Welcome To Mars – The Bruno Has Landed

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Sam Rosenthal

“They picked Bruno Mars to play the halftime show? Really?”

That was my, and, let’s be honest, a lot of people’s reaction when the baby-faced singer received the Super nod. The general perception was that he lacked the chops to sizzle on such a pressure-packed stage. After all, how many hits did he really have? This was the Super Bowl, not a one-song performance at the Teen Choice Awards.

As the Big Game and Mars’ performance approached, people started to wonder if he was the right choice. News came out that The Red Hot Chili Peppers would also appear, and water cooler talk — for whatever it’s worth — surmised that perhaps the league or Mars was worried that he couldn’t handle it himself.

For whatever it’s worth, that was about the time I started to think that maybe the people who picked Mars in the first place knew something the rest of us didn’t. And man, did they!

Bruno Mars, in the parlance of our times, killed it. Many of us were familiar with his music, but not his shows. We knew he could sing and charm the camera, but did we know he could play the drums? There he was, greeted by a chorus of children canting “Billionaire,” a silhouette behind cymbals.

Yet it wasn’t Mars alone — it was Mars and his band, The Hooligans, putting on a show that was arguably as good and multi-faceted as the Seahawks’ masterpiece. One of my friends remarked that they resembled The Jackson Five, with Bruno channeling Michael at center stage — and that was before he broke out a backwards, moonwalk-esque move of his own.

Millions of viewers across the globe realized it at once: Bruno Mars’ talent is for real.

And then … The Chili Peppers barged onstage. I’m a big-time RHCP fan — own almost all of their albums, have seen them rock the house live — but every second of “Give It Away” that they played was a second of precious airtime that should’ve gone to Mr. Mars. It was as if the people who booked the show second-guessed their decision and brought in the Peppers to appeal to a larger audience. That’s speculation, but if anything close to that happened, the Powers That Be should have stuck to their collective gut. The Chili Peppers’ sound and vibe clashed with what Mars had going, and the fans would’ve been much better served without the interruption.

Luckily, “Give It Away” went away, and we got a few more minutes of Mars, alone in a beam of light, which was exactly how it should have been. He finished his final number and thanked the fans, who gave him an applause that exhibited true — and much, much deserved — appreciation.

They picked Bruno Mars for halftime at the Super Bowl. But he didn’t just play the show — he stole it.

Peyton Manning, Victorious in Defeat

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Sam Rosenthal

Peyton Manning never ceases to amaze.

Did you see it? What he did on the field tonight? Not during the game. After the game.

When Andrew Luck and the Colts lined up in the “Victory Formation” to kneel down and wind the final seconds off the clock, NBC’s cameras showed Manning on the Denver sidelines. Here he was, watching the guy who was given his job, his franchise, his city. Here he was, defeated in his return to Indy. Here he was, crushed.

His eyes said it all, burning across the field, staring at where it went wrong, staring holes in his cleats. Manning is an expressive guy — his slew of TV appearances attests to that – but rarely do you catch a glimpse of him the way he looked in those final, lonely seconds. He wanted this game. Wanted it badly.

But he didn’t get it. The kid got it. The kid earned it. And Manning had to take it.

Boy, did he take it. With all of those emotions, all of that feeling inside him, he marched away from the sideline. His helmet still fastened to that XL head, he walked right into the TV cameras, right into the postgame hubbub at midfield. Those first few steps, he was almost dazed, a prize fighter who’d just taken a vicious uppercut. One of his coaches patted his back, then some guy in a suit, and then he lumbered a few paces.

That’s when he shook it off. One of the Colts coaches hugged him, followed by a Colts player, followed by Andrew Luck. They shared a short word — all you’d expect — and then the handshakes really started. Coaches, players, athletic trainers, ballboys — one by one, Manning took their hands with much more than lip service. He looked each person in the face, took the time to say something, give a pat on the back, honor the moment. He stopped to talk — not once, but a number of times. Every couple steps he took, he saw someone else, and he stopped in his tracks. Out came the mitts again. A smile for one of the security guys. A quick chat with this guy, and that guy.

He didn’t need to do any of it. The man’s character and feelings for the Colts organization, for the city of Indianapolis, have been more well-documented than the Constitution. Nobody would’ve begrudged him anything if he had shaken Luck’s hand alone and headed straight for the locker room. Luck’s was the only handshake expected of him, yet it was clearly far from the only one that mattered to him. Despite all of the loss’s sting, he stayed on that field far longer than was necessary. In doing so, he showed the true class and leadership that make him far more than a great football player. He showed what makes a true winner.

Matt Harvey and Me

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Sam Rosenthal

Dear Matt Harvey,

Please make the Hall of Fame. For your sake, obviously, but for mine as well.

We often find ourselves rooting for athletes for different reasons. I’m rooting for you, Mr. Harvey, even though I’m a lifelong Phillies fan, and you pitch for the Mets. And I’m rooting for you despite our personal history.

It comes down to this:

1) I own you in one of my fantasy leagues — a keeper auction league, where I have you at $3. You have been a beast ever since you joined my squad. If you have a Hall of Fame career, that means you will help my fake baseball team win many, many games. If that ain’t a reason to root for someone, I don’t know what is.

2) You’re dating Anne V. Well done, Sir.

3) Your Mets are so enjoyably bad. Other than David Wright and Citi Field, you’re the only redeemable thing about the Diet Yankees. When you’re on the mound against anyone other than the Phils, I actually want to see Los Mets do well. You have no idea what kind of accomplishment that is. (Here’s a great Grantland article on you, and the Mets’ futility.)

4) You may not remember, but we went to college together. At UNC, you were a hotshot baseball player, and I was a sports columnist who would’ve been a hotshot baseball player had my four-seamer been just 30 mph faster.

One night — during my senior year, if memory serves — I was at one of the Chapel Hill bars typically frequented by student athletes. I saw this stunning blonde and had one of those, “I have to talk to her or I’ll regret it,” moments.

I don’t remember what we said, but I know it wasn’t long before you came over and interjected, quite poetically: “Step away, Bro.”

To which I responded, “Hey, Bro — we’re just talking. She’s allowed to talk to people, right?”

You didn’t find it very funny.

I reminded myself that practically the entire baseball team was with you, and how interesting and somewhat ironic it would’ve been had the front page in the following day’s paper read: “Et tu, Har-vey? Sports columnist hospitalized after bench-clearing bar brawl.” It wouldn’t have been good for either of us. So I walked away thinking (but not articulating), “Hit me with your pitching hand, break a couple metacarpals — see how that helps your career!”

