Berg At Bat

 
Well, the former Pistons/Sixers/Pacers/Clippers/Spurs/Nets/Nuggets/Carolina/UCLA/Kansas head coach Larry Brown has finally landed his self-described dream job -- coaching the New York Knicks. So much for all that talk of wanting to stay in Detroit. So much for the deal he'd cut with the Cleveland Cavaliers before the 2005 playoffs were over.

Does anyone really think this devil's deal in the Big Apple will work out?

While homer Khalil at The Post Game is looking forward to Brown painting the town, it comes with the understanding that it can't last -- as LB doesn't let grass grow under his feet. Off Wing Opinion agrees, spoofing an announcement of Brown's departure in 2007. The best assessment of Brown's abilities and character as a coach, though, belongs to ESPN The Mag's Adrian Wojnarowski, who thinks LB has sullied his rep as the heir to Dean Smith.

While Brown's wandering eye gets part of the blame for why most folks don't think a Brown/Isiah Thomas/Knicks wedding is a good one, better analysts weave Brown's failings into the thin fabric of his new team. Eric Mirlis' column in The Writers cites Thomas' perpetually bad player acquisitions as well as Brown's traditional refusal to play young talent as the big reasons for an inevitable Brown-out in New York City. Marc Stein at ESPN.com also argues that rebuilding the Knicks will be a bigger project than even reclamation-specialist Brown can handle. (For an ongoing and entertaining look at the Brown-goes-to-New-York-and-finds-Stephon-there story, check out Larry Fleisher's blog, Father Knickerbocker.)

The best of this skeptical bunch is Chad Ford, whose Insider column on ESPN.com ticks off the players Brown will likely "kick to the curb," Isiah be damned. First on the list? Drum roll, please. Ta-da! Stephon Marbury! Big surprise. Ford also thinks we could likely/maybe see the backsides of Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, Tim Thomas, small big men Mo Taylor/Malik Rose/Jerome Williams/Michael Sweetney/David Lee, Channing Frye and Jerome James all leaving NYC. If Brown could pull off such a caper within a season or two, and get some real talent inside Madison Square Garden, he might just be worth all the money the Knicks are willing to pay him. That is, $10M per on a five-year contract, the richest coaching contract in the history of sports.

Let's see what we've got here. A stubborn and not-so-healthy 65-year-old coach with wanderlust; a roster of ornery has-beens and never-wases; a team prez with a hole in his pocket and some serious attitude; and a fiercely loyal fan base -- all smack dab in the middle of the biggest sports media market in the world. With Brown's move to the Big Apple, L.A. might still have Hollywood -- but Show Time has moved to NYC.
 

 
Once again, Ricky Williams is in the spotlight in late July -- only this year, it's the All-Pro running back's return to the NFL rather than his sudden retirement from the Miami Dolphins that's making news.



One thing that hasn't changed is the hand-wringing and finger-wagging from media types. Here's The Sun Herald's Jim Mashek, flogging Williams like a second-hand mule, while The Sports Frog bemoans (scroll down) that The Fuzzy One is only coming back for the money. (Same goes for comments from SportsFilter, though several respondents express more understanding and forgiveness than we're used to seeing on sports message boards.)

Generally, the complaints are of two stripes -- Evergreen Gripes and Kurrent Kvetching:

EGs:

• Williams abandoned his team, without warning, on the eve of last season;


• and no wonder, since he's weird enough to have once worn a wedding dress;


• and only gave interviews with his helmet on;


• and caused the Fish to have a 4-12 season;


• and brought about the firing of Dave Wannstedt;


• and he's a pothead!

KKs:

• Now he's guilty of ushering in "control-freak" Nick Saban;


• and he's out four games for his positive drug test;


• and, anyway, he won't be as good as he was;


• and he only came back for the money;


• and though he apologized, he doesn't seem as contrite;


• and he looks like a hippie;
  
• and he says he doesn't smoke dope now, but if you believe that ...

Used to be, the Op-Ed section of newspapers was only one, maybe two pages of many sections and pages. How did we get to the point where opinion is the meat-and-potatoes of sports journalism and hard news is the bland side of veggies?

In the case of Ricky Williams, do any of the sports commentators have people in their lives who aren't obsessed by sports? Who don't spend their daily lives immersed in the comings and goings of athletes? Who might think there's something more important in the world than the Miami Dolphins' chances to make the playoffs?

I ask because I was reminded this week, when my mother came for a visit, that much of the world doesn't know jack about sports -- and they don't even care! Shocking, I know, but true. And, if she gave it any thought, my mom might think that, yes, it was a shame Williams deserted his team, but she would prob'ly also think his reasons for doing so weren't so far-flung.

