In the Cellar

So Floyd Landis comes forward and admits to doping — after years of proclaiming innocence — and then proceeds to pull a whole bunch of folks, including Saint Armstrong, down into the muck with him. The words of a chump loser looking to flail about and connect on a few cheap shots? Perhaps. But probably not. I think he’s telling the truth.

A good pal of mine (let’s call him Gearhead) is seriously into cycling. He races all the time, and he follows the professional circuit with the intensity of a guy who plays Fantasy Football for a living. Only GH does it out of the love of the game. He thinks Lance Armstrong doped. We had a long email exchange about Landis, and then I asked “Well, do you think Lance doped?” Him: “Oh yeah.”

Take the groupthink dynamic that led to the ubiquity of baseball juicing. Now amplify it. That’s cycling. Everyone doped. If you want to be a pro, you just do it. No questions. To NOT do it is to show a wavering level of commitment that jeopardizes your spot. (Think of the prevalence of “greenies” — uppers — in baseball. Allegedly, many starting pitchers would be straight-up pissed if they found out one of their infielders was playing unenhanced. Tellingly, to play unAdderalled is deemed “playing naked.” MLB passed a rule against greenies a few years ago. I would love to get my paws on the number of ADD prescriptions written for players since then.) If you’re part of a cycling team — and it is a common mistake to think of cycling as an individual sport — you are in. Everyone is in. No weak links. Everyone’s on the “hot sauce.

Here’s Gearhead, in his own words, on the culture of doping in cycling: “Yes, there’s absolutely a group-think effect.  You hear again and again in cycling: ‘everyone is doping; doping is the only way I can stay a pro.’  There are a number of things to take from this, but two stand out for me.  One: cyclists have given up their accountability and personal choice.  When you assume that doing something illegal and dangerous is necessary, you already passed the threshold of considering whether or not to dope.  Before the needle’s in your arm, you already believe you have to do it.  Two: there no consideration of its actual benefits.  Strangely, this sort of perspective is almost totemic.  Doping is something you have to do because everyone does it.  Everyone doesn’t seem to be doing it (according to this logic) because it necessarily works; everyone is doing it because ‘everyone else is’ (or ‘must be’).”

What seems like desperation or skullduggery on Landis’ part can, when seen through a different lens, seem downright understandable — and perhaps, I daresay, sympathetic. Landis wins the Tour de France in 2006 — another miraculous American win! He gets busted for doping. Accusations, denials, SCANDAL. Basically, Landis toed the party line: if caught, deny deny deny. Claim it was a fraudulent test. Some freak occurrence. Whatever. But do NOT blow the lid off the big, huge secret: EVERYONE is doping. It is not really a secret — cycling has been mired in doping scandals for a long time now — but, rather, the secret is that the people who are caught are not the rogue outliers. They’re just the poor bastards who got caught.

So Landis denies, denies, denies. And, finally, for whatever reason, he steps forward. There is a Jose Conseco aspect to Landis, sure: lots of fingerpointing in the media spotlight. Thing is, Conseco was right — time and time again. I think ol’ Jose is a media whore in a way that Landis is not (Landis would not, I suspect, appear on Vh1′s “The Surreal Life”). I think Landis wanted it all to go away; only it keep up, and he became a scapegoat for the sport he loves. And there one has a choice: fall on the grenade or burn the whole town down. And, eventually, he chose the latter.

Of course, Lance denies, denies, denies — the routine should be familiar by now. Lance’s battle with cancer and return to repeated glory was an amazing story. Everyone ate it up. My boss at a gas station I used to work at when younger — thick Masshole accent; love for the BoSox; hatred for the Yanks — would bound out of the garage, hollering, “Lance won another mountain stage! Holy shit! He’s done it again!” He, like so many others, was genuinely excited. Just like we were excited about the McGwire and Sosa home run battle. That narrative got crushed, of course, but Lance’s narrative of resilience and glory remains. Lance ain’t dumb: he knows damn well that if/when he gets busted, poof, it all goes down the drain. Just another tainted hero, like Shoeless Joe Jackson. I imagine that living in that world of possibility is quite stressful. But I also think that Lance has a big enough ego that he’s somehow thought around/through that. He IS that good, dammit. One has to believe the falsities to lie convincingly, we are always told. Then again, maybe Lance is just banking on everyone toeing the line and holding the secret. The big problem, Gearhead tells me, is that Landis’ story has all sorts of information, names, and details that could lead to subpeonas, court appearances, damning testimony, and so on. Lance Armstrong will NEVER admit to doping. (Well, maybe if he could score a tell-all book deal and soft-focus 60 Minutes interview….) But there remains a possibility that a ring of convincing accusations might form around him. Many people will never believe it. You see those Livestrong bracelets all the time. Lance has long since became much more than just a bunch of consecutive Tour de France victories. Beating cancer is no joke. Lance will ALWAYS have that, and, frankly, that is the most important part of his message/persona. He won. Fuck cancer. But his persona grew and disseminated, in all likelihood, through systematic cheating. Everyone was doing it, sure, but does that make it right? That is a tricky question — and it brings to mind the nauseating cacophony of hand-wrining WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!” articles about cheating in baseball — without a clear answer. But I do know this: Lance’s saintly persona exists because of his perceived exceptionality. He is a driver, a winner, a stoic, a champion. Perhaps so. But he probably got there by cheating like everyone else. Not so exceptional.

Here are a bunch of cool links on this broad topic. Read up and enjoy. (These articles are all courtesy of Gearhead. I’m trying to get the information out there. You know my opinions now. Go form your own.)

1. A highly informative article on Landis and the culture of doping in professional cycling. The running comparison to Pretty Boy Floyd didn’t work for me, but maybe it will for you. Essential reading. Here.