For the health of your hand, and my jaw, I’m glad you didn’t. Looking back, I can see that you were just doing your power pitcher thing; in that bar, I was a hitter crowding the plate, and you threw a brush-back pitch to clear me off the inside corner. Now, when I watch you mowing down hitters with 95-mph gas, I know where it’s coming from. And I love it.

From a personal perspective: The more successful you become, the cooler my story becomes. So far, it’s gone from, “I once almost got my ass kicked by the UNC baseball team,” to, “I once argued over a girl with the guy who was just on the cover of Sports Illustrated and is dating Anne V.” If you make the Hall of Fame, perhaps one day I can take my (as yet non-existent) offspring to visit your plaque and be like, “See this guy, kids? If he hadn’t stepped in at that bar, I might never have met your mother!”

5) Because you deserve the success. You risked your pro career by turning down a seven-figure contract to attend college — a decision that took more guts than throwing a 3-2 breaking ball with the bases loaded. Every time you take the mound, you’ve got Empire State-sized pressure on your shoulders — it’s not easy being the Golden Boy — and yet you keep delivering.

With all my heart, I hope you win 250 career games, strike out 3,000 hitters, and claim yourself a spot in Cooperstown. Or, at the very least, bring my fantasy team a couple titles.

Pitch away, Bro. Pitch away.

Got an athlete/celebrity story to share? Email it to samrose24@gmail.com

Death of a Sportswriter (A Tribute to Stan Isaacs)

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Sam Rosenthal

I knew Stan Isaacs, the grandfather, long before I knew Stan Isaacs, the sportswriter. His grandson, David, was my best childhood friend. Growing up, I practically lived at Dave’s house, with his mother and his father and his sister Laura and his dog Hershey. As such, I was usually around when his grandparents visited.

Still, a number of years passed before I had an inkling what Stan did for a living. I was young, and I assumed that anyone over 60 had no time or purpose in life for being anything other than a grandparent. Dave and Laura certainly never mentioned that their grandpa was a big-time sportswriter — they weren’t nearly as into sports as I was. Once, when Stan brought Dave into the Mets’ dugout and introduced him to then-manager Dallas Green. Green asked Dave if he wanted an autograph, and not having any idea why he’d want one, Dave replied, “No thanks.”

Though I practically killed Dave when he told me that story the first time, Laura said her grandfather had been proud. Stan didn’t see why someone would covet an athlete’s signature, either. He saw athletes not as gods, but as people — a novel idea today as much as it was then.

I hope Stan would forgive me for attaching sentimental value to his autograph. He inscribed it in a book he gave me — his “Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World.” He wanted me to read it while I was honing my sportswriting skills at UNC. He used to email me his columns, and I would ask him questions. The book was an even better lesson on sportswriting — and the history of sports, of which Stan played more than a minor part.

Something that always struck me about Stan’s work was how much it differed from today’s typical sports journalism fare. Under the current paradigm, most times that we read a sports story, we’ve already watched the game on TV, seen the highlights 10 times, read 15 in-game tweets, and heard it analyzed by talking heads ad nauseam. In Stan’s day, a sportswriter’s words had to tell the whole story. Reading Stan’s writing is like being at a baseball game — it is not always fast-paced and exciting, but there is beauty in the details. Stan told you what color each team wore, which way the wind was blowing, who was still hung over from the team party the night before, and how the players’ wives responded to the rowdy crowd. He told it straight-faced, with an occasional wry wink. He wrote to inform, and to give his readers a sense of the event. His words revealed that which was whimsical and hidden, the elements of the sports world that usually go unnoticed.

Stan’s family knew him in a far different way than his readers did. All three of Stan’s children were girls, and none would be an early pick in gym-class kickball. They and their spouses and children knew him not as a scribe but as a patriarch, and it pleases me to think that they all may now have occasion to revisit his work and gain some new perspective on the man they called “Dad” and “Grandpa.”

As fate would have it, I was futon-crashing at Laura’s Manhattan apartment when she learned that Stan had passed. I have been present while she has read some of the other memorials written during the past few days, and I have watched her come to see her grandfather in a new light. “I never knew so many people still remembered him,” she said. She forwarded me a Grantland article about him, and a column by Keith Olbermann, who credits Stan with writing the article in 1981 that launched his career on television. I recommend reading both, and Newsday’s tribute by Mark Herrmann, which Dave posted to his Facebook.

One thing about writers is that they hang around even after they’re gone, and I’m thrilled that by reading his work and what others have written, my friends will always be able to spend time with their grandfather.

I’m glad I’ll get to spend time with him as well. It took me a long time to appreciate what Stan meant to sportswriting. Once, while reading Jane Leavy’s biography of Sandy Koufax, Stan’s name appeared, and I called Dave and Laura’s mother and said, “Nancy, your father’s mentioned in this book I’m reading!” Her lack of surprise made me realize that Stan was a big deal. There are so many writers — I should know — and it’s easy to be overlooked.

But Stan was different: His relationship with Olbermann began when he penned a column about Olbermann keeping track of which professional athlete held the record for saying the most “you knows” during press conferences. Stan’s column went by the running title “Out of Left Field,” and his topics came from way past the fence. He wrote during a revolutionary age in sports news and was one of the pioneering forces behind it. Most sportswriters of his day wanted to be in on the glory — Stan wanted to be in on the joke. His writing has little in common with that of the modern sportswriter, and yet his “Chipmunk” style and critical regard for athletes and coaches has influenced so many who may never know it. When I read his book, I was amazed at the magnitude of the events he’d covered: the Munich Olympics, the Miracle Mets, the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” the Jets upsetting the Colts, Ali-Frazier. Stan was there for all of that, and he brought his readers there with him.

When Bobbie, Stan’s beloved wife of 58 years, died last year, it had already been a long time since I’d seen or written him. Based on the reports his family gave me, Bobbie’s passing was a blow from which he never fully recovered. His health and spirits sank, and his last months were unfortunately not happy ones. I dare say he would have wanted things to end differently, but we don’t usually get to choose how we walk off the field.

We don’t get to choose how we say goodbye, either. A few weeks ago, I wanted to write Stan. I wanted to tell him I was sorry about his wife, and that I hoped he was alright. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Laura said she wishes she’d been able to visit him one last time, and I’m sure some of his other family members do as well. As long as people have family members, and as long as those family members pass away, people will wish they’d said this or done that, forgiven X or apologized for Y, and that their final parting left nothing incomplete.

The funny thing is, Stan’s departure reminds me of his columns: Often, they didn’t end neatly and tidily, but abruptly, as if Stan decided he’d hit his word limit and called it a day.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to Stan Isaacs — the sportswriter, the grandfather, the father, the husband, the mentor. But I do get to emulate his style in a farewell column, and his family gets to read it.

I suppose that’s not so bad.

