The Nosebleed Section

Derby Duress

2014-02-11T20:15:00.003-05:00

The Derby de Chile is decadently portrayed: by the verdant bay of Viña del Mar in the gentry confines of Valparaiso Sporting, on the sepia backdrop of yesteryear. El maximo desafío is 2,400 meters (a metric mark best not to investigate) of slow sinking turf and sunlight that stings.

It’s a dry, lingering heat, though the field is well watered.

With ready taps next to friendly tellers, 2014 saw a record intake. The huddled masses minding pints and quarts, divining miles from meters, staring down racing forms like the Saturday crossword. Hey, have a go. Here, have another. The drinks come cheap but cost dearly.

Oh but the heat!

Hardly noticed by the hat crowd. In roomy recinto socio, a constellation of polka dots. Prosecco and pansito, naturally the thinnest of crusts! Hand fans and foreign papers, Errazuriz meet Undurraga, always time for a photo. From track side to top box is a walk of some 800 meters. In reality they’re much further.

Best infield in the league? “Mostly its dirt.” Probably its dust, here where rain is a rumor. Could be its ash? Dropped like so many a vowel. Lifers tanned to a shine huffing Lucky’s and chasing chalk: a habit worth breaking.

The horses themselves? Smaller than you’d guess; the jockeys magnified by their company. Fibrous and compact, their build recalls the gracility of a middle distance man. This is the farthest they will have ever run but they can’t know it. For the moment they’re jittering like teenagers.

The heat is a palpable force. The UV’s 11, they spell it “once.” Once stands for liquid snacking, the letters in “aguardiente.” A Sleepy sort of Sunday enthusiasm simmers to low boil. The UV’s 11, there is no 12.

It’s 8! It’s something like eight. But who can remember? Summers of the southern hemisphere pass like a monochrome flipbook. It’s been afternoon all evening; it’ll be evening ‘til sunrise.

Time to post! Time for prayer? Time for most anything as they chute out the far side of our ovoid abyss. With splits in the mid 50’s its slow and steady that sets the pace. Past the near turn and gravitational realities of the surface emerge, by the backstretch its rabbit season.

Turf tracks are run like the last mile of reserve fuel, break early and catch a break, motion economized for recession. They’re blanket finishes as a blanket statement, the final furloughs fuming and photo worthy. This year a colt called Solaria ran downhill to a seven-length victory. It was as if to reiterate that no one knows anything.

Do The Right Thing

2013-10-30T22:26:00.001-04:00

“Any baseball is beautiful […] Pick it up and it instantly suggests its purpose; it is meant to be thrown a considerable distance — thrown hard and with precision.”

-Roger Angell

Yasiel Puig is the cornerstone of the old league’s most valuable franchise, the new century’s icon of Cuban defection, a centerpiece in the corner outfield, the fastest gun in the NL west.

Perfect he isn’t, his game is so loose that it gets away from him. He runs recklessly, throws irresponsibly and swings almost inevitably (as the saying goes: “you don’t walk off the island”). His style is irreverent, his positioning questionable, a true son of “Generación Y” he has the temperament of Russian goal scorer and the temper of Ricky Ricardo. In spite himself he has become the best right fielder in baseball; until just recently.

From Cienfuegos to Chavez Ravine, Puig is on the move once again. This time at the behest of meddlesome front office types, dabbling in the reverse alchemy that turns transcendent right fielders into serviceable center men. Centerfield! Idolized in song, lionized in conventional wisdom and empirically validated by sabermetric analysis, the hallowed ground where once trod Mickey, Willie and the Duke. Captain of the outfield, jefe de los jardineros, a 5-tool primus inter pares.

The grass it seems is always greener beneath the batters’s eye, stars the brightest atop the defensive spectrum (1B-LF-RF-3B-CF-2B-SS-C, for the unindoctrinated) but in Puig’s case (as in Ichiro’s before him) there is room to wonder, even to doubt. Is the Dodger’s initiative not woefully misguided, their enthusiasm not (quite literally) misplaced? On paper the spectrum is linear but on turf, it is not without nuance. Right field is not simply an understudy, it’s a role apart.

For all their geographic proximity, despite their presumedly interchangeable qualities, the positions are fundamentally and attitudinally dissimilar. Center fielders for their part are born communicators: “yours! Mine! Two dead! No doubles!” chimes the monologue in the middle. In right you speak little but are rarely cut off. Center field is backing up and tracking down, Its measured beats and simple angles: canned corn three square. There’s less work for cornerman but only by volume. In right field you earn your money 9-5.

The elite right fielder possesses a discrete cache of skills, they are not a subset of his neighbors. From cue shots to hooking liners the position demands a mastery of spin. From finding but not fearing the walls (corners, tracks, mounds and sundry Jeffery Maiers) it requires a tactile expertise in geography. Of course most important is attitude. Indeed more than any modern position, right field is a state of mind: a simmering disdain for the ambitions of left leaning base runners, a volatile vigilantism, an Icarian instinct with bias for action.