2. A rather damning instant message conversation between two pro cyclers. Guess who comes up? Here.

3. Here are two informative interviews about doping and cycling. Here. And here.

4. A rather blustery article about Landis as crazy-prophet. Here.

5. Perhaps the gem of the bunch: a long interview with Floyd Landis himself. Here.

So I was at a Cubs’ game on a beautiful afternoon. The sun was warm; the beer was cold. The Wrigley Field bleachers offer some of the best People Watching in all of the Midwest. You have a collection of dudes who rolled up as soon as the gates open, and they are already drunk. Sweaty hairlines, retro sunglasses, Cubs regalia, and lots of “SHUT UP BRO!” and “DON’T BE A PUSSY!” On the warmer summer days, their shirts are usually off before the game even starts. At least one of them will be thrown out of the game for disorderly conduct. (I’ve seen someone get tossed BEFORE the game starts on a few occasions.) You have the bevy of sorority girls, scantily clad and shrieking, most of whom seem to enjoy the practice of stacking each empty booze glass on the bottom of the fresh one. So you can see, by the odd pile of rimmed plastic cups, that Girl #3 has managed to drink 7 beers by the 4th inning. You have the faintly creepy older dude buying drinks for these ladies. You have the older dudes with the withered Cubs tattooes on the biceps, forearms, whatever. You have the boyfriend and girlfriend who are openly making out in the bleachers during BP like it’s some high school dance scene in a John Hughes movie. But this last game I ran into a few type of Bleacher Creature: the guy who just won’t shut up. There were a group of guys who basically met the criteria for the “DON’T BE A PUSSY!” group of drunk fratty guys, only they weren’t sitting close enough, didn’t get there early enough, and decided to keep their shirts on. They were all slightly rowdy. One guy, though, broke from the pack early on. He delighted in screaming at the Astros’ centerfielder, Michael Bourn #21. HEY 21! HEY TWO ONE! YOU SUCK! HEY TWO ONE! YOU SUCK! HEY TWOOOO ONE! YOU FUCKING SUCK! The usher told him to knock off the profanity, and his response was “Oh, ok, I can’t swear?” Visible frustration rippled through the crowd. Dude just wouldn’t quit it. Several people — including me — pointed out to him that his voice was annoying, his call cats obvious and repetitive (there was another in his group that’d unleash a rather humorous salvo with welcome discretion and restraint; those contributions were appreciated). Finally, by about the seventh inning, he hadn’t quit. HEY TWO ONE! THAT WAS A WEAK THROW! YOU ALMOST DIDN’T MAKE IT! (#21 caught a fly ball and made a lazy throw back to the cut-off man. No runners were on base.) So I turn around to my vociferous neighbor and say, “Do you realize that he cannot hear you? He’s too far away from you, and there’s too much general noise. He can’t hear you. So knock it off.” His bizarre and aggressive response: “It’s cool, bro. Just turn around your hat.” (I was wearing a Cubs hat. I’m not sure what this means.) The guy was screaming, sure, but in that throaty way that cuts up your vocal cord but doesn’t actually carry far — it’s not ‘sharp’ enough. What I’m curious about — and why I bother writing about this slightly-amusing but rather unpleasant experience — is why makes this guy and Those Like Him tick. His guiding philosophy, from what I can tell, is that paying for this ticket basically allows him to act like a foolish loudmouth. It’s his right to get drunk and yell stuff and be crass. He seemed to realize there were limits (he stopped swearing, more or less, once warned), but he was at the park and he can do what he wanted. People tried to get him to stop, but to no avail. He wasn’t particularly funny (i.e., his comments clearly weren’t for the crowd’s amusement), and he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself — in that he was hell-bent on yelling “HEY TWO ONE! YOU SUCK! HEY TWO ONE! LOOK AT ME!” with an almost robotic ferocity. And, for whatever reason, whether it be drunkenness, stupidity, or too much second-hand exposure to roofies, he did not catch (or listen to) an abundance of social signals that his antics were displeasing just about everyone who wasn’t him. He was there, and he was going to scream at the center field who probably can’t even hear him and if he could he’s certainly heard enough catcalls in his life to be used to them. There are idiots and assholes everywhere. What’s odd about this sort of guy, though, is in the direct clash between the individual and community. Cubs fan like coming to Wrigley. He seemed to be an impassioned Cubs fan. There’s a generally recognized truth that sitting in the bleachers and drinking some beer and cheering for the home squad is a good use of one’s leisure time. As the Cubs fans stereotype goes, everyone’s having a good time, win or lose. But this guy’s the turd in the punch bowl: his contributions only subtract from everyone else’s enjoyment. Now, it’d make perfect sense if he were, say, a fan of the opposing team and was a macho dude and wanted to cause some havoc in the stands. (He ought to save some time and join the fanbase of either the Red Sox or the Yankees. Cubs fans cannot be arrogant and domineering; they haven’t won shit in over a century.) Him and his special relationship with the Cubs trumped all rules of communal enjoyment. (If I yell at the center fielder, repeatedly, I’ll eventually get to him and help my Cubbies win! It’s like I’m on the team!) Again, were his yelpings less frequent or funnier, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem. No one wants silent concert-hall appreciate, but there are some rules of decorum. I’ve never run into this type of loudmouth. Have you?

In other fun news, Chicago, as you probably know, is the third largest city in America. It has 2.85 million people. It is nearly twice the size of Phoenix, the 5th largest city. Arkansas has 2.88 million people. That’s the cut off state. Here are all the states with that have fewer people than Chicago’s city limits: Kansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming. That’s 18 states! (And if you make the cut off the population of NYC, the largest US city with 8.36 million, only 11 states clear the bar.) But let’s stick with smaller-than-Chicago. Of those states, I’d say 11 are staunchly Republican, 4 are staunchly Democrat, and 3 have freaky political cultures that are hard to predict (NM, NH, ME). That’s a lot of Senate votes to come from meager populations. (My favorite example of our off-kilter system of political representation is that Wyoming, population 544,000, gets two Senators and only one Congressman. And the latter is underworked: the system has one representative per over 700,000 people, although that’ll change with the new census data.) The moral of this story is that the Senate has all sorts of problems that ought to be fixed but probably won’t, but one problem that could and should be fixed is the filibuster. If we play the game that each of the 11 conservative states has 2 Republican senators (which isn’t far from the truth), then that’s 22 votes for 16.4 million people. If this were a state of 16.4 million people, it’d be the 5th largest, ahead of Illinois and behind Florida. Kill the filibuster: it’s way too easy for smaller states to gum up the works. And, of course, the smaller states tend to be conservative. Only six of the top 20 populated states — TX, GA, NC, AZ, IN, TN — are thoroughly conservative.

Today’s lesson: loudmouths in the stands and the filibuster are both bad.

Given my love of literature and sports, I’ve always been attracted to sports writing. Unfortunately, most of it sucks; or, rather, the writing itself is bland and formulaic, or else overly combative and shrill, and often filled with all sorts of eyerolly cheap rhetorical tricks. But some writers leap above the fray. David Foster Wallace’s pieces on tennis (an autobiographical account of his competitive youth tennis years, an essay about following around Michael Joyce, a good-to-average player, on the men’s circuit in the early/mid-90s, and a cover story for the NYT Magazine about the beauty of Federer’s game) are among the best pieces of non-fiction I’ve ever read, period — they just happen to be about tennis. Roger Angell has been giving us gorgeously constructed baseball writing for upwards of 50 years.

For whatever reason, I’ve been reading several books on the NBA recently. I can’t say why, exactly. My Nets are horrible this year, and I’ve been doing a decent but hardly thorough job of keeping up with the weekly operations of the League. I’m not watching that much basketball, but I’m doing lots of reading about it!

It all started with David Halberstam’s *The Breaks of the Game*. (Amazon page here.) It’s an insidery, non-linear account of the late 70s Portland Trailblazers teams. Basically, they came together for 1.5 magical seasons, and, during that run — which was lead by Bill Walton during one of his only sustained bursts of bodily health — were among the best teams ever to suit up. The perfect team, according to some. But Walton got hurt and things got bitter and he was traded to the San Diego Clippers and now the Trailblazers are just trying to hang on and earn a low-spot in the playoffs. I can’t say for certain if he pioneered the book-length “you’re inside the lockerroom” genre, but he certainly took it to heights that probably won’t be surpassed. The NBA in the late 70s was a fragile creature, burdened by poor marketing, rampant drug use, and being an increasingly “black league” with all the anxieties and contentious issues that raised. This is the pre-Bird/Magic/MJ NBA, a pre-David Stern NBA. It’s fascinating stuff — particularly since all sorts of NBA material is readily available on YouTube in ways it isn’t for other sports. The reason to read it, though, is its superlative prose style. It’s a beautifully written book. I’m willing to bet a non-sports fan would enjoy this work.

Bill Simmons’ *The Book of Basketball* came out and soared to the top of the NYT Non-Fiction List. (Amazon here.) Some critics pointed out a tension: Simmons writes as a “regular guy / Man of the People” and yet now he’s cranked out a THICK basketball book that shot directly to #1. At what point does popularity+celebrity+financial success imperil the conceit of “I’m just a regular guy in the stands?” An worthy question, but one I can’t answer. All I can say is that you get a lot of Bill Simmons, for better or worse. You’re going to get the requisite heaps of Boston homerism and “clever and interesting but not THAT clever and interesting” pop culture references and analysis. A little too much casual sexism and machodude “Yo, here’s another Vegas story!” Lots of “Oh, I did SO MUCH watching, reading, and data crunching to make this book,” which, shockingly, wears thin almost immediately. The book is over 700 pages long, and it could easily lose 200+. It’s whole point, though, is excess. Tons of stats and comparisons and lengthy footnotes. Unfortunately for Simmons, it’s like he’s picked up the annoying tics of David Foster Wallace, only he’s boiled them down to a syrupy reduction that eliminates most of the wonky joie de vivre that characterizes DFW’s long footnotes and detailed excursions. I wasn’t planning on reading this book, but a friend lent it to me and I gave it a go. And, to my surprise, I am really enjoying it. Irritating passage or section? Speed up! The monster is long and fractured, so there’s no need to remember much or keep information to build on. The most entertaining section, which takes up about 350 pages, is a breakdown, in ranked order, of the best 96 players, in his opinion, ever to take the court. This is where the excess comes in handy. Simmons might not have the writerly grace of Halberstam or DFW, but he’s clearly passionate about the NBA to the point of obsession, and he finds ways to offer his tumult of assembled stats and ideas in ways that are usually both accessible and entertaining; I commend his ability to enliven what is dull or esoteric. This book is best read slowly. There are several reviews that essentially say, “Ya, good book. A fun read. But I really wish I didn’t have to read it in 2 days to get out this review.” Good gravy. I can only imagine. This is a good one for the nightstand or the porcelain throne. If you aren’t already interested in the NBA, stay away — this one will overwhelm to the point of vexation.