Any Given Domingo

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Sam Rosenthal

MADRID — Sunday afternoon, the offensive juggernaut Mago Tromini FC recorded their first victory of the spring season against last-place Iberliga Convimar. Led by Pichichi Juan and aided by a cast of ringers, Los Magos prevailed, 5-2, in a tense match that changed completely toward the end of both halves.

For the second-to-last-place Magos, this was a game of pride — if they lost, they might once again find themselves at the bottom of the league standings. Mago Tromini — a name which translates directly to “Wizard Tromini” but hints at the phrase, “Thank you, bartender. I’ll have another.” — is a ragtag group of 25-35-year-olds who work various jobs during the week, congregate at Las Hoces del Duraton bar in their free time, and generally get their hung-over butts whooped on football Sundays.

Since the club’s signing of American goaltender Sam “Butterfingers” Rosenthal last season, Mago Tromini had won but a single game. During the spring season, their best result was a 2-2 tie (while Rosenthal was on vacation).

But in the games leading up to the match against Iberliga, the team began scoring more and surrendering fewer goals, even as core roster members succumbed to injuries and Couch Potato Sunday Syndrome. The previous week, they lost by an extremely respectable score of 5-3 that would’ve been 4-3 had Rosenthal not swung and missed at a loose ball in Charlie Brown fashion.

Sunday, with about half of the active roster and a rousing two-person cheering section, Los Magos imported four ringers who proved invaluable. Games are played 7-on-7, and Mago Tromini entered this one with — for the first time — a stocked, four-player bench. Los Magos wore orange … and red, and yellow, and something that was described over the phone by Ringer David as yellowish green but was actually Kermit the Frog green. Iberliga Convimar wore light blue and numbered seven players, with no bench.

Things seemed promising for Los Magos from the start, as they generated a number of scoring chances. Iberliga threatened, for the most part, off of set pieces and free kicks from their own goal; long lob-balls to their forwards continually tested the Mago defense.

For the most part, though, Los Magos controlled play. Midway through the first half, they broke through with a beautiful free-kick goal by Pichichi Juan. (Pichichi means “leading scorer.” Pichichi Juan is the only Mago under 25, and he’s also the tallest, fastest, and most skilled. It’s a very long day for the team when he can’t make the games.)

As teams unaccustomed to playing from ahead often do, Mago Tromini relaxed after the goal. In the 45th minute, Iberliga scored a deflection goal off a free-kick, sending both teams into the half tied 1-1.

After halftime, disaster struck. Iberliga still owned the momentum and again caught Los Magos off-guard. One of their forwards received a long pass, dribbled past his defender into the box, and chipped a shot that skimmed Rosenthal’s fingers en route to the net.

Iberliga Convimar: 2. Mago Tromini: 1. The chance at glory was slipping — literally — out of Mago Tromini’s hands.

Over the next thirty or so minutes, Los Magos renewed their offensive intensity and dominated … but they couldn’t have hit water if they’d fallen out of a leaky kayak. The Iberliga goalie made a number of saves, passes went un-received, and — a whopping five times — shots clanged off the post.

The pressure mounted as the minutes dwindled. Would this be like the US Women’s World Cup loss to Japan, or Barcelona’s recent defeat at the hands of Chelsea, where one team controls play but fails to find mesh and suffers in the agony of what could have been?

Not this time!

With about ten minutes remaining, on a corner kick, Pichichi Juan again came to the rescue. Using a deceptive back-heel kick, he slipped the ball past the Iberliga keeper to knot the score. Less than five minutes later, Ringer Carlos, who played great all day but was often overlooked while wide open, received his golden opportunity and capitalized with a glorious top-corner shot that put Mago Tromini ahead, 3-2.

Iberliga seemed exhausted. They fired at Rosenthal on the ensuing kickoff from mid-field, but he somehow withstood the test. He launched the ball ahead to Ringer David, who converted it into Los Magos’ fourth tally of the day. Right before time expired, the forward known as Monchi put one more on the scoreboard. They had broken through the Iberliga goal’s imaginary seal, and the floodgates had opened.

Mago Tromini: 5, Iberliga Convimar: 2. Glory, glory, hallelujah!

The referee’s whistle blew, both teams shook hands, and Los Magos embraced each other as only a team that has known the extreme depths of futility can. They enjoyed “overtime” at a bar near the field, sharing beers, snacks and stories about the game and whatever else. It’s what they do after every match.

But it sure felt good to do it after a win.

A long way away, Tar Heel loss hits close to home

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Sam Rosenthal

MADRID — There were seven or so of us in the bar. Two from the Class of 2009 — my friend Chetan and myself — the rest, current juniors who chose to spend the spring semester here in Spain.

We’ve all become friends over the past month or so, primarily because of Carolina. We watched together as UNC blew a 10-point lead the first time it met Duke this season, then we watched together as the Heels advanced in the NCAA tournament.

Last night, at about 1 a.m. Madrid time, we watched a shoulda-woulda-coulda-been season come to a close. We were a long way from home, a long way from Chapel Hill, sitting around tables in an Irish pub called Dubliners, where the games air on a projector screen. They serve beer in buckets and chicken wings that pass for decent, but it’s never quite right.

For me, watching big games at Dubliners has become a bit routine. I saw every pitch of Roy Halladay’s postseason no-hitter against the Reds there, as well as a number of important NFL and Carolina games.

But last night was different. Last night, we had an entire cheering section, a group of current students and alumni to shout “TAR … HEELS!” “TAR … HEELS!” and share the experience of pulling for a team that everyone knew had the odds stacked against it. We all thought about Kendall Marshall’s wrist, John Henson’s wrist (and later his ankle), and all the other UNC body parts that had been amputated from the roster earlier in the season. Yet we showed up in Carolina T-shirts, polos, and white Jordan jerseys, an awesome Rameses hat, and long-since-broken blue sunglasses that no longer have lenses but still show their colors.

At different points in the night, we all longed for Chapel Hill. “We have so much school pride,” Chetan said to me. “I don’t know of other schools where it works the same way. I mean, look at this.”

He was right. There’s something about Tar Heel pride that extends beyond the school’s sports. “It’s because we get a great education,” I said.

“And because it’s a great place,” Chetan added.

“And because it’s a great place.”

We missed The Thrill last night before we lost. And even more so, it seemed, afterward.

As time wound down, our spirits followed suit, and when it was all over we all stood up with an air of, “Well, that was fun. Not.”

I tried to remind them of the good of the night — that we were all together — by throwing my arms around them and, with Chetan’s help, leading them in our alma mater, “Hark the Sound.” It was a painful rendition, fed mostly by two former students who didn’t care if it came after a losing effort; it felt cathartic to merely be able to sing it with other Tar Heels. Having not personally set foot in Chapel Hill in two years (that feel like five), it helped me ease the pain of watching some terrific players who may not don Carolina blue again bow out because of breaks, sprains and tears.

