I have been busy, which is why I’ve been away, Gentle Reader, but I’m glad I didn’t write yesterday because I would have been wrong and had to issue an apology today. I was going to write a post on how boring Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby was because of a lack of star power. No Big Papi; No Pujols; not even a Prince Fielder. Instead, we had a bunch of white guys: Justin Morneau from the Twins who came into the All Star Break with only 14 homers; Grady Sizemore, Ryan Braun, Dan Uggla, Evan Longoria. The only big names were Lance Berkman and Phillies’ second baseman Chase Utley. Who known that it would be Josh Hamilton who would save the Home Run Derby?
Hamilton, a man who once was the top pick in the Amateur draft by Tampa Bay, got lost in a haze of drugs and bad decisions, was out of baseball three years ago. But with the support of his grandmother, the last person who would take him in after lies and betrayals, Hamilton is in the All Star Game for Texas, having posted a .310 average, 21 home runs, and an astounding 95 RBIs. And he was the “feel good story” of the All Star Game, and the Home Run Derby.
What a show he put on. Hamilton, hit a record 28 home runs in the first round, more than Bobby Abreu’s 24 when he was with the Phillies in 2005 in Detroit. It was astounding; Hamilton hit 13 consecutive homers, at least 3 of which traveled over 500 feet each. And Hamilton did so with other players’ kids stopping to ask for autographs; other players bowing and Texas teammates wiping his brow and other comedy. Even the New York crowd, cynical in the best circumstances especially toward non-Yankees or non-Mets, cheered his name during the record performance.
He could have (and perhaps should have) saved some for the later rounds, but Hamilton told reporters that he had a dream just after getting sober of participating in the Home Run Derby in Yankee Stadium. Hamilton only hit 4 homers in the second round, but for the first two rounds, the home runs were cumulative, and Hamilton hit 15 more home runs than the other finalist, Twins’ first baseman Morneau. For the finals, the previous rounds didn’t count, and Morneau hit 5 home runs to Hamilton’s 3 and he won the contest, but Josh Hamilton won in the court of public opinion.
Hamilton’s round put an exclamation point on his first half, but also announced to the world that he is a budding superstar, event if he plays in Texas. As I said above, he may have also saved the Home Run Derby, which was starting to suffer the fate of the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest: the best players didn’t want to participate, so you have younger, no names participating. The Home Run Derby, however, has one huge advantage: home runs aren’t subjective, whereas the slam dunk contest isn’t. I know that I’ll be rooting for Hamilton to stay clean and hopefully he can continue to show his amazing talent.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the Green Bay Packers management is between a rock and a hard place. Brett Favre has stated that he wants to return to play football again, but the Packers told the quarterback that the team had “moved on” after he announced his retirement and have committed to Aaron Rodgers as the quarterback of the future.
Favre has finally spoken, to Greta Van Sustern of Fox News saying that he was guilty of “retiring too soon” and that he wants to come back, preferably to the Packers, but if not there, he wants to play again. The Packers have said that they would be willing to trade Favre to a team in the AFC, but the two teams who would most likely be most interested would be the Vikings and Bears, both teams considering themselves solid quarterback play away from the playoffs, if not the Super Bowl. Of course, they would also love to rub the noses of the Packers in the dirt if their Hall of Fame quarterback ends up playing his final year or years on their hated rivals. The AFC teams who one would believe would be most interested: Ravens, Dolphins and Jets, have each said that they aren’t interested.
I feel for Ted Thompson, GM of the Packers. He can’t want to be the man who drove Brett Favre into retirement, or worse, to play elsewhere. On the other hand, do they want to take a $12.5 million salary hit against the salary cap for a player who is going to be a back-up? Or do you start Favre, knowing that Rodgers is going to want out if you do? Rodgers has been silent, but he has already spent 3 years watching from the sidelines and in his limited duty, has looked good, if injury prone. He won’t want to waste another year rotting on the bench, especially since there are teams on which he can compete as starter without all of the emotion and sentiment following a Hall of Famer.
