I went 2-0 in picking winners, but 1-1 against the spread. It took a late field goal from iron-leg kicker John Kasay for Carolina to knock off Tampa Bay by two points. Meanwhile in Seattle, the Seahawks smacked the Giants around, 42-30, which has led to day after finger pointing and whining by the New York team.
Either way, we're 1-1 and are looking forward to improving this weekend. Be ready for more selections this Friday.
Let's tie up the events from last weekend, shall we?
First, the Furyk-Woods pairing in the Ryder Cup wasn't enough to help the uninterested U.S. team from going belly-up like a well-fed puppy. The only reason Europe didn't set the record for the largest margin of victory was because they did the "sporty" thing and pulled back.
Seems as if the U.S. Ryder Cup team is about as interested in the event as the U.S. basketball players are excited for the Olympics.
Meanwhile in Berlin, Haile Gebrselassie ran to victory in 2:05:56, which is a minute off the world record, but impressive nonetheless. Why was it so impressive (other than the fact that Geb ran 4:48 per mile)? For one thing, Geb won the race by almost five minutes -- five minutes! That means he ran by himself -- the duel with Sammy Korir didn't pan out -- on a warm day with a headwind. That's not optimal conditions for running, yet Geb was still on world-record pace until the final 5K of the race.
Since we love hyperbole and grandiose statements, some are already saying that because of the conditions with the heat, humidity and win, no pacesetters and no competition, Geb's run was the best ever.
A 2:05:56 speaks for itself.
Seven weeks to go. A couple of tough days, and I lost the toenail on my left big toe, but the ART treatments are working. I'm running a half marathon this weekend so I have to figure out a good, short taper.
Anyway, here's the work:
Monday - 20 miles in 2:22:15. Ran without orthotics, which wasn't a good idea.
Tuesday - 16.3 miles in 1:54:12. Kind of bonked over the last 10K. If it wasn't a case of bonking, it was reaction to the humidity or not enough to drink. Meanwhile, my left hamstring is really achy.
Wednesday - 16.3 miles in 1:52:41. Felt pretty strong until my left hamstring started bothering me a bit. The strength part is really good. The distance is easy.
Thursday - 17.8 miles. First run: 12 miles in 1:24:38. Second run: 5.8 miles in 38:20. Got some ART.
Friday - 14.5 miles in 1:43:37. Felt pretty tired during the first half and had to make a pit stop. During the second half of the second half I felt really good and could have run all day.
Saturday - 14.5 miles in 1:38:06. Tried to run the second half around 6 to 6:30 pace and I was able to do that despite the hard hills. Coffee definitely helped this run, too.
Sunday - 5.8 miles in 40:30. Easy.
105.2 miles for the week.
Just to show we aren’t all about baseball (and running), here is our best bet for football picks this week:
Take Carolina giving three points over Tampa Bay.
Carolina will not go to 0-3.
Want a bonus? OK. Take Seattle and the three points over the Giants.
The local chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America released the results of their annual end-of-the-year awards without much controversy this season. The winners:
Mike Schmidt MVP: Ryan Howard
Steve Carlton Most Valuable Pitcher: Tom Gordon
Dallas Green Special Achievement: Chris Coste
Tug McGraw Good Guy: Mike Lieberthal
If you want to know the truth, the award are a sham and nothing but a popularity contest. Besides, the BBWAA is an evil secret society more evil than Skull & Bones, the Rotarians, the Free Masons, Phi Beta Kappa, the ladies auxillary at the Lancaster Country Club, the Junior League, and the Stonecutters. Combined.
Based on just looking around and listening, here are a few observations about the surging Phillies:
Be that as it may, Hamels is 6-3 with a 2.67 ERA over his last 10 starts, so it seems as if he’s getting stronger. According to his teammates, he’s just the same old Cole.
"That’s his personality," catcher Chris Coste said. "He’s strong minded. He knows what he can do. Whether it’s the middle or July or the seventh game of the World Series, he’s the same guy. That’s just the way he is. Whether it’s a playoff game or a game like this one, he’s the guy you want on the mound."
Said fellow lefty Randy Wolf: "He has one of the three best changeups in baseball."
Johan Santana is at the top of that list, according to Wolf.
Moyer and Conine, both 40 and over, are two classic lead-by-example guys, who have shown the youngsters on the Phillies how to prepare and get into the right frame of mind to play. Both guys are intense, they do their homework, and they bring an organic intensity to every task. Moyer and Conine are not in Philadelphia to goof around – they’re here to win.
In 2003 the Marlins picked up Conine for the stretch run and he helped his team hammer the Phillies to win the wild-card and contributed to the World Series run. More important than his home runs to beat the Phillies was the attitude he brought to the Marlins. I remember Juan Pierre watching how the veteran prepared every day and said he was afraid to talk to Conine because, “He always looks like he’s mad.”
It turns out Conine wasn’t mad. He’s just hungry.
