Sports Then and Now

The Mighty Zultan Tells Football Fortunes...

Zultan, the mighty soothsayer, hibernated soundly after a glorious conclusion to Big Ten Football Bowl Season last January.

The all-seeing one remained zoned out for months after admittedly over-indulging in some exotic-looking orange punch with the kick of a kangaroo.

The Big Ten pounded its way to an impressive 4-3 record during post-season play which included wins over some very highly ranked BCS teams at the conclusion of the 2009 football season.

The action culminated with the Iowa Hawkeye’s victory over the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech. After the Hawkeyes rolled over them, GT may still be putting their “wrecked” offense back together.

When the mighty one’s eyes snapped open this week, ready to dig in for another season of football prognostication –– low and behold, the news was delivered.  The Big Red Machine was going to be joining the Big Ten. What a blow!  After years of living in the shadow of the God Almighty Nebraska Cornhuskers, the all-seeing seer now must feel the singe of the hot poker once again––as Nebraska closes in on the neighboring Hawkeyes starting in 2011.

Putting aside his feelings of betrayal, the all-seeing one now marshals the massive skills that allow him to predict the outcome of football contests.  The Big Ten Conference will be a force to be reckoned with in 2010 along with other highly touted football contests each week.

What he wishes to know is––can you outguess him?  Do you feel lucky, well, do you?  If so click here and you can pit your puny predicting powers against the great Zultan.  If you outguess him, then he will announce that you beat him in next week’s column, plus entering your name for a prize to be awarded at the end of the season.

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It is still unclear whether Tiger Woods will be part of the U.S. team at the 2010 Ryder Cup.

Twelve months ago, anyone suggesting that golf’s world number one and the sport’s most high-profile player wouldn’t be taking part in the 2010 Ryder Cup would have been greeted with a reply of “Is he injured?” or “Are you mad?” However, with golf’s most famous event rapidly approaching, has the time come for the mighty Tiger to be denied a wildcard pick and be left to watch the competition on television alongside millions of fans?

Despite having shown earlier promise when he returned to the clubhouse after taking time off to sort out his personal problems, Woods has failed to reach the heights that had seen him become possibly golf’s greatest ever player.

Having openly admitted he is struggling with his game, and suffering the ignominy of requiring a wildcard pick just to make the team, it is now time to leave the Tiger at home and instead look to the form guide when choosing who captain Corey Pavin should be taking with him to Celtic Manor. Read the rest of this entry →

As we get ready to head into the 2010 U.S. Open at the end of a long stretch of hard court tournaments in America, there are some traditional clear cut favorites who will claim the attention of the media and tennis fans.

Unfortunately, last year’s winner, Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, will not be able to defend his 2009 U.S. Open Championship after undergoing wrist surgery in May at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. He has just recently returned to the practice courts.  This means he will not be up to match strength, denying him the ability to compete at such a high level over an extended period.

The usual suspects head the list of favorites starting with Rafael Nadal, the No. 1 seed, as well as No. 2 seed Roger Federer who has won this tournament five times in the past six years.  Additionally, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have made the finals in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Most of the odds makers will focus on this quartet of top-ranked tennis elites.

It is also important, however,  to consider our Power Rankings, which highlight those players who have recently excelled on the hard courts leading up to the U.S. Open. These are the top ten contenders going into Flushing Meadows.

The Top 10

1. Roger Federer (Last Power Ranking: OLI; ATP Ranking: 2)

Last Four Tournaments: Cincinnati [Winner], Toronto [Finalist], Wimbledon [Quarterfinalist], Halle Germany [Finalist]

Power Ranking Points: 1359

Roger Federer won the tournament in Cincinnati just prior to the U.S. OpenPower Ranking Points: 1359

After suffering a quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon, Federer took some time off from the tour. As he resumed a rigorous practice schedule, Federer announced to the world that he would meet and work with Paul Annacone, former coach to Pete Sampras.

Their first tournament together was Toronto where Federer progressed to the final but was not able to overcome Andy Murray, losing 5-7, 5-7.  The Swiss came back, however, in Cincinnati to repeat as champion over Mardy Fish in a hard-fought three-set final.
Federer seems well rested and well-prepared to compete in his eleventh U.S. Open.

The state of his coaching trial with Annacone remains up in the air at this point with no real explanation as to why Annacone did not travel with him to Cincinnati.  Regardless, his recent play must revive Federer’s confidence heading into New York.

U.S. Open Success? Half of the time that Federer has gained entry into the U.S. Open, he has won the title.  He will remain one of the favorites going into the tournament to win it again in 2010.  That is not to say he will be without competition. Everybody enters to win. If Federer, however, plays as he did this past week, his chances look very good, indeed.

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Roger Federer tuned up for the U.S. Open with a win in Cincinnati.