There are no winners in this. If Favre goes back to the Packers, it might be good in the short term, but mid- to long-term, the Packers may have to go back to the drawing board when Favre does hang them up. If Favre goes elsewhere, the Packers front office suffers a public relations hit. Favre himself has not faired well in the court of public opinion either. Will he go out a winner, or will he move to another team and repeat the failure of other Hall of Famers late in their careers like Joe Namath or Johnny Unitas?

At first, it appeared that CBS made a decision to release college basketball analyst Billy Packer and replace him with Clark Kellogg, but apparently, all parties knew last year that this would be Packer’s last year, his 32nd Final Four providing commentary.
To his credit, Packer said nothing about his future, not even after the Final Four was played this year. Maybe Packer was hoping that CBS would change their mind, but they didn’t and the network made the announcement yesterday.
Realistically, Packer’s best days were decades ago, when he teamed with Al McGuire and Dick Enberg as the voice of college basketball during its time as the hottest growth sport on television. Packer was the anchor, giving commentary as the more flamboyant, more colorful McGuire as Enberg gave the play-by-play. When McGuire left and college basketball moved to CBS, Packer came along settling into the commentary chair at the biggest games. Packer’s insights were pedestrian compared with McGuire and didn’t have the raw passion and humor factor of Dick Vitale.
Packer still wants to cover “the biggest games,” but with no job at CBS, how can he?
Then, in a twist that makes you shake your head, the New York Islanders and head coach Ted Nolan decided to part ways over disagreement in direction of the team. Huh? Yes, Nolan had been out of hockey before getting the Islanders’ job, but the Isles have been the laughingstock of the NHL, once being “sold” to a con artist who didn’t have nearly the amount of money required to make the sale.
Furthermore, the Isles had been one of the most mismanaged teams in all of sport, partially due to the ownership uncertainty. But Nolan helped get the team to the playoffs and made the team respectable, but this wasn’t enough for GM Garth Snow, who had been moved up from goalie on the team to the front office without any experience and with no word that his playing career was even finished.
Unlike the Green Bay Packers front office, who have done a decent job keeping the Packers competitive for the entirety of Brett Favre’s career; the Islanders have made bad decisions, signed extremely long-term contracts to players, and generally shot themselves in their collect feet. Ted Nolan will get another chance in the NHL and he deserves it; the New York Islanders, who knows what’s going to happen with them?

To many, this is a big weekend in the Chicago area. Some 75,000 people are going to the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois to watch the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Tonight, there will be a 300 mile race and tomorrow, a 400 mile race that will be broadcast on TNT.
In case you’re asking where this is leading, let me state, for the record: I don’t care. I know that NASCAR is the one sport that has been growing in interest and money over the past several years, but watching a whole bunch of cars going around in a circle at such high speeds that I get to see them for a fraction of a second is not my idea of a good time.
Of course, as an African-American, it is easy to ignore auto racing completely; there are no black drivers in the races and the few people of color who tried to work in the pits have been met with vile ethnic slurs and, in the case of one woman, sexual harassment. Personally, I believe that the increase in interest in NASCAR is a case of people giving free reign to their inner redneck.
Also, let it be said now: auto racing is not a sport. Anything that you don’t sweat doing (heat of the engine and the track notwithstanding), is not a sport. Golf is not a sport, even though those guys do have to walk the entire course. The pit guys work hard: in 30 second intervals 2 or 3 times a race, but the driver is sitting down, doing what many people in this country do every day – drive a car. Like golfers, race drivers are talented and deserve all of the money and attention they get (race drivers face death every race, something that golfers can’t say), but they aren’t “athletes.”
Fortunately for me, Joliet is about 60 miles away from my house; all the way on the other side of the Chicago area, so I won’t have to suffer crowds, traffic, or headaches as the NASCAR fans head out this weekend. I don’t have to spend any money to take a long nap.

Professional sports franchises are unique animals. One the one hand, they are for-profit institutions whose primary concern is making money for its shareholder(s). On the other hand, they are “public trusts,” in which the fans, the city, every citizen is a quasi-shareholder – the average guy has no money invested, but the fan invests in other ways: through interest, time spent following the club, and through spending money, not only on tickets, but on shirts, hats, jerseys, and paraphernalia. In some ways, the support of the fans can be considered a constant in terms of projecting revenues. The two are intertwined.
