mickelson naked (not that I ever have, but I'm just saying), they'd be forced to agree that there's no WAY these people can be said to play a sport for a living.

So take the case of an outfielder who's pitcher throws a no-hitter, never allowing a ball out of the infield. Said outfielder comes to bat three times in the game and strikes out looking all three times. His physical activity consisted of jogging from the dugout to his position and back nine times, and walking from the dugout to home plate and back three more. Sorry, John Kruk. No sport for you today.

3. The human involved has to do most of the work in order for it to be a sport for the human. I'll buy the argument that race car drivers have to be in good physical condition to do what they do. But other than Fred Flintstone, nobody propels a car by his or her own power. The internal combustion engine is doing a lot more work. Ditto for horse racing and the horses, but bicycle racing meets this requirement.

4. There has to be the intention of having a winner and a loser when the activity begins. So a hockey or soccer game (or even a baseball all-star game) that ends in a tie works, because someone was supposed to win going in. But hiking, mountain biking, swimming and so on miss the mark, unless there's a race involved. If it's just you, it's not a sport. However physically exhausting, the lack of competition takes you out of the sports discussion.

I actually went for years with just these four benchmarks, until my friend Bobby Mestas pointed out that a barroom brawl fit the bill. Since he was right and I didn't feel that a barroom brawl should qualify, a new standard had to be added.

5. There has to be a governing body or mutually agreed upon set of rules. The rules don't even have to be explicit, they can be understood. Three-Mississippi rush. No tag backs. Ghost men advance one base on a single. Whatever they are, everyone involved has to agree upon them for the most part. The guy who brings a gun to a knife fight (to paraphrase Sean Connery in The Untouchables) may win, but he wasn't exactly sporting about it.

So there you have it. Yes, I've clearly spent far too much time thinking about this topic in my life. But at least it's made for some fun debates.

Wonderful exercise, debating. See item #2 above for why it's not a sport, though.

In Other News, Water is Wet

I tried to take up golf. My boss gave me the old line of how it would be good for my career. Danelle's mom let me use her dad's old set of clubs, and I made a few trips to the driving range and played about four rounds over the course of a couple of years.

What I eventually decided was that I didn't have enough free time at this point in my life to spend it doing something I suck at. So the clubs went on a hook in the garage and I went back to things like tennis and volleyball that I'd played with some success and considerably more enjoyment when I was younger.

I share all that to establish that I really have no credentials for commenting on how good Tiger Woods is. But great googly moogly, the man is simply a force of nature and probably the greatest athlete of our generation whether you believe golf is actually a sport or not.

He just won his 14th major championship in a 19-hole playoff after forcing said playoff on the final hole yesterday of the first tournament he'd played in since having knee surgery eight weeks earlier.

The only hole of the tournament I actually watched in its entirety was the final one, but I couldn't get away from knowing what was going on throughout the weekend. ESPN Radio talked about nothing else Saturday night the whole way to and from my friend Rick's gig. Today the playoff was on the televisions at the Morrison Inn when I had lunch and Tipsy's Liquor World when I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine for Danelle. And as I drove home ESPN Radio was once again all over it, giving stroke-by-stroke recaps. So I knew that Tiger was behind going in to what was supposed to be the final hole today but again had a chance to forge a tie as I pulled in to my garage. And I turned on the TV in my family room just in time to see him do exactly that.

Then I settled in to witness what was, quite frankly, almost inevitable. After all, the first time this man played in The Masters as a professional he won it by 12 strokes. He won the British Open in 2006 just two months after his father and mentor passed away from cancer. He married a Swedish model, for Pete's sake. He wasn't supposed to lose to some guy named "Rocco," and he didn't.

I read once that rooting for the New York Yankees in baseball is like rooting for the house in blackjack. I suppose on some level cheering for Tiger is comparable. It's widely regarded as more fun to root for the underdog, a sentiment which makes the early rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament so compelling.

But there's something awe-inspiring to me about watching something or someone whose whole existence is focused on one purpose achieve that purpose. Do what they were built to do. I don't know Tiger personally, although I did eat at the table next to him in a Morton's Steakhouse in Orlando once. He may very well be a loving father, a devoted husband, help old ladies across the street and all that. All I really know about him is what I see on TV and read online about his professional side -- the red shirt on Sundays, the fist pump, the incomparable "mental toughness." Every ounce of it is devoted to winning golf tournaments. If he had lost today, it would have been exactly that. Him losing, not the other guy winning.