She would respect that Williams needed to be true to himself before he could commit to anything else. She would also appreciate that Williams has aspects of himself that football doesn't fulfill -- exactly what's wrong with being a vegetarian and learning yoga and wanting to know more about the world outside of the hype of the NFL? There's plenty of room in the NFL for country boys, gangstas, geeks (the league has its own Geek Squad in the Mannings) and other assorted personality types -- are Williams' critics suggesting there's no room for a hippie? I'm certain my mom would have a problem with that.

Also, who wouldn't be sick of getting beaten up for a crummy team that only promises to continue being crummy? Why risk your long-term health just because management isn't responsible enough to find a decent QB who can help carry the load? And if Williams is coming back for the money -- well, duh, isn't everyone playing for the money? (If you're not sure about this, put in a call to Drew Rosenhaus to find out.)

In Michael Wilbon's latest column, former Redskins star John Riggins asks just these sorts of questions -- and expresses his respect for and support of Williams. The Orlando Sentinel's Jemele Hill asks such questions because, as he points out, Ricky was and may yet be the scapegoat for what's really ailing the Dolphins. And can't you just see it all season long? -- the publicity before, during and after Week 5 for Ricky's first game back; ditto for the Fins vs. Saints matchup; ditto for the game in which Williams takes the starting spot from the rook, Ronnie Brown. And on and on and on. (Yawn.)

Funny thing is, these same Williams detractors will no doubt be screaming for Saban to get Ricky in the game as the Feeley/Frerotte/Brown combo flails like Fish out of water. One can just smell the stench of the Williams rantlines to come.

And is this the sort of stuff that drives traffic online? What sells magazines and newspapers? What makes us tune in to "SportsCenter"? Apparently enough people think so that we'll continue to read/see/hear it ad nauseum.

But wouldn't it be refreshing if these same people turned the tables and presented Williams as a trailblazer? How 'bout just a really interesting dude? This generation's Jim Brown maybe, though inspired by world peace more than racial politics? Perhaps he's the NFL's version of Bill Walton! And he's got a way better story than Barry Sanders, who's never given an explanation for his early departure from football.

But to do that, one would have to find out more about him -- and the Jay Mariottis and Skip Baylesses and Jason Whitlocks of the sports world don't have the time nor the inclination for that.
 

 
Is professional cycling about to lose its Tiger Woods? Its Wayne Gretsky? Its Michael Jordan?

Yesterday NBCSports.com cycling commentator Garrett Lai wrote that Lance Armstrong is now pretty much assured his seventh Tour de France victory. Oh, the six-time winner will pooh-pooh such a conclusion at this point, saying there's still the 55 km individual time trial on Saturday and still mountains left on which T-Mobile might attack -- but the truth is, Lance is the premiere time trialist at the Tour, and no way Ivan Basso, who's in second place, is going to make up 2:46 minutes in that stage to overtake him.

Further, if T-Mobile's attacks fell short in the real mountain stages, none will have a prayer of being effective on the measly hills the riders have left. To add to the Pinkies' woes, Andreas Kloden and Matthias Kessler are doubtful for Wednesday's Stage 17 because of injuries the teammates sustained in a crash on Tuesday. (Kloden fractured a wrist, and Kessler has a concussion.) And at this point, Jan Ullrich and soon-to-be-ex-Pinkie Alexandre Vinokourov couldn't pair up to share a water bottle, let alone to sustain a successful attack on Armstrong in the time they have left. In fact, according to a Reuters report, Ullrich has already conceded first place in the GC to the Texan; now the big German is aiming just to make the podium.

Nothing less than a Tour-ending crash could keep Lance from winning the yellow jersey in his final spin into Paris.

(The possibility certainly exists, as today's stage saw a "troll," as Lance calls obnoxious spectators, strike Credit Agricole rider Audrey Kashechkin in the face, bloodying his nose and taking time off his finish. On Sunday, another fan was mowed down by one of the Tour's camera-toting motorcycles after getting in the way to pat a rider on the back. Berserk-o fans at the Tour are no joke -- Armstrong has received death threats while on the last two Tours, and though nothing tragic has happened, he's had to ride for years with Tour fans throwing beer in his face, spitting on him and making plenty of threatening gestures. It's all too easy to imagine a situation happening reminiscent of the Monica Seles stabbing.)

And then where will cycling be? Lance Armstrong has done as much for the sport in America as Tiger Woods has done for the PGA -- but will Americans turn their backs again on the Tour de France after Armstrong steps off the podium on Sunday? I'm afraid so. Though recreational cycling has exploded in this country, with week-long rides and weekend charity rides nearly everywhere you look, people still aren't interested enough to follow the sport's other majors, as it were, the Giro d' Italia in May (though a Discovery Channal team member, Paolo Savoldelli, won it) or September's Vuelta a Espana.