It can be said that there is an informal “contract” between a team and its fans. The team agrees to try to put the best team together that it can; try to win; and the fans “agree” to support the team financially and psychologically. Say what you want about them, but two franchise owners have always fulfilled their share of the contract: George Steinbrenner of the Yankees (a tradition that has been followed by Steinbrenner’s sons), and Mike Ilytch of the Detroit Red Wings. They have spend money, probably more than anyone else in their respective sports to win championships. And, most of the time, they are rewarded; fans come to the stadiums and while many Yankee fans wished that “The Boss” would shut up and not meddle so much in the day-to-day affairs of the team, you know that they appreciated his desire to win.
Here in Chicago, we haven’t had the same commitment from our ownership. Either bottom line concerns, lack of capital to compete, or just plain mismanagement has been the order of the day in the Windy City.
Not anymore. With the Cubs being in first place in the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers made their own mark on Monday, getting the reigning AL Cy Young winner C.C. Cebathia from the Indians. Under ordinary circumstances, we Chicagoans thought that we would get the standard lines we always get from management: “we are going to stand pat” (while the rest of the division improves).
The Cubs surprised me. Despite being openly for sale, GM Jim Hendry made his own trade, one day after the Milwaukee deal, acquiring talented right-hander Rich Harden in a six-player deal with the Oakland Athletics. With CC Sabathia already gone, Harden was the best available pitcher, Hendry said.
Apparently, Hendry had been talking with the A’s and Indians at the same time, trying to pull off a deal, but it cost them. The A’s are getting sometime 2008 starter Sean Gallagher, outfielder Matt Murton, infielder Eric Patterson and Josh Donaldson in return for Hardin and right-handed pitcher Chad Gaudin. Gallagher and Murton get immediate chances to start and Hardin is a legitimate ace and Gaudin is much more than a throw-in.
I know that I have said very little positive about the Cubs on this site, but I have to give them credit for not standing still and improving themselves and fulfilling the contract with their fans, something that can’t be said for most of the 99+ years that have elapsed since the last World Series Champion on Chicago’s North Side.

To me, Seattle is a funny town. Yes, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law live there with two of my nieces, and I do like it out there. The populace is very liberal; perhaps to laid back for my taste; but fairly cosmopolitan. There is, of course, the weather; and I must say that it does rain a lot there, which can make if dreary and difficult if you have suicidal tendencies.
It would appear that the laid back attitude may have cost the city its NBA franchise. For a long time, there had been a battle over ownership and whether the new owner(s) could move the team. Admittedly, the SuperSonics won only one title in its long history and that was in the 1970s; and victories do tend to bring out the casual fan and the typically apathetic. But an underachieving team playing in an aging stadium and the refusal of the local government and populace to cave in to civic extortion for a new arena made the franchise available for sale.
A buying group emerged, headed by Clay Bennett, chairman of Dorchester Capital Corporation. Oklahoma City acted as part-time home of the New Orleans Hornets after Hurricane Katrina and was well known to the NBA as part owner of the San Antonio Spurs in the mid-1990s. The only problem was that Bennett openly wanted to move the team to Oklahoma City. Seattle still wanted the team to remain in town, and it appeared that the Sonics were tied to the city through a firm lease for KeyArena at least two more years.
Bennett’s group sued to break the lease, but it looked bad for the Oklahoma people. They didn’t appear to have a leg to stand on and the judge was scheduled to rule last Wednesday, but at the last minute (literally) Bennett agreed to pay the city $75 million to break the lease. Last night, the new Oklahoma City team’s (nickname to be announced) rookie summer league team played the Indiana Pacers rookie team, and so, it appears that the move is settled.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a traditionalist when it comes to sports franchises. I firmly believe that if a team has a fan base that traditionally supports the team (85-90% or more of all tickets available are sold on an annual basis), it’s simple – the team shouldn’t be allowed to move. This is despite the state of the team’s playing facilities. If the owners have a bad lease deal, that’s their problem. If the taxpayers don’t want to give a sports franchise a subsidy in the form of a brand new building, tough. Now, if the team wants to put in some of its own money to help pay for the construction of a new building (or pay for it outright), so be it, but that’s the choice of the people and its elected officials.
