TUYWPI: GOAT

Who is the Greatest of All Time?

Fed has 16 slams and has played all three surfaces as well as any single player ever. If it weren't for Rafa, Roger would have won three or four more French Opens. Ahhh yes, Rafa. Who owns a .66 win percentage over Roger. And only six fewer slams. Is he the best? He still has four or five years to get more major trophies. And now where do we place Djoker?

Borg quit when he was twenty-four. Could've won a handful more, and he almost never played Australia. Pete dominated grass like no one else, when the courts were faster. And on hardcourts, when he was on, was simply electric. He hit the ball with more sheer force than anyone (Though Rafa's buggy whip is a sight to behold).


 Laver won all four in a year. TWICE. And he spent a good chunk of his prime playing professional events which, at the time, did not include the Slam events. How many more could he have won? Four? Six? TEN? A MILLION??????!!?!?!?

How about Andre? Had to play Pete all the time and walked onto the court with the weight of the damn world on his shoulders. Still won eight Slams. And is the last player to revolutionize the game with his approach to returning. Wilander won 7 slams, made 4 more finals, and played simultaneous with Lendl, Edberg, Becker, McEnroe and Connors. He's not number one but is he better than Rafa? Oh, did I say Lendl? He won eight slams and made the finals in NINETEEN! Runner-up eleven times!!! Never got a Wimby plate, but was like clockwork to make the semis for almost the entire 1980's. And Edberg. For God's sake the guy was spectacular for nearly a decade, won six slams, beat Becker on grass twice, and beat Sampras in a night final in New York. How does he rate? What about pre-Slam era? Ken Rosewall was ranked in the top-20 for twenty-five consecutive years!

All of these considerations and variables would take a great deal of time to formulate into some kind of coherent calculus. So I'll simply offer my relatively amateurish assessment of overall greatness in a boring list. At least it will mean something to me.

1. Roger Federer
2. Pete Sampras
3. Rafael Nadal
4. Bjorn Borg
5. Rod Laver
6. Ivan Lendl
7. John McEnroe
8. Andre Agassi
9. Mats Wilander
10. Jimmy Connors

We'll go further 11-20:

Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Djokovic, Ashe, Vilas, Newcombe, Nastase Pre-Slam: Emerson Budge, Tilden, Rosewall.

TUYWPI: Joker is King

I didn't update after the Semis or Finals of the US Open. Probably because I was in shock after Fed lost. I was so sure he was going to roll to his seventeenth slam. And then Nole did this:



Uncanny. He won. Beat Federer in five. Went on to whoop Rafa. Even as his back was seizing up. He ate Nadal's serve alive. He put angles on the ball that I've never seen. He recorded arguably the best season since Laver won all four. Two consecutive years with players winning three of four.

Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, all playing at the same time. It makes me wonder what my top ten all-time would look like?

TUYWPI: Gotta get down on Friday

TUYWPI: Roddick out of the Open after Rafa absolutely dismantled him. Nadal has obviously spent the last 8 weeks working on returning serves with the ball machine set at 150 MPH. I think when everyone started calling Djoker the best returner in the game after Wimbledon, Rafa took it personally.

While I'm sad that Andy is out, I still smile whenever I watch that brash son of a gun. Even if he never makes another final, I will always cherish the 2009 Wimbledon. The finals between he and Federer was the greatest match I've ever seen. And I watched all of Nadal/Federer 2008. And Federer/Nadal 2007. And Becker/Edberg 1990, which had more brute strength on display than any tennis match before or after. I've seen McEnroe beat Borg on replays several times. I vividly recall staying up to watch Jimmy Connors at the US Open against Agassi, then seeing him against Krickstien. I watched Sampras beat Rafter and then climb into the stands and I cried a little bit. Maybe a lot.

But I don't care what Jon Wertheim says, Roddick v. Roger III was the greatest match ever. Watch Roddick afterwards, weeping, spent, and I defy you not to love the guy. Watch Roger walk through the gates of history. 15 Slams. Listen to Andy afterwards, ""Sorry Pete, I tried to hold him off." Roddick wanted to be great, he had the talent, and eventually found the drive. But he ran into two of the four greatest players of all-time. Sometimes luck trumps everything. Sometimes it's just about when you were born. Hats off to the kid who never took his hat off.

Ladies? Can't forget the ladies! Serena is still a gosh-darned runaway train. But Wozniacki looked TOUGH. Outlasted and out hit Schiavone and then proverbially punched Petkovic in the mouth. The match was over before Petkovic was warmed up. I was wrong, Wozzy, and I apologize. BIG Tennis day tomorrow.

(Some football teams will play on Sunday.)

TUYWPI: Water, water everywhere...

I'll let Rafa tell you about how the players felt going out to play on a damp hardcourt for twenty minutes:




If you've ever gone out and tried to hit in the rain and the wet, it's umpleasant. The ball gets soggy. The court smells funny and your racquet feels like a greased doorknob. If you've ever actually tried to play when the court was not properly dry, it gets frightening fast. Taking off from a stop when the court is damp feels like you could faceplant at any moment. A split-step on wet skimcoat is so scary that it makes my groin hurt just thinking about it.

Now imagine you're one of the most gifted athletes on the planet; your body is a finely tuned machine. Your muscles coil and flex and stretch within an inch of breaking every time you play. You're used to playing on lots of different surfaces that make varying demands on your body, but once adjusted to the surface you can move confidently on clay, grass, carpet, empty Serbian swimming pools. Wherever there is a net.