Roger Federer: One could point to Federer’s easy start to the week, with Denis Istomin quitting in the first set and Philipp Kohlschreiber not even picking up a racket, and call it luck. But, as Thomas Jefferson said, “I find the harder I work the more I have of (luck).”

With a runner-up performance in Toronto and the win in Cincy, The Great Swiss has put forth his best pre-US Open summer hardcourt season since 2007, when he achieved the same results. He has not looked quite as dominant as then, when he steamrolled through Cincinnati and Novak Djokovic needed a third-set tiebreak to beat him in Canada, but he continues to compete well.

Despite losing the first set against Mardy Fish in the final, Federer managed to hold serve throughout the match before finally breaking the big-serving American in the second to last game.

He isn’t winning as easily as during the middle of the decade, but with Rafael Nadal playing uninspiring tennis at the moment, Juan Martin del Potro injured and Andy Murray yet to prove he can win 21 sets, competing well may be all he has to do.

Mardy Fish: And that fact that Federer had to turn to those competitive instincts to win on Sunday showed how far his opponent had come. Now 29 (less than a month younger than the Swiss), Fish lost their first five meetings, taking just one set. But in Cincinnati he not only pushed the most decorated player of the Open Era deep into a third set, he improved to 3-0 against Andy Murray this year and 2-0 against Andy Roddick.

Fish has always had the serve, the backhand, the return and the volleys of a top flight player, but in a game where top 10 players must erase all weaknesses, he had three: his movement, his fitness, and his forehand.

Having lost 30 pounds since last year, Fish is now moving and striking the ball better than ever, and may have emerged as the best chance, not only for American tennis at the Open, but for attacking tennis in general. This is happening just in time, too, with the major with the slickest surface just ahead. Read the rest of this entry →

Tyson Gay stands alone as Bolt and Powell throw in the towel.

It was supposed to have been the climactic finale – the mouth-watering replay of 2009’s World Championship 100-meter dash in Berlin.

Yes, that race.

The one where Usain Bolt obliterated his own amazing 9.69 world record from Beijing, 2008.

The one where Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell, the world’s next fastest sprinters ever, were sucked along in Bolt’s draft to post incredible yet inadequate times of their own (9.71 and 9.84).

The one which catapulted Bolt into stratospheric realms, beyond the reach of mere humanity.

But that was 2009 and this is 2010 – and since that race, a few million gallons of water has flowed under the bridge:

• Later in 2009, Gay established a new American record (9.69) in Shanghai in a race he described as “not technically good”.

• The 2010 season has been the quadrennial “down year” with no global championships, thus many athletes have used 2010 as a year to retreat from intensive training regimens to rest and heal.

• The new Diamond League series of 14 international meets was launched, promising track and field fans multiple head-to-head showdowns. While there were several extremely talent-laden meets and exceptional performances, many of the elite match-ups failed to materialize because of the down year or debilitating injuries.

• Gay beat Powell in Gateshead, beat Bolt in Stockholm, and established the season’s best time (9.78) in London.

• Bolt and Powell have since shut down their seasons, citing lower back (some say spine) problems.

So now, instead of the Big Three getting together in Brussels this Friday in the final Diamond League meet (and that sumptuous re-match of 2009), only Gay remains to give fans a glimpse of the brilliance which might have been. Read the rest of this entry →

After more than 60 years, Vin Scully still loves his job broadcasting baseball for the Dodgers.

When I heard this morning that Vin Scully had called a press conference for prior to today’s Los Angeles Dodgers game against the Cincinnati Reds, my heart sank. Could this be the end for the last of the legendary broadcasters from the golden era of baseball?

Fortunately, instead of announcing his retirement, Scully announced that he loves the game too much to walk away and will continue to broadcast at least through 2011.

Sometimes the great ones hang on too long and don’t know when it is time to walk away, but that couldn’t be further from the case for Scully. All you have to do is listen to a Scully broadcast to know that this is a man who truly loves what he does and that nobody does it better.

Just two nights ago, I listened mesmerized for more than an hour as Scully didn’t as much “call” the game between the Dodgers and Reds as he did tell the story of the game.

Unlike most broadcast booths that now include two people and include announcers who spend more time utilizing graphics and talking to each other instead of the audience, Scully works alone and I imagine broadcasts on television today much in the same way he did when he first started announcing games on the radio for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950.

When listening to Scully you can almost close your eyes and let his voice guide you through the game in a manner atypical of most modern television announcers. As he probably did 60 years ago, during the first game of a series Scully typically spells out the names of those players with unusual last names on the opposing team. Though fans today can simply go to the internet to find the live game box score, Scully still has one foot in an era when young boys sat at the radio scoring along with the broadcast. Read the rest of this entry →