Miguel Cabrera has missed a couple games with a strained shoulder, the result of an awkward lunge at an outside pitch. Cabrera’s injury isn’t considered serious, but could keep him out for the rest of the season. The team is focused on getting past the controversy surrounding their manager and one way to do that would be finishing at or above .500. Cabrera’s return might well be tied to the chances of hitting that magic number. The MVP candidate should have no long-term concerns from the injury.
Carroll’s column is stellar stuff, though Howie Bryant’s steroids-in-baseball book was far superior to Carroll’s.
Phillies are on pace to win 84.1 games, which gives them a 46.53874 percent chance to win the wild card. However, the Padres (85.4 victories) and the Dodgers (84.7), still rate above the Phillies.
Can you say playoff game in Philadelphia on Oct. 2?
I generally don’t like to watch sports for long periods of time. I guess that makes me weird or perhaps someone who made a bad career choice.
Actually, let me explain myself. I dislike watching sports that I’m not writing about nor have some sort of connection to. I’m like Vin Scully that way since the greatest voice in baseball history has never attended a game he wasn’t working. Ol’ Vin just refuses to go to a game just for the sake of going to a game.
My problem is my attention span. I just can’t sit still long enough to fully concentrate on sports on TV. I need to get up and walk around. Or check stuff out on the Internet. Or read a book. Or do sit-ups. Something, anything but sit and stare at a box.
But this weekend is different. Aside from the Phillies’ big series against the Marlins, the always fun Ryder Cup is burning up the airwaves. The most interesting part from these parts is that homeboy Jim Furyk from Manheim Township is paired up with Tiger Woods in team action. According to the word on the street, Tiger has taken a shine to the Lancaster kid because of his competitiveness and work ethic.
Maybe that endorsement from Tiger is not what Furyk needs? After all Tiger stinks in Ryder Cup-style play.
Then again, the last time we heard such accolades heaped on a guy from around here, he was riding his bike to Paris wearing the Yellow Jersey.
Nevertheless, the Ryder Cup is tons of fun with all of the best elements of golf. Every shot is meaningful and every putt has the chance to sway the balance of a match. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?
You want to watch people run? You mean… run?
Uh, yeah. Is that odd?
For most people, Sunday means parking it in front of the TV so they can feel their rear grow into the couch. But if I can get up (or stay up), I’m watching the showdown in Berlin where the great Haile Gebrselassie goes against Sammy Korir, the second-fastest marathoner in the history of the world, in Sunday’s 26.2-mile race.
The race won’t be on TV in the United States, but it will be on NBC pay-per-view on the Internet. Frankly, this is a great idea and is the perfect for the web – there are a few fringe sports that a few Americans are interested in. Why now “televise” them on the Web? Hopefully, broadcasting on the Web becomes the future for sports. I have the feeling that it’s already heading that way, since, as I type, I have the Dodgers-Diamondbacks game on my PC.
Anyway, the big race in Berlin is expected to flirt with the world record because the course is flat and designed for fast times and the runners are very talented. Korir lost to Paul Tergat in the classic 2003 race in Berlin with a 2:04:56. Tergat had to break the world record to beat him.
So far this year, Korir has the best time in the world with a 2:06:38 in Rotterdam.
Geb, of course, is judged by many to be one of the greatest runners in history. He has the gold medals from the Olympics, a handful of world records, but he hasn’t been able to dominate marathoning like many suspected he would. Regardless, there’s a buzz about Berlin this year and reports are the pacesetters have been instructed to hit the halfway point in 62:30 – right on world-record pace.
New York, New York
Speaking of marathons, the New York City race has assembled a deep and interesting field. Tergat, the defending champ and world-record holder, is in the race, along with Olympic and World champ Stefano Baldini. On the women’s side, American-record holder Deena Kastor should duel with Catherine Ndereba, the all-time great Kenyan who trains in Valley Forge.
But the interesting part is the Americans that are running in New York. Olympic Marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi and Olympians Alan Culpepper and Dathan Ritzenhein (his marathon debut), are in, along with Peter Gilmore, who was seventh at this year's Boston Marathon.
So why run in New York instead of Chicago where the Americans can get a faster time? How about money, money, money. New York has set up a special prize structure where the the top American gets $20,000, second place gets $15,000. Third wins $10,000 and then $3,000 and $2,000 for fourth and fifth.
There is no mention of bonuses for running specific times, though the Toronto Marathon is offering a $20,000 bonus for anyone running faster than 2:10.
Personally, I think that anyone who can run a 2:09 marathon should be set for life, or at least make more money than the Major League minimum salary, but that’s me.
To steal from a very popular sports' magazine, this little event was pointed out to me in the press box at Citizens Bank Park last night that had me so perplexed and my head spinning that there was no way to intelligently explain it. Therefore, I'll turn it over to Dan McQuade of Philadelphia Will Do:
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Stephen A. Smith -- the ESPN sports analyst, Quite Frankly host and sometimes Inquirer sportswriter -- tried to branch out on Saturday, appearing on CNN to discuss the War in Iraq, among other topics.