But that didn't happen, and Tiger now gets one major victory closer to the all-time record holder, Jack Nicklaus with 18, and removing the final flimsy argument from those who still refuse to acknowledge him as the greatest golfer ever. Tiger will turn 33 years old this December. Nicklaus won his final major when he was 46. If Woods can play 91 holes on a bum leg to win a major, I like his chances of somehow pulling out five more.

I may not know much about golf, but like Justice Potter Stewart and pornography I know greatness when I see it. So congratulations for making it to the end of probably my biggest waste of words in a post to date. I could have saved you and me both a lot of time if I'd just written, "Tiger Woods is quite skilled at golf" and left it at that.

But seriously, the internet would be a much more boring place if people didn't feel the need to state the obvious so much.

Thanks, Mike Piazza

Former catcher Mike Piazza retired a couple of weeks ago. He's widely regarded as one of the best hitting catchers of all time, but I'll alway remember him for another reason.

My dad was a huge Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He grew up in northern New Jersey when they were still the Brooklyn Dodgers, and after the team moved to California he continued to follow them.

When Danelle and I moved to Dallas in 1992 I started to follow the Texas Rangers. They had a good young catcher named Ivan Rodriguez. Piazza came up late that same season with the Dodgers, then in 1993 he went on to win Rookie of the Year in his first full season.

Neither my dad nor I could resist a good sports debate, so we'd regularly argue which of the two was better. Like most sports debates, there was almost no way to really decide on a winner. Piazza was a great hitter, especially for power, while Rodriguez was tremendous defensively and excelled at throwing out would-be base stealers.

The debate never grew old, even after we left Dallas and moved to Denver in 1997. Then my dad passed away from a heart attack in the spring of 1998.

A few months later I was driving to work when I heard on the radio that the Dodgers had traded Piazza to the Florida Marlins. The first thing that crossed my mind was how I needed to call my dad and ask him how great he thought Piazza was NOW. The mighty Dodgers didn't even want him any more! Finally, an edge in the great debate!

Then I remembered that I couldn't do that.

I knew my dad was dead, of course. I wasn't in any sort of denial or anything. But right then was when it really hit me.

So good luck with whatever else life holds for you, Mike Piazza. And thanks for always making me think of my dad. :)

Sadly, Halle Berry Is Not Involved In This Version

One of my kids' favorite outdoor games is something I played as a kid that we called monster ball. Basically it's sort of a cross between baseball and kickball. You play it with a wiffle bat and one of those really lightweight inflated balls that you see tons of in huge containers in the front of toy stores this time of year. The kind that you can't throw very far or very hard because they're just not heavy enough. I searched all over the web trying to find an actual name for those types of balls without any success, so I hope I've been clear enough as to what I'm talking about.

Anyway, it's a great game because the balls are big enough that they're pretty easy to hit even for the really little kids. One of the ways to get people out is throwing the ball at them as they run between bases like in kickball, and it doesn't really hurt when you get hit by one. And since the balls don't travel very far you don't need a lot of space to play.

We usually play on our driveway and in the street in front of our house. Home plate is up by our garage and second base is in the middle of the road. I don't think a kid has hit a ball all the way across the street in the air yet.

I still remember when we realized as kids that we were too old to play monster ball any more. I'm not sure exactly what age we were, but since we were pretty big we felt the need to raise the stakes. A wiffle bat wouldn't do -- we needed an aluminum bat. And for a ball we decided to upgrade to one of those red rubber dodgeballs.

With tools like this we needed a little more room, so it was on our bikes and off to the baseball field behind Our Savior's Lutheran Church. We picked our teams and got started.

Eric Ruff was the first one up. He stepped up to the plate, the pitch came in and he swung for the fences, just crushing the ball.

I doubt there are too many physics majors reading this, but let's pause here just the same and think for a moment about something none of us young geniuses thought of back then. Namely, what happens when an aluminum bat makes contact with a large rubber ball. I'll give you one guess, and it rhymes with "recoil."