The most recent addition is also the weirdest, and perhaps even the best. *The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today’s Game*. (Amazon here.) I’m a big fan of Bethlehem Shoals, the nom de plume of Nathaniel Friedman. He writes Free Darko, one of my favorite sports blogs. (For all you fans of *The Wire*, he ran a blog during seasons 3 through 5 called Heaven and Here.) Shoals’ writing style is, er, unusual. It’s one part NBA geek, one part transcendental philosopher, one part sociologist. His writing sometimes kicks free of the earth and soars to places rich and strange. For this book he teamed up with a few other folks, including a kick-ass illustration team. There are amazing pictures on just about every single page. Hell, it even has a foreword by Gilbert Arenas (gulp). It’s like a hipper version of the Bill Simmons basketball book smashed together with a rad graphic novel. It’s every bit as nerdy as the Simmons book, but it’s interested in the present league, whereas *The Book of Basketball* takes on NBA history. There are about 20 chapters on various players. Consider Leandro Barbosa, a Suns guard — and one of the fastest players in the league. The first picture has him, with ball, out running several birds, a jockey-on-horse, a cheetah, a missile, a sprinter, a few arrows, and a jetplane. At the beginning has a sidebar that asks three questions. What He Gives Us: Sprightly, elastic play with Brazilian cross-rhythms; What He Stands For: The unadulterated glee of forward motion; Why We Care: Because tranquility sometimes lurks near extremes. Then comes a long essay on the player, some swell illustrations of some of his best moves, and even a great chart that tracks all the various ways that Barbosa scored in “seven seconds or less” — the famous Suns offensive strategy in the mid-2000s — much more often than his teammates.
I’ve never seen a sports book anything like that, and I think it’s awesome. They scare up all sorts of weird stats to show that, for example, Arenas shoots way better from 28-38 feet (FAR away!) than from 23-24 feet (the already far away NBA 3pt line). Or that Rasheed Wallace, a notorious hothead, plays much better after his first technical foul. There’s a pictorial explanation of all of Amare Stoudemire’s tatts. Or this crazy graphic, sort of like a word cloud, of all the stat lines of All-Stars that Ron Artest has completely shut down. Or the amazing subtitle of the Stephon Marbury chapter: “Hategoat.”

And there’s a hilarious glossary in the back. Example entries:

“Eastern Conference”: The worst basketball in the league, played in the first states of the Union.

“Iverson, Allen”: The personification of every reason uninformed people give for why they prefer NCAA baskeball to the NBA. Also credited with single-handedly destroying the league after Jordan’s second retirement.”

“Kareem’s Jacket”: Bizarre Native American-meets-David Crosby leather-fringe joint that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wore at a 2006 playoff game. Still known about the Internet simply as “the Jacket.”

“Kemp, Shawn”: Father of hundreds and former high-flying highlight-reel staple who transformed into a doughy wasteland of a man after he left for the Seattle Supersonics.

“NBA draft”: Day on which people with humorous names wear funny baseball caps and ill-advised suits.

“Tesh, John”: Composer of the immortal NBA on NBC theme, a sweeping ode to all that is epic and swift in this game.

Like the Simmons book, this one won’t really appeal to non-NBA fans. If you happen to be a bigtime graphic novel fan, though, you might give this one a ride. NBA fans, look this one up. It’s weird and wonderful.

Wow! What a game!

The first quarter seemed to suggest it was going to be all Colts, all day. Peyton and co. were marching, and the Saints offense looked tepid at best. Drew Brees looked rattled, Reggie Bush was largely ineffective (how shocking!), and the 3-and-outs were tiring out the defensive unit. I figured it might be a 17-0 halftime on the way to a beatdown.

But then Pierre Thomas started kicking ass. (Memo to Saints: making PT your main RB and have Reggie Bush in for trick plays, punt returns, and as a RB/receiver out in the flat. He stinks at everything else.) And then Drew Brees heated up, found his confidence, and, from what I can tell, did not throw another incomplete pass. That guy was on fire. He wasn’t throwing many 40 yard strikes up the middle, but he was completing a ton of 15-20 yard hits.

I was wrong. Totally wrong. I figured that the Saints offense would wake up eventually — which it did — but by then it’d be a close game and no way was Peyton Manning losing a close game. But then he choked, throwing a TERRIBLE pass that resulted in a Pick Six TD that blew the game wide open. That cornerback made an outstanding run, pointing for a block and then cutting through that lane at the right moment, and then outrunning the fat O-line guy (a difficult task, I know). I figured the Colts would march and score a TD and then it’d be tie game and Saints ball and then things would get spicy. But, nope, Peyton threw a pass worthy of Brett Favre. So unlike him. My viewing compatriots and I were in awe, over and over, of Peyton’s ability to throw passes that literally cannot be caught by anyone but his receiver. He loves the down-and-away ball. Either it’s a reception or incompletion. Whatever happened — a miscommunication? — he threw a ball toward the inside shoulder of a receiver (never a good idea on a slant up the middle) and the CB jumped in front, snatched the ball, and took off. It was the same sort of throw that Brett Favre submitted. Thing is, Favre throws horrible INTs sometimes. Manning hardly EVER does that. When it happens, it’s almost always a bad break — one of those bang-bang NFL plays that features a tipped ball and a safety that dives about 15 yards to basketcatch a fluttering ball. I cannot remember the last time I’ve seen a Manning Pick Six. (Surely one happened during those early 00s Pats v. Colts playoff games where the Pats stomped all over the Colts?) With all the chips on the line, the biggest football geek of them all through a terrible, horrible, don’t EVER do that sort of pass. Weird.

But then the Colts just marched right back down the field. Only they were content to take the 8-yard dump passes up the middle (which the Saints were obviously giving away), which is fine, except that it killed the clock. There was a dim chance of a comeback, only Manning hit Reggie Wayne, his best receiver, in the hands on 4th down. Wayne was standing in the endzone. Game over.

God bless Sean Peyton for taking that Gatorade bath like a victorious conqueror. He gets nailed and pumps his arms in the air and his teammates pick him up and he looks so fierce and competitive and, well, happy. It’s was lovely. It ALMOST made me forget that he was sporting both gelled-spiked hair AND a visor (shudder). Note to Nick Saban: the Gatorade bath is what happens to winning coaches in big games. Sort acting like a sissypants when you get nailed with that cold, sticky liquid. I’m sure it’s unpleasant, yes, but you just won a HUGE game (in his case, the BSC championship) — ENJOY IT.

My favorite plays in the game were:

-Manning’s two BREATHTAKING passes up-and-over the defense to the sidelines. He had one in the 2nd and one on the final drive. This weird deep passes that somehow blopped up and then down, avoiding several outstretched defensive hands along the way. Scary accuracy.

-The onside kick to start the second half. What stones! It’s giving implicit trust to special teams AND the defense. It might have looked bad if muffed, but given this and the 4th-and-goal attempt, Sean Peyton was going for the jugular.

-That ABSURD catch/play for the 2 point conversation that gave the Saints some safety. Thank goodness they overturned the horrible call. Of course it was in!

-The various Pierre Thomas pinball runs. That guy bounced off at least 1 tackle per run — usually more. He helped get the Saints offense started. Drew Brees was the clear MVP, but he owes some thanks to ol’ Pierre.

Well played, Saints. Please don’t torch Bourbon St. during your celebrations.

This Super Bowl excites me. After years of fluky teams making the big game (working backwards, Arizona, NY Giants, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Carolina), we are finally rewarded with a match-up of the two teams who were the toast of their respective conferences. The two best QBs. Both possess underrated — although is that possible at this stage? — defenses. Two exciting offenses, but for different reasons: the wonky surgical precision of the Colts versus the balls-out assault of the Saints. The Colts run just about the same plays every week. The Saints seem to come up with new and zany plays (often trick plays!) every week.