A natural right fielder is something to behold. a loping, leering menace, a stalking, sneering newspapered cliche of abundant aggression and old-time baseball lore. In the saber-century the great right fielder remains a recalcitrant atavism of brutal and beautiful yesterday an enforcer of visceral and unquantified influence. The rights and responsibilities of centerfield entail respect for the gravity of that position. In right it’s required to play with reckless abandon. The Dodger’s would be wrong to abandon the plan.

In Defense of Dice-K

2013-09-16T16:11:00.001-04:00

In the dying days of yesterday’s summer, march the procession of the damned: the sad sacks and cellar dwellers, the running jokes, the also-rans. For some dozen clubs and cities, today’s is a tired trudge of obligation, tomorrow the eternal residence of better days. When your magic number becomes magical thinking, you’re playing the string. The gloomiest chord on the register

It’s late already at Citi Field. The year is over yet the weeks persist and unfashionably early, “next year is here." For the strikeout artist formerly known as Daisuke Matsuzaka “next year” is probably there, in that (far) Eastern Division of Quadruple A. Cast out of Cleveland, asked out of Columbus and picked off the scrap heap, his stint in the Senior Circuit has every appearance of a farewell tour.

With trembling command and tumbling velocity there are those who say he’s lost it and little to indicate the contrary. Though it’s true his Mets record is improved by reflection (0-3), his ERA is the same even upside down (8.00). His delivery has been clocked (for lack of a sundial) at the minute mark (marked “return to sender”) while his walk rate has reached a sprint. By every quantifiable measure, Dice-K has been an unqualified disaster.

He may be the Mets smartest signing in years.

What Daisuke lacks in conventional competence, he compensates with sheer charisma. What he’s missing in speed he makes up in stamina. While the pride and promise of tomorrow’s rotation take shelter beneath an ever-shrinking innings cap Dice-K grinds out long innings, premium insurance for pennies on the dollar. Price of course is not irrelevant, the Mets having long ago abandoned the big money checkers game that typified their organizational philosophy. Swapping up to a Staunton set management has made the rare move that bolsters the team both today and tomorrow: an investment in insulation, a man with a rubber arm.

Inning eaters it may be are a dime a dozen but so few for so fine a return (and so rarely is that dime someone else’s). For the price of a StubHub transaction fee, John Q. Taxpayer can go to Flushing and watch the game’s greatest ever international (2x WBC MVP) while John W. Henry foots the bill. In place of a pennant chase, the team offers a performance piece and in this vein Dice-K does not disappoint.

For those with nowhere to go and no one expecting them, a Matsuzaka start is something to behold. Triple digit pitches (no two the same) fly freely around the far reaches of roughly hewn periphery as Dice-K aims apparently to spray paint the black. He holds, holds, holds back the invariably many base runners and lingers as if trying to hold back the hands of time. The man moves like he’s paid by the hour (griping fielders might remember they were paid in advance) his pitches like a wiffle balls on the beach. Diving and biting, looping and whirling under the direction of competing kinetic influences, a Dice-K pitch weaves its course to destinations unknown. To Dice-K, his destiny seems certain.

In the mind of so many aging athletes "age "is the affliction of another, while hope springs eternal from the spring of their imagined youth. Dice-K, though he labors, labors under no such delusion. In the final hour of a season gone sideways comes the final bow of incomparable player; a man vividly, grippingly aware of the end. On every fifth day from now til October's oblivion comes an outing not to missed, a theatre of humanity wherein we're again reminded that winning isn't everything. It's why they play the game.

-Mike Infante

Player's Ball

2013-08-11T17:08:00.001-04:00

They call it the “minor major" (an ode to mediocrity in b flat), they call it “Glory’s Last Shot” (a major motion picture staring Kevin Costner) but I’m a fan (though I may be in the minority) of The PGA Championship, a Major as major as they come.

They say it lacks a selling point, they want to know, “where’s the hook?” But if you’re hooked on golf they can skip on selling, the greatest tournament this side of the Ryder Cup.

Established in 1916 to wrest the game away from the reigning plutocracy, the PGA Championship marked the deliverance of golf from the ranks of amateurism. Out of the moneyed parlors of weekend warriors and onto a travelling tour, the PGA established a big time stakes game that today remains the professional standard.

The last and the least they say but what could be further from the truth? The US is played over par, the British is played under water and the Masters is played by invitation: the few, the old, the amateurs.

The PGA is the triumph of substance over style, a meritocracy not a men’s club. The PGA is golf in the style of golf itself, its for measuring not masochism. At the risk of redundancy, the PGA is a professional’s tournament (get the papers) because “Open” is overrated and “first amateur” is fiftieth loser.

The PGA Championship is to tournament golf what that Masters is to ornamental horticulture, what “The Open” [Read: British Open] is to historical reenactments. What the PGA lacks in tea olive and magnolia it makes up with the strongest and deepest field in the world.