But now, after playing the last eight weeks on dry hard courts, the USTA and U.S. Open organizers tell you to take the court, even though it is still raining and the courts were only dried with blowers and squeegees for forty-five minutes. Personally, I would freak the F out. But then, I'm a pretty big wuss. These guys, who are the most supremely confident tennis players in the world, did not feel safe. And they were still asked to play.

Imagine what if Rafa were to blow out his knee on wet concrete? What if Roddick were to tweak his, heretofore, iron-clad shoulder because on his serve, his left foot didn't plant correctly? WHAT IF SOMEBODY DIED? Okay, so maybe that couldn't happen. But still, adding extra physical jeopardy to a sport where careers are notoriously short? Not cool. Not cool at all.

Don't do this, USTA. Don't do this ever again.

Rafa down 0-3 to Gilles Muller.
Murray and Young on serve 1-2.
Roddick up a break on Ferrer 2-1, serving.

Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow.

TUYWPI: Girls, Women, and Richard Williams

I had grand ideas for this post. To get to the essence of the argument, which is Serena and Venus could have been even greater, statistically if Richard Williams had been even more obstinate about holding them out of full-time professional schedules, I had to pour over the last four decades of women's results. The statistics and history threatened to overwhelm. So here is a very shoddy first draft, one which I won't revisit or revise any time soon. Even in tennis, life is a marathon, not a sprint.

Watching Flavia Penetta make a run to the Quarterfinals at the 2011 US Open, made me think of Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Stefi Graf, Chris Evert, Hana Mandlikova, Tracey Austin, Andrea Jaeger, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Martina Navratilova, and Venus and Serena. Which inevitably led to that sly fox, Richard Williams, who almost fathered the greatest women's tennis player of all-time.

Flavia is twenty-nine years-old, which, just ten years ago, was ancient in tennis years. But things have obviously changed, since the best player in the women's draw this year is about to turn thirty (Happy almost Birthday Serena!). Penetta was highly rated as a junior and was projected to be a likely Grand-Slam winner after she turned pro in 2000, at the age of 18. She has not cashed in on those projections, but she has defeated some entrenched tennis expectations. In the past four seasons, Penetta has stayed relevant, more so even, despite the fact that she's pushing thirty. She's more well-rounded, fitter, stronger and match tough that when she was young prospect. And she's not the only woman to flourish as she has gotten older. Her countrywoman Francesca Schiavone has done the same, becoming a Grand-Slam winner after the age of 28. Li Na won the French, her first, at 29.

But for a number of reasons, my generation grew up thinking that tennis players, women and men, but women in particular, became primed for the professional ranks at age 15 and were spent by the age of 22. I didn't include Agassi, Becker, and Sampras in the list above, but they too were huge influences on this perception that youth was the main thing served on the tennis court.

A quick look at tennis history, though a relatively small sample in terms of total years, shows that the earlier one tries to play with the big girls, the true "women" of the WTA, the greater the pitfalls and the greater the likelihood that your career will be shorter than Amanda Coezer (she's very small).

Hana Mandlikova, while not the first or only girl to enter the women's ranks was one of the first to win a grand slam after turning pro before she was able to drive. She retired at 28 and hadn't been a factor in majors since she was 25. Both Martina N. and Chrissy turned pro after their 18th birthday. And while they both played thousands of hours of competitive tennis before becoming officially "professional," neither of them put the "Pro" mantle on their shoulders before the age of majority. Martina and Chrissy won majors into their 30's. Martina won doubles Slams as a 40 year-old. Margaret Court was a pro at 18, Billie Jean waited until she was 24. Mandlikova, Austin, Jaeger, and Graf were the big names that began the trend towards younger and younger professional status. Jaeger went pro at 14 and was done with a shoulder injury at age 19. Graf went pro at age 13, though Steffi's dad had the benefit of Jaeger's example, and held Steffi back in terms of number of tournaments she played in before age 18. She went on to win more Slams than any woman, and perhaps could have won more, retiring the same year she won her final French Open. She was 30 at the time. Maybe a few more years just being an amateur lets Steffi have two or three more years winning Slams.

Jennifer Capriati serves as perhaps the final example that there is an invisible threshold between childhood and womenhood in professional tennis. A threshold that does not prevent girls from finding flashes of success in the ranks of women, but one that stops them cold from achieving a full and consistent career as a tennis playing woman. Capriati went pro at thirteen and won a Gold medal a year later. Not long after that, she was running away from home, snorting rails of speed in skeevy motels with guys who aren't welcome in most trailer parks. The fall comes quickly in tennis and Capriati, like Agassi, Jaeger and Hingis to follow, crashed hard. Amazingly, Jennifer was able to recover and mature and become a three time Slam winner. Jaeger never made a comeback, though Hingis did make a marginal return and Agassi found great success in his later years. He fought through back pain that would've crippled most of us. But the question is whether all of these players would've been better off if they'd been held back a little bit, if they'd been given room to be kids until they were chomping at the bit to play with the grown-ups? What if they didn't turn pro until they were unquestionably ready?

Richard Williams in what was, at the time, a very defiant stance held back Venus from Grand Slams until she was 17. Though she had turned pro as a 14 year-old, which was very much the trend at the time, he kept her tournament schedule severely limited. He wanted her to focus on school and training, and wanted to avoid some of the racial conflicts and controversy that were bound to arise until she was more mature.

Venus was immediately a force when she began competing in majors, making it to the finals of the US Open in her first time playing in the tournament. She lost to Hingis, but was clearly the rising star everyone had anticipated.

Serena began playing majors at an even younger age than Venus, even though Richard had held back Serena and limited her tournaments, also.