For the current students, the singing of “Hark the Sound” seemed inappropriate. For them, this one hurt more. This was their chance at a national championship. Chetan and I got one in 2009, and he had the 2005 one to boot.

Looking through The Daily Tar Heel‘s photo gallery today, I came across a photo (number 67 of 72) that will for me encapsulate the Tar Heels’ season: Kendall Marshall sits in the UNC locker room after the game, wearing a white dress shirt, a Carolina blue tie and a stunned expression of loss. In the background, walking to the team showers, is freshman fill-in, last-man-standing point guard Stillman White. A number 11 jersey, the same color as his last name, is still on his back. He has a sweat towel slung around his neck and another one balled up in his right hand. His head is bowed toward the floor. Marshall’s looks off into the distance. Both are searching for what coulda, shoulda, woulda been.

At Dubliners’ Irish Pub on Calle de Espoz y Mina in Madrid, Spain, a group of Tar Heel juniors gathered to catch the 1:30 a.m. metro home, sporting the same looks of dejection as their basketball-playing counterparts. It was too soon for them to sing “Hark the Sound,” just as it was too soon for Kendall Marshall to move and for Stillman White to lift his head.

There will be other Carolina games, and other chances to sing, and the Carolina fans’ wounds will heal along with Marshall’s wrist. But the memory of this night will linger — for some, it will linger on the court of the Edward Jones Dome, for many others, it will do so in Chapel Hill, and for a group of seven people united by school pride, this one will continue to sting in a dimly-lit, Spanish Irish pub.

Had the Tar Heels won the national championship, that’s where we woulda watched it.

On paper, Lee makes “Phantastic Phour” among best ever

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

In a revearsal of fortune so shocking it makes Jersey Shore appear drama-free, Cliff Lee rejected two would-be lovers last night — the Rangers and the Yankees — and got re-hitched with his former flame, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Putting this in more serious terms: It’s a huge deal. Lee would have made either the Yankees or the Rangers into a much, much better ball club, and easily a World Series threat heading into next season. For the past few weeks, all the media chatter centered around the question: “Rangers or Yanks?”

The Phillies came so out of nowhere, RADAR didn’t even pick them up. And the impact of the move could be tremendous. For one thing, the loss of Lee sends the Rangers and Yankees scrambling to find other pitching help.

But, much more importantly, it gives the Phillies a starting rotation headlined by four aces: Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.

The amount of media coverage about this you’ll see and hear in the coming days, weeks and months will be enough to make anyone outside of Philadelphia take a Louisville Slugger to their HDTV. So much of it will be overkill.

The most important thing you need to know is this: On paper, the Phillies have one of the best starting pitching rotations ever.

That is not an understatement, not in the least. And how they got to this point makes things even more interesting.

Last offseason, Philly fans were … shall we say, “disappointed” … when the Phils let Lee walk away after he had spent the last few months of the 2009 season in Philadelphia and had pitched some of the best postseason baseball ever pitched. Primarily, the Phillies front office let Lee walk because they acquired Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays and wanted to re-acquire minor league prospects for Lee instead of paying him for the final year of his contract.

This let down the fans, who saw the potential for a rotation including Halladay, Hamels, and Lee. It let down the Phillies players and coaches as well, for they knew that such a starting rotation would’ve made them World Series favorites a year after losing to the Yankees — in part due to pitching.

Phillies’ General Manager Ruben Amaro was OK parting with Lee last year because he felt his team would be good enough with the addition of Halladay, but by midyear it became evident that the rotation still needed a boost. So Amaro learned from the Lee mistake and wheeled a deal for Oswalt, the Houston Astros´ long-time ace, giving the Phillies the most formidable 1-2-3 punch in the bigs.

Down the stretch, the Big Three were terrific. But they and their Phillies’ teammates ran into a piping-hot San Francisco Giants team in the playoffs with starters who could go toe-to-toe with Philadelphia’s studs, and Philadelphia’s weak fourth option, unsure bullpen and ice-cold bats doomed them. It was a crushing blow to a team that was trying to become one of very few National League teams in history to reach the World Series in three straight seasons.

Still, going into the 2011 campaign, the Phillies looked set to make another run at the Series with “H2O” — Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt — atop their rotation.

And then this morning … the Big Three became “the Phantastic Phour.”

Truly, they could form an all-time rotation. There have been some great pitching staffs in history, but very, very few with credentials such as this one’s. In recent history, the early 2000s Oakland A’s boasted the trio of Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, and the 2001 Diamondbacks had the 1-2 combination of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. The mid-to-late 1990s Braves had an incredible staff year-in-and-year-out, with the nucleus of John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine joined by Steve Avery at the front end and Kevin Millwood at the back end of their NL East dynasty.

Reaching back, the Yankees had a number of great staffs, from the three-peat teams with Cone, Clemens and Pettitte to Whitey Ford’s Yanks, all the way back to the 1927 staff which was part of one of the best teams ever. The 1960s Dodgers, with Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Don Sutton should appear on any all-time list. The 1980s mets teams, led by Doc Gooden, were pretty darn good as well. Then there are the 1971 Baltimore Orioles, the only team to ever have four pitchers win 20 games in a single season.

But has there ever been a foursome this stacked — on paper — than this Phantastic one? Maybe if you put Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player on the same Ryder Cup team.

In Lee, the Phillies acquire an old-school bulldog whose career numbers, while impressive, fail to tell the full story. He had one excellent season during his first few in the bigs, then he started dominating in 2008 and hasn’t looked back. In 2008, he won the Cy Young Award by going a staggering 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA and 170 strikeouts in 223.1 innings — in the juiced-up American League East, no less. From that year to now, Clifton Phifer Lee has pitched for four teams and compiled these numbers: 48 wins, 25 losses, 17 complete games, three-year averages of 222.1 innings pitched, 178.6 strikeouts (5.65 to every walk), and a 2.96 Earned Run Average with a 1.12 WHIP (walks and hits over innings pitched). Those numbers are, as Derek Zoolander would say, “Really, really, ridiculously good-looking.”

Lee is a monster at the top of his game, like The Thing. He joins “Mr. Fantastic” Halladay, “The Human Torch” Oswalt, and Hamels — “The Invisible (Wo)Man.”