In 2013 Oak Hill will host 99 of the world’s top 100. That should be good enough for anyone.

The sun never sets on the Royal & Ancient but it rarely shines on their flagship event and while the running game has elsewhere run its course the links circuit is a glorified diversion.The USGA may have cornered the black ink market but can’t see the forest from their fescue; they don’t pay to see architects (or umpires). When bad golf happens to beautiful courses.

The Masters is a major minus the manpower, fielding fewer than one hundred it’s traditionally smaller than any other. The PGA is major in every dimension save for public opinion; but major status isn’t conferred by consensus it’s an inalienable element of the event.

The PGA is major; just don’t count on the majority, to appreciate golf with out gimmicks. It’s our major malfunction.

- Mike Infante

Calcio, Catenaccio, Al di là

2013-07-20T14:54:00.003-04:00

“And sometimes you’ve just got to look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘when in Rome.’”

-Ron Burgundy

For years the chronicle of Italian football was an epic series of non-events, a closed system of vigorous inertia, the static encounter of an ineffectual force and an immovable object. Il catenaccio (the deadbolt) is a formational tactic inspired by the snaring action of double knotted fishing nets, it’s less a defensive system than an alternate conception of the sport: A ninety-minute game to one, with all the cards and whistles. For over a half-century it’s been the sterile and suffocating mechanism of Italian success, a brutalist interpretation of the beautiful game

As they back-pedaled and push passed their way across the continent a generation of singular defensive talents committed themselves to an almost cynical methodization of play. Holding and keeping, trapping and fouling, the Italian national selection became the target of widespread condemnation. Accused as practitioners of “anti-football,” thuggish opportunists with less pace than hair product, the Azzurri became the most detested soccer federation east of Argentina. By 2006 they were also the most successful.

Blowing through Il campionato mondiale with a +10 goal differential, they left Berlin as World Champions, undefeated and (save for penalties and own-goals) unscored upon. Two (flukish) goals against, in six topflight international games; these days seem like forever ago

In the aftermath of the 2013 Confederations Cup the Azzurri stare down a box score more like a black box. Ten total goals, eight in group play alone, eight off stopped balls and the lingering, elephantine suspicion that but by the grace of Gigi there’s no telling how much worse this might have been.

Recent years have seen the gradual disarmament of the Azzurri fortress, the famed catenaccio system oxidized by the forces of globalization. Like lemmings to the slaughter the whole of Europe follows the trophies, bending their hard forged national styles in order to Bend it like Barca.

But Italy isn’t Spain nor or nor is it France or England. Italy is cautious and conservative, politic and quick to the ground. Italy plays backwards and begrudgingly and for Italy it works. If it isn’t beautiful its at least authentic, if it isn’t exciting it’s at least domestic. If Italy is to abandon their native soccer culture, they’ll do so at their own expense.

“Joga bonito” pleads, the Brazilian but “bonito” is a subjective term. For a generation of Italians raised on Nesta and Cannavaro, “bonito” lives in the backfield. In Italy “bonito” is “bello” but a lot is lost in translation. Bello is a clean sheet and a dirty uniform; it’s a clean win, a quick clear, a safe corner. The beauty of Italian soccer is inobvious; it’s in the negative spaces and notes unplayed. The importance of Italian soccer is manifest; after 8 goals in 3 games, the proof is the pandoro. When in Rio you play as the Romans do.

-Mike Infante

Rock beats Paper

2012-02-12T19:37:00.007-05:00

Roger Federer cannot defeat Rafael Nadal. Not in major competition where he stands on the short side of a 2-8 record, not outside the Queen’s Box at Wimbledon and not since the Spaniard was a teenager. Emergent amongst the busy and talkative tennis punditry is the shortsighted proposition that this imbalance should disqualify Federer as the game’s all-time great.

At least, contemporarily the point is axiomatic; Roger can’t beat Rafa, Rafa can’t beat Novak Djokovic and of course paper beats rock every time (you’ll remember this when building a house). For now you need remember only this, Roger Federer is the greatest player ever to swing a racket, though that much should be obvious.

The numbers which speak volumes in abstraction (16 Slam titles, 23 consecutive Slam finals, 237 consecutive weeks at #1, each a record) are amplified by perspective. In a world without Roger, Rafael Nadal improves from 10 Slams to 12 (in walkovers at lost Wimbledon finals) still four less than Federer. Having vanished his greatest rival, Nadal is still unequal to him, still behind Sampras and Emerson in Slams, still turning 26 this year, still chasing a ghost on two bad knees, still on the verge of eclipse by Djokovic.

The converse? Had Roger Federer never met the man from Majorca he’d have won 20+ Slams. This, with due respect to the influence of butterflies, is a matter of simple arithmetic: Federer has lost six Slam finals to Nadal (to say nothing of semis), putting the low number at 22! In a world without Rafa, Federer goes on to be the greatest the game has ever seen. In a world that includes him, the story is the same: like separate magnitudes of infinity. Speculating into the deep, uncharted end of this spectrum (20? 25? more?) one begins to wonder whether Nadal wasn’t always the gravitational force that spared tennis it’s credibility, that leant Roger his humanity, that kept any of this worth watching.