Oh, the media has tried to tempt us. Especially with Tyler Hamilton. But even before the former Phonak team leader tested positive twice, after winning Olympic gold and after taking a stage at last year's Vuelta, Hamilton wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire. Yes, his inspired ride in the 2003 Tour de France, after fracturing his collarbone in Stage 1 and going on to finish fourth, improved his profile with American fans. But the mild-mannered Massachusetts native was, well, too nice. Especially when compared to Lance Armstrong, who's both this generation's Stanley Kowalski and, after coming back from testicular cancer, its athletic Jesus Christ. Hamilton didn't have much presence with American fans to begin with, and with the doping allegations hanging over him, he's pretty much been erased.

Can another American rider carry the torch? You might look to the NBA to see how the vacuum left by Michael Jordan has turned out. Every year it seems some phenom gets burdened with being The Next MJ, but that sort of hype just doesn't work. And that goes double for cycling, since Lance is pretty much the only cyclist average fans recognize. Lance is not only a one-man franchise, he is in essence a one-country franchise -- and if he's not racing, will America even remember the Tour de France takes place every July?

It would be nice if they did, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
 

 
It's bad enough Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon starved us of their humor and bonhomie by taking vacations at the same time this summer, but leaving "Pardon the Interruption" to the staged and unfunny rantings of Jason Whitlock and Michael Smith-turned-Jay Mariotti this week has apparently been enough to start a nation-wide hunger strike.



Tony "Stat Boy" Reali mentioned on Thursday's show the email complaints piling up for Whit-less (or Nit-Whit, or Dim-Whit, as this page has it) -- no doubt because of his stubbornly moronic comments about Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France. (Reali's tweak was also mentioned on a Television Without Pity message board along with some pungent commentary.)

I'd thought about kvetching myself, but I figure Whitlock lives for this sorta thing. Still, I can't help myself. Every time I think I'll get through one half-hour show without yelling at my television -- I think I can, I think I can -- my Little Engine that Could gets derailed by some jackass know-nothing. Witness Whit-less.

The "Big Sexy," as he calls himself (I know, I too am completely mystified), is no stranger to controversy. He whipped sports fans into a frenzy last summer after writing a column for ESPN.com's Page 2 asserting that Americans who actively rooted against the U.S. basketball team in the Olympics were "borderline racist." I'm not touching that here because it's old news, but I'll hook you up to blog posts by The Machine's Still On (scroll down a little) and Phat Phree, who have amusing takes on Whitlock's provocation.

I'll admit, though, it's hard to like Whitlock. Once in a while he'll surprise me with an insightful sentence or two among the rest of the rubbish he writes, but life is too short to taste of such meager gruel. Mostly I find myself bellyaching about what an insufferable simpleton he is -- because I can't believe how fast and easily he's risen to the top of sports punditry with so little talent and curiosity.

This is a guy who reminds us he played football at a Division I school (Ball State) about as often as he mentions the word "Chiefs" in his column for the Kansas City Star. (Which he does only too often. In fact, he's such a homer he once held up a sign at Arrowhead Stadium when the Buffalo Bills were in town that read "Bledsoe=Gay.") He fancies himself ESPN.com's new Ralph Wiley, but where's the deep experience, the fundamental thoughtfulness, the complexity and the gravitas? The only thing heavy about Whitlock is his considerable backside.

And I'm not sure I find anything more infuriating than a lumpy sports columnist, who likely hasn't worked out since he last pushed himself away from a dinner table, proclaiming that cycling is not a real sport and that Lance Armstrong is not a real athlete. Even Michael Smith, who admits he knows zero about the Tour de France, sat dumbfounded during Whitlock's smear. Even sports fans who don't really know how the Tour works and can't be bothered to find out understand the magnitude of Armstrong's athleticism and achievements -- fortheloveofgod, they voted him The ESPY's Athlete of the Year for the third straight year!

Yes, I know, I shouldn't get so worked up. After all, that's exactly how talk-radio types like Whitlock get so much attention -- the sort of attention that moves him up the sports journalism ladder of success. Ugh.

I promise -- tomorrow I'm not watching "PTI." I don't need to watch -- I don't rubberneck at traffic accidents, right? I can live without shrieking at the idiotic things Whitlock and Mariotti are sure to say. I can change the channel to Emeril or a "Law & Order" rerun. Or I'll work out during "Rome is Burning" instead. And, come to think of it, it's only one Friday episode until the return of Korny & Mike. I can make it. I can. I think I can. I think I can....
 

 
Yesterday, Slate's Daniel Engbar wrote the "Explainer" column with the aim of making clear how cycling teams such as Lance Armstrong's Discovery Channel team work. Thing is, the column falls woefully short of doing what it was intended to do.

Anyone watching the Tour on OLN or catching up with it on any number of Web sites (such as The Daily Peloton, ESPN.com's not-so-hot Tour page, the official Tour site, and the smart VeloNews.com) would easily be able to figure out the information put forth in the column. So I've decided to blog an addendum to try to explain in more depth how cycling teams work (and too often don't work) on long races such as the Tour de France.