The Colts come into this game with more — more momentum, more experience, more support from gamblers and the press. They shellacked my Jets in the AFC championship. I was proud of the way the Jets played for the first, say, 27 minutes. The missed field goals hurts, sure, but that’s karmic justice for the first two games where opponents’ missed FGs proved critical. Rex Ryan blitzed blitzed blitzed (no surprises there), and, at first, it rattled Peyton. Some sacks. Some pissy faces on the sidelines. Swarming pressure. It felt like — I daresay — the early 00s Pats victories over the Colts. Rattled Peyton, knock him off his game, get him with agitated eyes and a furrowed brow and he’ll help you out by self-destructing. Well, he ran a helluva good 2 minute drill to end the first half. I expected as much, but it was an unholy alliance of brilliant offensive precision AND horrendous defensive breakdowns that I hadn’t seen since the early season. If a guy runs a deep slant over the middle, either the corner sticks or a safety picks him up, right? Well, not this time. Still, I figured Rex Ryan would holler at his defense and they’d come back out, fired up, and bring some more hell. Hell was brought, yes, but by ol’ Peyton. He lit up the Jets in the second half. He’s currently 5-1 against Rex Ryan defenses — the one loss was the controversial week 17 game where the Colts starters didn’t play the second half and they basically gave up their perfect season. Rex Ryan plays a certain kind of defense — of the KILL KILL MAIM KILL variety — but it’s consistently one of the best in the league. It took Peyton a little while to figure out what was going on (RR likes to blitz folks from odd places and angles and also enjoys delayed blitzes, so there’s a lot to compute), but once Peyton wrapped his mind around the package, he obliterated the Jets. It was sad and impressive. There are other reasons why the Jets lost, mainly that their running game was largely ineffective, but if I’m honest I can’t say that, given how well the Colts offense played in the second half, the Jets could have won. The Colts offense toasted the Jets D — the hottest defense in the league — and even the astonishing Darrelle Revis got badly juked at one point.

The Saints/Vikes NFC championship was an altogether different affair. If the narrative of the Colts/Jets was “the best team in the AFC got severely challenged, pulled it together, and then whumped an inferior opponent,” then the Saints/Vikes narrative was “WHO WANTS IT LESS?!” Holy crap, what an ugly game! Drew Brees never really found his groove: the patented 35 yard frozen ropes up the middle were 8 inches off target. So close, yet so far. Reggie Bush, the unexpected star from the last game, was simply horrendous. People, we need to own up to the fact that Reggie Bush is a mediocre-to-shitty pro. He remains an electrifying punt returner (and I wouldn’t be shocked if he made a big play in the SB off a Colts punt), and he can be a holy terror if he can get into the open field, but that’s the problem: he can’t often do that. Take Thomas Jones, the Jets RB: he will usually smash up the middle for 3-4 yards. Unsexy but consistent. He’s a human cannonball — hell, he used to play for the Bears! He won’t often break for a long run, but he won’t get nailed for a loss either. 3-4 yards, every time. As Madden might say, BOOM! Reggie Bush, on the other hand, will get tackled for a 2 yard loss. Or no gain. It’s amazing how often this happens. Sometimes he tries to get cute and head outside and gets tackled along the way. But other times he just flies into the line and, instead of emerging for 3-4 yards, he falls down immediately for no gain. One big game — the first in awhile! — got people all excited, and then Bush flopped pretty hard. That punt fumble was horrible.

The Vikes did the Saints a huge favor: they were the better team, overall, but they turned the ball over with an almost comic frequency. I couldn’t take the game seriously for a period in the second half. The Saints O was flat — no big plays, really, and a muted ability to move the chains. The Saints D wasn’t playing terribly, but the Vikes were marching often enough. But the Vikes kept on fumbling ball. Over and over and over. Adrian Peterson ripped off some nice runs, including a _fearsome_ TD run in the first half where he exploded through the line and then accelerated into the endzone before the secondary could reach him. It was manly. So there’s this scene in *The Program*, a flawed but underrated 90s sports flick about college football, where this RB keeps fumbling, so the coach makes him carry a football everywhere on campus and his teammates would try to sneak up and take it away — on the quadrangle, in lecture, whatever. Why can’t AP do this? I’m sure everyone’s been working hard at this, as it’s his only flaw. (Well, the others might be that he tries to break for huge runs a little too often and that he’s way too willing to huddle himself at defenders, a head-first human missile, that will shorten his career and perhaps even leave him horrifically injured.) So the second half was basically a game of Monopoly between two players who each owned about half the properties on the board and both had a lot of money. Boring stalemate. The Saints O couldn’t get it done. The Saints D let the VIkes move the ball, but they did a great job of forcing turnovers. Back to the Saints O, who couldn’t get it done (again and again). Punt. Back to the Vikes! Fumble. Ugh.

If the Saints could have done SOMETHING in the third and early/mid-fourth quarter, they’d have won. If the Vikes could have avoided, say, half of their grisly turnovers, they’d have likely scored and won. But, of course, we now know why this darkly comic back-and-forth took place between the two teams: the football gods were setting up the agonizing-but-inevitable end. Brett Favre stars as Oedipus, only he’s not screwing his mom, he’s screwing over his fans. Again! Every performance. You come to the theater and think maybe this time Oedipus will do it differently. NOPE! Brett Favre is full of hubris. We all know this. Say what else you want about him — great man, gunslinger, mercenary, dickhead, everything that’s right/wrong about America — what can’t be argued is that he possesses hubris. In colossal proportions. Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary defines hubris: “Presumption, originally towards the gods; pride; excessive self-confidence.” Brett Favre makes big plays — this is inarguable. Brett Favre wants to make the big play to win the biggest game. This seems logical enough, but, thing is, he has an outstanding record of failure in those situations. His season-ending interception in the NFC championship game against the Giants 2 years ago was horrible. My Packers-fan friend was speechless. That was his last pass as a Packer. His season-ending interception last year was horrible. The stakes were lower, but this was a must-win game to make the playoffs, and this pick ensured a loss to Miami, a team who’s QB, Chad Pennington, was the guy Favre outsted when he came to the Jets as a hired gun. That was his last pass as a Jet. (Then the shit storm began. The chronicle of Brett Favre-as-diva-and-terrible-teammate was an unpleasant read. These were embittered ex-teammates, sure, but there was probably some truth there.) I have a few friends who are bigtime Vikes fans. I’ve been joking with them all season: just you wait, he’s going to do good and then begin to slip and then BAM he’s going to rip out your hearts. Well, simply put, Brett Favre had an extraordinary season. For anyone. But for a guy with his odometer, on a new team? Yikes. And he didn’t do anything stupid down the stretch. I was worried. I wanted Brett Favre to fail, I admit it, and he wasn’t following the script. So when the Vikes had the ball and were marching down the field into field goal territory as the clock wound down in the fourth quarter I was cursing the Saints for their offensive ineptitude. Their D gave them multiple gifts, which they scorned and threw back, and now, SOMEHOW, the Vikes were going to win. They were on the edge of FG range. Two runs up the middle for nothing. Then the slow drums of Fate began. A penalty for 12 men in the huddle, otherwise known as “the stupidest and most preventable penalty in football.” Now at the very edge of FG territory. At this point I perked up. I was glum and resigned to the Vikes’ — and thus Favre’s — success. I did not want to endure the fellatio party that would erupt when Favre won. But now, look, they are on the outside of their kicker’s range. He’s gonna try to make a play! OH YES. He rolls out on a bootleg. All the critics say he could have run for 5-6 yards, slid, and that was that — game over. Some say he’d been hit so hard and so often by the Saints — which is true, he got rocked several times — that he was battered or unconsciously worried and didn’t do that. Me? I think he wanted to be the hero. The hubris. So he’s rolling out right and decides to throw across his body. Try this at home sometime — it’s very hard. Sure, he’s got a handcannon, everyone knows that, but, still, it’s one of the hardest throws to make consistently. And, what’s more, he throws into the middle of the field. Lots of folks get jumbled up in there. Interception. The Chorus nods knowingly. The football gods chortle. A Viking fan offers a profanely horrified response. The best thing, of course, would have been a Pick-Six to break the tie and end the game. But, still, now that Fate was involved, the outcome was obvious: Saints win toss and elect to receive (NFL overtime is such horseshit). A few dubious calls later and they are in field goal range. Kicker splits the posts. Elation on Bourbon Street. Brett’s last pass as a Vike?

This long Favrian digression is meant to show that the Saints didn’t really do much to win the game. Hell, even the OT was a tense affair where they needed to get bailed out by the refs (as some allege) to win. The INT was crucial, of course, but that throw was so bad the guy was just in the right place at the right time. Seriously, if ANYTHING ELSE reasonable had happened — short run by Favre, incompletion, hell, him falling to the ground, the Vikes have a puncher’s chance of winning the game.