What can be said then, about this type of domination (for surely Federer has been dominated)? There is no shortage of ready excuses; Nadal is younger by a virtual eternity. He is left-handed and for years, something of a specialist (“The King of Clay”), strongest where Federer was vulnerable, the junior, beneficiary of only tangentially overlapping primes. There is little doubt regarding the veracity of this thinking, yet little thought to its necessity. Must Federer defeat Nadal to be the greatest? Is he not the greatest simply because there have been none greater?

Rafael Nadal will probably never lose another match to the greatest player that ever lived, in truth he lost fairly few to begin with. Roger Federer cannot beat Nadal; their respective games align idiosyncratically in ways that fatally disadvantage the former. The matchup favors Nadal so decidedly that in an ideal world, Federer should like to never see the same side of a room, much less a Parisian draw. The fact that Roger Federer became histories most decorated tennis professional in the same era when lived and breathed his perfect foil, will forever stand as testament to his greatness.

Tennis is a game of matchups, history remembers your body of work.
Paper beats rock its true, but only in the short run.

-Mike Infante.

Spanglish

2011-12-13T18:33:00.003-05:00

In 1902 Columbian second baseman Luis Castro became the first Latin American to play Major League baseball. Today, Latinos account for nearly a third of the league.

In 1970 Flood v. Kuhn established the right of free agency and in 2011 Jose Reyes exercised that option, leaving the world’s biggest media market for a last place franchise in Florida. By 2012 the writing was on the wall. What the Yankees were to the 20^th century and the British Empire to the 19^th, the Miami Marlins will be from here to eternity: an unmitigated colossus.

In a country where the world’s fastest growing minority, is most expressly represented in the ranks of our national past time, a monopoly on Latin talent is the markets hottest corner, a competitive advantage sin par.

Considered by my many the northernmost outpost of Latin America, Miami is Hispanophone by majority (over 58% according to recent Census data) and Caribbean by geography. Two hours from Santo Domingo, under three to San Juan and a long swim from Havana, it’s a city serendipitously situated for baseball dominance.

Flying new colors and hosting fresh faces in baseball’s latest retractable roof masterpiece, the Miami (née Florida) Marlins have undertaken a re-branding that transcends semantic geography. Chasing Latin stars like Reyes and Albert Pujols the Marlins aim to persuade with two comma salary figures and inimitable fringe benefits: a beach paradise, a tax haven, a slice of home.

As young millionaires the league over begin to catch up with their NBA counterparts in a flight from the American hinterlands to sunnier climes and costal mega-cites, Miami is optimally positioned. While free agent landing spots are sold on the same principals as three bedroom colonials (location, location, location) its not hard to imagine Little Havana becoming the center of our baseball universe.

The future its true, is never certain but in a historically weak division, poised to re-engage a notoriously underdeveloped fan base the Miami Marlins have the look of germinating empire. As predictions go this is no doubt a bold one but the view from a limb is frightening. In 2012 Jose Reyes took his talents to Playa Sur, for competitive balance it was the beginning of an end.

- Mike Infante

Dear ESPN: An Open Letter.

2011-03-16T23:36:00.006-04:00

Dear ESPN,

I want to start by saying I love you, I really do. I just don't know if I'm IN love with you. Maybe you've changed, maybe its me. Lately I feel like we've been growing apart. I think we want different things. Lets talk football.

I like the gridiron as much as the next guy, just not in May. This year's Super Bowl was the highest rated EVER but that was over a month ago and I'm worried we're living in the past. Plus well, I'm just gonna come out and say it... I never liked your preseason games and I know that I never will. If the A.C. is on then football shouldn't be, this may have been long overdue. If there's not time to highlight every one of the day's NBA games then there's no time for Kiper's combine notes or Dilfer's take on the NFC West. Regular viewers are well acquainted with Nick Fairley. Have they even been introduced to Rick Nash?

Speaking of hockey (its the one with Sidney Crosby) where have you been hiding it? For most of us the NHL is still a major North American sports league. First in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans, last in the 6 pm SportsCenter run down. I know the ratings aren't what they once were but had you ever thought you might be part of the problem? Last year you were in over 98 million households and when you're not showing hockey the claim of low interest is self fulfilling. It's no idle boast, you are the “worldwide leader in sports” but with great power comes great responsibility. Its never even been a question of chickens or eggs, the link is demonstrably causal; you pull hockey and hockey goes away. As of this writing the game remains part of the our "Big 4” but continually stashed behind billiards and hold 'em there's room for concern it might fall from from the Top 10.