I don’t think that Seattle passed the ticket sale test, although they are passionate about their Seahawks and have supported the Mariners (although the poor showing has hurt attendance over the past few seasons). But Seattle is a “small market” without the power of a major center to support sports teams. However, while Seattle only houses 592,000 people, there are 3.3 million in the Seattle-Tacoma region, which is exactly 3 times the population of Oklahoma City (1.1 million). And, of course, this is Oklahoma, which has no major sports franchise unless you count the University of Oklahoma football and men’s basketball teams.
It’s nice that these “good ole’ boys” want to have a team of their own in their home town. And yes, many smaller towns have built stadiums in hopes of attracting a major professional franchise. But, is the town big enough to support it? Only the NFL has true revenue sharing, and that is why a town the size of Green Bay, Wisconsin can have an NFL franchise. But in the other major sports where revenue sharing is more elastic (in the form of salary caps and luxury taxes), there are truly haves and have nots. A shiny new building and the novelty of a pro sports team only lasts for a year or two, then the team had better be winning or people are going to start to stay home. With fewer people to draw on, the more people stay home, there are fewer people to replace them.
Small market teams have difficulties. Nashville is having trouble supporting the NHL Predators; Charlotte, North Carolina has lost one NBA team, and brought in another. Even ion the “major” sports, long, established franchises find it hard to compete. All one has to do is look at the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates to see franchises in trouble, often despite brand-new, state-of-the-art facilities.
This is not mentioning the sometimes difficult time the team may have in attracting free agents. Given the opportunity of playing in a major market like New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago, a player may choose not to even consider Oklahoma City. Then, a team may have to overpay to get good players. All in all, a move such as this to a smaller market is just prolonging the inevitable: either another move, or possibly, dissolution. And that is what is awaiting Oklahoma City unless Bennett and his boys have a lot of disposable income – eventual sale, or a bad team performing in front of a half empty arena.

It was an incredible fortnight that ended yesterday South West of London at the All England Lawn and Tennis Championships, known colloquially as Wimbledon. On the women’s side, we saw upset after upset with only one constant: the Williams sisters inexorably march through the brackets with the prospect of meeting each other in the final. The women’s final was solid tennis with Venus beating her younger sister in straight sets, but it still wasn’t the three set, monster match of the ages that we have always wanted to see. It is starting to appear that we never will see that “ultimate Williams sister match.” What was incredible is that the sisters finished their ladies’ singles final and went out and won the doubles championship on the same afternoon.
But, what the women’s final lacked, the men’s final made up for it in spades. Everyone “knew” that the final would be Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal for the third straight time, but we did get a chance to see the streakiest player in the men’s game, Marat Safin make a strong statement, reaching the semis before losing to Federer. But all eyed Federer who looked to be the first player since the 1880s to win six consecutive championships. Nadal, on the other hand, has long proved that he owned the clay courts, winning his fourth French Open title last month, but he was looking to get “over the hump” against Federer on the other surfaces.
And so he did, beating the once-unstoppable Federer 6-4 in the first two sets, more notable for his having been behind Federer 4-2 in the second set before blowing him off the court in the rest of the second set. The third set was on-serve at 5-4 Federer when the rain began for the first time. It was interesting; just before the rain started, John McEnroe on television commented that perhaps a rain stoppage would be in Federer’s best interests. Even though he was in the set, Nadal’s victory appeared assured. After the rain delay however, Federer stepped up and won the third set 7-6 (5) and fought off two championship points in the fourth set to win again in a tiebreaker 10-8. Finally, with night falling rapidly after two additional rain delays, Nadal hit a rocket serve that Federer hit into the net and the streak was over: Nadal 9-7 in the fifth set.
Every once in awhile, even the biggest sports fan needs a reminder of why sports are important, beautiful, meaningful. Anyone who is a tennis was reminded of that yesterday: two men, talented, good sports, gave it all they had on the English ground. There was no better. (Although one of the announcers commented at the end that with Spain winning the Euro 2008 soccer tournament and Nadal’s victory, Spaniards may take the rest of the year off in celebration.)