I’m guessing we’re going to see a different Saints team. Freeney’s ankle is one of those media obsession that make me a little queasy. Yes, he’s super important to the Colts’ defensive line, but maybe some more reporting on Haiti instead?? If he’s out, the guy who’s the most effective at pressuring the QB will be sidelined. If Brees has time he’ll hit a few homeruns. This could be a problem. Thing is, the Colts diced up Baltimore and the Jets, both teams with better defenses than the Saints. But here’s the rub: neither the Ravens nor the Jets have, erm, intimidating offenses. Neither of these teams play to outscore you — not at all. The Saints are completely capable of putting up 35-45 points. I’d see that score and not blink. With the Jets and Ravens, I’d wonder what the hell happened. The Colts have cannily won close games all year. This is demonstrable, and I think that will be the decisive element. If the game’s close down the stretch, it’ll be hard not to pick the Colts — many of them have the previous big game pressure, Peyton’s ridiculous, and, mostly importantly, they’ve done this all season. Thing is, the Colts offensive can easily sputter for a quarter. A few 3-and-outs. A bad fumble. And unlikely pick. The Colts win by being the better overall team and nipping out close ones. The Saints, when they win, tend to win by overpowering their opposition. It’s like the mid-2000s Suns “seven seconds or less” offensive in football form. The Saints can win if strike hard and early (like, before the fourth quarter) then hold on down the stretch. A Saints blowout (say, 38-17) wouldn’t surprise me. A Colts blowout would sort of surprise me. Anything close, though, goes to the Colts, in my book. And seeing how ineffective the Saints were on offense last week, plus the inevitable first half jitters (remember that atrocious first half of the Pats vs. Panthers Super Bowl? We needed Nipplegate to bring that game around) mean that the Saints probably won’t be able to chalk up enough points to surge ahead. And they certainly won’t get as many fumbles out of the Colts! This is all to say that I can envision about 2 scenarios where the Saints win and about 5 where the Colts win. Final score prediction: Colts 30, Saints 23.

Sorry for the absence, everyone. It was a busy holiday, and I didn’t get much of a chance to sit down and write.

And I won’t be doing much of that now, either. But I will soon. For now, four quick items:

1) Here is a fascinating link about the top 25 censored (or extremely under-covered) stories out there. It’s an eye-opening read. Check it out.

2) Do you like toffee? I like toffee — but I don’t go bonkers over it. However, Terry’s Toffee recently entered my life, and I can only say that it’s off-the-charts delicious. Easily the best toffee I’ve ever had. Bring some into your life.

3) Book nerds, dedicated readers, and typeface/history-of-print geeks (I know you’re out there), I have two recommendations for you. First, check out *Helvetica*, a 2007 documentary about the world’s most popular font. Like any good documentary, it takes a rather odd or obscure subject matter and finds ways to tells an important and relevant tale. (Since it’s the time of year for lists, the documentaries I’ve most enjoyed in the past year are: *King of Kong*, *Riding Giants*, *Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room*, *The Weather Underground*, and *Anvil: The Story of Anvil*.) Be warned: once you watch *Helvetica* you will begin to see the font everywhere. Second, I’m currently reading Alberto Manguel’s *A History of Reading* (1996). His love of books and reading is palpable, and he has this utterly charming way of talking about books, authors, and ideas. He reminds of me Italo Calvino or Jorge Luis Borges. Indeed, it turns out that he, as a young man, read to Borges, who at that point had completely lost his sight. I wasn’t aware of this relationship, so I’ve been entranced the passages about Borges’ style of listening and interacting with a text. (Borges’ short stories — if they can be called that — are an all-time favorite. They are so wonderful.) This is an unconventional history of reading, full of love and detail, signifying plenty.

4) If all goes well tomorrow night, the Jets will make the playoffs. They have to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, who have already made the playoffs and will almost certainly rest their starters for a substantial chunk of the game. Of course, the Jets have fucked up plenty of easy wins (the Bills atrocity early in the season and the recent Falcons debacle come to mind), so I’m bracing for an inexplicable loss in a must-win game. (That happened last year too, see, when Brett Favre and the Jets HAD to beat the Dolphins — who were QBed by Chad Pennington, who was the Jets QB until Favre came to town and ousted him — to make the playoffs. And, uh, they lost badly. The only reason why the Jets are in the picture (and in control of their playoff destiny!!) is because a) a bunch of teams lost last week that needed to win; and b) the Colts decided to give up on the quest for a perfect season, opting to roll over and play dead instead. So the Jets had to win the game and thus beat the previously undefeated Colts, which is good, but they did so against the Colts’ second and third stringers, which isn’t all that impressive. To sum it all up: if you like Greek tragedy, tune in to the Sunday night game to see if the Jets, who are notorious for kicking their fanbase in the teeth over and over and over, can actually pull out this seemingly easy win. Do I want my favorite football team to make the playoffs? Sure. Do I think they deserve it and do I think they’re all that good? No, I think they don’t deserve it at all, and I think they’re pretty crummy. Strange position to be in!

My buddy CP recently sent me a list of the worst/most annoying sports rules out there. I’ll include his first, and then add a few of mine at the end. Did we miss any seriously horrible sports rules? Weigh in.

4. No Replay Review in Regular Season (MLB)- How many legit homers have been overturned this season because the stupid Ump overturned the call? Five or six? How hard is it to let the ump look at the replay and make the correct call like they do in other professional sports? I realize these games are taking way too long as it is and that there are 182 of them, but more often than not, a division is decided by one or two games, and these bad calls could ultimately cost a team a title down the road.
3. The MLB All-Star Game Winner Gets Homefield in the World Series (MLB) The All-Star Game had to end in a tie one year because the game went on too long. So what does Bud Selig decide to do in order to stop this from happening again? He made the winning league of the MLB all-star game get home field advantage in the World Series. Are you kidding me? How is this a good idea? Who cares if the all-star game isn’t competitive. They never are. The team with the best regular season record always deserves home field/court/ice/whatever.
2. A coin flip deciding possession in OT (NFL) It hasn’t happened yet, but one day, a Superbowl will go to overtime and the team that wins the coin toss is going to march down the field and win the game on the first possession. All sorts of debates will be waged over the fairness of this rule, and many will say this is the reason overtime in the playoffs should be more like college. Both offenses deserve a chance on the field. I understand why they do it in the regular season- so games don’t drag on for so long players start getting hurt- but in the playoffs, a team should never lose a game because they lost a coin flip.
1. the Bench clearing auto suspension rule (NBA) And finally, the rule I really hate the most. Nash and the Suns got robbed in ’07 when Robert Horry hip checked him into the scorer’s table. Amare and Boris Diaw came inches off the- well, you know what happened. Sports has always been a “no excuses” battle, but this rule shouldn’t be blindly set in stone; it should come down to league judgment. If a guy hops off the bench out of instinct and then restrains himself, it shouldn’t be an automatic suspension. When Marvin Williams and Kendrick Perkins slightly came off the bench during a scuffle in this season’s first round series, the league let them slide. While this is a point in the right direction, the inconsistency of the decision is unfair to Nash and co. The league needs to modify this rule so playoffs series aren’t decided by a momentary lapse off the bench.

Dwayne Wade is simply ridiculous. Among the obvious group of top-shelf NBA players, I undervalue him most often. Then I watch him play — I only need a few possessions — and remember how damn good he is. Fearless in the lane, possessor of arguably the best mid-range jumpshot in the league, and a vastly improved defender. He’s damn good. Assuming he leaves Miami during the the free agency orgy of 2010 (subtitle: The Great Escape), imagine how good he’ll be when he’s on a decent team once again!

I mention DWade because he’s the leading man in two of my favorite recent basketball YouTube clips. Trust me, you don’t have to like basketball at all to enjoy these two clips.

1) DWade throws down a vicious dunk on Anderson Varejo. It is monstrous and cruel. When I first saw it I had to bellow out “HOLY CRAP!” Here.

2) DWade manages to burn ALL FIVE Bulls defenders and then finishes with a filthy-good layup. I would accept an argument made in defense of this clip being superior to the first clip. Regardless, #1 was hard and scary; #2 is soft and cuddly. Here.