On the subject of Top 10's, I feel I'm missing something. I mean I like dunks, you LOVE dunks and Dwight Howard couldn't score with out them. We ALL like dunks but an uncontested point blank field goal does NOT a number one play make. Give me a slick bounce pass, a sharp stick save or even punt nailed to the half yard line, if I was 6'8'' I could put down a running one hander and so could you. I'm big fan of the Blake show, just not in the top spot. “Mark it an eight dude.”

Lets talk about priorities. I know what the “E” stands for, I just wish you'd put the “S” first sometimes. I know, I know that its been a rough patch but after Bonds, Ben, Vick, Tiger, Donaghy, Favre, Favre, Pitino, Favre, Sterger and Favre, well... I guess I'm just sick of the drama. Affairs of the heart belong on the Oxygen Network and legal proceedings on Court TV. For me its always been about sports, but for you? I think you need to make a decision, I wish you never made “The” Decision and after it I'm not sure where things are headed. You started running SportsNation and I knew we were on the rocks.

I write this not to tell that its over, just that it needs to change. I love waking up to you, I always fall asleep to your voice. The truth is that there's never been anyone else. For 20 plus years its been great. I hope that it can be great again. I'll always love your commercials.

Yours,

Mike Infante.

Thoughts on the ALCS

2010-10-25T01:24:00.003-04:00

Josh Hamilton has 5 tools. He may very well have an AL MVP. He speaks, with a touch of country twang. He swings, with no outward sign of exertion (often without need to run thereafter). He flies, effortlessly around centerfield and battles, more than the pitch count. Josh Hamilton IS Mickey Mantle. Better still, his is the Mantle story in reverse.

A game away from the franchise's first trip to the fall classic, 27 outs from a second Schweppes celebration, “The Natural” is playing better than anyone still on the schedule and calling to mind ghosts of Octobers past. True, Hamilton may never win the Triple Crown and cannot hit from the right side. If he is not the spitting image of the Mick, it can at least never be denied, he knows his way out of Yankee Stadium.

• • •

A fan interference play in the ALCS was ruled on in favor of the Yankees. Stop me if you've heard this one.

This call was probably the right one. In '96 a young Jeffery Maier had to reach OVER the wall for his famous souvenir, while Cano's shot had plainly cleared it. Two calls; one good, one bad, both to the Yankees. Immediately ruled a home run, a second inning Lance Berkman foul ball was at last rightly re-categorized. No thanks to the judgement of mortal man. The camera for sure knows no Yankee mystique, but the arbiters?

The potential, Yankee go ahead run was pushed to scoring position by a quick pitch call against Texas starter Tom Hunter. It wasn't bad call. Its just one you never see. A cigar may be just a cigar, a balk might sometimes be a life raft.

Nobody bothers to whisper, about what some call the NBA's “Laker friendly” post-season whistle. When it comes to the Bronx's 40 time Pennant winners it seems, nobody bothers to wonder.

• • •

93% of Americans live outside New York State. Only 76% are self-identified Christian. Accepting both as accurate, it becomes self-evident that Yankee playoff L's bring joy to more than even Christmas.

• • •

Okay...Something nice, something nice...

Robinson Cano is an infielder for the Purple Label set. Style and substance he's nonetheless as fundamental as trigonometry. Loping after pop-ups like his mind was elsewhere, Cano side-fires darts to first with the casual flick of a weekend angler and coolly digs out grounders as if trying to impress the Russian judge. Robinson Cano plays second base like improv jazz and he rarely misses a note.

In the 2010 regular season Cano posted a career best .996% of fielding percentage. While it comes as a surprise to many that Cano has yet to win a Gold Glove, in truth, he has only himself to blame. He simply makes it look too easy.

Tru Courage

2010-09-27T01:40:00.007-04:00

By 1986, as anger and hostility spiraled into violence and abuse, Sarah and Ron Artest Sr. had begun the bitter dissolution of their failing marriage.

Their oldest son Ron was only 7 years old.

At the tender age of 12, Ron Jr. would witness the murder of a friend, stabbed through the heart over a pick up game. At 15 he was forced to bury his baby sister and by 16 he had already begun to struggle with alcoholism.

At 19 he was selected in the first round of the NBA draft and moved, for the first time, from one of New York's most dangerous projects. He would never forget where he came from (“Say Queensbridge”).

Flash forward 11 years and Ron Artest is the most dominant stopper extant. He may be, though in the moment we sometimes miss it, the greatest man-on-man defender the league has seen.

At 6'7''/260 he is a defensive Adonis. Capable of marking 4 positions he is the perfect compromise of size and quickness. A whirling dervish of hand checks and elbows, he plays with the anger of a heartbroken adolescent and the desperation of an inner-city refugee. What emerges from the the mayhem is something remarkable.

Far from reckless, his style is measured and calculating. His rotations prescient, his positioning; sublime. A man once renowned for his temper, is now more likely to illicit technicals from his on court adversaries as he bodies, walls off , blankets and suffocates even the most persistent of charges. A coach's player if ever there was one, he lives to disrupt, thrives on contact and with eyes wide open, hands and heels high, plays for 35 minutes as he were defending the final shot. It has served him well.