Deadspin went through the transcript and pulled out some of the funnier parts yesterday -- "You have a lot of people out there looking saying all right, you know, Osama bin Laden, this is what he did. With 9/11 and what have you, but we're in Iraq. You understand? We're still looking for him," "I agree with Senator Clinton," etc. -- but here are some of my faves:
Let me tell you a little story, because I'm a little scared. I'm 38 years old. Let me be honest with you. I might as well be 70 that's how scared I am. Because I look on this side, I sitting out here, I work my butt off every day because I have to take care of my Mama, because she works so hard. So I have to make sure she's living the life.... You can do it, right!
On the other side, I got like ten -- eight nieces and two nephews, these folks walk around with their heads cut off like they don't know what's going on.
We'll step up and handle the challenge faced with us, but only after we crash and burn.
I think moderation will kick in, but only after America continues to burn. I think America's burning as we speak and anything that's burning ultimately changing form.
I can't be sure -- it is Stephen A. -- but I think he spent his time on national TV over the weekend... making fun of his nieces and nephews.
Yeah.
Yes, we read all the email we receive from readers. Even the angry and rambling missives that read like the Unabomber's manifesto sent by people who can barely compose a sentence or use proper punctuation. Those are our favorites if only for the entertainment factor.
But those emails are rare. Most of our readers compose well-intentioned and interesting, literate emails. For instance, I received a few emails this week regarding the race in the NL West between the Dodgers and Padres and which team Phillies fans should root for.
That's a good question. From the way that race is jumbled -- on the seesaw, if you will (and I know you will) -- it seems as if the Phillies are chasing two teams. But that's wrong. The Phillies are chasing the team not in first place. That means Phillies fans should root for whichever team is leading the division and root against the team leading the wild-card race.
Better yet, since the Dodgers and Padres don't play each other any more, just root for them both to lose and the Phillies to win... that is if you want the Phillies to go to the playoffs.
Double play duo
Another interesting email I received asked whether or not Jimmy Rollins, with 22 homers, and Chase Utley (28 homers) are the first middle-infield duo in Phillies history to slug 50 homers?
See, good question.
I haven't looked it up and I'm not going to ask the Phillies PR staff because all they will do is roll their eyes, huff and puff and basically give an annoyed, "I don't bleeping know... " to any query presented. But based on what I know about the Phillies and their history, I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes, yes they are.
As for a double-play combo smashing 50 homers in a season in Major League history, I found Bobby Doerr and Vern Stephens with 56 for the 1948 Boston Red Sox, 57 the next season, 57 more in 1950.
Of course there is Alex Rodriguez, who as a shortstop for the Mariners and Rangers, routinely hit 50 homers by himself. In 1999, A-Rod and David Bell (remember him?) hit 63, with Rodriguez getting 42 of them. In 2001, A-Rod hit 52 while Michael Young added 11 and the following season, Rodriguez hit 57 and Young hit 9. During Rodriguez's last season in Texas in 2003 -- his last as a shortstop -- he hit 47 and Young hit 14.
That's about as far as my research took me, because I would probably be sitting here all day looking up numbers, going off on tangents and analyzing Richie Zisk's career.
The Bull and some bull?
An email from the award-winning writer (see, I told you our readers are literate) Charlie Schroeder arrived yesterday, thanking me for the plug of his story that appeared (will appear?) in The Best Sports Writing in America 2005 anthology. Here's the story for any one who missed it.
However, Charlie, a fellow Lancasterian from the 'hood and now tearing it up in L.A., questioned some of my "facts" regarding his role in the gulley-trapping/rock-throwing incident with Pete Horn. Charlie says he doesn't remember the incident, but related something at the Day School involving a skateboard, a few ruffians, Tim Watt and Richard McNamara. Watt, as everyone remembers, was the feared slugger for the Lancaster Township Indians who used to smack them way out onto the track at the Wheatland Jr. High field. He was also much bigger than most of the other kids his age and a little crazy so to mix it up with him was to really test fate.
As far as McNamara goes, anyone who knows me knows that my stories regarding him are classified and not publishable on something as holistic as this site. Put it this way... he and I will never go to Canada or Mexico together again.
Anyway, Charlie produced a neat homage to Greg Luzinski for the NPR show, "Only a Game." Check it out here.
A day after slipping out the side door so he wouldn't have to talk to the local press about his poor, 2 1/3 inning loss to the Cubs on Monday night, Jon Lieber explained himself on Tuesday afternoon.
It turns out that Lieber figured since he didn't have anything good to say, maybe he shouldn't say anything at all.
"I was [upset]. It was nothing to do with [the media]. Trust me, I had nothing good to say. That's why I'm talking now. I didn't want to say anything [on Monday] night."
That's fair. But it would have been just as easy to say that on Monday night instead of rehashing it all the next day. Nevertheless, Lieber knows he can pitch so poorly in his next start.
"I let my team down," he said. "That's the bottom line. It was no one else's fault but mine. I can't be pitching like that at this point if we're going to get to the postseason. That's not getting it done."