The USTA and numerous critics and analysts were sure that the girls needed to be competing at the highest level as soon as they could carry the big bags. Richard Williams was criticized for not have the girls play a full junior season of tournaments, of which there are nearly as many as there are Pro events. He wanted them to blossom into their careers.

In the end, he was both right and wrong. The girls did need time. Though they were physically and mentally prepared to compete at the age of 15, they were not yet ready for the career of tennis. Capriati was proof that physical capability does not mean that one should move faster than the psyche can process. But the statistics and the historical arcs of Venus and Serena's careers show us that Richard should have bucked the system for one more year and allowed the girls to become women before they took the court at Roland-Garros and the All-England Club. Both Serena and Venus, even with all their hardware, have still battled injury and apathy. They held the Doubles Grand Slam, all four trophys in one year. Serena won the Consecu-Slam. But Venus had nearly three years in her prime that were sapped by injury. Serena went on walkabout for a few seasons after 2003 and she's been injured often and has frequently showed evidence of suspect fitness training.

And yet, they are still playing. Venus has just been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that has affected her stamina and overall wellness, but she vows she'll try to return. Serena has been a pro for twelve seasons, but shows no signs that she can't play for five more years. If both of them had put off their professional status for another year, they might not have had those lulls, those nagging injuries that seem to happen to girls who have tried to beat women.

Serena, the most intimidating and all around talented player since Graf, number six on the all-time Grand Slam list, could have been even better. She might have won twenty majors, maybe more. One year more waiting to play with the big babes, as Mary Carillo calls them, and she might have been the greatest.

TUYWPI: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!

I've got another update I'll post later but I'll throw out the most salient points from today's action (Thanks to the lovely Carrie Reiberg for allowing me a couple hours of solo tennis watching):

Men's -

Rafa got hisself all twisted up in knots!

The Andys made quick work of their opponents on their way to the Fourth Round, and both looked impressive enough that they could make runs to the Quarters and Semis. Andy Murray came back after a few sloppy performances and put the hurt on Feliciano Lopez. Murray might have still been smarting from his mother's embarrassing tweets during Wimbledon. His game is well-rounded and he shouldn't have too much trouble with Donald Young, unless Donald can start uncorking his serve at something above 115-120 mph. The only way Murray loses is if his first serve gets away from him and he plays too deep on returns, allowing Young to get runs at the net, where Donald has been superb.

Roddick had a relatively easy go against Julien Benneteau. Three sets and his serve was the whooping stick he needed it to be. He'll be tested against David Ferrer, who despite a stress fracture in his left hand, already took out Gael Monfils. Roddick's head-to-head with Ferrer looks to be 2-3 on hardcourts, so he's the underdog for sure. But if he's feeling well, the serve is hot, and his slice backhand is staying deep and low, then Andy wins and gets to face a Nadal who's already cramping and blistered despite getting a walkover from Mahut and only needing three sets against Nalbandian. Could get interesting.

Roddick, Isner, Young, and Fish. Four American men left in the round of sixteen? Not bad fellas.

Women's -

Flavia Pennetta looked like a stunned fighter who just kept blocking and blocking until a little window opened up and she could throw the uppercut. She was retching on the sideline between points, late in the second set. Her face looked gaunt and splotchy from losing so much water. If her match against Peng had gone three sets, she would have lost. But she took the second set breaker and is headed to the Quarters with a very winnable match against Kerber in front of her.

Vera Zvonareva took out my sleeper pick Sabine Lisicki, in a technically superb match. Z-Von's serve is strong enough to test Serena and her groundstrokes are absolutely punishing if you don't hit deep enough on her. She can also stay on the court for days without getting tired. She barely looked like she was sweating on points that had Lisicki sucking wind. She is the only threat to Serena right now. Wozniacki is just a paper tiger. Z-Von's got claws.

I expect Serena to roll over Ivanovic, unless she gets injured or Ivanovic all of a sudden remembers that she's 6'1" and can hit the fuzz off the ball. But we all know that's not going to happen. And while Schiavone or Pavlyuchenkova could make Serena run around the court a bit, neither of them can hit with her on hardcourts. Andrea Petkovic should win her match and I predict she will upset Wozniacki on her way to meeting Serena in the Semis.

As I said, I've got another Editorial TUYWPI in the hopper. We'll see if I get it done.

TUYWPIOMGWTFBBQ!!

So I'm moving the Tennis Updates You Will Probably Ignore (TUYWPI) over here to the blog, thus making them far easier to ignore. WAYYY too many people were actually reading them on Facebook, making the 'ignore' part invalid. I won't stand for that. So here is today's update:

TUYWPI: Serena looks only a shade off her 2002-3 form. And that is scary. back then, she was 22 and had every tested veteran in the world gunning for her and she still won four consecutive majors. Her serving in 2011 is consistent and unrelenting. Her movement is back and she will absolutely crush anything that isn't deep and hard. (TWSS) Everybody else is playing to be runner-up.

Men's -
Federer seemed to remember he was Federer after Cilic took a set off him. I would bet that he makes the Semis. And as always, if you truly want to have a transcendent analysis of Federer in his prime, I refer you to the one and only DFW, here.

Roddick beating Jack Sock was a fun moment in time. The next time they play, once Jack has had a year of hitting at ATP speed, the young man from Nebraska is going to beat Mr. Roddick. If I'm wrong I'll look foolish, but I predict Mr. Sock is going to win more major tournaments than Mr. Roddick. Luck for him, Jack will come of age as Roger, Novak, and Rafa are all in the autumn and winter of their careers. Andy? No such luck. That's okay, he's been lucky elsewhere in life.