I'm also adding a couple URLs here for further info. Here's a site that explains a whole lot about the Tour and its history in a fairly short span. And here is a page with lots of fun facts about Tours past and present.

Readers might click on the Slate story, then return here -- for the following is my response to that column:

It’s prob’ly important to point out, too, that each rider on a team has specific talents necessary to assist the team leader in any given stage. For example, Triki Beltran and Jose Acevedo are two of Lance’s climbers – guys who push the pace in the mountain stages both to keep Lance in the forefront and to put serious pressure on his most dangerous rivals. These two aren’t the greatest racers, though, and so they never do so well in individual time trials and aren’t the big engines on flat stages or in the team time trial. For that, Lance must depend on other riders, such as Big George Hincapie, probably the fastest racer on the team behind Lance himself. (Remember how during the TTT, Lance had to keep going out front and leading the squad? He wanted to keep the pace as fast as possible, and as the fastest rider on Discovery Channel, only he could do that. In other words, he helped his team to win that stage rather than the other way around.) Essentially, these "lieutenants" (the word Armstrong uses rather than domestiques) pull Lance forward for as long as they can, as fast as they can – to help conserve Lance’s energy for the final sprint or push up a mountain stage.

Also essential is that the team leader himself be multi-talented. If Lance weren’t such a great climber, say, there’s no way he would have pulled off six Tour wins. The same can be said about his racing ability. Had he not won the individual TT in 2003 vs. Jan Ullrich, the Kaiser would have had a better chance to take the maillot jaune instead of his usual 2nd place. This is the problem with most of the teams on the Tour: their leaders are uni-dimensional. Stuart O’Grady’s team is there only to try to help their leader win the green (sprinters) jersey (and his team is not all that helpful in their attempts). In the mountains, though, both O’Grady and his ‘mates are pretty useless in terms of the general classification.

The fact of the matter is that though there are officially 22 teams entered in the three-week race this year, only maybe six have any hope in hell of competing in the GC. But the Tour is not just about the overall classification; it's also about riders out to win just one stage, or to compete for the green or polka dot jersey (for the "King of the Mountains") or even the white jersey (for best rider under 25). It's also about getting experience in the Tour in order to become good enough to pull your weight on one of the top teams in the general classement. (Which is exactly what David Zabriskie was doing in the race.) It's like Shakespeare's play-within-a-play, except there are many more races going on inside the Tour than just the one Armstrong has led for the last seven years -- but it's this race, the team race, that's on the main stage.

Lance’s teams have been unusual in that they’re put together with so much consideration for what Lance needs to win. One would kinda sorta have to think other teams, such as Jan Ullrich’s T-Mobile squad and Ivan Basso’s Team CSC – and especially teams like Liberty-Seguros and Gerolsteiner that have former Lance teammates as their leaders – would get a clue about how to build a team and a team strategy that might effectively pressure Discovery Channel for all three weeks. But no. Every year, what do we see on the most decisive stages? Lance’s team pushing the pace at the front of the peloton!

Armstrong and his teams really have changed the face of the Tour de France because of the way they treat it as a team endeavor. Yes, there have been teams per se on the Tour for years and years, but none have been nearly as team-oriented and strategically constructed as U.S. Postal and the DC. It’s hilarious that after six years of utter Armstrong domination, no other team has yet to wake up to this.

Probably one reason why is because the traditional way to build a Tour team is to depend on your ‘mates coming from the same country you do – that is, Spanish teams and French teams and Italian teams used to be the norm. The Spaniards were traditionally the climbers whereas the Italians were renown for their sprinting abilities, and the French were a mishmash of talents, but not much help to each other as teammates. Riders like Eddie Merckx and Jacques Anquetil were the Lance Armstrongs of their day – they, too, were great all-around talents – and since no one had Armstrong-like teams, such riders would run away with the Tour.

Today teams are made up of various nationalities, but still there’s not as much tinkering about team makeup as there is with DC. For example, take a look at Team CSC, which on paper seems like a pretty competitive squad with at least three solid riders – Bobby Julich, Jens Voigt and Basso (along with the whiz-kid racer David Zabriskie, who dropped out, of course). Thing is, though Julich's usually a good climber, Basso’s the only superior climber among them. (Julich is currently in 17th place, 6:37 off the pace; Basso is 4th, 2:40 behind Lance.) Voigt, who wore the yellow jersey for a day after finishing third in Stage 9 (a sorta hilly, but not mountainous stage), couldn’t even muster the oomph to cross the finish line of the first Alpine stage to beat the time limit! Oops, there goes another one of your teammates – and he didn’t even crash out! Very poor team planning.

