Category: Sports

NewMexiKen thought this article by Joe Drape in today’s New York Times was an interesting, informative analysis of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

Which is harder to win, the Triple Crown of baseball or the Triple Crown of horse racing?

In the past 117 years, there have been 17 Triple Crown winners in baseball. In the past 122 years, there have been 11 Triple Crown winners in horse racing.

The last Triple Crown winners in baseball were Frank Robinson in 1966 and Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. The last Triple Crown winner in horse racing was Affirmed in 1978.

Tom Durkin, who will call today’s Belmont Stakes for NBC, said on a conference call this week, “There’s no question that the Triple Crown of horse racing is more difficult. How many years did Willie Mays play? Twenty years? [Actually 22]. He had 20 chances to do it. Smarty Jones has one. That’s it.”

Dissenting vote: Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News claims the Triple Crown debate is a walkover for baseball.

“Think about it,” he wrote. “To claim a spot in his sport’s pantheon, Smarty Jones has to be better than a dozen or so horses for just more than six minutes.

“To win baseball’s Triple Crown, a hitter must be at the top of his game for six grinding months … competing against hundreds of the best.”

From Bill Simmons at ESPN.com Page 2:

It’s too bad you could never coordinate this with 40,000 people, but the next time Barry Bonds comes up, if everyone at SBC Park cheered all at once, and then someone in the right-field stands threw a ball into the bay so all those losers in the boats would dive in for the ball … and then this happened like five or six times … I mean, that would be kinda fun, right?

Thanks to Jason for the pointer.

Sports Law Blog has an interesting post on the Raul Mondesi case. It seems Mondesi told the Pirates he couldn’t play for the rest of the season due legal problems at home in the Dominican Republic. The Pirates eventually put him on waivers and released him. Two weeks later Mondesi has signed with the Angels, a first place team.

From Larry Stewart at the Los Angeles Times:

When [Al] Michaels does the play by play for ABC on the NBA Finals that begin Sunday, he will have accomplished a broadcasting Grand Slam.

He will become the first announcer to work the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup finals and the NBA Finals.

He has worked eight World Series, five Super Bowls and was the host of three Stanley Cup finals beginning in 2000.

And the “Do you believe in miracles?” Olympics.

From Dwight Perry in The Seattle Times:

White Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson, to the San Francisco Chronicle, recalling one of Lou Piniella’s temper tantrums during his playing days: “One time he struck out and launched his helmet as high up as he could throw it. The ump said, ‘Lou, if that helmet comes down, you’re outta here.’ “

Professional soccer player Freddy Adu is 15 today.

From Steve Schrader in the Detroit Free Press:

Monday night, Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders had to coax Lakers fan Jack Nicholson back into his courtside seat, which he had vacated to yell at a referee over a second-quarter foul call. As if Shaq and Kobe weren’t enough, now [Pistons coach] Larry Brown has to worry about who can cover Jack, too?

Conclusion of article about Ken Griffey, Jr., in The New York Times:

For this series against the Marlins, Griffey parked his yacht, The Chosen One, at the Fort Lauderdale Marina Marriott and slept on it while his teammates bunked in the hotel. Some teammates gawked at the glitzy vessel.

Griffey was reluctant to discuss the yacht, but people who have been aboard said it has six bedrooms, each with a plasma television. The favored beverage on board is apparently margaritas.

“We’ve got a night game tomorrow, so Margaritaville will be open until 2,” said Griffey, who is hoping the latest party is not interrupted by an injury this time.

Phil Jackson fans might enjoy Harvey Araton’s column in The New York Times.

Lakers in five six.

Ralph tells us the Independent Panel Wanted Heads to Roll at the University of Colorado — “they expected firings.”

…on Friday [Coach] Barnett spoke to KKFN radio and said that he said ‘nothing had changed’ concerning his job and his responsibilities. The new policies just changed ‘who he reported to.’

Like Ralph, NewMexiKen doubts this story is over.

Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

— Shaq’s free throws are like snowflakes: No two are alike.

The University of Arizona softball team lost to Oklahoma and to Louisiana-Lafayette last Saturday to end their season at 55-6. Oklahoma went on to advance to the Women’s College World Series.

Arizona had been to the Series every year since 1988, 16 straight, a record.

Four PAC-10 teams are in the WCWS even without Arizona — UCLA, Cal, Stanford and Washington.

ESPN’s Ivan Maisel takes a look at the University of Colorado, A Recipe For Disaster.