The bat snapped back and caught poor Eric right in the face. Split his eyelid open pretty good. And thus ended what was very likely the shortest game in monster ball history, and all of our monster ball careers at the same time.

Or so I thought. Didn't really cross my mind back then that I might play the game again 25 years later. I think I'm enjoying it even more now than I did then -- listening to Zak protest that he touched the base before he was hit by the ball, trying to talk Taryn out of wanting to pitch, explaining that you can't carry the bat with you when you run the bases.

And we haven't had to call any games on account of split eyelids, either.

CORRECTION: Childhood friend and participant in this very game Tom Sand e-mailed to remind me that he was actually the first victim of self-mutilation by aluminum bat in this game. Ended up going to the emergency room for stitches. Then, apparently unconvinced that this sort of thing could possibly happen AGAIN, we brilliantly kept playing and Eric sustained his injury.

Sorry for the omission, Tom! I hope after 25 years I can be forgiven for being a little fuzzy on the details, and that you're fully healed. :)

Why a Sports League Commissioner Should Run the DNC

Please indulge me in a little sports analogy.

Two sports teams -- let's call them Team O and Team C -- agree to play a couple of exhibition games against each other before the regular season. Team C wins both games, which isn't a big surprise because C is expected by many to win its conference and play for the championship. In fact, Team C wins the first game by forfeit when Team O doesn't even show up.

The regular season starts, and as is so often the case in sports something unexpected happens. Team O gradually builds a slight lead over Team C in the standings.

The end of the season eventually draws near and Team O continues to hold its thin advantage. Team C is running out of time to catch Team O and make the championship round. Suddenly an unprecedented suggestion comes from the hosts of the two exhibition games -- they want to make those two preseason contests count.

Team C loves the idea. Team O not so much. It wouldn't make up all the ground between the two teams, but it would narrow the gap and give C at least a slim chance of ending up on top.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, as far as I can tell that's pretty much exactly the scenario we have with the Democratic primaries in Florida and Michigan.

The voters in both primaries knew going in that THEIR VOTES WOULDN'T COUNT. The political equivalent of exhibition games. Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan, because he and four other Democratic candidates decided to take them off to show support for the DNC's ruling.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to Denver. The race for the Democratic presidential nomination got really, really tight and it became clear that literally every delegate was probably going to matter. In March the respective governors of Michigan and Florida asked the Democratic National Committee to seat theirs. And after a couple of months of wrangling and rhetoric the DNC decided today to do just that, but only give each delegate a half-vote.

I suppose this sort of compromise was inevitable and necessary. If the DNC had stuck to its guns, the Republicans would undoubtedly have used that in November to imply that the Democrats don't care about the fine people of those fine states. I'll be shocked if they still don't try to use this in some fashion.

But seriously, can you imagine David Stern handling this in a similar fashion in the NBA? He would have moved Florida's state convention to Oklahoma City after they pulled their little stunt. How about Roger Goodell in the NFL? Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm would still be on indefinite suspension. Bud Selig may be the only one who thinks this makes sense, given the ludicrous decision to bestow home-field advantage in the World Series to the league that wins the All-Star Game.

So don't feel bad if you prefer following sports to politics. At least in sports, everybody understands the rules (with the possible exception of Bill Belichick) and nobody expects them to change while the contest is still going on.

I'll bet Team M is enjoying its rest while this drags out, too.

What's Up With the Shirt?

As a kid in upstate New York in the late '70s, you were pretty much a free agent when it came to forming your sports allegiances. A three-hour drive from Boston, three hours from New York City and 4 1/2 from Buffalo. There was no real "home team" so my pro sports affiliations were mostly influenced by my parents, but in inconsistent ways.

For example, my mom was a Bruins fan and a Red Sox fan, so I was, too. But something weird happened with football and basketball. My dad liked the Steelers, my mom liked the Giants, so I chose to cheer for...the Cowboys. It probably didn't hurt that they were always on TV, and that their cheerleaders were on The Love Boat.

My mom didn't care much about basketball, but my dad rooted for the Celtics. So I became a 76ers fan. I'm sure a therapist could have a field day with all of this stuff, but for now let's just accept that it is what it is.