Final note: If Brad Gilbert keeps calling her "Boom-Boom" Lisicki, I am going to blush. Sabine is pretty. And very, very good.

Retreating Back to the Cave or Why Sports Moguls Must Actively Support the Performing Arts

You might remember the first time you were introduced to Plato's allegory of the cave. Short version with apologies for vagueness or imprecision:
Plato supposed that there were ideal, unchanging "forms" existing on a higher plane and that in our unpredictable, ever-changing world we only saw reflections of these forms. The allegory was of a man chained in a cave who only saw shadows on the wall of the cave, produced by light and fire outside the cave. When released from the cave, the man sees the fire and light and the shapes and does not recognize them, having only seen the shadows up until then. He therefore returns to the cave, because that is what he can perceive and understand.

For millenia, the performing arts were second only to communal worship in terms of their ability to gather large groups of people together, in order that they might participate in a shared experience. In fact, the conflict between organized religion and performing arts is ages old, as the former feared the influence and permissive tendencies of the latter.

I'll warn you now, I won't be able to fully unpack my argument here. And I KNOW you are just DYING for me to declaim and reveal all of the intricacies of the world for you. However, I need to go cut down some brush, and you could probably learn more from the AOL splash page than you could from my ramblings. But I will continue as far as I can.

Sports are clearly ascendant in terms of events that unite people across the socio-economic and ethno-cultural spectrums in the United States. Far more people share the experience of the Super Bowl and the World Series and the Olympics, than experience The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. Part of that owes to the fact that sports events are broadcast on national TV. But I suspect that the Opera, were it televised, might pull a Nielsen rating somewhere behind re-runs of Family Ties and in front of the Surgery Channel's "World's Largest Abcesses."

Of course, I haven't mentioned movies or the bulk of popular television shows here, many of which draw a huge audience on a weekly basis. Carlos Estevez and his high-brow sitcom get a weekly viewing audience of somewhere around Fifty-million viewers, give or take a few Goddesses.

And here is where the rabbit hole begins to open. If live performance--plays, musicals, opera, operetta, symphonies, vaudeville, kabuki, minstrels, choirs--were the standard entertainment media for, as we've said, millenia, then on what Platonic plane is the boob tube? Are movies and television the fire outside of the cave, a more perfect version of what we attempt to convey in our imperfect human artistic presentations? Or have we all retreated back to the cave? After five-thousand years of public performance did we finally decide that artistic events conducted in public sphere didn't really get us anywhere, so we want the simpler, more polished, less harsh reflection of our lives that is captured on the cave wall?

These are real questions. The answers probably aren't available right now, considering the relative newness of the cinematic and broadcast media, but the questions will not go away.

And now on the heels of Hollywood and Cable TV, comes the individual "pro-sumer" trend made possible by cheap digital video and the internet. We can all be the stars of our own youtube shows. We can be sketch comedians and confessional dramatists. Our entire lives can unfold in 780p and all of our friends can watch, provided they aren't busy making their own shows. Hell, I'm blogging, for Christ's sake, instead of reading the newspaper and writing a letter to the editor.

Sports are popular for the same reasons melodramas, morality plays, and Shakespeare were popular. They are inherently dynamic. Two teams begin at a moment of stasis, 0-0. They engage in conflict, attempting to achieve their goals on the field, in the same way the protagonist and antagonist attempt to do so on stage. There are slow movements that contrast with giant crescendos. There is conflict and resolution. Good triumphs over evil, or the hero fails tragically. We live vicariously through the performers, who are presumably better at the skills on display than we will ever be. They are the Platonic forms of us, but we can witness them, even if we cannot be them.

As new media develop, computer processing speeds increase geometrically, and gaming platforms become more and more advanced, the simulacra of life and especially sport will become less distinguishable from the real thing. Indeed, if I can BE Tiger Woods with my Wii controller, why should I watch him on TV, much less go out to the tournament to see his actual form.

I contend that the only reason for public sporting events in the not too far off future is the shared experience of the event itself. The communal act of watching live human beings perform transcendent acts of humanity. Victory and failure, right in front of your face. At home, in our "man-caves" (hate the term, love philosophical implications) we can see Peyton and Tawmmy B. far better than we can in the stadium. The cameras show us far more of the action than the view from the bleachers.The only thing that keeps people buying those $300 tickets is the roar of the crowd and the ability afterwards to say, "I was there. With 75,000 other people, I stood and watched it happen, while you were at home on a La-Z-Boy licking cheese dust off your fingers."

Likewise, my current obsession with the Butler Basketball team's run through the NCAA tournament is as much based on my desire to share something with my friends and family and neighbors as it is my desire to watch a thrilling basketball game. When my son and I went down to watch the Bulldogs' pre-Final Four practice at Lucas Oil Stadium, (yes, it is named after my child. He's THAT awesome.) I was struck by how many people were there, simply because they wanted to be in a building together with other people who loved basketball. The practice itself was pretty uneventful, the crowd was relatively quiet and the interview with Brad Stevens, broadcast on on the public address, was the highlight of the experience. But after the team left the court and everyone rose from their seats, a strange electricity developed. And I'm positive that it was because 35,000 people were in a building together waiting for something to happen. Nothing did, and that was both disconcerting and enlivening. We spilled out into the downtown even more eager for the drama of sport, craving something with a beginning, middle, and end. Something where, when it was over, the curtain would come down and the audience would either be crying or rejoicing.