The only other team on the Tour that’s remotely competitive with DC is T-Mobile, particularly b/c of the presence of its leader, Ullrich, and its two other all-around talents, Andreas Kloden and Alexandre Vinokourov. All three have at one time or another challenged Lance for the yellow jersey. Only Ullrich has been a serious threat for more than a day or two, though – again, that has to do with their respective teams. What’s happening with the Pinkies is that they have TOO MANY all-around talents – and that’s led to some infighting between Ullrich and Vino. Tour fans will remember that the same thing happened in 1986, when Bernard Hinault pledged to support the leader of his La Vie Claire team, Greg LeMond, but instead tried to beat him into Paris. While such a position is understandable when a guy feels like one of the strongest individual riders among the 198 who ride the Tour, it’s a really lame way to think you can win the Tour – especially given the mastery of Lance’s Big Blue Train.

No way will one man, without the help of all of his teammates, ever win the Tour again.
 

 
The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova: Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship
By Johnette Howard
Broadway Books ($24.95)

Venus vs. Serena? Anticlimactic to the point of painfully boring. Clijsters vs. Henin-Hardenne? Not feisty enough. Anyone vs. Davenport? Please. The Williams sisters vs. Sharapova? Still too early to tell.



In 1999, when Venus Williams started her climb to the top of women’s tennis, she and Martina Hingis looked as if they might offer a rivalry to savor. The diminutive Swiss’ tart tongue paired with her geometrically pinpoint baseline game versus the Amazonian Venus, with her aloof manner and extraordinary power, was a dream matchup for WTA officials and fans alike. And the snarkiness of both the players and their loony-tunes parents in the locker room and the press just fanned the flames. But once Venus won Wimbledon in 2000, Hingis had pretty much faded into the background, a victim of injury and the explosive power that’s now de rigueur on the women’s side. Still, the two, along with Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova, made for some good, albeit brief, tennis theater.

Oh, how desperate we are for something even the least little bit resembling the titanic 11-year clash between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

To read the full review, go here.
 

 
ESPN has hired an ombudsman, The Washington Post's George Soloman, for an 18-month stint of critiquing the "Worldwide Leader in Sports."

Though it's generally company policy at ESPN to eschew criticism of sports media, it seems the execs in Bristol are willing to put themselves under a credible reviewer's microscope. We've heard endless stories of the New York Times hiring ombudspeople -- as a result of the paper's Jason Blair debacle, for starters -- and Soloman himself has tales to tell of the ombudsmen at the Post. But whoever heard of a cable channel, let alone a sports-related media company with its fingers in the pie of all sorts of money-making sports ventures, welcoming the chance to be judged on its journalistic merits? Since when has the sports media been interested in an objective assessment of what they do?

Well, since now. ESPN has always taken pride in blazing the trial for other sports broadcasters to follow.

Is George Soloman the right choice? The bio ESPN includes with Soloman's first column is impressive, no doubt. But I'm hesitant to give Soloman two thumbs up for a couple reasons. First, he admits to several conflicts of interest. His son, Aaron, produces the popular afternoon rant-fest "Around the Horn." Also, the Washington Post is a feeder for ESPN reporters and editors. Soloman himself mentions ESPN's Rachel Nichols (who is, conveniently, the daughter-in-law of Diane Sawyer) and ESPN the Magazine's Ric Bucher, both of whom spent time at the Post before leaving for the Connecticut countryside. No doubt he's also friends with others around the Bristol campus, such as ESPN.com's former senior news desk editor, Bob Kelleter. This is all just a little too close for comfort.

And speaking of too close, why not hire someone who's not part of the East Coast sports media elite? What, someone from the midwestern hinterlands or from the west just wouldn't understand -- because "it's an East Coast thing"? Sports journalism certainly has become an "East Coast thing," and in my view it's one of the reasons why sports organizations like the NBA and MLB have been suffering losses of viewers: No one's paying much attention to what goes on west of the Liberty Bell.

Will Soloman correct that? Will he prompt ESPN to spread its college football coverage beyond the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida State Seminoles? Will viewers finally get to know the names of college hoops players for teams other than those on Tobacco Road? Is it possible for fans to find out who Bobby Abreu is before he smashes Home Run Derby records? Whatever the network's failings, it is asking for viewer/reader feedback -- so have at it. (SportsFilter already has a few suggestions.)

It'll be interesting to see how ESPN and its new ombudsman confront the inherently biased world of sports reporting. In his introductory column, Soloman writes that he'll submit a monthly column on his observations. I'm hoping for a little more imput than that. Maybe a bi-weekly segment on "Outside the Lines" or "The Sports Reporters." If he's critiquing the TV side, it only makes sense to air his views there, too.

Still, it's a big step to hire Soloman in the first place. And I can't wait to hear what he has to say. I just hope it doesn't get lost in the East Coast shuffle.
 