All it takes is a recipe of liberal politics, arrogant coaches, condescending faculty, libertine lifestyles, racial imbalance and a long-simmering battle between town and gown. Mix well and bake in the glare of competitive media — Denver, 25 miles down the highway, is one of the last two-newspaper cities in America — and what started as rape accusations too fuzzy to prosecute became a national symbol for college football programs run amok.

Thanks to Byron for the pointer.

is 66 today.

“The NBA fined Indiana’s Ron Artest for making an obscene gesture, but never specified the act. Was it his jump shot?”

Drew Sharp in the Detroit Free Press

Scott Ostler has an interesting contrast:

Instead of blame, what’s being handed out is kudos. One C[olorado] U[niversity] regent said that Barnett and top school officials “all deserve the opportunity to lead this university and right this ship.”

Excuse me while I push my eyeballs back into their sockets.

If the CU regents ran Exxon, they would’ve had captain Joe Hazelwood back his tanker off the reef in 1989 in Prince William Sound and resume his cruise.

“Take another shot at it, Captain! Anyone can make a mistake!”

Similar deal. Hazelwood and Barnett both claim they gave proper orders that were not followed.

OK, it’s not a fair comparison. The mess in Alaska was easier to clean up.

From Steve Schrader in the Detroit Free Press

A lot has been made about [Tayshaun] Prince’s wingspan during his two-year career — and now about how it helped him block Miller’s shot. (His hustle, speed and leaping ability certainly helped more, of course.)

Think back to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing of Vitruvius’ theory. (That’s the naked guy standing with his arms spread wide.) Vitruvius, an architect and engineer under Julius Caesar, created his measurements of the human body. (Four fingers make one palm, four palms make one foot, six palms make one cubit, etc.)

Vitruvius declared that the length of a man’s outspread arms was equal to his height.

This is where Prince comes in. He is 6-feet-9, or 81 inches. But from fingertip to fingertip he supposedly is 86 inches. That’s the wingspan you’d expect of someone 7-feet-2.

Prince isn’t some freak of nature, but, obviously, five extra inches of reach is a huge advantage in basketball.

Don’t trust Vitruvius? We didn’t around the Free Press. So we grabbed a tape measure and, sure enough, everyone’s wingspan was within 1-3 inches of his height.

Hey Dad, you always told me that wingspan equalled height when I was a kid. I didn’t know you knew Da Vinci.

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times

KFWB’s Bret Lewis, on the supposed doom and gloom faced by Andre Agassi after losing his first-round French Open match to Jerome Haehnel, ranked 271st in the world:

“His trainer says, ‘We’re in uncharted waters right now. We need to find a reason to wake up tomorrow.’

“Let’s see. Andre is 34. A multimillionaire and an international superstar. With a famous wife and a happy family. Gosh, I hope somehow he can find the will to go on.”

From the Late Show (thanks to Sideline Chatter for the pointer)

10. “Owner won’t pay for team to travel to away games” (Oscar Robertson)

9. “Coach used time-out to go get Spike Lee’s autograph” (Robert Parish)

8. “Your teammate spends whole game guarding the ref” (Rick Barry)

7. “Power forward has been out two months with the hiccups” (George Gervin)

6. “During the season, you lost to the Lakers and the Laker Girls” (Willis Reed)

5. “Your team logo is a guy asleep in a hammock” (Walt Frazier)

4. “Much of the 24 seconds is spent on uncontrollable sobbing” (Clyde “The Glide” Drexler)

3. “No one can dunk without using a stepladder” (Bill Walton)

2. “Your best player is named Shaquille Wasserstein” (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

1. “Many nights you have more groin pulls than points” (Bill Russell)

From Dwight Perry, Sideline Chatter, in The Seattle Times

Talk about a pitcher helping himself at the plate: Andrew Kinney of Ida (Mich.) High School hit three bases-loaded home runs — tying a state single-game record with 12 RBI — and got the win in a 21-11 romp over Monroe Jefferson on Saturday.

“After he got that third grand slam, he couldn’t throw a strike to save his life,” Ida assistant coach Matt Brannan told the Monroe (Mich.) Evening News.

“But that’s OK.”

That was big of him.

On this date in 1935, in a period of about 70 minutes, Owens broke three world records and tied another.

Competing for Ohio State at the Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Owens tied the 100-yard-dash world record at 9.4, Fifteen minutes later he long jumped 26 feet 8¼ inches, besting the existing world record by nearly 6 inches. He then beat the existing record in the 220-yard dash by three-tenths of second, running it in 20.3. Finally, Owens ran the 220-yard low hurdles in a world record 22.6.