Save for the experiences of witnessing birth, combat, and death, I think a live performance with an audience of people in the same room as the performers has the potential to be the most profound experience a human being can have. And I will lump church services into the "live performance" group. Martin Luther told us God was best experienced on a personal and private level. Then why do people still go to churches and mosques and synagogues and temples? Huh, Marty? Why do we like someone, be it a priest, rabbi, imam, Joel Osteen, whoever, to direct and stage manage our religious experiences? Because we want to have the experience together.

And so as we approach the penultimate weekend of college basketball, those who control the experience of sport for the masses should remember a few things: the NFL is locked-out; the NBA is sure to be in the grips of player/owner strife in a few months, and every teenager in the developed world has access to an X-Box or Play-Station or Wii. They could play a season of NFL football every week, if they so desired, and not give a damn if the gates to your publicly-funded palaces of bread and circus are opened one stinking inch. And these youngsters are your revenue streams of the future.

If they don't care about getting tickets to your spectacle, eventually they won't care about turning on the TV to watch it. If they don't care about being in a great-big stadium or an expansive concert hall with hundreds or thousands of their peers, taking part in a shared experience, eventually they won't care about being numbered among those who watched it simultaneously, though in separate spaces, on a TV screen. Those kids will have their controllers and headsets, and eventually their retinal scanners. They'll be entertaining themselves with shadow-puppets on their ninety-eight inch LED wall-sized display. They won't need to go outside and see the fire, when the cave is so much more cozy.

I Got 99 Problems But A Front-Runnin' B!#*% Ain't One.

As you know, since surely you've been following my last couple of posts with rapt attention, I've been doing my level best to divorce myself from animosity and moralistic interpretations when it comes to Butler's NCAA games. But then I clicked on a link to the Yahoo college basketball blog and see this -

Yep, that's Shawn Carter, stage name Jay-Z. hanging with the Wildcats after they punched their ticket to Houston. Emphasis on the AFTER.

Now, there are two possible explanations for this. Either Hova is visiting with Coach Cal's Little Urban Achievers because he, as a minority partner in an NBA team might be drafting one or more of them in the upcoming months. Or he is a sports fan similar to his pal LeBron, and simply runs with the squad that is most likely to win each year. Let's not forget that BronBron, native of Ohio, professes to be a Yankee and Cowboy fan.

So Jigga has either committed a flagrant NCAA violation in contacting college players regarding future professional employment in the NBA. Or he has chosen to throw his support behind a team with no geographic relationship to his Brooklyn origins, but who does have the most championships of the four teams left and has, arguably, the greatest wealth of talent.

Would I be as indignant if H-to-the-Izzo had chosen instead to visit the Bulldog's locker room after they defeated Flo-Rida? Probably not. However, Butler doesn't have a coach with a long history of questionable financial scruples. Nor is Butler the Vegas favorite to win the whole thing, as UK now is. Whether those two things smack of illegal contact and front-running, I'll let you decide.


But I do know this, teams from Indiana love it when other teams have New York celebrities sitting courtside, rooting against them.

Up the Beanstalk, Again

The David and Goliath analogies are played out, for several reasons, not the least of which is Butler's next opponent, VCU, is seeded even lower than they are. And while VCU made an impressive run a few years back, they have nowhere near the tournament pedigree that this Butler team has. No, in any standard Israelite v. Phillistine substitutional calculus, Butler is the big hairy giant and VCU has the stone and sling.

I don't think this imagery works though. Perhaps for the small cadre of actual VCU fans--students, faculty, alumni, etc.--Butler can play the role of old Golyat. But for the rest of the country, such a loaded template might be a little ponderous.

With King David's first act of heroism comes all of the historical and theological baggage that the story has carried throughout history. It has variously symbolized the triumph of the Jewish God, the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and at some point I'm sure, the triumph of tha glahrious Bahston Red Sawx ovah the harrible facking New Yark Yankees! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK!

But the most obvious allegorical implications of the nebbish over the mighty is that of the eventual triumph of Good over Evil. And I'm just not willing to make a basketball game matter that much.

Indeed, small, modest David with his leather strap and pebble felling the oncoming Giant is clearly meant to symbolize the idea that virtue will win in the end, that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that big dudes are mean-ass bullies. Goliath's height, by the way, was probably more like six foot-nine. Not even taller than Andrew Smith.

Next Saturday, as Butler begins to warm-up, I will instead be thinking of Jack and his beanstalk. Yes, I know, there is a Giant who lives up there in the clouds. And in the original telling, the Giant killed Jack's dad and took his money. So the Giant is the antagonist, yada yada yada. But the moral of the tale and the morality within, as it has come to be told today, is far more fraught.

It is a tale especially fitting for the post-modern, sports-loving, capitalist society we live in today.
Jack, lazy and a bit dumb, living with his widowed mother and a skinny, dried-up, milk cow, is told to sell the cow for money so he and his mother can buy something to eat. Jack can't even get that right and instead, gets conned into taking five "magic" beans in exchange for the cow. Business deal gone bad. The bean bubble burst. Today, he could just go file for bankruptcy, right Mr. Trump? Jack's mom throws the beans out of the window and tells him he's lucky she's malnourished or she would beat that ass.

But, lo! The next morning a giant beanstalk has grown where his mother threw the beans! Isn't it great being white in America? Organic urban farming is just the coolest. Jack decides to climb up the beanstalk and see if there are any new media ventures he can get in on. Or maybe a green initiative. And whaddya know, there is a castle with a golden harp and a hen that lays goddamned golden eggs! Plastics, Ben. PLASTICS.

So Jack avoids the giant, steals the hen and descends back down the beanstalk to show his mother how awesome he is.
"We can eat gold omelets now, mom!"
"Or we can sell the gold, you friggin' numbskull. Thank GOD your father is dead."