 
On Tuesday the mountain stages of the Tour de France begin in earnest, and the sports media are fingering their collective worry beads about whether this year's Lance Armstrong will be able, as he has in so many years past, to use the punishing climbs of the Alps (first) and the Pyrenees (starting on Stage 14) to outdistance his rivals.

There's good reason to fret. The Discovery Channel team got shredded on Saturday's last climb, the Col de la Schlucht, leaving Armstrong alone to fend off the first of what will likely be many challenges from Jan Ullrich's T-Mobile team. Alexandre Vinokourov, who strikes me as the most serious threat to a seventh Tour win for Lance, led the Big Pink Charge in Stage 8. Then it was Ullrich's fellow German 'mate, Andreas Kloden, who took second for the stage -- and helped shave 27 seconds off Armstrong's GC time, putting the leaders from T-Mobile and Team CSC in prime position to further attack the Texan in the mountains. The Discovery Channel team bounced back in Stage 9, keeping the pace through four fairly big climbs -- but it was too late for Armstrong's team to cover up the limitations of its strategy and conditioning.

"That was the situation we've always dreamed of," T-Mobile director Mario Kummer told the press on Saturday. "We had two or three riders attacking and others from different teams. Maybe Discovery Channel is beatable."

More worrisome in light of the Discovery Channel's weaknesses is that this year's Tour has more than one authentic team backing a dominating leader. It's too early to tell if Kloden or Vinokourov will try to pull a Bernard Hinault to Ullrich's Greg LeMond a la 1985, but certainly the addition of the two gives the Kaiser his first real team ever in terms of collective talent and potential for successful strategizing. And the Pinkies are more than team enough to put Discovery Channel on the defensive for the remainder of the Tour.

Team CSC isn't far behind in this regard. Pretty telling of the CSCers' groupthink has been their treatment of David Zabriskie, their American teammate who wore the yellow jersey for the Tour's first four stages. First, Zabriskie crashed in the team time trial, and his team left him where he lay. More important to the team than respecting the yellow jersey bearer was racing the clock vs. Armstrong. Then on Sunday, Zabriskie was dropped within the first 15 km of Stage 9 -- again, alone. The way the cameras zoomed in to catch the race official ripping Zabriskie's Tour number off his jersey, one would have imagined we were watching Team CSC's leader concede the race. But the 26-year-old was a flameout waiting to happen. Z's been a professional cyclist for only four years, so right now he's merely full of promise. Two other CSC riders, American Bobby Julich and Jens Voigt, the German who took the maillot jaune from Lance after Stage 9, are far more seasoned, and thus better ready to help position CSC's real leader -- Ivan Basso -- for a credible attack on Lance and his DC teammates in the mountains.

To paraphrase David Foster Wallace, you'd sorta kinda have to think the teams gunning for a GC win would have caught on long ago to the upside of grooming a team in terms of personnel and strategy a la the U.S. Postal teams of the last six years. Six years! It didn't take even one season for Greg LeMond's aerobars to catch on. But it's hard to ignore what slow learners some folks are. After all, this is the first year in recent memory that Jan Ullrich has eschewed his usual pre-Tour conditioning program of partying and packing on weight; this year he actually came to France at a svelte 161 pounds. (In past years, he's been known to put on around 20 pounds in the off-season, and to lose eight or so before the season started, then to depend on his racing to take off more excess flab. It's been said, principally by Armstrong coach Chris Carmichael, that Ullrich's eating habits and resulting weight gains have been what's kept him from beating Lance.)

Well, finally it seems as if other teams have caught on. And perhaps just in time to have caught Armstrong's last team off its guard.

Last week, the Post Game's Tom Schaller called T-Mobile the New York Yankees of this year's Tour. But considering the history of team-building in the Tour, I rather think Lance's teams fit the Bronx Bombers descriptor better. Which doesn't exactly bode well for the DCers this season. Just look what happened to the Yanks when the other guys -- the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2002 Anaheim Angels, the 2003 Florida Marlins and the 2004 Boston Red Sox -- finally got a clue about how to put a great team together.
 

 
Rueful Rogers

Texas Rangers lefty Kenny Rogers apologized today for his tirade against two cameramen last week. And the AL All-Star's regret was pretty convincing.

Rogers spoke to the press 1) against the advice of his attorney, and in doing so 2) put himself in a tough spot if one of the cameramen he assaulted, Larry Rodriguez, decides to file a lawsuit against him. He carried fully two pages of notes with him to the podium to make his apology -- which makes me think he did some careful thinking about the situation and how to make amends. The press conference also strikes me as a more authentic way to approach such an apology rather than simply releasing a statement. Finally, Rogers refused to take questions, particularly about whether he will play in the All-Star Game this weekend, saying he wanted only to speak to the the issue at hand today.

Rogers pitched his game. Now let's see who's catching it.