All corny Marvel Comics jokes aside, the Phantastic Phour look to be a real-life superpower. Their combined regular-season record is 481-275 — a .636 winning percentage. They have a group ERA of 3.47 (almost all of it compiled during the Steroid Era), 105 complete games and 36 shutouts, over 5,000 strikeouts, a 3.46 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 1.20 WHIP. Between them, they have six 20-win seasons, fifteen 15-win seasons, 13 All-Star Game selections, 14 Cy Young top-five finishes and three Cy Young Awards. They all average over 218 innings pitched and 168 strikeouts per 162-game seasons for their careers.

And in the postseason, they’re even better. Their combined record of 20-8 (.714 winning percentage), 2.86 ERA, 8.27 strikeouts-per-nine-innings, 4.23 strikeouts-per-walks numbers and 0.998 WHIP speak for themselves. Add to that two League Championship Series MVP awards and one World Series MVP award, five complete games, Lee’s Hollywood-worthy performances against the Yankees and Rays the last two years, and Halladay’s throwing of only the second no-hitter in postseason history.

Add to that the fact that they’re all in their primes, play in a stadium with a tremendous home-crowd advantage, and have a terrific defense and normally potent offense behind them. (Last season, the Phillies struggled at the plate more than in previous years.)

But — and there is a “but” — all this is on paper. It’s a common “but” in sports, and the situation’s no different here. If one or more of them get injured, it goes down the drain. The same happens if one of them pulls a Rick Ankiel, a Plaxico Burress or a Tracy McGrady — i.e., become useless to the team overnight.

Additionally, plenty of great pitching staffs have come up short in the postseason. Look no further than last year’s Phillies team, the 1954 Cleveland Indians (who had three future Hall-of-Famers and got swept in the World Series), and the 1993 Braves (who lost to the Phillies in the playoffs).

There are even times when a supposedly great group, pre-season, simply turns into a bust. Take the 2005 Yankees’ rotation, which featured Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown. All those guys had the credentials, but that season it fell apart like a game of Jenga.

Should that happen this year, with these Phillies? No. This group has been too good and too consistent — with the possible exception of Hamels — to completely lose its dominance for no reason. Injury, by far, represents the greatest threat to this squad, but these guys have all been extremely durable on top of their proficient pitching.

It’s easy to say that — on paper — anything can happen, and all this is conjecture.

But you know what? On paper, the Phillies four aces sure look Phantastic.

Philly class to me, Thome

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

Saturday afternoon, my dad, sister, and I attended the Phillies’ 13-10 loss to the Minnesota Twins at Citizens Bank Park. The loss punched us in our guts — the Phils squandered a five-run lead in the ninth inning, fell behind in extra innings, tied it with a down-to-their-last-out homer, then blew it an inning later.

But there were lots of silver linings. For instance: The Phillies actually started hitting the ball! (They had looked like the Phollies at the plate for a few weeks.)

The most poignant moment for me, though, occurred in the top of the ninth inning, at the start of the Twins’ rally. Leading off the inning, Minnesota’s Delmon Young singled. Then the Twins sent a pinch-hitter named Jim Thome to the plate.

And almost every Phillie fan cheered — many of them on their feet. Myself included.

Why did we cheer an opposing player? Because he used to be one of ours.

From 2003-2005, Thome (pronounced “Toe-mee”) played in Philly, a true superstar in a city that hadn’t seen one on the baseball field in a number of years. When the Phils signed him, Thome was coming off a year in which he hit .304 with 52 home runs and 118 runs batted in as a member of the Cleveland Indians. The Phils signed him to a six-year, $85 million offer. It was a huge move for Philadelphia’s ballclub, which had been criticized prior to that point for not making a commitment to winning, for not pursuing top-level free-agents, for not spending money to give the team a legitimate shot.

The Thome deal changed that. It (in part) marked a turning point in the franchise’s history, along with the team’s development of homegrown talent like Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard (who eventually usurped Thome at first base) and the construction of Citizens Bank Park. The Thome deal helped bring a winning culture to Philadelphia baseball.

Much of the credit for that goes to Thome himself, who led the league in homers during his first year in red-and-white, with 47. He had 131 RBI that year. The next season, 2004, he smashed 42 dingers and drove in 105 runs.

Then Thome’s Phillie career took a downturn while the franchise kept moving forward. In 2005, he suffered injuries that limited his production. In 59 games, he hit .207 with seven homers and 30 RBI before undergoing season-ending surgery. The Phillies called up Ryan Howard, who won the National League’s Rookie of the Year award and paved the way for Thome’s departure.

From 2006 to now, Thome’s career has slowed down. He played a few seasons for the White Sox, spent a fortnight with the Dodgers, then made his way to the Twins this season. Along the way, he hit his 500th career home run, a major milestone, and now has a chance to climb into the upper echelon of the game’s all-time power hitters.

On Saturday, with a runner on first in the ninth inning, he hit career home run No. 570 against his former ballclub. It was a mammoth tater that traveled an estimated 456 feet and pulled the Twins within three runs. It was the kind of home run that, under normal circumstances, Philly fans might have booed with gusto.

But not this time.

Because it was Thome who hit it, the fans rose to their feet. An opposing player, in Philadelphia, receiving a standing O for hitting a two-run homer in the ninth! It made me smile my smile off.

For all the bad-mouthing Philadelphia fans take in the mainstream media and in all the gin joints in all the towns of the world — some of it deserved, some of it not — this was a shining moment of class. Say what you want about Philly fans, but don’t ever say that the nuances of sport are lost on them. On Saturday, they got it. Big time. Here was a guy who had come to Philadelphia and helped turn the franchise around, and the fans remembered and appreciated it.

Thome’s always been one of the ‘good guys’ in baseball, a consummate pro. There were times in Philly when he stunk — especially during his injury-plagued 2005 campaign — and the fans booed him like they once did Santa Claus (one of the more prominent anecdotes Philly-bashers love referencing).

But ask any player who’s ever played in this town, who’s done things the right way, and he (or she) will tell you: In the long run, the fans get it right. Jim Thome left the City of Brotherly Love on not-so-pleasant terms, but he returned yesterday on terrific ones, even when his contributions helped cost the Phillies a win. The people remembered what Thome had meant to the city, to the organization, to them.

It wasn’t a moment the national media would notice or recognize; it wasn’t the kind of act the major news outlets give Philly fans get credit for. They didn’t boo anyone or pelt a player with batteries or beat anyone up.

All they did was stand up and cheer for a stand-up guy. Because in their eyes, he’d done damn good.

And they’d done damn good, too.

Harry Kalas Column

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

Originally published in The Daily Tar Heel, April 17, 2009. Click Here: Remembering The Voice I’ll Miss The Most to see the column in its original format (as it was intended to be read).