Eventually, Jack wants to go up the beanstalk again. Probably because he got involved in an illegal cockfighting ring and the hen got killed. So, he heads back up and while the giant is sleeping, he steals his silver and gold. He gives it to his mother, hoping she won't notice the missing hen.
"Here Ma, look at all this scrilla!"
"Great, go put it in the bank."
"Actually, I'm going to invest half in a contruction company that builds over-sized mini-mansions on acres of nutrient-rich farmland. The other half is going straight into Collateralized Debt Obligations. They are asset-backed, so they CAN'T LOSE!"

Well, a few years down the line, Jack's broke and he has to head back up the beanstalk and steal the giant's gold harp. He does and in the only truly intelligent move he makes, he chops down the beanstalk and the giant falls to his death. Jack can no longer plunder the castle of its riches, but now must live within the means that he has on the ground. And he promises his mother he won't be such a douche anymore.

The End.

Now this is by no means a straightforward analogy between Butler and Jack. Nothing about Butler Basketball suggests indolence, hubris, rashness or immaturity. But the notion that in order to finally get somewhere, the goal as it were, we might have to travel down a bumpy road full of potholes and mudpuddles, with funhouse mirrors lining the shoulder, is apt. In this case, the idea that past success can breed new and more difficult challenges is particularly useful.

Jack tastes great success, but also finds himself a victim of his own cravings for more success. He has to finally realize who he is and live within those parameters. He is continuously tempted by the beanstalk and the riches that await him above, but only when he becomes content with life below is the story allowed to end happily.

Matt Howard, who could've gone to IU or Purdue, chose the place he felt most comfortable and did just about as well as anyone could on the floor and in the classroom. THE Academic All-American of 2010-2011. How's things in B-Town, fellers?

Shelvin Mack went to a school where he would be featured and get to play a lot, even if it wasn't quite in the national spotlight. And if he gets a chance to murder the Wildcats, I'm selling every CD I own, plus a few Star Wars figures and putting all them clams on the Dogs.

I'll let you fill in the comparisons between Butler's coaches of the past and one Brad Stevens. Perhaps Brad will end up like Jack, Barry, Thad, and Todd and decide that magic beans are pretty cool and that Beanstalkland sounds pretty bitchin'. But I hope, mainly as a selfish fan, that he cuts down the beanstalk.

The NCAA tourney itself is a lumbering giant. One that seems to favor the big-money conferences in the face of damning evidence that the overall caliber of mid-level college programs has improved. Jay Bilas believes that the top-level college teams have actually gotten worse this year. He's a respected analyst (Dickie V. *eardrumsbleed* thinks Mr. Bilas should be the Tourney "Commissioner") and I'm sure one could juggle statistics to show that he's right. Hey, not a single number one seed advanced to the Final Four! Doesn't that mean that the #1's weren't all that good?

I think this might be an Ockham's moment, where we all say, "No, everybody else has just gotten better."

Kids are bigger, faster, stronger, better-trained and coached, across the board. The elite players, though amazingly talented, still have a ceiling. But the decent players, the top quartile, have gotten immensely better. And on days when the elites aren't pitch-perfect, the teams right below them will cut the beanstalk right out from under them. It's time for somebody to prove that point. I hope that those Bulldogs over on 49th Street are the tricky little sons of bitches who do it.

Elite Hate - Bulter v. Florida 2011

This time it's personal. Third time is a charm. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

I'm going for something else, something more visceral and full of bile. I want a triumph that is merciless, a victory achieved by the letting of blood. As Dolph Lundgren once said about the former champ Apollo Creed, "If he dies, he dies." At the end of tonight's game, if Billy Donovan's bunch is weeping on the court, so be it. Matt Howard should come out steely-eyed and say, "I must break you." I want Florida to suffer.

Of course, Drago loses, and the Russkies wind up chanting "Rocky, Rocky,"  so using the villain from Rocky IV as an examplar is a wee bit flawed.

Indeed, this kind of unchecked hatred from a fan is hardly healthy or helpful. The most rabid and over-zealous fanbases are usually the ones who find themselves suffering at the end of the contest, victims of their own irrational vicarious experience. Think of fans in Philadelphia, only recently finding a salve in the Phillies world series triumph, Boston morons who still claim to be "tahrchared" despite having four of the best franchises in spahrts over the last decade, the Duke fans after Arizona came out and assassinated them on Friday.

The foam-at-the-mouth exuberance of these fans, so perturbing to the rest of us, is also the fuel for schadenfreude when their teams fail. 18-1 in 2007? Helmet catch? Sweet ambrosia to everyone not living in the Upper Northeast.

Likewise, I imagine that harboring such unabated animus for years is probably not healthy for a basketball program. Though many personnel in the Butler program were around for Butler's wrenching losses to Florida in 2000 and 2007, the institutional philosophy of Butler basketball would seem to suggest that using bloodthirsty revenge as motivation to win is not exactly part of the Hinkle tradition. And while my gut tells me that "The Butler Way" is just a little bit prissy and ivory towerish, my brain tells my guts, "Just look at the scoreboard, dumbass."

And truly, I should know better. Because though I grew up watching an endless number of IU games, and the 1987 NCAA championship is still one of the more lasting memories of my childhood, I have seen far more Butler games in person. And over the last decade I have watched and listened to fivefold more Butler games than IU. I loved IU's 1992 & 2002 NCAA runs, tournament runs that ended in heartbreak of their own, but Butler's two losses to Florida were even more anguishing. Those losses, the first on a last second shot by Mike Miller, the second in a game defined by the referees' refusal to call a foul on the Florida big men, left a taste in my mouth that was even more acrid and full of lasting bitterness than last year's Duke game. At least in the Duke game, Butler had a chance. They were inches away from winning on a last-second prayer; they didn't get jobbed by the refs or stomach-punched by lady luck like in the Florida games.