He's right about that.
I have a theory that baseball pitchers are more accountable than politicians. The reason? After every game, no matter if there is a victory or a defeat, the pitcher is there to answer questions and have his outing dissected. Politicians never have to do this. They can skirt issues and hide behind talking points and canned questions.
But after Monday night’s game where he gave up five runs and two homers on 48 pitches in just 2 1/3 innings, Jon Lieber stopped being a pitcher and became a politician.
Instead of dishing out his typical insipid clichés to pointed questions about his craft, Lieber sulked quietly past approximately 20 reporters specifically there to hear from him, gathered a handbag and walked through an off-limits side door. But instead of returning to complete his job -- a job that was pretty incomplete based on his work against the Cubs -- Lieber crept out a side door and left the ballpark.
Almost as bad, the Phillies' media relations representative quietly told a select few reporters that Lieber had snuck away 15 minutes afterwards.
Good job!
Yeah, I think the press is a pain in the rear, too. They can be intrusive, obnoxious, rude and tactless. But in this case, when a few camera men and scribes a simply looking for the innocuous of quotes Lieber failed to deliver.
Again.
Certainly Lieber has been around long enough to know the drill. After all, he pitched for the Yankees in the baseball media capital of the world where he would never have dreamed of pulling a secret dash stunt like the one on Monday. He knows that all he had to do was stand there for 30 seconds and say, "I wasn’t very good tonight. I didn’t have my good stuff. We'll get 'em next time." Which is pretty much all he ever says anyway, wild-card race or not.
How hard is that?
Even upon noticing the reporters waiting for him, Lieber could have said, "Look, I pitched really poorly and I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m going to go home now." That’s acceptable, and accountable.
Instead, the fans who follow the team closely lose out.
A very interesting thing occurred in Philadelphia yesterday morning, and, no, it had nothing to do with the Eagles rolling over and playing dead during the second half of the overtime loss to the Giants. This interesting event supposedly occurred at the Philadelphia Distance Run – one of the world’s marquee half-marathons – and it presents as many questions in its curiosity.
According to eyewitnesses and chatter on the insidious running message boards, race directors of the Distance Run literally pulled runner Asmae Leghzaoui off of the course before she could run. Leghzaoui paid her registration just like everyone else (even though the elite runners are usually paid just to show up), and started the race, taking the lead through the first five miles of the race. But Leghzaoui, a 30-year-old Moroccan living in West Chester, Pa., according to a profile in The Washington Post, recently served a two-year suspension for using EPO.
According to the story in the Post, Leghzaoui searched for and knowingly took EPO. Needless to say, the drug seems to have had a very big effect on how surpringly well she ran on the U.S. road racing circuit, picking up five victories in six races with four course records.
Yet even though Leghzaoui served her suspension, she (obviously) has not been welcomed back into the running world. When she has been invited to road races in the U.S., "duped" directors either rescind the invitation or offer mea culpas for allowing Leghzaoui in the race.
Leghzaoui, for her part, has offered apologies to anyone who will listen and has passed all drug tests after her suspension. So far it hasn't gotten her anywhere. Even paying her own way into the race in Philly wasn't good enough.
According to the story in the Inquirer, here's what happened on Sunday:
Asmae Leghzaoui, a 30-year-old from Morocco, was far ahead of the other women - running with the second pack of the top males. According to race officials, she dropped out between miles 5 and 6.
But according to people who were there, Leghzaoui was pulled off the course and escorted out of the race. Certainly the race directors at Elite Racing -- the agency that organized the Philly Distance Run -- can do whatever they want. It's their race. and if they don't want drug cheats in it, good for them. Actually, it would be interesting to see what would happen in baseball if, say, someone like Ryan Franklin, a pitcher who served a suspension for failing a drug test, was not allowed to enter a game in Pittsburgh because of his past.
Then again, that wouldn't be like baseball.
As for Leghazoui, she served her time, shouldn't she be allowed to get on with her career? And would race directors be doing something like this with someone like Mary Decker Slaney, the one-time darling of the track who controversially tested positive for high testosterone in 1996.
Or what about Uta Pippig, the three-time winner of the Boston Marathon who tested positive for high testosterone in 1998? Would she be welcomed into the race after serving her suspension.
I bet she would.
Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see one sport taking a stand against drug cheats. Lets just hope that they remain consistent.
Meanwhile, Abdi Abdirahman finished second in 61:07 and missed the American record by 12 seconds. Wilson Kiprotich of Kenya won the race by two seconds in 61:05 in a duel over the final 5k. According to Abdirahman, a misstep at Eakins Oval cost him the race and maybe even the American record.
Had some trouble with my calf and hamstring that seemed to effect my knee. Luckily, I had an ART appointment already set up so I only missed one workout. In the interim, I've gotten serious about stretching (with yoga) and my pre-run warmup. So far so good.
Monday - 21.3 miles in 2:25:40. Started out around 7-minute pace and then got into 6:50ish before bringing it home in 6:20. Good run... I wish they could all be like the second half of this run.
