The Hector, Achilles, and Ajax Of Tennis
“Golden ages” in sports are weird things. They’re usually only declared after the fact — and often well after the fact. It’s often the “too far in the forest to see the trees” syndrome mixed with a lack of historical context, so perspective is lacking until further down the line.
But that’s not the case with men’s tennis right now.
Because there are three players that are potentially the three greatest players that have ever lived, what we’re all watching now is unprecedented — and obviously the golden age of tennis.
Brian Phillips lays this out as well as I’ve seen for Grantland today. I find his comparison to The Iliad apt:
One of the great things about this era of the game, though — it goes along with the cruelty we were just talking about — is that it feels almost epic. That’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in sports, but I mean it literally here. Think about, say, The Iliad. It’s a book about combat, about wild golden armies tearing each other to shreds, but here and there in every battle there are heroes whom no one can touch. Hector and Achilles and Ajax and the other superheroes of the B.C.E. basically wade through the enemy, mowing down everything in their path. They’re not even in danger. There’s absolutely no chance that some minor Trojan is going to bring down Achilles; it’s not happening. And after hundreds of pages of this, when they finally start facing each other, you can’t freaking believe how intense the moment is, because you’ve been primed to think they’re invincible.
Isn’t that basically the state of tennis today? Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have won every major tournament but one in the last seven years.
That’s insane.
Also insane: the fact that Andy Murray, the fourth wheel of this three-wheel car, might himself be considered one of the best players of all time as well were he not playing against Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic.
Murray’s five-set loss to Djokovic in the semifinals last weekend was itself a match for the ages. But it looks like nothing — and will be forgotten — because of the six-hour Djokovic/Nadal final.
Here’s something that might blow your mind: In 1990, the Royals’ team payroll was $23.2 million … and was the highest payroll in Major League Baseball.
Rob Neyer talking about baseball contracts and payrolls in the wake of Prince Fielder’s $214 million deal with the Tigers.
I’m not sure what’s crazier: that Fielder’s $23.77 million a year average salary is roughly the same as the top team payroll in 1990. Or that the Kansas City Royals had the top payroll in 1990.
Bill Simmons On The Failed Chris Paul-To-The Lakers Trade
This is obviously a bit old, but I finally got around to reading it on the plane today. It’s brilliant.
Simmons is a die-hard Celtics fan. Hates the Lakers with a passion. But he rightly calls bullshit on what went down. The best parts:
Once word leaked of the deal, rival owners started rebelling almost immediately. What was the point of that lockout, and all the talk of competitive balance, if the Lakers were allowed to immediately acquire Chris Paul? Dan Gilbert sent a scathing e-mail to a few of the other owners that, of course, was leaked on the Internet last night.
The best part of the letter: “This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.”
(Translation: “Let’s cut Demps’ balls off, throw the last few weeks of negotiating out the window and go back on our word. Also, I’m thinking of starting a support group for small-market owners who overpaid for their teams, don’t have the balls to sell and would rather whine, bitch and bully about their lot in NBA life. I’m going to call it O.A.: Overpayers Anonymous.”)
And:
Just know that I’m a die-hard Celtics fan and die-hard Lakers hater … and even I am appalled. I hope Chris Paul sues. I hope the Rockets sue. I hope the Lakers sue. I hope Dell Demps resigns and makes a sex tape with a stripper wearing a David Stern Halloween mask. Whatever happens, the season has been irrevocably tainted — we just watched FIVE teams have their seasons screwed up by this debacle.
The league has moved on. The teams have moved on. But what went down remains total bullshit.
Djokovic Mows Down Nadal To Win U.S. Open
It’s amazing that over the past few years the discussions have evolved from whether Federer is the best ever, to whether Nadal will be the best ever, to now whether Djokovic may eventually be the best ever.
These are three of the best players ever and they’ve come back-to-back-to-back.
Anyone else always read this as “elb” when they were a kid? I thought it was some weird French Canadian way of abbreviating “Expos”.
I later heard it’s in fact an “M”, but that they wanted the red part to look like an “e” and the blue part a “b” so that the whole thing could be “Montreal expos baseball”.
It will always be “elb” to me.