On June 17^th 2009 Artest and his Lakers were crowned champions of the basketball world. Artest himself an integral part (just ask Kevin Durant or Paul Pierce their vote for playoff MVP) has since then recorded a single with Dr. Dre, a track aptly titled; “Champion.” Driving through LA in a street legal Indy Car, or out on the town in his champagne soaked game jersey, it is clear Ron Artest has come a long way. Going into next year he is already the game's most valuable human being.

Earlier this month Artest agreed to auction off his championship ring so that the proceeds may benefit mental health awareness. Working with California Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano he has helped to push for the Mental Health in Schools Act, legislation that would provide free psychological counseling in schools servicing grades K-12. And then he did one better.

Speaking in front of the kids of Eastmont Intermediate School, Artest spilled his guts, sharing with all in attendance his own struggle with mental illness and imploring those in need of help to ask for it. “When you think about mental health, you don't have to be afraid."

Opening up about the type of emotional issues long stigmatized in circles of professional athletics, Artest has set a courageous example which he hopes silently suffering kids might find inspiration to follow. “[It] doesn't mean you're crazy, it just means you have some issues in your life." Long known as one of the Association's premier tough guys, Artest proved in front of the hundreds of assembled that he is indeed the bravest man in the league.

-Mike Infante

* All quotes sourced from the Bill Plaschke at the L.A. Times.

The Once and Future King

2010-08-29T20:43:00.007-04:00

Somewhere, miles from the high school practice fields of Hattiesburg, beneath the glare of a media circus. Somehow, through all the mess and bitterness. At some point, 23 draft spots, 3 idle years and 1 giant step later, a switch was flipped, a torch was passed and out of the biggest of shoes and longest of shadows, something amazing happened; Aaron Rodgers became the best quarterback in the NFL.

In a conclusion resultant from the well worn exercise of ring counting (a favored crutch of obstinate traditionalists) its safe to say that Rodgers would not rank above, Favre, Manning or Brees (1 each) nor most assuredly, the exalted portfolio of one, Tom Brady (3). While everyone is of course, entitled to their own opinion (and this is certainly a popular one) subscribers to this theory are, in the interest of consistency, obliged to rank all of these men beneath retired slinger Joe Montana (4), a man of legendary stature and unparalleled distinction. A man at 54, unlikely to make a practice squad.

The argument for Rodgers then, as the incumbent standard of his position, is one with no trace of sensationalism nor implied disrespect but an earnest observation of a clear and perceptible reality. Through the lens of history Rodgers is yet, a neophyte. In this moment in time however (in a position now threatening to snowball) he is, the best quarterback alive.

It is the prevalent school of thought, that rings make the man (remember what is indicated by the rings of a tree) but rings never split safeties nor stuck a side line throw. Legends as they say, may live forever but the ball doesn't lie.

In 2 years as a starter Rodgers has never failed to throw for 4,000 yards and by doing so joined a club in which he is the only member. No quarterback in history has been intercepted at a lower rate, no quarterback in history has a higher passer rating, no quarterback in history has a better TD to pick ratio. In 2009 no quarterback in the the NFL managed to rush for more touchdowns and since January of last season when Rodgers plays more than a quarter, the Packers have never failed to score 40 points.

To the objective and unemotional observer it is a fact free of hyperbole and unburdened by debate. Going into the 2010 season, Rodgers is the best quarterback breathing. Going in to the third active year of his NFL career, Rodgers is by simple numerical certainties, the greatest quarterback ever. The years ahead of him will come to define him how we rank him historically but the years behind him have dictated how must rank him now. It's right there in front of us. It's the worst kept secret in the league.

-Mike Infante

Reader Mailbag #1

2010-05-19T01:30:00.007-04:00

Q: What do you think about the Phoenix Coyotes current situation?

Regarding talk of a possible Canadian relocation, I'm not sure that Winnipeg is the place. I am sure that Phoenix is not. Canadian exports have been received by the Arizona market with historically mixed results. Steve Nash is a state icon. The former Winnipeg Jets? Not so much.

In retrospect the Phoenix League Subsidiaries (for how much longer do we expect to call them “Coyotes”?) have always had the deck stacked against them...They play in Jobing.com Arena (not exactly “The Joe” or “The Igloo”), on and off for 7 years they traipsed around in these monstrosities and of course, lets not forget, they're a hockey team in Phoenix! The numbers don't lie...

In 2009 the Phoenix franchise managed to average less than 15,000 in paid attendance and ranked third to last in this category. Using percentage based attendance (really, the more relevant statistic) they don't fare much better at 27^th league wide. More telling still, is the rest of that list, where also ignominiously featured in the bottom third are LA, Nashville, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida and Atlanta. The Sharks of San Jose sit at a respectable 12^th place, all things considered, yet above them sits not a single team south of the Mason-Dixon.