I have a fondness for Deadspin, a snarky sports blog. They have recently begun a series that will surely bear some most exquisite fruit: they are calling for readers to mail in stories about abusive, odd, cruel, and otherwise incompetent coaches — especially childhood coaches. The story about the 50 hot ones just about killed me. So funny, yet so sad. I imagine that most of us had at least one of these coaches. I have had at least 4.

1) Mr B, my childhood gym coach who was a classic breed of Asshole Male Jock. As Woody Allen said, those that can’t do, teach; those that can’t teach, teach gym. This guy was a world-class putz — my buddies and I talk about him to this day — but my favorite memory of him was an impromptu halftime speech he gave our soccer team (he was the football coach, naturally, and I remain uncertain if he was invited to give this speech or, instead, made his own invitation). We were losing by a few goals. We needed to score some goals to win. That’s how soccer works, after all. Well, Mr B decided to give us an impassioned speech that revolved around the phrase “You gotta put the biscuit in the basket!” He must have said this phrase at least 10 times. By the end he was screaming the bizarre mantra. It was a terrifying day at the theater. I’m pretty sure we lost that game.

2) Mr F, another soccer coach from when was, say, in the 2nd through 5th grade. This guy was a big-shot lawyer, and he brought his cocky, aggressive attitude to the world of youth soccer. This guy was a real screamer. He’d patrol the sidelines and just LOSE HIS MIND all game long. Veins popping out of neck and forehead. He was particularly fond of picking on his son, who was one of the best players on the squad, in terms of skill, but, alas, was somewhat slow. It was one of those weird situations where his son was clearly shown preference (he was captain and always, always a starter, etc.) but also castigated way more than anyone else. My favorite moment occurred when he yelled at our sweeper — remember, we’re in the 8 to 10 age region — “Zabora!! Stop playing like a huge pussy out there!!!!!” Special times.

3) Mr D, who was my childhood baseball coach. Well, perhaps he was the assistant coach. I really can’t remember. Anyway, I was late to practice one day. He took me aside and chastised me but then told me he’d cut me some slack this one time, but that I couldn’t be late again. And then — I’ll never forget this — the guy squatted down, looked me in the eyes, pointed at his temple, twice, and said “I’m like an elephant; I never forget.” I was a little creeped out by this guy even back then. As I got older I heard some rumors around town that this guy had mob connections. Which made my little encounter even creepier.

4) Mr M, my childhood lacrosse coach. I have many memories of this guy shirtless (and red red RED with sunburn), sporting sunglasses, a semi-buzz cut, and a fat lip of dipping tobacco. He could be screaming at us. He could be shooting balls at our goalie, with who he had a fond but antagonistic relationship, with reckless abandon (and missing often — he wasn’t all that great at lacrosse). Or he could be telling us stories. One classic story was about his wasted college years, where he said he spent a lot of time in a place called “The Butt Hut,” but he wanted us to know that “the Butt Hut was for buttheads.” (Please note the weird contrast: really, you ought not bring up this sort of material, period, with seventh- and eighth-graders, but, if you do wander onto those rocky shores, don’t then immediately turn around and lope toward precious land of euphemism and cheap little lesson mantras. Little kids are surprisingly good detectors of bullshit. And bullshit detected did we. Also note that while he may have quit cigarettes, he was telling the story, no doubt, with an enormous plug of tobacco lodged in his lower lip.) But my favorite story was about the tattoo of Jiminy Cricket on his back. Yep, he had everyone’s favorite cartoon insect on his shoulder-blade. One of us finally asked him about it. He told us to huddle up. He then told us the story of its origin: he was about 15 or 16 and he got really drunk and went into the tattoo parlor and asked for his tattoo. (Again, does one really tell this story to grade schoolers?) But he wanted to be clear that he did not condone that sort of activity, and that he really regrets the tattoo. Actually, he put it better than that: “Every morning I wake up and I see this stupid goddamn tattoo. Jiminy Friggin’ Cricket. And EVERY DAY I WISH I NEVER GOT THIS GODDAMN TATTOO!” He’s now a cop in Vermont — shudder. Believe me, this is not a guy you want handling a state-sanctioned firearm. As my pal CP put it, “Whoa, that’s frightening. They make their own rules up there….”

Yesterday I attended the Notre Dame/Boston College football game in South Bend. I don’t personally root for ND, but a few of my pals are huge fans, so I hear a lot about the team every season. I will admit that ND can probably lay claim to the best tradition in college football, but they haven’t fielded a formidable squad in well over a decade. ND may be outside the elite circle of college football as of late (a circle that lately seems to be comprised of most of the SEC and a few other teams), but, in spite of this ebb in talent and performance there remain hordes of crazed superfans and an astonishingly lucrative TV contract with NBC. But, cmon, what football fan wouldn’t want to go to South Bend on a crisp fall day to witness a grudge match between two Catholic schools fighting for the love of their stern God?

College football games make for splendid live entertainment. You’ve got the band (and the ND is particularly huge, talented, and very very VERY white); you’ve got the student section going bonkers for basically the entire game; you’ve got the old guard boosters network backslapping during the pregame tailgate; you’ve got alarming quantities of Notre Dame logos and whatnot emblazoned on hunting- and army-camouflage; you’ve got entire squadrons of grown adults (mostly men, admittedly) who have clearly devoted a substantial segment of their emotional lives to this team, a choice that’s probably never healthy but certainly isn’t in this case; you’ve got Touchdown Jesus visible over the top of the stadium.

We got to the campus early in order to walk around, drink some adult beverages surreptitiously, and take in the sights.  We saw the gold dome, the students throwing footballs around on the quad, the grotto, the glee club. The coolest sight was probably that of the players and coaches exiting the chapel, in their suits, for the walk across campus toward the stadium.

80,000 people doing the same thing at the same time. You see this often in ND stadium. Before kickoffs one is supposed to raise one’s arm and index finger and make a circling motion with the wrist while chanting/bellowing “ooooooOHooooooOHooooooOHooooOH” and then exploding with a final yell during the actual kickoff, followed by a “Go Irish!” Yes, seeing 80,000 people doing this is pretty amazing — but also, erm, somewhat creepy. (This lazy helicoptering of the finger and wrist is far preferable to the practice done at some prestigious private universities, who will go unnamed, that involves taking out keys and jingling them before kickoffs. Yes, it makes a cool noise, but, according to some, it also signifies “you there, on the other team — often a ‘state school’ — one day you will be parking my car!” Aren’t college kids sweet?) The creepiest “everyone doing it at the same time” routine at ND games occurs when the band strikes up the Darth Vadar theme music while everyone basically makes a forward chopping motion with their arms. (Think of the excreable tomahawk chop that Braves fan do, only a little different and without a dicey relationship to Native American cultures.) One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see 80.000 people doing this arm gesture to the Darth Vadar theme song to think “Hmmmm. This seems an awful lot like a fascist salute!” True story: at some point Hitler sent over some of his people to scope out college football games. Why? Hitler was quite interested in large groups of people doing the same things at the same time, and word on the street was that southern college football culture provided some apt examples. Blue! 42! Red! Nuremburg! Hut! Hut! HIKE!

There’s a chilling side, yes, but also a humorous side. Right before the 4th quarter begins, the chief police in South Bend gets on the horn and makes the usual “don’t drink and drive” pitch. Only he ends it, every time, with a lame joke. (This time it was “Remember, if you make too much toast, you might get burnt.”) Everyone in the stadium groans. And, at the same time, there suddenly appear HUNDREDS of colored balloons in the student section, which they merrily bat about for several minutes. How they conceal these for first 3 quarters, amid the ruckus of the student section, remains a mystery.

Notre Dame ended up winning the game, 20-16. The Boston College drove deep into ND territory (there were many, many nervous and agitated people around me), but then the QB got pressured and threw a pick. ND kneeled out the game. The Alma Mater was sung. The Catholic God looked down, chortling at BC and smiling at ND.

My two favorite moments amid the wooden benches:

1) My buddy was to my right. A middle-aged superfan was to my left. He and I made simple small talk over the course of the game: “Can you believe that play?!” “That was a TERRIBLE punt.” And so on. The superfan was there with his son. This guy wasn’t a man of many words, but he talked far more often with me than his son. But, as soon as the last pass was intercepted and the game was in hand, the father turned to the son and grabbed him in a stunningly passionate embrace. For a split second I was worried that I was next in line — not so. Ah, male bonding.