Tuesday - 20.2 miles. First run: 12.2 miles in 1:28:45; Second run: 8 miles in 55:35. Knee area started to hurt today. Once I warmed up it was OK, especially on second run when I ran 5:50 miles for alst three miles.
Wednesday - took the day off to rest calf and hamstring. Started doing yoga in this morning.
Thursday - 17.5 miles in 2:02:07. The running part was easy. I liked running the distance and it seems like it's no problem just to go out and run all day.
Friday - 15.3 miles in 1:47:20. Had to do a decent warmup before running. Also went in for some ART treatment this morning. In order to keep running I have to stretch and do the ART and yoga stuff. Otherwise, I ran OK once I got going even though it was pouring down rain.
Saturday - 16.3 miles in 1:50:50. Calves and hammys didn't bother me as much as the past few days, though they still are not 100 percent. Either way, I ran well in some stretches, mixing in fartlek with some hills and other good stuff. Ran the final nine in sub-6:30 pace and it was really easy.
Sunday - 11.1 miles in 1:15:57. As soon as my calf and hamstring got warmed up I felt great. It's just a pain getting it warmed up and it's a pain when it's not warmed up. Nonetheless, ran some uptempo miles at the end and they felt pretty good.
Anyway, that's 101.1 miles for the week. Not bad, but it was the toughest week yet.
The hardest thing for an athlete to do is to be smart. No, that’s not an insult, nor is it any type of indictment of certain scholastic records. After all, it takes a top-flight engineer to be able to memorize and decipher all of the variables in an NFL playbook. Besides, those things are thicker than phone books and like Rain Man, guys like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb know the whole thing by heart.
What is meant by smart is that oftentimes for athletes the easiest and most logical decision is usually the hardest thing to come to terms with. Some athletes have no trouble going out and running 20 miles a day without fail, but when it comes time to take a day off to rest the mind and muscles most guys would prefer root canal surgery.
Take Flyers’ captain Keith Primeau, for example. After battling the effects of post-concussion syndrome for nearly a full calendar year with no foreseeable end to his rehabilitation, the erstwhile 34-year old was forced into retirement on Thursday morning. Certainly, after at least four or five concussions during his 14-season NHL career, Primeau made the “smart” decision. At home he has his wife, Lisa, and four children, whom will be around and will need their dad longer than the Flyers will need a captain and a center. In fact, in one of those “get-to-know-the-players” questionnaires that teams like to publish for the fans, Primeau lists becoming a father as his greatest accomplishment to date.
“This decision will allow me to live a normal life and hopefully, with time, few reminders of my injuries,” Primeau said on Thursday.
“My biggest fear is that I’d have regrets and at this point I don’t have regrets.”
But even something as big as being a dad rarely extinguishes what burns inside of a person. For someone like Primeau, a hockey player personified, that flame burns with a lot more intensity. Need an example? Try this out:
It was the second period of Game 2 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals where the New Jersey Devils are skating circles around the Flyers and are on the verge of taking a 2-0 lead in the series. Even though he missed parts of two games after he was carted off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital after taking a big hit from Pittsburgh’s Bob Boughner and suffering the first of a series of concussions, Primeau called out the Devils’ Randy McKay for a little tête-à-tête.
Now it wasn’t necessarily important whether or not Primeau beat McKay in the fight. The message was loud and clear.
“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time, noting that he envisioned Lisa sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.
“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do,” Primeau said before telling me that he had three prior concussions that he knew of before the one in Pittsburgh, and noting that he probably had others as a kid growing up in Toronto, but nothing so serious that his dad didn’t pick him up, brush him off, and send him back out onto the ice. “I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… ”
Sometimes hockey players don’t always make the smart decision. But in retiring, Primeau did make the smart decision because the term concussion softens what medical folks call the affliction – traumatic brain injuries.
If Primeau takes one more hard shot to the head while skating up the ice at break-neck speed, the result could be dire.
And we aren’t talking about something as easy as retirement, either.
Yet despite Thursday’s announcement and the lingering symptoms from all of those traumatic brain injuries, something tells us the fire still smolders inside of Primeau. Maybe that comes from watching Primeau run up and down the area steps after games at the Wachovia Center. Besides, doing what is smart is one thing, but the human brain is no match for the heart or guts. Worse, that little voice saying, “What if… ” will always nag even if the brain says, “This is correct.”
“He's always going to feel like he didn't get to finish on his own terms,” coach Ken Hitchcock said.
The operative word is that Primeau was “forced” into retirement because trainer Jim McCrossin tried every mind trick he could to get the captain’s head to drill some logic into his heart and guts. The trainer told Primeau he could skate with the minor leaguers on the Phantoms, or he could practice wearing a white jersey with a red cross so that other players would know not to touch him.
What self-respecting hockey player shies away from the contact?
When McCrossin finally told Primeau what he really felt – that he didn’t want to live with the consequences if the hockey player took another shot to the head – it was like getting run over by a truck.