Despite real or perceived imbalances in officiating and weighted scales of fate, Butler trudged on, racking up wins, playing full-throttle defense, and doing it despite lacking the bloated coffers of BCS schools. And the progress of the Butler program has not been predicated on quick-fixes or pandering to fans and alumni with glamorous recruits.

Instead, it has been achieved by hiring people and coaches who are exceptional basketball strategists, able to create situations that allow good players to achieve great things. "The Butler Way," however dorky and corporate-sales-goal-oriented it may sound, works. It gets players to know and understand their roles and to value team success above all. A.J. Graves and Mike Green graduated and took with them a wealth of experience and a truckload of moxy. Butler just got better. They lost Gordon Hayward to the down-side of high achievement. Still, they continued to win. Without bluster, without spouting the bullshit platitudes of athletes worldwide-- "Nobody believed in us," "We just wanted it more"-- and the other mindless palaver that issues from the mouths of big-time sports stars.

So I will find moderation in my anger. I will not hate. I will cheer for Butler's success and that alone. The opponent does not matter. The only thing I will think of is my hope that the team from down the street gets to play next weekend. In the end, the scoreboard will be the ultimate arbiter and none of my rancor and enmity will do the slightest bit of good...

Al Horford though, and pardon my French, he can fuck off.

Butler v. Florida 2007 - Horford "backs down" Crone.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Of the four majors, the Aussie Open is the one I pay the least attention to. The reasons are numerous. It comes on the heels of the holiday season, the French is still months away, and most of the action happens during the middle of the night. This year, however, with ESPN3 streaming and bit of insomnia, I've seen quite a few matches. Another reason my interest is peaked is because this year's tourney has some major storylines. Rafa could win the Serena Slam, and I don't care how good Laver was, holding all four trophies in this day and age would be an unbelievable achievement, perhaps on par with Roger's career titles record. Couple that with Rafa's streak at the French and I believe he has cemented himself in the top five all-time already, and he's only 24. I could go on and on, but instead I'll list my preferences for who I want to win. This list might include people already eliminated.


Men's Draw:

1. Andy Roddick - He's getting pretty old in tennis years and he still hasn't developed the third shot in his game to make him a Slam winner again. His serve still makes him capable of beating anyone on a given day, but the holes in his game are only going to get more glaring as his foot speed wanes. Now is the time for Andy if he wants another major title.
   I wasn't a fan of his in the early 2000's. He seemed as if he didn't want to win, but rather crush his opponent and rub it in. Whereas, Federer never cared  who he beat, he was only interested in winning. but then Andy ran into the Fed Ceiling for 7 years and somehow turned into the loveable underdog. Not to mention that he held it down for American men in tennis when there was literally NO ONE else doing anything significant.  I love Jimmy Blake and Mardy Fish, Dent and Gimmelstob but those guys just never threatened the top tier at all.
    We've seen Querrey and Isner come along and make some noise the past couple seasons, but from 2005-2008 Andy was the Lone Ranger. And he never quit and seemed to work harder than almost anyone on tour. Despite not being as quick or having some of the shot-making abilities of Fed, Rafa, Murray or Djokovic, Andy is always knocking on the door of a major final. And in 2009 he gave us the greatest Wimbledon final ever. I don't care what people say about 2008 Rafa/Fed, Andy holding serve for 14 games against the greatest all-around player ever was unparalleled. Isner/Mahut was the greatest match of all time for reasons other than their actual tennis-playing. Roddick and Roger played the best tennis I have ever witnessed in that final. No one will convince me of anything to the contrary
    He's married to one of the prettiest girls on the planet, but seems to realize he hit the pulchritude jackpot unlike a certain football QB from new England. He's frequently a prick in interviews, but he's always funny, and just self-deprecating enough to let everyone know that he's only playing the heel. If I were him, I'd rather be hanging with Brooklyn Decker than trying to explain to reporters that, "Yes I'm a damn good player, but Roger Federer is simply the best. Stop asking me about it."
    So I want Andy to win. If he doesn't, I'll still be rooting for him until he hangs up his Babolat. Which I'm guessing won't be too long from now.

2. Andy Murray - Great competitor. Needs a slam title to shut the British Press up and to make the two at the top play even harder.

3. Roger Federer - Roger will hit the invisible wall this year. He will turn 30 and play in his 43-47 grand slam tournament. As far as I can tell, no men's player has won a title after their fiftieth slam appearance. Stop with the Martina jokes.
  Fed is arguably the greatest of all-time, and his five years from 2003-2008 are unparalleled. I want to see him get at least one more.

4. Rafael Nadal - There may be a day when we say Rafa was as good as Roger. Right now, I can't say that. But if he gets the ConsecuSlam, or Serena Slam or whatever you want to call it, he will leap-frog Bjorn into #4 behind Roger, Pete, and Laver. If he could follow it with the French and win five in a row? It's just him and Roger.
     I'm ambivalent. While I love when athletes break records, particularly guys like Nadal who are hyper-competitive, but also fun and nice, I don't necessarily want to see the era of Federer ushered out just yet. When sports dynasties end, it is a bit sad, even if they are extinguished by the rise of another dynasty.

At any rate, this is one of the greatest times in Men's tennis in quite awhile.

The women's draw isn't quite as lively, but I do have a few horses I'd like to see win.