Armstrong Not Yellow

Another good citizenship award for the day: Before Stage 5 on Wednesday, Lance Armstrong decided he would not wear the yellow jersey out of respect for David Zabriskie. The Team CSC rider had been the maillot jaune bearer since he won the Stage 1 time trial, and officially lost it to Armstrong only because he crashed 1,500 meters before the finish line in Tuesday's team TT.

Had the American not fallen or fallen a mere 500 meters further up the road, he would have posted the same time as the rest of his team, just two seconds behind the winning Discovery Channel team -- which would have meant a tie between Zabriskie and Armstrong in the GC. Such a tie would have kept the yellow jersey on Zabriskie's back.

Armstrong felt both that bad luck shouldn't rob a rider of the jersey and that he hadn't earned the right to wear it today. Ultimately, Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc ordered Lance to wear the leader's jersey, or he wouldn't be allowed to compete in the race's next stage. Reluctantly, he did.

Still, a terrific gesture from a man many abroad criticize as arrogant and selfish. Lance showed once again what a class act he is.

Smokin' Joe

On the not-so-good side, Joe Morgan is still fired up about "Moneyball," the Oakland A's and what he sees as "computers" pushing aside experience in baseball analysis.

Sports Filter's lilnemo posted this story from SF Weekly, in which reporter Tommy Craggs interviews Morgan about his stubborn resistance to understanding baseball intelligently.

It's bad enough we have to listen to the former Reds star second baseman drone on and on as the color guy during ESPN's broadcast of Sunday night games. What's worse is his flat-earth view that insists Bill James and the hordes of hardcore baseball fans who have taken up the cross of sabermetrics are "a joke." Even more lame? Morgan hasn't even read Michael Lewis' "Moneyball."

As much respect as one has to have for Morgan's career as a player, on this issue the right call is that Joe's out at home.
 

 
Lance Armstrong is back in the yellow jersey, but not everyone's thrilled about it.



From the first day of the 2005 Tour de France, the cheeky Texan has pretty much been running the show, as usual. Though -- mon dieu! -- Lance had to settle for second in the opening day's 11.8-mile prologue, American David Zabriskie's giving it back to Armstrong in the days that followed was pretty much a given. That day was Day 4, when the Discovery Channel team won their third straight team time trial, beating by just 2 seconds Zabriskie's talented Team CSC.

Now the question is: Will Armstrong hold the maillot jaune for the next two and a half weeks?

History, of course, hates to settle such questions too early. Also, though Armstrong nemesis Jan Ullrich ended Day 1 demoralized -- after being passed by Lance in the individual time trial like he was still on training wheels, and losing more than a minute to the six-time Tour winner to boot -- his T-Mobile team has upped its odds of ending the American's reign.

The Post Game's Tom Schaller describes T-Mobile as the New York Yankees of cycling -- and for good reason. Not only does the team boast the 1997 Tour winner in Ullrich, joining the Big German are Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden. Vinokourov took 3rd place in the Tour de France behind Armstrong in 2003; and though he sat out last year's race with injuries, the Kazakh attack master should make Lance more nervous than "Der Kaiser" ever has. Currently, Vinokourov is in seventh place, mere seconds behind Armstrong in the GC. Kloden placed 2nd in 2004, and is also a deep threat. Finally, I'd be willing to bet each of these guys would do just about anything to slip into some yellow after having spent way too long wearing pink.

And it seems T-Mobile, Team CSC and the Tour's other competitors aren't the only ones rooting for an Armstrong upset. Tour officials have organized the course this year so that it's "Lance-proofed" -- that is, only one individual time trial (Lance's specialty); getting the individual and team TTs over early; and fewer and less difficult mountain stages (which Lance also excels at). In other words, officials are looking for a more competitive race, not another Armstrong rout.

Even Americans and "Tourminator" fans have worked themselves into an anti-Lance backlash frenzy. Outside's Bill Gifford, writing in Slate, calls the race the "Tour de Bore" because, he writes, "Armstrong's long reign has sucked some of the life out of the race." Part of his plan to make the Tour vital and interesting again is that "Lance must lose."

Also in Slate is Armstrong's fellow Austin native, satirist Neal Pollack, who kvetches about the way his local gym, 24 Hour Fitness, has taken its Lance makeover way too far.

I can't decide yet whether I'm fer or agin. If this really is Lance's last Tour, I would have liked to see someone to beat him last year! Alas! U.S. Postal was too strong, too well-oiled. This year, it would be nice to see more drama -- something to smack that raised champagne flute right out of Armstrong's hand on the way to the Champs-Élysées. Something like Greg Lemond a la 1989 -- when the American came from behind on the very last day to win by a mere eight seconds.

Is that and a last-time win for Lance out of the question?
 

 
If anything irritates sports nabobs, it's athletes who abuse the press and somehow still come out on top. That's the story today about Texas Rangers LHP Kenny Rogers getting the All-Star nod.