Monday afternoon, my friend Jeff sent me a text message from his house in our hometown of Voorhees, N.J., a Philadelphia suburb.
“Harry died,” he wrote.
Instantly, I knew who he meant. Jeff didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to.
Harry Kalas. “The Voice of the Phillies,” Philadelphia’s home team. The voice of NFL Films, located 10 minutes from Voorhees in Cherry Hill.
The voice of our youth.
Listening to anybody broadcasting a Phils game besides Kalas felt like watching a substitute host on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. It wasn’t the same.
Remember, Tar Heel fans, occasionally having to curse the TV set during Billy Packer’s play- by-play instead of enjoying Woody Durham’s? For 38 years, that was any Phillies game without Kalas.
Right now, thousands of Phillies fans feel emptier than AIG’s piggy bank — myself included.
It’s a weird phenomenon. Most of us never met Kalas, yet we all feel that we lost a dear friend.
Think about Jeff ’s text: “Harry died.” As if we spent every day hanging out with the guy. Most likely, thousands of people sent that same text to their close friends and family, and the person receiving the text probably never replied, “Harry who?”
That’s amazing. This man connected with people, through the simple act of announcing baseball games, in a profound way.
What is it that draws us to sports media personalities such as Kalas, or Durham, or Howard Cosell or Vin Scully? Or outside of sports, to people like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow or Johnny Carson?
We don’t know them, yet we sometimes feel closer to them than our own family members (especially in-laws).
People understood Kalas. Trusted him. Knew his style, his cadence, his “Struck ’im outtt!” and “Outta hereee!” calls like their parents’ “Dinner!” yells.
My singular meeting with Kalas sticks in my mind: Starry-eyed, pimply-faced, teenage me approaching a hometown legend with a red baseball bearing a white “P.” Still got the ball, and the memory.
The last time our paths crossed, though, was Halloween 2009. I know because I left Chapel Hill on Oct. 30 at 11 p.m., caught
the Phillies World Series victory parade at home, then made it back to Franklin Street 24 hours after departure. The last time I saw Harry Kalas, he was perched on a fire truck, beaming, a world champ. That made it worth the trip.
I can still hear his understated voice narrating my daily activities: “Rosenthal rubs his eyes. Top of the seventh hour. Goes into his stretch … leg swing, and he’s up, up, up … That boy is outta beddd!”
But Harry the K was more than a voice. He was 38 years of Phillies history.
Think about it: Kalas told the Phillies’ story, day-in, day-out, to three generations of fans. My dad was there for Kalas’ first Phillies broadcast, on April 10, 1971, when the team opened Veterans Stadium.
When the Phils moved to Citizens Bank Park in 2004, guess who occupied the broadcast booth? (The Phillies have now renamed it “The Harry Kalas Broadcast Booth: ‘That ball’s outta here!’”)
Kalas represented the Phillies as much as, if not more than, the red and white on the players’ uniforms, the “P” on their hats and the stadiums they played in.
Saturday morning at home plate, fans will pay their respects beside Kalas’ casket. Get this: Such an on-field memorial happened only twice before in MLB history — once for revered broad- caster Jack Buck, and once before that for a fellow named George Herman Ruth. Some people called him “The Babe.”
Know what? Buck and Bambino are in damn good company.
My friend Jeff flew back from Jersey to UNC on Wednesday. That entire afternoon, he must have looked at me at least five times, shook his head, and said, “Harry’s gone.” Had to convince himself of the unthinkable.
He said it wouldn’t hit me until I went back home and watched a Phillies broadcast without The Voice of the Phillies.
He was right. It won’t sink in until a Phils broadcast comes on, and some stranger’s face gives me the “Wait — that’s not Mister Rogers” reaction.
That’s when it’ll become real:

Harry died.

Harry’s gone.

And it won’t be the same.

Ever.

Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose24@gmail.com

Elevated Play of UNC’s Lawson Helps Tar Heels Mature

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

By Sam Rosenthal

Originally Posted on WRALsportsfan.com: Jan 9, 2008.

Ty Lawson had the ball with 5.4 seconds left in overtime. His North Carolina Tar Heels trailed the Clemson Tigers, 88-87. UNC’s unblemished record and No. 1 national ranking hung in the balance.

Lawson caught Marcus Ginyard’s in-bounds pass near the Carolina bench, took two power dribbles to the right and lassoed a pass to the left. It evaded three pairs of Tiger paws before reaching Wayne Ellington on the left wing.

Ellington’s 3-pointer found the bottom of the net with 0.4 seconds remaining as UNC won, 90-88.

Last season, Lawson said, the Tar Heels probably would have lost the game.

“Last year, we probably would have gotten a terrible shot up or something like that. I don’t think we would have even come close,” he said.

Moreover, the victory came at the end of an overtime period that UNC forced by erasing a seven-point lead in the final 2:37 of regulation.

“I don’t think we would have come back from that last year because we were real young. We probably would have started firing threes, not taking our time playing defense,” Lawson said.

The star point guard wears a Toronto Blue Jays hat because he likes the color. He still watches the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants because he picked up the habit in high school. Yet, he is maturing, and rapidly, on the court.

“I’m playing a lot better this year than last year. I think I’m scoring more, trying to look for my shot more, and just getting more people involved,” Lawson said. He has averaged 13.2 points, 5.6 assists and 2.0 steals per game this season, and he’s shooting 80 percent from the free throw line. Last year, he averaged 10.2 points, 5.6 assists and 1.5 steals per game while shooting 69 percent from the charity stripe.

Lawson’s elevated play certainly qualifies as one of the main forces behind North Carolina’s success this season. UNC is lucky just to have him playing. After all, Lawson, Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough all said, “Not yet,” after their 2006-2007 season ended at the hands of the Georgetown Hoyas.

Lawson, for one, stands by his choice. He returned to UNC for his sophomore year because he wanted to improve aspects of his game – namely, his shooting (from the field and the foul line), controlling the ball and limiting his turnovers.

“My shooting percentage is up, free throw percentage, running the team better, learning a lot of new things, so I think it was a good decision,” he said.

Last year, Lawson averaged 10.2 points while shooting 50.0 percent from the field and 68.8 percent from the foul line.

This year, he is averaging 13.2 points while shooting 54.6 percent overall and 80.0 percent from the line.

Although the 2008 NBA Draft is a few calendar flips away, it’s never too early to wonder: What happens next year – NCAA or NBA?

“I haven’t thought about it too much,” Lawson said, “but probably if we win the national championship, because that’s the main thing I want. So if I get that, I’ll probably go. And if maybe I’m like top 10, top five (in NBA Draft projections), you can’t pass that up. But if I’m not playing well by the end of the year, and I still need to work on stuff, then I’ll stay for another year.”

To win it all, the Tar Heels must overcome the loss of back-up point guard Bobby Frasor, who is out for the season after tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament against Nevada. Lawson said that he needs to raise his own level of play to compensate for the energy, defense, leadership and vocal on-court presence Frasor contributed.