“It was the first real time I'd been in touch with reality the last few months,” Primeau said Thursday. “I didn't want to become a distraction again.”
Primeau was thinking about the team. That’s just what a captain does. But in time, Primeau won’t be a captain anymore, and maybe he’ll start to feel better and get the itch to put those skates on again to see what he can do.
“If they let me go I’d keep pushing through. I’d keep going until they dragged me away,” Primeau said.
Hopefully, making the smart decision will be a lot easier if that itch needs to be scratched.
The hardest thing for an athlete to do is to be smart. No, that’s not an insult, nor is it any type of indictment of certain scholastic records. After all, it takes a top-flight engineer to be able to memorize and decipher all of the variables in an NFL playbook. Besides, those things are thicker than phone books and like Rain Man, guys like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb know the whole thing by heart.
What is meant by smart is that oftentimes for athletes the easiest and most logical decision is usually the hardest thing to come to terms with. Some athletes have no trouble going out and running 20 miles a day without fail, but when it comes time to take a day off to rest the mind and muscles most guys would prefer root canal surgery.
Take Flyers’ captain Keith Primeau, for example. After battling the effects of post-concussion syndrome for nearly a full calendar year with no foreseeable end to his rehabilitation, the erstwhile 34-year old was forced into retirement on Thursday morning. Certainly, after at least four or five concussions during his 14-season NHL career, Primeau made the “smart” decision. At home he has his wife, Lisa, and four children, whom will be around and will need their dad longer than the Flyers will need a captain and a center. In fact, in one of those “get-to-know-the-players” questionnaires that teams like to publish for the fans, Primeau lists becoming a father as his greatest accomplishment to date.
“This decision will allow me to live a normal life and hopefully, with time, few reminders of my injuries,” Primeau said on Thursday.
“My biggest fear is that I’d have regrets and at this point I don’t have regrets.”
But even something as big as being a dad rarely extinguishes what burns inside of a person. For someone like Primeau, a hockey player personified, that flame burns with a lot more intensity. Need an example? Try this out:
It was the second period of Game 2 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals where the New Jersey Devils are skating circles around the Flyers and are on the verge of taking a 2-0 lead in the series. Even though he missed parts of two games after he was carted off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital after taking a big hit from Pittsburgh’s Bob Boughner and suffering the first of a series of concussions, Primeau called out the Devils’ Randy McKay for a little tête-à-tête.
Now it wasn’t necessarily important whether or not Primeau beat McKay in the fight. The message was loud and clear.
“I thought our team needed a spark,” Primeau said at the time, noting that he envisioned Lisa sitting in the stands with her head in her hands as he brawled with McKay.
“I realize it may not have been the best thing to do,” Primeau said before telling me that he had three prior concussions that he knew of before the one in Pittsburgh, and noting that he probably had others as a kid growing up in Toronto, but nothing so serious that his dad didn’t pick him up, brush him off, and send him back out onto the ice. “I’m a father and a husband, but at the same time I’m a hockey player… ”
Sometimes hockey players don’t always make the smart decision. But in retiring, Primeau did make the smart decision because the term concussion softens what medical folks call the affliction – traumatic brain injuries.
If Primeau takes one more hard shot to the head while skating up the ice at break-neck speed, the result could be dire.
And we aren’t talking about something as easy as retirement, either.
Yet despite Thursday’s announcement and the lingering symptoms from all of those traumatic brain injuries, something tells us the fire still smolders inside of Primeau. Maybe that comes from watching Primeau run up and down the area steps after games at the Wachovia Center. Besides, doing what is smart is one thing, but the human brain is no match for the heart or guts. Worse, that little voice saying, “What if… ” will always nag even if the brain says, “This is correct.”
“He's always going to feel like he didn't get to finish on his own terms,” coach Ken Hitchcock said.
The operative word is that Primeau was “forced” into retirement because trainer Jim McCrossin tried every mind trick he could to get the captain’s head to drill some logic into his heart and guts. The trainer told Primeau he could skate with the minor leaguers on the Phantoms, or he could practice wearing a white jersey with a red cross so that other players would know not to touch him.
What self-respecting hockey player shies away from the contact?
When McCrossin finally told Primeau what he really felt – that he didn’t want to live with the consequences if the hockey player took another shot to the head – it was like getting run over by a truck.
“It was the first real time I'd been in touch with reality the last few months,” Primeau said Thursday. “I didn't want to become a distraction again.”
Primeau was thinking about the team. That’s just what a captain does. But in time, Primeau won’t be a captain anymore, and maybe he’ll start to feel better and get the itch to put those skates on again to see what he can do.
“If they let me go I’d keep pushing through. I’d keep going until they dragged me away,” Primeau said.
Hopefully, making the smart decision will be a lot easier if that itch needs to be scratched.
The Phillies played another doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, and Pat Burrell was not in the lineup for either game. Chances are the star-crossed slugger will be in left field when the Phillies close out the series against the Braves’ lefty Chuck James on Thursday, but make no mistake about it, the team’s brass is sending a loud-and-clear message to their $50 million man:
“You are not needed here.”