The Celtics got the best of the Sixers more often than not, but that was all right by me. They had their one shining moment in 1983. I even won a dollar betting Sheila Kleinmann that Philly would beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals that year. The little snot paid me with a Ziploc bag filled with 100 pennies, but I still got mine.

I really hated those '80s Celtics teams. That little punk Danny Ainge. Kevin McHale, some weird mix of Alan Alda and Frankenstein. Dennis Johnson and his freckles (God rest his soul). Robert Parish, even scrubs like Scott Wedman and Greg Kite. And of course, Larry Bird. Man, he bugged me -- the mullet, the total disdain for anything remotely athletic, and the fact that he was really, really, really good. I rooted for the Lakers to beat them when they met in the Finals, and the Pistons to beat the last remnants of that team when they met in the playoffs in the latter part of the decade.

I've held on to some of my old sports animosities. Even though I live in Denver, I don't like the Avalanche in part because they used to be the Bruins' old rival, the Quebec Nordiques. And because Patrick Roy was their goalie when we moved here and they acquired him from the Bruins' other rival, the Montreal Canadiens. And I think I'll always have a special place of loathing in my heart for the Yankees. But over the years I've softened on the Celtics.

Maybe it's because they became pretty bad and irrelevant for a while, and it's not as much fun to root against a team when they stink. Maybe Jerry Seinfeld was right that with free agency resulting in so much player movement, at the end of the day you're just rooting for laundry. Maybe it's because since my dad passed away back in 1998 I haven't had a Celtics fan to debate with and keep a degree of personal competition afloat. But once again, it is what it is.

Here's the real twist in this story -- I'm absolutely rooting for the Celtics to not only beat the Pistons tonight, but to win the NBA Championship. And I think the single biggest reason for that is the addition of Kevin Garnett.

Garnett's always been an appealing personality to me since he did his ESPN The Magazine and Nike commercials in his early years in the league. I like his nickname, "The Big Ticket." I like his intensity on the court -- ESPN writer Bill Simmons actually refers to him (affectionately, I believe) as TCIKG for "The Completely Insane Kevin Garnett." And I think for most casual fans, he's put himself into the category of "athletes you'd like to see win a championship before they retire." The sports media tend to like those types of stories -- see Jerome Bettis with the Steelers a few years ago.

Now, I'll admit I'm starting to get a little oversaturated by all the hype around "The Big Three" of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Overexposure could result in a backlash (David Beckham, anyone?). And don't get me started on how the NBA completely ripped off their "There can only be one" playoff ad campaign from Highlander. But for now I'll keep pulling for the C's.

Well, for Kevin Garnett anyway. Danny Ainge is now the Celtics general manager, and he's still a little punk.

Maybe sports hostility never completely dies after all...

UPDATE: Garnett scored 33 points -- his most in this year's playoffs -- and hit a pair of free throws in the closing seconds to put the game out of reach in Boston's 106-102 win last night. I'm officially declaring being featured in this blog the anti-SI Cover Jinx.

An Unexpected and Disappointing Flaw

So I set my Tivo to record this afternoon's UEFA Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea. I'm not a huge fan of soccer as a spectator sport, but I do like to watch it played at the highest level from time to time.

The game is tight. Very tight. Goes to extra time tied 1-1. It's still 1-1 after the first extra session, and that was ALL I SAW.

Tivo had decided the game couldn't possibly last more than 2 1/2 hours, so that's all it recorded.

WHAT?!?!

You mean to tell me that the technology doesn't exist for Tivo to know when a program -- especially a live program like a sporting event -- hasn't actually ended at the time it's "supposed" to? Tivo is "smart" enough to start recording other children's programs just because we get things like Backyardigans and Pinky Dinky Doo for our kids, but it's not smart enough to know that THE BEST PART OF SOMETHING IT'S ACTUALLY CURRENTLY RECORDING HASN'T HAPPENED YET?!?!

Now, I know I can tell Tivo to record longer. But that's just improving my odds of getting the whole thing and not necessarily guaranteeing it unless I pad the recording of every live broadcast by three hours. And even that wouldn't necessarily always work.

And Tivo's supposed to be all about convenience -- why should anyone have to deal with a non-intuitive workaround like this?

Seriously, Tivo people. If we can make these, you can figure this out.

For those who actually care how the match ended, you can read about it here. I had to. :(