The best you’ve seen…

This is a direct steal from the Charlotte Observer.  At least the list idea anyway.

Who are the top-five professional athletes you’ve seen play in person?

Because of what I do for a living I’ve been spoiled, but there are a few close to my heart that I saw play before I was working in television.

My top five…

5.  Larry Bird.  Cool story.  I was playing in a youth basketball league, our coach had a connection with someone in the Cavaliers organization.  We went to a Celtics-Cavs game and were able to do drills on the court at halftime.  Halftime is coming to an end and the teams are on the court.  A ball bounces my way, and guess who is standing right there asking for it.  I GAVE LARRY BIRD A CHEST PASS.  Don’t remember much more from the game, but for me, that was enough.

4.  Barry Sanders.  Covered the Lions when I worked in Detroit.  Thankfully is was when Barry was playing.  It made the games worth the trip.  In 1997 I watched him rush for 167 yards and three touchdowns against the Bears.  He was so special to watch I still have video from that game.

3. George Brett.  I’ll put him three not because he’s the greatest athlete, but he’s my greatest athlete.  He’s my boyhood idol.  I wore number five because of him.  Played third base because of him.  Saw him play in the 1981 All-Star game in Cleveland and the Royals spring training home, for a time, was within 20 minutes of my house in Florida.

2. Michael Jordan.  I was in Chicago doing a story on Ron Harper and was in the locker room waiting for him.  A door on the far side of the room opens.  It’s Jordan!  Everything starts to happen in slow motion.  He walks across the room with a box of sneakers under one arm and a basketball he needs to autograph under the other.  He walks through another door and everything returns to normal speed.  A day I’ll never forget.  He dropped 43 on Cleveland that night and I watched from press row.

1. Tiger Woods.  To me he’s the best at his sport bar none, and even though I’ve seen Jack Nicklaus also in person, I’m getting Tiger in his prime.  I was lucky enough to see him win The Masters twice and finish runner-up at the U.S. Open.  To watch him hit balls on the driving range is one of the more impressive things I’ve ever witnessed in person.

Thoughts on A-Rod…

I’m not the baseball guy in the office, I defer all baseball knowledge to Kevin, but I think he and I can agree on the A-Rod thing.

Enough all ready.

And by enough I mean enough of the talking around the issue.  Just come clean already (no pun intended).

Tuesday’s press conference in Tampa did nothing for me other than to irritate me more.  I was one of the few who were actually shocked to learn about his failing a drug test.  To me, he was baseball’s milk ad.  He was the poster child of the game. 

I don’t feel that way any longer.  And why should I, or anyone else for that matter?

It seems each time Rodriguez opens his mouth on the subject something in the story changes.  I mean, he can’t even get his age right.  Rodriguez was born in 1975.  By his admission he quit ‘using’ in 2003 which would have made him 28, not the 23 or 24 that he says he was. 

Now we hear from drug experts that the substance he claims to have used (boli or bole) for an ‘energy boost” is actually a steroid known for building muscle more than energy.  Experts also say that injecting the drug twice a month, which Rodriguez claims he did, wouldn’t likely trigger a bad test.  The drug would have to be administered more frequently for a failed test.

What was worse than Rodriguez’s continued lies was that the Yankees seemed to help the cover up.  Reporters were told there would be no follow up questions (Rodriguez didn’t directly answer many of them) and team officials controlled who asked the questions.

I will say that I’m of the firm belief that people deserve a second chance, Rodriguez is included in that.  But at this moment, I feel his press conference was his second chance at setting the record straight, and he didn’t.  I can’t say that I’ll be of an open mind the next time his story changes.

Bob

Dayto-no!

I’m not the biggest of NASCAR fans.

That being said, Sunday’s decision to stop the Daytona 500 before it was over didn’t do much to bring me any closer to watching.

I know enough to know that the 500 is “the Super Bowl” of racing.  It’s the sports biggest race, the one that all drivers want to win.  I mean, there’s two weeks of buildup and a qualifying procedure that calls for a Masters in Engineering to figure out.

It doesn’t take a brainiac to figure out Sunday’s decision was wrong.  Play it out.  Let ‘em sit in the garage and wait for the rain to pass.  At least wait more than 20 minutes to make a decision to call the race.  Doing what I do I’ve reported on rain delays much longer than the one on Sunday for races that don’t carry nearly the weight of the 500. 

Why the snap decision to end such a big race?

I’ve heard the argument it’s because next weeks race is in California and teams need the time to get back to Charlotte to change out cars and get the trucks on the road for the trip.  This brings in an entirely different argument about scheduling, but that’s for another day.

If the timing of being here and being there is that limited, why not start the race earlier in the day.  It’s not unheard of for there to be afternoon showers in Florida.  A rain delay should be somewhat expected.  How about starting the race at noon, maybe even 11am?  Leave the under the lights racing for the July race.  Speaking of which, last year the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona  ended after 1am thanks to a TWO HOUR RAIN DELAY.

I guess there was no hurry to get to Chicago the next week.

Bob

E! stands for enough all ready…

Tonight was one of those rare slow Friday nights.  Don’t get me wrong, we have seven local basketball games in the show, we’re just not scrambling to get everything done.

That being said, it’s quiet enough in here to notice that E! is running a story on Michael Phelps marijuana incident.

E!. Really?

When did Michael Phelps become an entertainment celebrity?  I guess there’s not Jessica Simpson news today.

It’s not the first time sports news has been used to fill time in something other than a ’sports’ segment of the news.  It happens here all the time.  But this one made me sort of caught me off guard.

I won’t get in to the whole don’t do drugs thing, but are we really going to drag this guy through the ringer over this?  He made a mistake, has owned up to it, yet the story is now so big that it’s crossed over to the world of entertainment news?  Give me a break.

I’ll give you that people in the public eye are held to a different standard, and someone who wins eight Olympic gold medals will no doubt be looked at differently.  But keep in mind Phelps is 23 years old.  23. 

What were you doing when you were 23?  Did you make any mistakes?  I know I did.  I was just fortunate enough someone didn’t catch mine with a camera phone.

oh. my. god.

Apparently I’m behind the times with the wii.  I’ve had this thing for about six months now, and just two weeks ago I found out you could download old-school Nintendo games on it.  WHY DIDN’T SOMEONE TELL ME!?!?! 

There are  several hundred games to pick from, so I browsed for about thirty seconds until I found the greatest game ever – and bought it for five dollars.

FIVE DOLLARS FOR PUNCH OUT!!

Sadly – its not “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out”, so instead I have to beat Mr Dream.  Hard to believe that Mike Tyson used to be stable enough to actually be on a nintendo kids game.  How the mighty have fallen.

NEXT:  BLADES OF STEEL!!!

   kevin