By now, close followers of the Phillies have deciphered Burrell’s limited role during the wild-card chase. Better yet, Marcus Hayes and Dennis Deitch have written very trenchant and unflinching looks at the former No. 1 draft pick, who, despite the early raves, big contract, and unlimited potential, never seemed to live up to the expectations.
There is no crime in that, of course. Often, the media anoints a player to be a star even though he isn’t built for the rigors or pressure that come with it. Other times they just misdiagnose how good a player really is.
Then there is the case of Pat Burrell.
There was nothing about Burrell’s ascent to the big leagues, nor his first three seasons with the Phillies, that indicated he was a mediocre ballplayer. Then again, it’s hard to call his 24-homers and 84-RBIs 2006 season mediocre. Disappointing? Yes, especially when one factors in the promise and the hype that greeted Burrell after the 2002 season in which he had his supposed “breakout” year.
What’s most enigmatic about Burrell – other than his personality – is his failure to produce with runners in scoring position this season, as well as his failure to… well, hit during this past month. Sure, Burrell has had trouble with his wrist and his foot, both which needed surgery at one point or another. But it’s also fair to point out that Burrell’s celebrated nocturnal habits might also have something to do with his leveling off as a player.
This isn’t to say Burrell doesn’t put in the work. At least as far as it’s known, he used to. Before the injuries, winters were spent with fitness guru Mark Verstegen at the Athlete’s Performance Center in Arizona, and Burrell may very well spend time there. It’s just that every serious athlete comes to a point in his career where he has to make a choice – is he going to be serious, take nothing for granted and dedicate himself to his craft on and off the field, which means proper rest, a proper diet and good habits.
Or, is he going to live in the moment and hope that the fickle hands of father time don’t massage him before his prime… or before he even has one.
Burrell still has a choice. After all, he doesn’t turn 30 until Oct. 10. But if he’s going to refocus his energies to baseball, it might be a good choice for him to waive that no-trade clause where he can enter his prime in another city.
It was as inevitable as the change of seasons that when the story in which two former teammates of Lance Armstrong admitted to past EPO use that the "is Lance dirty" chatter would grow louder.
Everybody, it seems, has an opinion whether or not Armstrong doped his way to the seven straight Tour de France victories. That's especially true in the climate in which athletes have to prove that they are not taking drugs. In regards to Armstrong, like every other professional athlete, there seems to be very little grey area
Forget the fact that Armstrong's VO2 reading (his ability to use oxygen) is one of the highest ever recorded, or that he has threatened to sue over accusations tying him with doping. Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds or any other high-profile athlete tied to sports' drug scandals haven't spoken as strongly as Armstrong has -- not that this is an absolution.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Armstrong quickly fired back, calling the story in The New York Times, a "hatchet job."
Meanwhile, top cyclist Jan Ullrich's house in Switzerland was raided by authorities as part of the investigation regarding a Spanish doping case.
Before anyone gets on their sports hih horse and says, "who cares, it's just cycling," or, "who cares, it's just track," think about this:
What if they tried to keep baseball, football, basketball and hockey as clean as they do in those sports. How different would the games be?
Obviously, this (or anything like it) is never going to occur until an independent agency takes over as the drug authority. The league and player's unions will never let that happen.
On another Armstrong note, he is still slated to run the New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. He has already admitted that marathoning is more difficult than cycling (he's right), but based on Armstrong's VO2, he should be able to run a 2:08. That won't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if he runs better than 2:30.
Here's something that's interesting: two members of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France team in 1999 have admitted to using EPO, according to Juliet Macur's story in The New York Times. Interestingly, one of the riders, Frankie Andreu, was a domestique for Armstrong's U.S. Postal team just like Floyd Landis was to be a few years later.
Even more interestingly, Andreu's admission came on the same day that Landis' lawyer asked that the doping charges against the reigning Tour champ be dismissed. According to the Associated Press story, Landis' lawyer hinted, "for the first time at the Tour de France winner's official defense: that his positive testosterone tests were flawed and did not meet World Anti-Doping Agency standards."
More: 2 Ex-Teammates of Cycling Star Admit Drug Use
More: Landis' Attorney Wants Charges Dismissed
Meanwhile, the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal had a bit of a scoop with an exclusive interview with Landis. Kudos to them. Kudos.
A couple of days ago I took Arthur Rhodes to task for not pitching in a game because of "shoulder stiffness." I wrote:
Let’s get this straight. The veteran lefty specialist couldn’t come into a September game that very well could affect the Phillies’ playoff chances because he shoulder was sore? He’s getting paid $3.7 million this season to pitch in those types of situations and his shoulder is sore?
Isn’t Rhodes the same guy who called out Cory Lidle for eating ice cream after games and pursuing off-field interests like poker and flying airplanes? Forget the fact that Lidle never missed a start during his time with the Phillies, except for the time when he had one pushed back to take care of a family emergency. In the end, it was Rhodes who didn’t answer the call.
