Volume 15

I was sitting on the sideline at our softball game this past Monday, being completely irrational as I fumed on the sidelines. Despite improving my hitting from the previous few games (three singles on three at-bats), I squandered what normally is my strongest suit... base-running. I went from first to third after the next batter lined one past the second baseman. I beat the throw cleanly, but tripped past the bag and lost grip of the base, getting tagged out. I hesitated in sliding another time, bowling over the second baseman and getting called out in the process. We took a loss to drop to 1-4 -- or is it 2-3? (It’s rec-league softball after all) -- for the season.  

So I sat there, out of the field for the latter part of the game due to our enlarged roster, stewing. One of my teammates came over and talked to me when we were back up to bat. “It’s sad that all we’ve got left now to watch is baseball, eh? All the other sports are done.” 

I knew what he had meant. There would be no football for another couple months. The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals had been completed, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles respectively walking away with the titles. Amongst the big four sports for North American audiences, the summer doldrums doled up only baseball for digestion by fanatics across the continent. But I wasn’t going to let it lie lightly. 

“We’ve got the Confederations Cup going on right now... the U.S. just played Italy today,” I replied. “Wimbledon is about to begin. Water polo is in the midst of its world championships. And Tiger’s about to begin his title defense at the U.S. Open.” 

“Yeah, I guess there’s that. But I mean... all we’ve got is baseball!” 

Sometimes it can be frustrating being a non-traditional sports fan in America. Yes, I love to indulge in the traditional sports, same as every other American nurtured on Saturdays and Sundays in the fall and into the winter with football. There was hockey and basketball to tide one through the winter and into the spring, when baseball would pick up just as the other two were reaching their playoffs. Then baseball -- good old trusty baseball -- would be there to drive into the start of the football season with its fall classic. Onward and through the cycle we go... 
 

But, if you’ve ever deigned to follow this column, you know that I live just as much for a pick-up game of soccer as I do for that opposite-field blast or timely glove work and rec-league softball glory. Hell, we’re about to move across town to a new apartment where I can see a tennis court out my kitchen window. I will literally be able to walk over and practice my serve any time I want. I took a short bike ride on Sunday, to and from work on a borrowed bicycle since mine is still out of commission from my untimely contact with a white van’s bumper back in late January -- right around the time of the French Open. 

I bombed the freshly-paved surface all down Fox Hollow, just finished two days prior, and made it to work for the first shift after graduation week on campus here at the University of Oregon. It was refreshing actually pedaling a bicycle again, even if I couldn’t clip into the pedals. I was having so much fun that, after I ended the half-day shift, I headed out into the late-morning sunshine and took a circuitous route home just so I could climb some hills. First I rode through campus and then up Alder to 24th, where I cut past South Eugene High School and caught the bike path along the Amazon Parkway. I popped out at Amazon Station, and headed up Willamette until I hit 46th. Turning eastward, I coasted down 46th -- my last respite until I would reach the top of Donald where it intersects with Fox Hollow and thus completes the circuit. All in all, it probably amounted to a four-mile ride out and a six-mile ride back, with a nice mile-long hill with 10+% pitches over the top couple hundred meters. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t been spinning for damn near six months now... 

Exciting though that might’ve been, though, it seems as though there is no rest for the weary. As one of the cooks in the kitchen of University Catering and Conferences for the University of Oregon, I look upon next week’s start of the U.S. National Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field with a bit of dread. I am still reeling from last year’s Olympic Trials (which I chronicled in an edition of an earlier incarnation of this column), which left me working seventeen days out of eighteen in the period prior to and through to the end of the event. But as a non-traditional sports fan, I can’t help but be elated that the venerable cathedral of athletics will once again take its rightful place as the best venue in the United States to hold such important events. So you will most certainly be getting another report next week which includes news from the trials. Stay tuned... I can’t guarantee any pictures, but you’ll get a report -- even if it’s just what the winners might’ve eaten the day of their medal-winning performances... 
 

As I said before, the Confederations Cup is in full swing. So far everyone has played at least one game and Spain has scorched through their first two group matches with a pair of clean sheets and six goals scored. The winners of the UEFA Euro 2008 competition, Spain are looking to be on par with their championship performance last summer. Both members of their potent strike force, Fernando Torres and David Villa, are on form and putting the ball with ease past opposing goalkeepers. Torres had a hat trick in the opening match against New Zealand; Villa scored the last goal in that 5-0 drubbing, and scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over a tenacious Iraqi squad. The South Africa, the second-place team in Group A, have yet to lose as well, with a scoreless draw against Iraq and a 2-0 win over the Kiwis. 

In Group B, the results are less conclusive, with games due to be played before this week’s column is written. But in the opening matches, Brazil survived a 4-3 scare against Egypt. Turns out our own Jack Greene was right when he predicted Mohamed Zidan would be the player to watch for Egypt -- he had two of the three goals for his squad in the tight losing effort, which was only decided in the end on an 88th-minute penalty kick, which Kaka converted cleanly to give the five-time world champions the win. This wasn’t a controversial call, either... the ball was handled on the line by defender Ahmed Al Muhamadi and the call was inevitable. Current World Cup champions Italy downed the United States to share the top spot. The Americans drew first blood, with Landon Donovan converting a penalty kick of his own to put his team up 1-0 at the half. But the Italians weren’t going to give up that easily. Coming out for the second half, they pressured to get goals by a pair of Rossis -- Daniele Di Rossi’s 71st-minute strike was book-ended by goals from Giuseppe Rossi at the 58- and 90-minute marks. I would be surprised if the two world soccer superpowers weren’t meeting in Pretoria on Sunday to play for little more than seeding, their knockout spots all but assured. 