1. Kim Clijsters - Like Roddick, I didn't really have much of a feeling for her early in her career. But after her hiatus to get married and have a baby, she's come on like lighting. She's far more confident and waaaay more interesting of a person that she was as a slightly timid teenager, as we all are.
  
2. Venus Williams - She's already retired due to injury, and with Serena out indefinitely there is no Williams left. And majors are always better when one of the sisters is playing. Much like Roddick, Venus and Serena have held it down for the USA when virtually no other ladies have done squat.
 Plus Venus has the crazy sexualized outfit/Jehovah's Witness dichotomy going on. Man that family is crazy. Crazy GOOD.

3. Maria Sharapova - Mascha hasn't won a major in awhile and if she wants to secure any kind of legacy she needs a couple more. Plus she's easy on the eyes. If her serve doesn't kill her, she has a chance. Her forehand is the only one that has compared to Venus and Serena in the last five years.

4. Sveta Kuznetsova - She's just fun to watch play because she looks like she should be playing in a USTA league in municipal park, but somehow she's won two majors and is never an easy out. And she looks like Ashton Kutcher, not necessarily in a good way.

I Just Killed a Mouse

       John Wilkes Booth was very handsome. His father and brother were the most famous actors in the country up to that point in American history. Abraham Lincoln was as midwest ugly as they come. I don't think that mattered when the trigger was pulled in Ford's Theater. I do think that J.W. Booth was emblematic of the personality type observed time and again in political assassins: Intelligent enough to identify the seat of power and plan a way to get to the seat-holder and murder them, crazy enough to think that their own politics trump the will of millions of voters. Mental health services could have been useful to any one of the people in history who've pointed a gun at the President and pulled the trigger.

      I don't purport to know how to best identify people who are on the brink of committing gun violence. All I know is that I had to smash a small mouse to put him out of his misery this evening and it made me sad and proud of myself and disappointed in humanity. The proud of myself is because, over the years, I've developed a rather intense phobia for rodents. Not just that I dislike them and wish them to be elsewhere, especially out of my house, no, something more.
       It derives from experiences with half-dead rats and numerous squirrels and chipmunks killed by my grandparents' cat, the bodies of which I'd discover underfoot while mowing the grass. the sensation of squishy squirrel beneath your Adidas is...unpleasant. Nowadays, my adrenal glands start firing like mad when I see a mouse. When I had to clean up a dead and putrifying opossum in my back yard, I nearly hyper-ventilated and a minute after I disposed of the bloated body, running away from a stench that verged on vomit-inducing, I was so jacked on fear hormones I bashed my shovel into the ground a dozen times, finally breaking the handle.
       So tonight, when confronted by a mouse that found its way into our house, I set to work. I reset our spin-traps. I baited them with new peanut butter and waited to hear one of the traps snap. These traps hide the smashed mouse body in a larger housing, so that I don't have to see the little sucker after the kill. Very civilized, indeed. Hoping to take care of the problem quickly I set-up surveillance by the kitchen door. I waited and waited, and still no telltale snap.
       Instead, as I surveyed the online clips of commentary and journalism regarding the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six other living souls, I heard a little scratching in my cabinets. Sure enough, my beady eyed tormentor reappeared. He carefully avoided the traps I set, running back and forth between the toe-kicks in my kitchen. Not willing to spend the night with a Beatrix Potter Character, I broke out the big guns. Glue-traps. They are hardly humane, no matter how much anesthetic they might have in the glue. But I did not care.
      And just like that, the little feller ran right into the sticky-icky. I peeked my head out and hoped he would expire quickly. He did not. He wriggled and writhed for a minute and I could stand it no more. I got my shoes on, picked up a dust pan, and scooped up Stuart Little in his gluey infernal device.
      We went outside, Stu and I, and I apologized to him and told him I was sorry if he had suffered. And then I set him in the snow and dropped a large flagstone on him. I am not proud of killing the mouse, I would have rathered he just left on his own. My pride comes from the fact that I didn't leave him to pull his own arms off and suffer through the night, and I'm glad I put aside my own phobia to do so.

         And I thought about this awful, tortured person named Jared Loughner. And I thought about how I'd like to smash him under a rock. Not because I want to exact violence upon him. I do not. My desire to snuff him out under a large piece of limestone stems from a similar place as my desire to keep the mouse from suffering for eight hours instead an eighth of a second. This poor fuck is disturbed.
         He is no Booth, a racist, politically-savvy narcissist, no Guiteau, a campier Booth. Nor is he a bi-polar Communist like Oswald and Czolgosz. He is a paranoid-schizophrenic and he had guns and the internet. Gabby Giffords was the target he picked to try to silence his paranoia. And along the way, nobody figured out how to save this guy from himself and get him some help.
       Sometimes getting help for the mentally ill is impossible. I have neither the time or will-power to spend hours writing about why and how mental health services need to paid for by the public at large. Why it's an issue of public safety and homeland security. Why our taxes must be used to fund health-care for everyone. All I can say is, humans shouldn't end up on glue traps. They shouldn't be left to pull their own arms off and take their perceived enemies with them on their way to oblivion. Disturbed people can be treated. They can be ushered into the proper programs and facilities before they get stuck in the gooey mind-traps that encircle modern American society. They can and must, for the love of humanity, be kept away from guns.  I don't want to feel like we need to put our countrymen out of their own misery before they start killing people. Because that is almost as disturbing as the thing itself.
        The poor little mouse is dead, and I'm glad it went quick. This awful affair with Mr. Loughner will not go quick, I'm afraid. But I am most fearful of the idea that, at the end of it all, nothing will have changed.