Of that same bottom ten, only one franchise (St. Louis) is older than its coach and proponents of a return to Winnipeg can point to the top where nary a single Canadian based team failed to average at least a sellout. The Leafs and Oilers were the two worst teams in either division and didn't eat a ticket all season. By comparison, Phoenix had 100+ points and home ice in the first round; and now they're bankrupt. Clearly the Sunbelt experiment has failed.

What strikes me as most damning however is the absolute dearth of optimism associated with the entire organization. As of this writing Glendale residents are suing to keep the team out of Arizona and if Vezina finalist Ilya Bryzgalov (42 W's/2.29/.920%) ends up needing witness protection he won't need a program... he won't need to move either.

What's worse, in 2005 the Coyotes named none other than Wayne Gretzky as their head coach, only to see attendance decline following the announcement and continue to do so in every year thereafter! If the Great One can't save your franchise, you probably don't have a snowball's chance in Tuscon. And thats exactly the point.

Who knows why Bettman thought that Southern expansion was the move to make, call it overzealous ambition, call it unchecked optimism, call it simple greed, in any case it becomes clearer every day that expansion to Dixie will prove to be his invasion of Russia. Call me a Monday morning league strategist on this one but it seems obvious (even after accounting for the benefit of hindsight) that where you don't have natural ice, you won't easily grow ice hockey.

Arizona has failed to become a hockey hotbed for the same reason P.E.I isn't churning out botanists and baseball players. Climate matters. Phoenix is a desert oasis of golf courses, water parks and country clubs, where ice is strictly for drinks. In a state where hockey has never been part of the culture, you have a population with a median age of rigor mortis and recent wave of xenophobia that would make a Texan blush, not exactly a powder keg of new ideas and fresh thinking.

What it all amounts to is simple... Arizona doesn't want this team and probably never did. You can sell ice to eskimos but apparently not Phoenicians, its time for the league to cut bait and run.

Q: Will we ever see another Triple Crown winner?

This is another excellent question offered, I'm sure, by an astute observer no doubt as thoughtful as he is handsome and articulate. The answer is however: I don't know.

When working with the timeline of “ever” the safe bet is always the affirmative. Gene Sarazen once holed a double eagle from 235 at Augusta, Fernando Tatis once blasted two Grand Slams in one inning and on November 20^th in 1982 Cal Safety Kevin Moen high-stepped his way through the Stanford brass section to cap an improbable Golden Bear victory. In the wild world of sports, “never” is a dirty word.

But it was 32 years ago that Affirmed dueled Alydar to the wire, the longest drought since since Sir. Barton first turned the trick in 1919 and in the interim we've learned a great deal. This year we saw how rain can wash away a hopes of a Triple Crown like street chalk and so many a grass seed, as Super Saver waded to victory in conditions only a mudder could love.

Two weeks later the Derby champ would go on to finish out of the money at Pimlico, ending his bid for the Triple and exposing himself as the beneficiary of a slick track and a smooth jockey in a retrospectively forgettable Run for the Roses. April showers may invite a floral reward but precipitation in May (in any year amongst the soggiest of months in greater North America) bodes ill for the chance of a three-legged sweep. Even under ideal circumstances the culture of modern athletics may be evolving away from the possibility.

For the same reason that two-way gridiron stars are a thing of the past, we've found that the legs to attack the Preakness and the lungs to weather Elmont's Test of Champions rarely belong to the same horse. In a world of bigger, faster, stronger, where specialization rules the day it should come as little surprise to find masters-of-all-trades with increasing infrequency. Pitchers are no longer expected to go for more than six innings or retire men of opposite handedness (enter the long reliever and lefty specialist), yet thoroughbreds must be sprinters and middle-distance men too? Its hard to imagine.

Perhaps we would do better to revaluate our expectations. For example, we note the seldomness of a visible Halley's Comet but rarely with discouragement or dejection. We wait and wonder if perhaps we'll live to see an a assault on .400 but we're hardly counting the passing years. Instead we appreciate the grandeur of the achievement. There can be no “drought” of the monumental and we are past due in adopting this perspective. Secretariat handily won all three American classics...and had a heart sized double the norm! Greatness of this magnitude is not a natural state.

The beauty of sports is that you buy a ticket and invest a lottery, the chance to see something wonderful. But much like a lottery you have no claim to expectation, only hope. I don't know if we'll ever see another Triple Crown winner. I'm content to dream that we might.

Enjoy... a winning lottery ticket from 1973.

Q: Have any of these questions been from actual readers?:

No, not a one. They have been so far, questions of my own invention. Had to start somewhere...If you'd like to have your questions answered in a future mailbag. Address them to mhsmith89@gmail.com and enjoy a top notch service, free of charge for the foreseeable future.

-Mike Infante

Tiger Tamed

2010-05-15T17:33:00.010-04:00

Even as search queries for his name continue to tax Google servers months after the fact, there exists a Tiger Woods public apology, receiving...if you can believe it, far too LITTLE public scrutiny.