So it appears that this all boils down to a matter of the two European titans and the South American juggernaut. Of course, the host could step up and surprise everyone... but I’m highly doubtful. At this moment, I’d put my money on Spain. Brazil (and it’s hard to tell from one game) looked like they lucked out in escaping against Egypt with the full three points. Italy looks like they will be more formidable competition for the Spaniards, but once again I think we might be seeing another year dominated by those Iberian giants... 
 

Apparently Wimbledon thinks so, because despite his shock ouster at Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal is slotted as the top seed at the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for his title defense. Roger Federer will once again prove a nasty foe to face as well, having finally completed his career Grand Slam with a win in Paris in Nadal’s absence from the finals. But should these two meet yet again in the finals at Centre Court -- and my money says they will -- I think the old guard of the All-England got this seeding right. Look for Nadal to come back with a vengeance after his shocking early exit deprived him of both the calendar Grand Slam shot and a chance to surpass his shared record of four consecutive victories in the French Open. 

As for the women’s draw, Venus Williams will still be the favorite until someone strips her of the title. She is looking for a hat-trick of victories. Should she succeed, she would be the first woman to three-peat at Wimbledon since Steffi Graf did it from 1991-93. Younger sister Serena should also be in the hunt. The world number-two is playing well enough to knock her sister off the pedestal. 

That doesn’t mean that the coronation of any of these four is inevitable. Dinara Safina is still the world number-one amongst the women. Three or four others could also challenge in the ladies’ draw. For the men, Andy Murray just took the Queen’s Club tournament, offering hope to his countrymen of a possible domestic winner in the (near?) future. The usual suspects abound around every corner... 
 

But yet again, we come back to the Spaniards. It wasn’t past Tour winners Alberto Contador, Carlos Sastre or Oscar Pereiro who took the recent Dauphine Libere. No, it was instead Alejandro Valverde, who doesn’t even know if he’ll be at the starting line due to his ongoing investigation by Italian Olympic organization CONI for potentially having been linked to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes in the Operacion Puerto scandal. I am all for transparency in doping controls, whether for cycling or for any and every other sport. Casting aspersions, though, despite any hard nugget of evidence, would have us riled up were it to happen personally. Yet we as a public, by and large, denigrate any athlete with a whiff of suspicion. This seems as ludicrous as assuming that everyone plays clean. 

Until the urine sets off the buzzers and flashing lights, it is presumptuous and insulting to assert unequivocally that someone is or is not worthy of inclusion in this or that race. And as far as drug-testing policy itself goes, I’m certainly not going to be the person to lambaste another’s casual recreational use of controlled substances. So Tom Boonen packed his nose with cocaine. He did it out of competition, after the spring classics campaign that saw him take his third Paris-Roubaix title. Unwinding in such a manner certainly isn’t great for one’s health, but then neither is a lot that athletes do these days. The old-time photos of cyclists helping one another light cigarettes while still in the saddle or swigging from a communal jug of wine at the roadside are revered as examples of the hard men of yesteryear. But in glorifying one type of substance use and then castigating another, we are setting a double standard historically which cannot be justified. 

This could be taken to heart by those fans of pretty much any sport. If you would deign to deride those who have currently used, you must be equally willing to sit down and truly look at the long history of substance use in sports. If you are willing to chastise one era, you cannot hoist the other up as a beacon of fair play, for human nature has always been to seek that release from pain or enhancement to performance. Just because the chemicals are better these days doesn’t mean that today’s crop of positive tests is no less moral than their predecessors. Boonen should be racing; what he did had no effect on any race, and he would be stupid to risk his legacy further by using cocaine during the race (the only time where it is technically sanctioned under UCI/WADA drug code). 

I sure hope cooler heads prevail. It would be fun to see Valverde and Boonen battling Mark Cavendish for the sprint opportunities along the route. And it is highly likely we will see yet another Spanish Tour champion, despite the reappearance on the scene of 37-year-old cancer survivor and Tour dominator extraordinaire, Lance Armstrong. Contador, Armstrong’s teammate, will likely be the leader of his team after his 2007 Tour victory and subsequent wins in both the Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italia -- something Lance could never do. Valverde, should he be on the starting line, has already pledged to assist Contador in any and every way necessary despite their different team memberships. So fireworks will certainly be in order this Tour season... 
 

And then there’s Tiger. This is one place where an Iberian invasion is highly unlikely (Sergio Garcia? Calling Sergio Garcia...) 

Eldrick won this thing on one leg last year, outlasting the jovial Rocco Mediate over 91 holes and five days to claim the trophy. It gave Woods the distinction of becoming only the second golfer after Jack Nicklaus to win all four Majors at least three times apiece. Do you think he’s going to let up anytime soon on his march to the spot ahead of the Golden Bear in the record books? 

I highly doubt it. With his win at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio, coming back from behind on the last day with a 65 to win by four strokes over Jim Furyk, Woods signaled that he is once again healthy and a force to be reckoned with. You want to take the field? I’d gladly offer it... 
 

But I’d better get my money out of the discussion for now. I’m certainly not a wealthy man, and my wife might have some reservations about me putting up what savings we do have on a sporting event. Go figure, right? Don’t try that at home, kids -- Raoul Duke is dead, and the bookies have gone home to roost. Who needs a bet anyway? We’re beyond Triple Crown season, and it appears that Rachel Alexandra had her one shining moment against the boys before being left once again to dominate her own gender. She will ride next in the Mother Goose Stakes, heading to Belmont Park three weeks to late for Calvin Borel and his bid at the jockey Triple Crown. 

This non-traditional sports fan is dog tired... and there’s another fun day of moving ahead. At least there’s a semi-private tennis court right outside our door to keep one motivated. Get out there and find your own motivation, sports fans... because there’s a hell of a lot more than just baseball out there right now!