“I have to do more conditioning and play a lot more minutes,” Lawson said. “Like last game, it was up-and-down paced, I was so tired … the main thing I need to work on is endurance.”

Already without its back-up point guard, UNC defeated Valparaiso, Kent State and Clemson with other cogs missing from the machine. Reserve point guard, Quentin Thomas played limited minutes against Clemson after missing the previous two contests because of a sprained ankle, while forward Alex Stepheson returned to the team this week after visiting his ailing father in Los Angeles and missing the Kent State and Clemson games.

“It was a big challenge, especially the last game when Alex wasn’t there, because that was a big man off the bench we needed,” Lawson said. Stepheson is now back with the team, much to Lawson’s liking. He said that if he were stranded on an island with one of his teammates, it would be Stepheson, “because there’s never a dull moment with him.”

But these are not last year’s Tar Heels, and they have so far risen to the occasion in games that they might have lost a season ago – such as their early season losses to Gonzaga and Virginia Tech.

Lawson said that the 2008 Tar Heels are more mature in general.

“Everyone’s gotten better,” he said. “I think we’re all playing with more confidence and swagger.”

Lawson desires a national title and believes that UNC possesses the talent to win one. He feels that Memphis, Kansas and Texas A&M pose the biggest threats at the moment, but said, “We’re playing well right now, playing together. If we keep doing that, I don’t think there’s anybody out there that can beat us.”

UNC’s success may hinge upon Lawson staying healthy and playing a ton of quality minutes. Another stat where his 2007-2008 numbers exceed his 2006-2007 ones: minutes per game. This year, he has played 26.4 minutes per game, and 30.8 over Carolina’s last five. Last season, he played 25.7 minutes per game.

If his minutes increase, rest assured the season will take its toll on Lawson’s body. He needs to weather the storm for Carolina to enjoy March.

And if the Tar Heels win the NCAA Championship, it might abbreviate Ty Lawson’s college career.

It’s a consequence Tar Heel fans will likely suffer with pleasure.

Yu-Na, Ooh La La

Posted on March 1, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

This might come as a surprise, but I’m no expert on figure skating.

“That’s weird, Sam,” you say. “You totally seem like the kind of guy who has a Michelle Kwan poster in your bedroom and knows exactly what Brian Boitano would do. You probably keep a leotard and pair of skates in your car’s trunk at all times, just in case you pass a frozen pond. ”

Hardy har har, aren’t you funny.

And no, I don’t do those things, nor do I follow figure skating on any type of regular or semi-regular basis. However, Blades of Glory is among my oft-quoted movies, and the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan snafu definitely stands in my memory as one of the crazier sport scandals of my lifetime. And, yes, once every four years during the Winter Olympics, I do occasionally leave figure skating on in the background while I do something else more exciting … like count the hairs on my arm.

But I make the following statement in all seriousness: If you missed Kim Yu-Na’s gold-medal-winning figure skating performances during the 2010 Winter Olympics, you need to change that. Now.

Luckily for you, we live in the YouTube Age. NBColympics.com makes it relatively easy (and this should make it even easier) to find the entire video footage of Kim Yu-Na’s short program, free skate, and gala performances from Vancouver.

Not convinced it’s worth your while? Allow me to persuade you.

As aforementioned, figure skating’s not my favorite sport. In fact, I’m not sure it qualifies as a sport, along with curling, cheerleading, and a number of other activities that require some athletic skill … but that’s an argument for a different day.

The point is, you don’t need to be any kind of figure skating enthusiast to appreciate what Kim Yu-Na (or maybe it’s Yu-Na Kim, who knows) did in Vancouver. All you need is a pair of eyes and the ability to appreciate brilliance, because her skating at the Games was a thing of beauty. Perfection, even.

I don’t toss the “P” word around lightly, but I watched all three of her performances start-to-finish and couldn’t find – with my figure-skating expert’s eyes – a single instance in which she hesitated, slipped up, checked her balance, or faltered in any way, not even for a moment. She nailed every jump, spun every spin, and made every whatchamacallit look exactly like everyone knows that whatchamacallit is supposed to look. With a total score of 228.56, she broke her own world record by 18 points (which my bevy of figure skating knowledge tells me is a large margin).

But she did more than that. Every movement she made, every step, every turn, everything, seemed so effortless, so pure and smooth. So perfect. I’ve never seen anyone skate like that. Each aspect of her routines flowed into the next. There was no, “Oh, she’s preparing for a jump now,” or, “OK, here comes the spinny part.” She didn’t perform skating programs made up of component pieces – she painted Van Gogh-esque canvasses, played Mozart-worthy sonatas, and wrote Shakespearean sonnets on the ice.

Really, there are no words to describe the historic quality of Kim Yu-Na’s greatness, so I’m shutting up.

Trust me, though, it’s worth your time: Go watch the videos. Now.

Because that’s what Brian Boitano’d do.

UNC Students Celebrate Tar Heels’ 2009 NCAA National Championship (Video)

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

First Place, 2009 Society of Professional Journalists’ Region 2 Mark of Excellence Awards for Television Sports Photography.

Originally broadcast on the Carolina Week web site.

2009 NCAA Title Celebration on Franklin Street

UNC Soccer Superstar Casey Nogueira Discusses Going Pro (Video)

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

First Place, 2009 Society of Professional Journalists’ Region 2 Mark of Excellence Awards for Television Sports Reporting.

Originally aired on Carolina Week, then ABCNews on Campus.

Nogueira Story

How about ‘The Life of Rosenthal?’

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Sam Rosenthal

Originally published in The Daily Tar Heel, April 25, 2007, under my then-column title, “Wednesday’s Special: Green Eggs and Sam.”

Sports. Illustrated.

Two words that changed my life.

Not because the magazine sparked my interest in sports, not because it made for excellent bathroom reading material, and not because the Swimsuit Issue mingled body paint with 3-D goggles.

No, Sports Illustrated changed my life because the back inside page ran a column by Rick Reilly.

Whenever SI popped up in my mailbox, I always flipped it over to that last page and read the “Life of Reilly,” spellbound, before ever looking at the cover. Outside of schoolwork, I read books as often as I wore women’s clothing (usually once a year during Spirit Week), but I devoured all of Reilly’s books. “Did you read what Rick Reilly wrote?” I always asked my dad.

About the same time, I read an SI article by some Tim Crothers guy about Matt Doherty’s first win against Duke as UNC’s head coach (keep that in mind).

Professional baseball scouts stopped calling after Tee-ball, so instead I dreamed of becoming the next Rick Reilly. From high school to now, I have been “Newspaper Boy,” distant relative of Quailman. I spent three years writing for the Eastern Voyager and joined The Daily Tar Heel sports desk my first semester at North Carolina.