2) We got these tickets from a friend who’s father teaches at ND, so we were ostensibly sitting the faculty section. One row back and about 5 seats over was a professor of history who is a Big Deal in his field. You know, a typical stick-up-the-ass, arrogant hotshot professor. Well, this guy was EASILY the most vocal and agitated member of our entire section. Lots of hollering and cussing. Lots of peaks and valleys of happiness and sadness. His interests during the week include speaking about 6 languages and terrorizing graduate students; his main interest, it seems, happens on Saturday afternoons.

I have two bets related to Notre Dame currently on the table. One was a 3-year bet that was basically “Will the Irish win a national championship with Jimmy Clausen at QB?” I say no. Next year is his senior year. I feel pretty confident that I’ll take down that bet. The second is more interesting. It’s “Will the Irish with a national championship in the next 15 years?” Again, I say no. Tradition be damned: South Bend is cold and remote and ND runs an impressive studious and clean program compared to the other elite schools. (Urban Meyer, who is currently kicking some serious ass at Florida with Tim “Football Jesus” Tebow at QB, reportedly was quite interested in coming to ND but ultimately turned down the offer, in favor of Florida, because ND wasn’t willing to let him use more lax recruiting standards.) I think ND might again find themselves in the top 10 consistently, but I sincerely doubt, should they somehow reach the BCS title game, that they’d be able to beat whatever scary-good team from the SEC or the Big 12 awaits them. (Note to Big 10 and Pac 10 — wake up. You aren’t on that list for a reason. Your conferences both suck.) This is currently year 2. Will I win this bet?

If you get a chance, go to a ND football game. It’s a helluva fun experience. And, who knows, you might inadvertantly earn some points with the man upstairs!

Before I get into the match proper, permit me a few words about Federer’s excellence. To call Roger Federer great would be an understatement. He has excelled amid a highly competitive field for a long time. Excelled, too, is an understatement. Every generation a few players rise to the top and win a bulk of the majors. Federer has done this and then some. He has appeared in TWENTY-TWO straight Grand Slam semifinals. Within this streak, he has lost in the semi only 3 times. For many players — even very, very good players — to reach a semi or two is the mark of a successful career. As an example, take Fernando Gonzalez (Gonzo), a Chilean player who possesses the most powerful forehand on the Tour, this monstrous smash where his whole body seems to plow through the ball. He’s been in the top 25 for much of his career, and has spent lots of time in the top 10, even. He’s been playing since 2000 and has made two semifinals or better in Grand Slams. Andy Roddick, one of the premier players of his generation, has made 10 semifinals or better. Even the great Nadal — who could drop dead today and go down as one of the all-time legends — has made “only” 11 semifinals. Oh ya, and Federer also had two majors in his belt — already more than just about any player on tour not named Nadal — BEFORE the streak even began. Sheesh. Tennis is a sport that rewards consistency. You can paste, destroy, eviscerate an opponent in one set — but then you have to do it again, and again. Tennis, more than any other sport, operates like a typewriter: you type a line (or play a set) and then CHING! it’s back to the new, fresh line/set. Sure, Tiger dominates the golf Tour. But there’s no effin’ way he finishes top 4 in every single major 22 times in a row. Likewise, LeBron’s playing at a near-otherworldly level in basketball these days. If he can keep that up and totally dominate (we’re talking triple-double season averages) AND win the Finals at least every other year (while making at least the semi every year) for 6-7 years, then we’re in Federer territory. Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak is the measuring stick against which all other types of sports consistency are measured. Pete Rose had a 44 game hitting streak in ’78, but that’s close but still well short of DiMaggio. He had 12 games to go, each more pressure-filled and media-stormy than the last. Well, Federer has 22 straight semis. The next highest straight semis run is TEN. And even ten is seen as an almost incomprehensible streak. So many factors to account for: 1) radically different playing surfaces, each favoring a different style; 2) no injuries can happen, and the pro tennis tour is one long grind, and everyone is a little banged up all the time; 3) one inconsistent match and you lose and go home; 4) run into one opponent who’s either categorically better than you or is just playing out of his mind and you lose and go home. Even the great Nadal won the Aussie Open but then lost in the French Open (and I might point out that the probable best clay court player ever didn’t make the semis before losing), then sat out Wimbledon, and then made the semis in the US Open. By all accounts, that’s an amazing year of tennis. But, uh, his streak is currently one, not twenty-two. Federer definitely feels the pressure — he’s admitted to so much before — but he’s reached a place where people EXPECT him to make the finals, every time. And the crazy thing is that he does do that, time and again, so often that it’s not longer a big deal; we’ve sort of lost track of (or become numb to) how wildly difficult that is

But Federer lost the US Open final to Juan Martin Del Potro, as we all know now. I like Del Potro. He’s tall, surprisingly mobile, still improving, and he can just whack the bejesus out of the ball. And he’s only 20. At 6’6″ and not completely grown into his body yet, he sort of looks like a tall, lurking goon out there. He has steely, fierce eyes and a mouth that’s about 3 times too small for his otherwise enormous body. And, in the end, this kid straight-up outplayed Federer.

It didn’t look like that was going to be the case — not at all — at first. Federer lit up Del Potro in the first set, breaking his first service game, and cruising to an easy first set victory. Del Potro was nervous, clearly, and Federer was unleashing his ridiculous full-court game: silky winners, loopy slices, hard-angled volleys, deceptive drop shots, rallies thought out 10 shots in advance, the kitchen sink, and a partridge in a pear tree. Federer doesn’t have the strongest forehand on the Tour, but his is the most dangerous. (Federer’s forehand or John McEnroe’s net game are probably the two greatest tennis shots of all time.) David Foster Wallace memorably called it “the great liquid whip.” He can hit the ball all over, with different speeds, spins, and angles. When he’s “on,” Federer will never hit the same shot twice in long rallies — not just because he’s hitting the ball to different places, but because he’s like a pitcher with a warehouse full of pitches, using every different one to screw with a batter’s rhythm. One reason why Federer is so damn successful is that he plays in front better than anyone. He’s already better than you anyway. And then he gets a lead and never looks back. His ability to dominate and have that positively reinforce his game creates a feedback loop that usually leaves his opponent buried beneath his majestic shots. Previous to this match, Federer was 167-4 when winning the first set; at just around 98%, rarely is anything in sports that certain.

But he lost. How? Why? He lost 3-6, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2. When Federer clubbed Del Potro in the first set, I sat back and prepared for a repeat of last year’s US Open final, when Federer shellacked Andy Murray, who, like Del Potro, is a fine young player who is very good and will be great, only he wasn’t quite ready to take on the Grand Master on the big stage. Cue up straight sets victory, something to the tune of 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. But a few things happened that undercut that highly probable outcome.

Federer’s serve was an inconsistent as I’ve ever seen it. He’d go whole service games without getting his first serve in once. And he, one of the most regular, unflappable servers out there, kept on double-faulting — 11 total, many at critical junctures. This is a problem because a) as he’s grown older and wiser he’s used his serve to win big, crucial points. He has this creepy ability to be at a worrisome 30-30 score on his serve and then, in about 20 seconds, serve two straight aces to get out of the jam. He served FIFTY aces against Roddick in this year’s Wimbledon final; that’s over two full sets worth of points alone! So he wasn’t getting bailed out by his first serve against Del Potro. Which meant lots and lots of second serves, which is a problem because….