In a recent statement, Woods offered his regrets for some of the colorful on course language that has been the soundtrack to his career. Disturbing, more than any post shank vulgarities however is the tone of these unsolicited niceties and the ominous overhaul of persona that they represent.

To be sure corporate check writers and and country club bureaucrats from Augusta to Oregon can be nothing short of tickled. The glad handing, baby kissing, reincarnation of a man is a certain step back in the direction of marketability; a kinder, softer, clawless Tiger Woods. Yet as surely as it serves to polish his public image, is as surely as it has the potential to destroy him.

For Phil Mickelson, gentility and decorum are a way of waking up in the morning. For Woods, it is a perversion of self, and a betrayal of instinct, the very same instincts of confidence and supreme competitiveness that have driven him from the Mike Douglas Show to the top of his sport.

Roaring and cursing, leaping and fist-pumping, in a game renowned for its elegant and quieted clap, Tiger left behind a trail of bodies on the way to becoming the greatest athlete ever to sign a scorecard. And now?

Where have you gone Tiger Woods?

The trademark fist pumps are gone, replaced by meek waves to the gallery as brash and impolitic become saccharine and subdued. Now, this?... An apology...for cursing, a part of the game as old as mulligans and Nassau, a part of HIS game since he first took the public stage! If this is not an example of misplaced remorse, then I don't know what is.

So what's next? The Sunday reds changed out for softer pastels? A return to Eldrick? Conceding putts in his next playoff? It surely couldn't hurt. Right?

Wrong. The Tiger model doesn't function as kitten and in a game of acute mental focus its hard to imagine that one can play-act and win at the same time. Like many a savant, Woods has never been, to put it delicately: a people pleaser (nor should he try to be). From frosty relations with Ryder Cup teammates to a string of personal betrayals you may have read something about, his quirks and demons are well documented.

Perhaps he needs them.

In the months and years leading up to November of 2009, Woods blazed a trail of personal destruction that would become his undoing. What is never mentioned is that the scandalous and egotistic secret life that killed his Q-score and threatened to end his marriage, rarely prevented him from winning. A fractured tibia couldn't stop Tiger Woods, a fractured ego just might. There once was a Tiger who would have apologized for nothing. And now? For cursing?

Woodrow Wilson may have put it best when he described golf as, "an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the the purpose." It is an endeavor that provokes profanity with pantheon regularity, somewhere between Pictionary and playing-card architecture, to say that swearing is a part of the game would be to understate. Golf is after all, a four letter word. No apologies necessary.

Where have you gone Tiger Woods?

-Mike Infante

E-ROD

2010-05-12T21:01:00.012-04:00

The aftermath of Dallas Braden's Mother's Day date with perfection has swung the lens of media scrutiny back upon familiar subject: Alex Rodriguez.

Two short weeks ago Braden angrily called the Yankee third baseman on a breach of baseball etiquette after Rodriguez had crossed his mound. A-Rod responded in the media by questioning his on-field credentials.

Talk about your all time back fires.

But while a perfect game is on average a once or twice a decade phenomenon (19 in all) the emergence of Mr. Rodriguez on the wrong side of public controversy has been it seems, an annual rite of spring. Whether Rodriguez meant to offend in this case is unimportant and Braden's possible prejudice towards the slugger is not without merit, if A-Rod can reference stats and win totals it seems that track records are fair game.

Here is the same guy who once tried slapping away a tag at first, the same guy who famously pulled the “ I got it” trick on an infield can of corn, the same guy who posed for these photos, the same guy who continues to show that he just doesn't get it.

When its all said and done “Alex Rodriguez” will appear near the top of a very short list. The greatest players who ever lived. He has stolen nearly 300 bases, hit nearly 600 home runs and been named to 12 All-Star teams. He is a 3 time MVP, a 10 time Silver Slugger and through his exploits, a millionaire more than 200 times over. It is a matter then of eternal curiosity that he has never learned to play the game.

A-Rod claims, in returning to the dugout, that he was merely taking the shortest route between A and B. I wonder how he crosses train tracks.

He claims he was unaware of any wrong doing, that he didn't know, didn't mean to, reminds us that the rule is unwritten and he is right. Its a rule of common sense not so much written as etched, in not so much a book as the fabric of our culture somewhere between ladies first, tip your waitress and there's no crying in baseball. No one reminds him to stand for the National Anthem and no one should have to tell him this.

Baseball is a gentleman's game (even when you get to spit) and rules are rules whether in ink or in spirit. No-hitters never die by the bunt, caps are never turned around and you need always touch your heart for God Bless America, even if you don't always touch second base.

The point is simple (though he always manages to miss it) Dallas Braden had a point long before he made nine Devils Rays go 0-3 and A-Rod never had one in impugning his chops, respect has no WHIP or ERA but is a courtesy owed to everyone (even by Yankees) and Rodriguez is wrong to suggest otherwise... at least he knew who he was talking about.

-Mike Infante