If the Phillies fail to make it to the playoffs for the 13th straight October, they can blame the bullpen.
As it turns out there was something to that stiffness and it appears as if Rhodes will be out for the remainder of the season with an elbow injury. Since that's the case, I offer an apology for doubting Rhodes. Questioning injuries and integrity is never the right thing to do and I should know better.
I don't know if this is a trend or simple marketing of sports so that people will not only stay tuned to the game (or whatever), but also will think they are watching something historically significant, but often it appears as if I have tuned in to watch an "all-time greatest of the game."
It seems like such a debatable hyperbole, yet often there is no debate. It just so happens that I, luckily, have tuned in to something historic.
Mostly this occurs with individual sports like golf and tennis, but lately the G.O.A.T./history trend has morphed into mainstream team sports as well. Take Ryan Howard for instance -- last week in Washington I was sitting in the press box for a supposed historical occasion when the slugger tied and passed Mike Schmidt's franchise record for home runs in a season. It was something to see because the shots Howard hit were magnificent and I remember watching Schmidt hit a lot of those 48 homers during the 1980 season. So to be there when the record changed hands was pretty cool.
But it wasn't historical despite how it was being billed by certain media types. Not even close. If I had been outside of the Appomattox Court House on Palm Sunday of 1865 when Lee surrendered his army to Grant, now that would have been historic. Had I been alive to watch Neil Armstrong hop off the Apollo and onto the moon, that would have been historic. Waking up five years ago to desperate phone calls from my wife to, "TURN ON THE TV! NOW!" That was historic. This is just baseball. A nice milestone and definitely something very cool, but not anything I can brag about seeing. Not when half the people I know don't care.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm just being one of those uptight guys who likes to toss a wet blanket over everyone's fun. Well... yeah. Sometimes I enjoy being iconoclastic and "brutally honest." But mostly I just don't appreciate being misled. Even in the insular world of baseball, Howard passing Schmidt was barely a blip in its history. Maybe for the Phillies Howard's homers are significant since the franchise's history is pock-marked by losing season after losing season and overt racism during the game's "Golden Era" in which the team failed to integrate its roster long after nearly every other team.
Along those lines, Howard is already being referred to as potentially the greatest Phillie ever. Hell, he ought to just retire now. He almost has one full season in the books; he ought to hang 'em up. What else does he have to prove?
Certainly those who call Howard the G.Ph.O.A.T. acknowledge their silliness. Let the man have a career first. But that didn't stop anyone from waxing exaggeration in regard to Roger Federer during the finals of Sunday’s U.S. Open.
For anyone who saw it, Federer was often brilliant and mostly dominant in cruising to a four-set victory over Andy Roddick for his ninth Grand Slam victory. That's within the range of Tiger Woods, Federer's Nike brethren, who was sitting courtside with the Swooshes blazing for all of the close-up shots that stopped being about a celebrity watching a tennis match and more about selling over-priced athletic gear and shoes. Hey, if you're going to be a corporate shill, go all out... right Tiger?
So as Federer cruised, the debate started. Actually, it wasn't a debate, it was history.
It also got me thinking, which is probably not what CBS, the USTA, or Nike wanted anyone to do. But the idea was out there -- was Federer the greatest tennis player of all time?
Certainly the way he pushed around Roddick on Sunday made the debate easy for that day. Federer is easily the greatest tennis player out there now, but whom is he playing? Andy Roddick? Rafael Nadal? Lleyton Hewit?
Please.
But when I saw Federer blast balls from the baseline, daring anyone to approach the net against him, I thought, "this kid watched tapes of Borg play."
Who can forget Bjorn Borg? For as great as the "Super Swede" was -- and he is on the short list for G.O.A.T. -- he was even more of an enigma. But perhaps that's the way Borg had to be since he had John McEnroe always buzzing around and trying to knock him off. When it wasn't McEnroe, it was Jimmy Connors -- a guy who was No. 1 in the world for 160 straight weeks -- gunning for him.
Then came Ivan Lendl. Then Boris Becker. Then Pete Sampras, who re-wrote the record books.
Beneath the top layer guys like Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Pat Cash and Michael Stich always seemed to be hovering around the top ranks for decades.
These days Federer isn't the king of the hill; he's a man on an island.
That's not Federer's fault, of course. Since you can't pick your parents, you can't really pick when you are born, either. Blaming Federer for being dominant in a weak era is a lot like judging Wilt Chamberlain for being bigger than everyone else during the infancy of the NBA. Any competitor like Federer wants to measure himself against the very best.
Eventually, Wilt had Bill Russell as his nemesis, which often brought out historical performances from both men. It remains to be seen whether or not Federer will develop a big-time rivalry with Nadal or Roddick, just like it's still up in the air whether or not the slugging Phillie will ever fall to mere mortal status against a tough lefty pitcher.
Then again mere mortality never seemed to happen for the golf-swatting Nike billboard sitting courtside for the tennis clinic on Sunday.