USA Today columnist Mike Lopresti leads the charge in suggesting Rogers recuse himself from the Midsummer Classic. He cites an AOL online poll in which 73 percent of respondents back him up. An ESPN.com poll that's drawn over 67,000 voters so far also shows respondents weighing in against Rogers' All-Star selection -- this time with more than two-thirds of the votes.

All this spitting into the wind stems from Rogers' tirade against two cameramen last week. In a fit of anger, the 40-year-old lefty tore into two local media employees whose job it is to cover the Rangers -- specifically Rogers, who'd missed a start against the AL West-leading Angels because of a pinkie injury (non-pitching hand) he'd sustained after tangling with some dugout watercoolers in the previous game. He sent one, KDFW-TV's Larry Rodriguez, to the hospital with minor injuries after wrestling the poor schlub's camera to the ground and kicking it; Rodriguez has since filed charges on the Rangers starter.

But Rogers' problems with the press began long before this June 29 blowup. He's refused to talk to media types since the season began after reports circulated early on that the "Gambler" would retire if the Rangers didn't extend his contract another year. I'm not sure what such a refusal proves on Rogers' part, but you can bet such a pointed prohibition will only draw more media attention. (Also, does Rogers not remember all the positive press he got last season? I don't remember him turning away interviewers then.)

So, why do I call Lopresti's and other nabobs' anti-Rogers rants "spitting into the wind"? First and foremost, because this year's AL manager, Terry Francona, has declared him in like Flynn. The players voted for Rogers, Francona pointed out, and he'll abide by their choice. The Red Sox skipper conveniently neglected to point out that players had cast their ballots for Rogers before his Candid Camera moment.

Still, Rogers has the right to take his place in the All-Star game on July 12. Though he received a 20-game suspension (i.e. he'll only miss four starts) and a $50,000 fine, Rogers has appealed MLB's punishment through the union -- which means he can continue playing until a decision is handed down. The commissioner's office has said such a decision will come after the break.

Okay, so officially Rogers has every right to an All-Star roster spot. But does he really deserve to be there in terms of his performance? This I'm not so sure about. Coming into the All-Star break, Rogers is 9-4 in 16 starts (remember, he missed one), with 47 strikeouts and a 2.45 ERA. Definitely solid. But his stats don't stack up so well against those of his All-Star brethren. He's got fewer wins than all but Johan Santana, though the Twins ace has a whopping 126 SOs -- nearly three times the number Rogers has tallied. In fact, Rogers' strikeout total pales in comparison to that of every other starter chosen for the All-Star game; the next lowest SO total is Jon Garland's 54 -- but the White Sox RHP is 13-3 this season, a far cry from 9-4. Further, one notable snub for next week's party in Detroit was Boston's Matt Clement, who's 9-2 in 17 games this season, with a 3.82 ERA and 88 SOs. Can Terry Francona really be happy about that?

I'm not all hot and bothered about Rogers' inclusion in the All-Star game. After all, lots of creeps from baseball's past have made it to the midsummer stage. And I'm not necessarily advocating that Rogers step down in favor of another player, as some joker from the SF Chronicle is, suggesting Barry Zito deserves the nod more. (Zito is a pathetic 5-8 this season, with a 4.07 ERA and 79 SOs.)

What I'm thinking is more along the lines of the sports media putting its cameras where its collective mouth is. If the press is so P.O.'d at Rogers, then don't show him on camera. Don't talk about him. Cut him out of the broadcast and the write-ups altogether. If Rogers gets into the game, no big deal -- focus on the batters, the catcher, the managers, the fans, the batboys or the ballgirls. If Rogers doesn't want media attention, show him what no media attention means. For a 40-year-old pitcher at the tail-end of his better days, it might mean bringing that career to an end. And if this season is his last, Rogers has put himself in the unfortunate position of being remembered not for his numbers, but for his need of anger management.

I usually sit out for All-Star weekend. I can't stand the hype and the bogus play and the constant jingoism at work every step along the way. But I might tune in next weekend just to see if the press is willing to play some hardball.
 

 
In opening "Without Apology: Girls, Women and the Desire to Fight" with Joyce Carol Oates' rant against women fighters in "On Boxing," Leah Hagar Cohen gets right to the heart of the matter -- there's a squeamishness in our culture about physically demonstrative women which reads female boxers as "monstrous." As a boxing aficionado, a jock and a woman, I'd dismissed Oates' misguided proclamation years ago: How dare a weasely little pipsqueak of a woman writer think she can settle for all time that women’s instinct to express themselves physically paired with their natural aggression is aberrant?



Cohen, herself an admitted pipsqueak, delves deeper into Oates’ charge in "Without Apology" in two ways. First she profiles a group of adolescent girls from Boston’s inner-city and their female boxing coach – and follows their training for most of a year. Also, Cohen chronicles how she succumbs to the visceral hunger to test herself in the ring.

To read the full review, go here.