Category: Sports

Michael Wilbon provides excellent all-around analysis of the state of basketball — America and the world.

It wasn’t a lack of desire or fight that led the U.S. men to the bronze medal game.

It was a lack of skill.

Gregg Easterbrook gets us ready for the NFL season —

As the blessed moment, Sept. 9, draws nigh, bear in mind the number 1,000. That’s how many times you will see your favorite team snap the ball during the coming regular season. Last year, the Panthers ran 1,008 plays, the Raiders had 987 plays, the Seahawks ran 1,017 plays, the Cowboys snapped 975 times, the Chiefs snapped 1,003 times, the Packers had 999 snaps. Good team or bad, everybody in the NFL was within a standard pollster’s margin of error of 1,000 plays.

Read his AFC and NFC previews.

From Larry Stewart:

Tim Long, a research scientist for Old Spice deodorant, is known as the “sweat expert” at the company.

He led a study that determined the sweatiest sports at the Olympics. Tennis topped the list with 3.37 liters in a match, though the marathon was not included in the study. Shooting came in last among the 23 sports tested.

The results were based on duration, intensity and body temperature achieved.

NewMexiKen figures they should have measured the sweat on the guys watching women’s volleyball.

Update: The entire list:

1. Tennis (Men’s Singles)
2. Triathlon
3. Soccer
4. Volleyball (Beach Volleyball)
5. Handball
6. Cycling (Road Cycling, Individual Time Trial)
7. Baseball
8. Badminton (Men’s Doubles)
9. Basketball
10. Aquatics (Water Polo)
11. Fencing (Men’s Individual Foil)
12. Table Tennis (Men’s Doubles)
13. Gymnastics (Men’s Artistic)
14. Boxing (Super Heavyweight, 201+ lbs)
15. Rowing (Men’s Double Sculls)
16. Wrestling (Greco Roman, 264.5 lbs)
17. Taekwondo (Men’s Welterweight, 176+ lbs.)
18. Aquatics (Individual Medley, 400 M)
19. Weightlifting (Men’s 231+ lbs)
20. Judo (Men’s Heavyweight, 220+ lbs.)
21. Canoeing (Flatwater K1, 500 M)
22. Athletics (Men’s Track, 400 M)
23. Shooting (Men’s 50 M Rifle Prone)

More Dwight Perry:

Sounds like they made a killing on the Kleenex concession at the Olympic Greco-Roman finals yesterday, after Rulon Gardner took off his shoes to signify his retirement from wrestling.

“Rulon was crying,” wrote Gil Lebreton of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Rulon’s wife was crying. Rulon’s coach was crying. The Iranian guy that Rulon beat was crying. …

“There were so many teary eyes, in fact … a gymnastics meet almost broke out.”

Dwight Perry:

It won’t make anybody forget that eerie list of Abraham Lincoln-John F. Kennedy coincidences, but there are some startling similarities to now and 1979, the previous time USC entered a football season ranked No. 1.

“In 1978, the Trojans won a share of the national title by defeating Michigan in the Rose Bowl,” wrote Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times. “Last season, USC won a share of the national title by defeating Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

“The quarterbacks then and now, (Paul) McDonald and Matt Leinart, are left-handers.

“There was a White in the backfield then, Charles, and a White in the backfield now, LenDale.”

And John Robinson’s secretary was named Carol, and Pete Carroll’s secretary …

Just kidding on that last part.

If you didn’t watch last weekend’s NEC Invitational (and not many did) you may have missed Tiger’s — dare NewMexiKen say it — shank. Grouchy Golf Observations tells the story well.

Take the SortaGolf Quiz.

Advisory: This will offend some golf “purists.”

NewMexiKen agrees with the Sports Law Blog:

But in the era of OnDemand and Pay-Per-View, I hope that by 2008 there is an option to pay $100 for an “All Sports” telecast — all of the races (even the ones without Americans!) and none of the stories. I may not know about the Romanian gymnast who lost her home or the American swimmer that had a toe amputated, but that is ok by me.

Of course, I wouldn’t buy the $100 package, but I don’t watch the Olympics now either. Watching Seabiscuit a few more times is actually preferable.

From Morning Briefing:

According to Internet search engine Lycos, Kobe Bryant has lost the top spot on the list of most-searched athletes on the Internet. The new No. 1 is U.S. Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard.

Bryant dropped to sixth. Nos. 2-5: Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, U.S. high jumper Amy Acuff, U.S. gymnast Carly Patterson and tennis player Anna Kournikova.

Nothing like scantily clad female Olympians to divert attention from a sexual assault case.

From Morning Briefing by Larry Stewart in the Los Angeles Times —

Dodger center fielder Steve Finley gave two cases of golf balls, each containing 144 balls, to Manager Jim Tracy, who is not exactly a scratch golfer.