This year, the DTH gave me a weekly sports column – just like Rick Reilly (except he has more money, and I more hair). It has been one helluva semester writing the Wednesday’s Special for you.

In addition to my column, I took a sportswriting class this spring. Early in the course, my professor handed one of his own stories to the class – a Sports Illustrated article about Matt Doherty’s Tar Heels driving back to Chapel Hill after beating Duke at Cameron. This time around, that Tim Crothers guy who wrote it sat before me in Carroll Hall, taking us behind the scenes.

“They call this school?” I thought. “I guess those out-of-state tuition hikes are worth it.”

The class brought out my personal best work; interviewing Dewey Burke one-on-one for my final was as pleasurable as a Bojangles’ chicken biscuit (though I’ll never eat the recording). And because my column ran on class days, I picked Crothers’ brain on every bite of Green Eggs and Sam.

Weekly advice from a Sports Illustrated veteran? I kept imagining it was all a dream, that I would wake up one day to find my hand in a bowl of warm water and my roommates taking Polaroids. If you told me five years ago that I would be here today, I would have given your foolish keister a wedgie.

But here I am, the semester in the books, my columns on the pages. I’ve never learned so much about myself or my writing before. One of my favorite books – W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” – raises the idea that we never know how truly happy we are during certain parts of our lives until we reminisce later on. That said, I know that I will look back on this year someday as one of the happiest of my lifetime.

For that, I offer my sincerest gratitude to my readers – many people who I know, many who I don’t, all who I appreciate. I find it easy to express my feelings in writing, but I never know the right words when I’m eating chicken tenders at Joe’s Joint and you tell me how you and a friend sit down every week to read my column.

Once, my friend Bonnie stopped me on the street while walking with her boyfriend and whispered in my ear, “He loves your columns. He always asks me, ‘Did you read what Sam Rosenthal wrote today?'”

I still call my dad almost weekly asking if he’s read Rick Reilly’s latest piece, so that made my day (slash lifetime). “I think I’m gonna blush,” was the best I could stammer.

This column is my “Thank you” note to anyone who has ever given me feedback, good or bad.

Whether or not I go on to become the next Rick Reilly, Steve Rushin or Tim Crothers, I will always cherish this year. I call it Wednesday’s Special because seeing my column in print every week made the day just that for me.

I’ve waited all year to write it:

I hope you liked Green Eggs and Sam.

Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose24@gmail.com.

Athletes can be at home in class, too

Posted on December 27, 2009 by Sam Rosenthal

Originally published in The Daily Tar Heel, April 25, 2008.

Once upon a freshman or sophomore year, Kelly Davies approached me, her mind ill-at-ease.

Davies, a volleyball player, needed to vent about a former Sports Desker’s article, which struck her as, um, a teensy bit insensitive.

“There was some opinion piece about what student-athletes should be taking at Carolina,” Davies rehashed with me last week. “And it said that they should be taking a modified – what does modified mean? – exercise and sports science curriculum.

Continue reading →

Gone in (less than) 9.7 seconds

Posted on December 27, 2009 by Sam Rosenthal

Originally published in The Daily Tar Heel on August 27, 2008.

Mind-boggling.

What a terrific term. Makes you smile just to say it.

In the sports world, we seldom encounter true mind-bogglers – feats stupendous enough to flummox you worse than Paris Hilton holding a paper that reads “turn over” on both sides.

At the Beijing Olympics, we encountered one such diamond in the rough: the number 9.69.

As in 9.69 seconds, or the time it took Jamaica’s Usain Bolt to run the 100-meter dash.

Nine-point-six-nine. Turned that sucker over in my head a million times (felt just like Paris). Nine-point-six-effing-nine!

Do you realize how fast that is?

For perspective, 100 meters equates to 328 feet, 1 inch. So on average, Mr. “Lightning” Bolt covered 33 feet, 10 inches every second of the race.

Look at a spot about 30 feet away from you, and imagine being able to get there in a single second. That’s so fast it makes Barry Sanders look like Barry White.

Yet Bolt actually slowed down at the end of the race. Dragged his feet, threw out his arms in celebration and still became the first man to run the hundred in less than 9.7 seconds.

Consider my mind thoroughly boggled.

But 9.69 was merely the first world record Bolt set in Beijing (breaking his own mark, of 9.72 seconds). He followed up his 100-meter insanity with an equally ridiculous run in the 200 meters.

Bolt crossed the finish in 19.30 seconds, breaking Michael Johnson’s world record from the 1996 Atlanta Games by 0.02 seconds. You probably remember when Johnson set that record; people deemed it unbreakable.

Bolt broke it while running into the wind, this time without letting up at the end. Nobody else in the race fared the slightest chance of beating him; it was Bolt versus Johnson all the way. And as he surpassed the first man to win the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics, Bolt also became the first to sweep the 100m and 200m since Carl Lewis – and Bolt alone won both events in world record time.

Then, in the 4×100 meter relay, Bolt earned another gold medal. He ran the race’s third leg faster than an electrical current and, along with his fleet-footed Jamaican teammates, obliterated the field en route to another world record finish of 37.10 seconds (0.30 seconds faster than the U.S. team in 1993).

Oh, and Usain Bolt turned 22 in Beijing. Makes a certain 21-year-old feel like, well, an underachiever.

But IOC President Jacques Rogge lambasted Bolt for over-celebrating and not congratulating his competitors. Rogge said, “That’s not the way we perceive being a champion,” in response to Bolt’s claiming “I am No. 1” and his catch-me-if-you-can attitude.

There’s something to be said for that. Upon reviewing Bolt’s races, the Jamaican jackrabbit certainly could have acted more sportsmanlike. After Johnson set his 200-meter world record, he hugged the other racers in appreciation.

But in this age of egocentric superstars, sportsmanship often goes by the wayside whether we like it or not.

And you know what? Bolt is No. 1. Catch him? They couldn’t. No matter how Rogge perceives a champion, he cannot deny that Bolt indeed is one.

So let’s put “Lightning” Bolt’s performance into context:

Sprinting must have been one of humanity’s earliest forms of competition. Some dude probably turned to another dude and said, “Hey, see that spot over there? Bet I can get there before you.” So easy a caveman could do it.

That said, we have no knowledge of anyone, ever, being better at getting to a spot 100 meters or 200 meters away than Usain Bolt.

You know the aphorism “There’s always a bigger fish?” Well, right now, in the ocean of sprinting – one of the oldest oceans in the world of athletic competition – Bolt is the Kraken, Moby Dick and Leviathan rolled into one. There has never been a bigger fish.