Del Potro has probably just passed Gonzo for the strongest forehand in tennis. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Federer’s forehand is so deadly because he can do about 20 different things to the ball at any given time. Nadal’s punishes opponent with recurrent vicious topspin bashes that rise and fall like demonic parabolas and then kick up reeeeal high. Unlike most hard hitters, Del Potro’s monstrous forehand comes out of nowhere. You rarely see him wind up and then uncoil his body. Gonzo, for example, usually does this; but he hits it so hard this sort of “tell” doesn’t really matter. Del Potro hits a flat, spinless rocket that seemingly comes out of nowhere. But he’s already smart enough to have figured out that he should rely on this weapon but use it wisely. He’s completely capable of hitting the ball back and forth, with various degrees of power and spin (much like most other pro tennis players), but then, often with little-to-no warning, he will just CRUSH the ball. His forehands are easily over 100 MPH. There are faster players than Federer (Nadal and Monfils come to mind) but he’s still world-class fast AND has the best all-court movement in tennis. And Del Potro would lace these forehands and make Federer look ungainly and unprepared. Often a hard-hit winner will be both sufficiently fast and far-away enough that any attempts to get to it will be futile. What was so creepy about Del Potro’s winners on Federer were that they were sometimes 4-5 feet away — a laughable distance for pro players who are so good, so fast, and so smart that they patrol the 27-foot baseline as easily and you and me breathe. You lunge in the direction of the ball and stick out your racquet and you’ve covered the 4-5 feet pretty easily. But Del Potro’s winners were so eyepoppingly fast that Federer couldn’t even manage that sometimes. Sometime in the second set Del Potro seemed to have said “fuck it, I’m a big guy with a menacing forehand. I’m already down to the greatest, so I’m going to swing away and see how that goes.” And it went quite well for him. Federer normally has a preternatural ability to play to his opponent’s weaknesses; but last night he hit to Del Potro forehand over and over again. Part of it is understandable: once DP started smoking he would sometimes bombard Federer so fiercely that Federer would scrabble around just trying to stay alive, shot after shot, until he’s hit an amazing winner or for an error (sometimes) or DP would finally crush a ball he couldn’t retrieve (more often). Most great tennis players are tall enough to get some height advantage for the serve (there are no Maradonas out there), but short enough to that their height isn’t an encumbrance. Ivo Karlovic is a 6’10″ behemoth who can wallop a serve as hard as anyone. But, at 6’10″, if he’s not serve-and-volleying he looks like a bird with clipped wings trying to take off while patrolling that baseline. As many disappointed NBA scouts know, big players don’t always move that well. Del Potro is 6’6″ — about as tall as they come in tennis — and moves remarkably well. Federer has had trouble with Nadal because Nadal is so damn fast and gritty: Federer has to hit 3-4 winners just to hit a “real” winner — not an easy task for anyone, even Federer. Del Potro is not as impressive a defender as Nadal, but at 6’6″ he can run, lunge, and bat back just about any ball. Moreover, the single deadliest shot in DP’s arsenal is the running forehand. If a ball’s hit out to his forehand wing he will run to it and use his momentum to turn his hips, torso, and shoulders through the ball and simply demolish it. Federer hit waaaay too many balls out to DP’s running forehand. And, unsurprisingly, many of them back hard and unplayable.

Federer did get outmuscled and was not serving well, but, in spite of that, he had several chances to win the match. Looking back, that’s what was so improbable: the first set aside, at some point DP started to dominate rallies and (I daresay) even intimidate Federer. But, just like in the epic Wimbledon final against Nadal in ’08, Federer still — in spite of being outplayed — had chances to win. And, well, he just didn’t convert them. Federer’s loses in Grand Slam finals (well, not counting the ones where Nadal annihilates him on clay) always show the same problem: an inability to convert break points. I don’t know the exact number, but he was something like 6-for-27 in that category. He had his chances and just couldn’t convert them, for whatever reason. He had Del Potro by the throat in the second set and then DP slipped away and . . .

Federer lost tiebreakers. This was even more surprising than his crappy overall service game. Federer does lose tiebreakers, sure, but he has this eerie ability to win tiebreakers when they really matter. If the chips are on the line, don’t bet against Fed in tiebreakers — Nadal and Roddick found this out the hard way. I figured that Federer was going to win the second set tiebreaker and then snap Del Potro over his knee in the third. Well, he lost that tiebreaker, the 7-5 score making it look a little closer than it was. Federer then broke Del Potro’s serve to win the third set. (Late in the third you could tell Federer’s blood was up because he got into a pissy argument with the chair umpire about Del Potro taking way to long to decide whether or not to challenge calls. He said something to the effect of “don’t tell me to be quiet. I don’t give a shit. I’ll talk if I want to talk, ok??” Federer typically glides around out there like a Mako shark, and he barely sweats even in intense matches. And he certainly doesn’t do anything coarse like berating the umpire. The kid was getting to Federer.) So Federer’s back up 2-1 and I’m thinking, well, Del Potro’s really shown us something but there’s just no way Federer is losing this match now. A dicey fourth set goes to another tiebreaker. I’d have bet the farm on Federer winning that tiebreaker. It’s just what he does; he is always slightly better than his opponents when it really matters, and that’s the difference at this super-high level of competition. Well, he’s normally like that. Again he lost the tiebreaker. But, again, I wasn’t completely worried. Now it was a fifth set, one winner-take all set. Fed’s won the US Open 5 times in a row; Del Potro had never played in a major final.

What happened next was shocking. Del Potro just walked all over Federer. It wasn’t that Federer lost gas. He just got punched in the jaw and blinked. Del Potro was a beacon of confidence, smashing forehand winners, serving accurately, and showing no signs of nervousness. (And this was the same player who was distinctly overwhelmed by the occasion and Federer’s game in the first set.) When Federer’s feeling it he can do anything. It’s simply spectacular. I can acknowledge that tennis fans might not like or want to root for a player who seems to win everything, but when Federer’s playing his top tennis — which he often is — he offers us one of the most exquisite kinetic displays out there. I find myself gasping at the TV sometimes. One of Federer’s flaws is that if an opponent fights back tenaciously, he will sometimes simplify or downsize his game. The wizardry that makes Federer Federer all but disappears. He will still hit gorgeous shots, but they seem less purposeful, less intricately crafted. For the first 1.5 sets Federer smothered Del Potro by using the whole court. Early on he was something like 8-for-8 on net points. At some point he stopped coming to net. Instead he’d play baseline tennis — which he’s completely capable of doing — but his shots would either go astray or would be too safe (and often within the orbit of DP’s furious forehand). Federer doubted his game last night; he had that harried, vacant look in his eyes of an athlete who WAS playing well but now is in the middle of a nasty slump. I’ve watched enough sports to have seen this face many, many times. (I’ve felt the emotions that lie behind that face when playing sports as well, as most have, and we all know how crippling they can be.) Thing is, I rarely see that face on Federer. Nadal can bring it out in him, sure. But Nadal’s ability to do that always made sense to me, as he has this freakish ability to never, ever give up on a point, and makes Federer hit great shot after great shot and you can feel Federer’s frustration ebbing through the television. “What do I have to do to beat this Nadal guy??”, you can almost hear him say. Del Potro was different. He ran down a lot of balls like Nadal and hit a lot of nasty forehand winners like Nadal, but DP lacked Nadal’s sweaty determination. Not that DP wasn’t determined: what I mean is that Nadal’s on court determination could probably move mountains if properly conducted. Instead of that almost maniacal gumption, Del Potro just strutted in and outplayed Federer. Put differently: when Nadal flummoxes Federer I usually think “if Nadal didn’t play like Nadal — if he didn’t do everything just like he does, if one or two variables were different — Federer would probably walk all over him.” Whether that’s true or not, that’s what I think. I think a lot of things broke in Del Potro’s direction last night, but he simply beat Federer. What I thought then was “that’s a young prodigy beating a wily almost-old veteran.” Del Potro rattled Federer, and Federer fell apart. This happens ALL THE TIME in tennis. If you watch a lot of tennis — like me — you will see many slo-mo “I see it coming on the horizon” train wrecks. This happens so rarely to Federer, especially in the biggest matches. And Del Potro wrung one of ‘em out of Fed last night. As a Federer fan I was sorry to see him lose, but I was transfixed by this Argentine’s monster forehand and stone-cold resolve.

One last thought: even when Federer was down 5-2 in the fifth set and serving, I thought “this isn’t over yet.” The hardest thing to do when you’re a young rising player, I’ve heard time and again from former pros, is to serve out a big match. Shaky knees, dry throat, short breathing, tense muscles. You double fault or hit a few bad groundstrokes and suddenly YOU’RE on tilt, slowly blowing it. Del Potro was a bad mofo up until this point, but I wasn’t sold on his performance until he served out the match. But Federer, having not done enough un-Fed things yet, lost his serve and let DP dodge that pressure situation. Fed would have had to break DP twice, sure, but nerves would have been a factor and weirder things have happened. Instead, Federer fell behind, double faulted, and then hit a routine shot too long. Del Potro falls down into a heap that quickly turns into a snow angel or starfish. Match over. Well done, Del Potro: you beat Nadal and Federer in consecutive days. Hard courts are your favorite, and you will terrorize the US Open for years to come!