Bench coach Jim Riggleman, noticing the two cases in Tracy’s office, put notes on both. The note on one box read, “Front nine.” The note on the other read, “Back nine.”

From Morning Briefing:

From Seth Soffian of the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press: “Did you hear the one about Tiger Woods? During [last week’s] PGA tournament, Amy Mickelson handed one of her children to him before she realized it wasn’t her husband, Phil.

“Sorry,” she said, “I’m still used to guys who can’t win majors.”

Blog Maverick, the Mark Cuban blog, has some good analysis on the basketball nightmare at the Olympics, including details on how Canada began to handle international hockey after some unacceptable losses.

Grouchy Golf Observations has a great shot courtesy of CBS’s SwingVision. It’s Tiger Woods’ club at impact.

The club is still on its way down (note the angle of the shaft), as we all know it should be.

should have been 70 today. The Puerto Rican born Baseball Hall of Fame inductee won four National League batting titles, was MVP in 1966 and finished his shortened career with exactly 3,000 hits. Clemente died at age 38 in a plane crash while delivering supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year Year’s Eve 1972.

From Dwight Perry’s Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times:

Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, to Fox Sports Net, on NBC’s Olympic telecasts: “It’s more of a TV show than an athletics sporting event. They might as well call it ‘Will and Greece.’ ”

Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, sounding like a man with an Olympic-dependency habit: “Was anybody else up at 5:50 a.m. Tuesday to watch Korea play China in mixed-doubles badminton on MSNBC?”

Ken of newmexiken.com, on the vagaries of trying to surf among NBC’s six Olympic channels: “NewMexiKen thought he’d tuned in to Cinemax by mistake, but it was just coverage of women’s Olympic beach volleyball.”

After the basketball loss to Puerto Rico, the Sports Law Blog wants to know: “Why is there a separate Olympic team for Puerto Rico?”

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

NewMexiKen thought he’d tuned into Cinemax by mistake, but it was just coverage of women’s Olympic beach volleyball.

Click for sample.

NewMexiKen has learned what a truly great hobby golf is. I mean, it can take up so much of your time. It’s multi-faceted.

You play golf.
You practice golf.
You read about golf.
You go to the store and buy golf stuff.
And, of course, mostly, you spend time lamenting golf.

Honored yesterday at the College Football Hall of Fame were Hayden Fry and Jerry LeVias. LeVias was the first black player in the Southwest Conference and, according to AP, “faced death threats, isolation, and verbal and physical assaults just to play football for Southern Methodist in 1966,” where Fry coached.

When S.M.U. offered him the coaching job, Fry, then a 33-year-old Arkansas assistant, made one demand. “I told them I wouldn’t accept the job unless I could have black players,” he said.

After almost a month, the administration relented and said he could have one black player, but insisted on strenuous standards – including a 1000 SAT score – on his admission. White players had to score only 750.

Much is being made that the PGA is Tiger Woods’ tenth major without a win, after winning eight in 1997-2002. Yet, at roughly the same age, Jack Nicklaus, who had won seven majors, went 12 majors without a win (from the 1967 U.S. Open to the 1970 British).

To be fair Nicklaus was closer to winning a few times more than Tiger, but he also missed the cut once, something Tiger hasn’t done.

was born on this date in 1912. Hogan was the great golfer of mid-century, overcoming injuries from a severe, near-fatal auto accident. Hogan won four U.S. Opens, two Masters, two PGAs and one British Open between 1946-53.

At some point NewMexiKen read a story about Hogan playing in a pro-am. The duffer with him kept asking how he, Hogan, did this and how he did that, as if the amateur could match Hogan’s skills if only he used the right club.

Finally, after a wonderful chip shot, the amateur asked Hogan which club he had used. That was too much. Hogan proceeded to pull out every club in his bag and to make perfect chip shots onto the green with each.

died on this date in 1995.

1952 was Mantle’s first full season. He’d come up the year before and taken over centerfield with DiMaggio’s retirement. And it was in 1952 that NewMexiKen attended my first major league baseball game — as a 7-year-old. I was MichiKen in those days and the game was at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) against the hated New York Yankees. (I was taken by my 13-year-old uncle. Can you imagine two kids 13 and 7 going to a major league game on their own these days? I mean, who’d drive?)

Anyway, to be honest I don’t remember the moment, but The Mick hit his first career grand slam homerun that day. Even so, the last-place Tigers won with a walk-off grand slam by Steve Souchock in the 11th.

I do remember seeing Mantle hit one out of the stadium, over the right-field upper deck onto Trumbull Avenue in 1956.

Update: I do remember Souchock’s homerun. I also remember my first ice cream sandwich; and that my 13-year-old uncle smoked. I think he convinced me not to tell Grandma.