Updated Top 25 College Football Recruiting Team Rankings
Michigan on the comeback trail. Big time.
Derek Jeter Gets His 3,000th Hit
A few crazy things:
- His 3,000th hit was a homerun, despite the fact that he had not homered in Yankee Stadium in almost a year.
- The only other person to hit a homer for hit 3,000 was Wade Boggs, also not a homerun hitter.
- Jeter is the fourth youngest player to get 3,000 hits. Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, was 8 days older than Jeter is now when he got his.
- After a rush of players getting to 3,000 in the early 2000s, no one had in over 4 years since Craig Biggio did.
- Biggio only had over 200 hits once in a season. Jeter has had 200 hits or more in seven seasons.
- Most amazingly, Jeter is the first player ever to get hit number 3,000 in a Yankee uniform.
I wasn’t sure how this would be as a movie, but it actually looks pretty good. The story of the game behind the game.
[via kottke]
Ohio State Quarterback Terrelle Pryor Leaving School
They’re saying now he may have taken up to $40K for signing memorabilia over the past few years. That’s on top of the cars and whatever else he was doing. All under resigned-but-should-have-been-fired coach Jim Tressel. Who of course knew everything that was going on yet said nothing and then lied about it.
Oh, and he let Pryor and other players now suspended play in their bowl game last year. A game which they barely won thanks to Pryor’s 336 total yards.
Ohio State AD should be the next to go. Then the school President.
The only real question is just how big of an example the NCAA makes of Ohio State? Worse than USC? If so, seasons will be erased, scholarships taken, and no more bowl games for quite some time.
Nadal leads their head-to-head series 17-8. That includes a 6-2 advantage in Grand Slam finals and a 5-0 edge at the French Open.
French Open 2011: Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer
Crazier is that Federer is 14-1 in Grand Slam finals against opponents not named Nadal.
And crazier still is that since Nadal’s first Grand Slam at the 2005 French Open, he and Federer have won 22 of 25 possible Grand Slam titles. And two of those other ones were won by Novak Djokovic, who is arguably the best player in tennis right now. (The other was a surprising win by Juan Martin del Potro in the 2009 U.S. Open over Federer — hence, the 14-1 non-Nadal record.)
What a rivalry.
In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That’s Jim Tressel.
A former Tressel colleague on the coach
Tressel has already resigned (which is a disgrace — he should have been fired).
Ohio State AD Gene Smith should be fired.
And star QB Terrelle Pryor, already suspended for the first five games next year, is probably done for good as well.
What a shitshow.
For more than a decade, Ohioans have viewed Tressel as a pillar of rectitude, and have disregarded or made excuses for the allegations and scandal that have quietly followed him throughout his career. His integrity was one of the great myths of college football. Like a disgraced politician who preaches probity but is caught in lies, the Senator was not the person he purported to be.
George Dohrmann with David Epstein take down Ohio State coach Jim Tressel for Sports Illustrated
I’m still hearing Ohioans who are apologizing for him even today after his resignation. It’s unbelievable. Read this entire thing and it will be very clear what a total disingenuous slimeball Tressel is.
And this isn’t a one-year or one-incident thing. His jackassery spreads years (and decades if you count his nonsense at Youngstown State as well).
That Ohio State didn’t throw his ass out immediately — and that they let him resign — is a disgrace.
Bill Simmons' Grantland
As a big fan of Bill Simmons, I’m excited for his new site (in association with ESPN): Grantland.
ESPN:
With Simmons as editor-in-chief, Grantland.com is scheduled to launch in June with a mix of original columns, long-form features, blog posts, and podcasts. The name of the site honors the legacy of Grantland Rice, the legendary sportswriter who helped elevate sports into American culture during the early 20th Century.
Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dave Eggers and many others are on board. Awesome.
[via Kottke]
The Ohio State fan base blindly is supporting Ohio State and Jim Tressel. It’s almost gotten to the point that he beats Michigan, he wins 10 games, he goes to BCS bowl games, they’ll support him no matter what he does as far as the fan base. If this would have happened to John Cooper, not only would they have fired him, they would have actually lined it up and had a firing squad and fired him.
The 30 Worst Baseball Cards of All Time
I love the Doug Drabek one.
