Authentic Home Run King Hank Aaron Passes Away

Hank Aaron, who is baseball's authentic all-time home run king despite what MLB's fraudulent record book says, has passed away at the age of 86. Aaron blasted 756 home runs during his 23 season career, breaking the record of 714 that had long been held by Babe Ruth. Aaron received a lot of racist hate mail as he approached Ruth's record, but Aaron's quiet, firm dignity never wavered. He began his MLB career shortly after Jackie Robinson integrated the sport, and he joined Robinson in not only overcoming racist obstacles placed in his path but also establishing himself as one of the greatest players of all-time. 

In addition to being the authentic home run champion, Aaron holds the official MLB career records for RBIs (2297), total bases (6856), and extra-base hits (1477). He ranks third in career hits (3771), third in career games played (3298), and fourth in career runs scored (2174).

Aaron won the National League MVP in 1957, the same year he led the Milwaukee Braves to a World Series title. He holds the MLB record for most seasons on an All-Star roster (21) and most All-Star Game selections (25); MLB played two All-Star Games during some years, so Aaron actually has more All-Star Game selections than career seasons played, and the only seasons during which he was not selected as an All-Star were his first (1954) and his last (1976). Aaron, a career .305 hitter, won two NL batting titles (1956, 1959), and he ranked in the top five in batting average 11 times.

Although Aaron never had a 50 home run season, he belted at least 40 home runs in eight different campaigns, tied for the second most such seasons all-time behind only Babe Ruth (11). Aaron led the NL in home runs four times (1957, 1963, 1966-67). Remarkably, in addition to his prodigious power hitting he also ranked in the NL's top ten in stolen bases eight times, including second in 1963 with a career high 31. Although he is not primarily known for defense, he earned three Gold Gloves (1958-60).

Aaron was not only consistently productive, but he was remarkably durable, playing in at least 150 games in 14 different seasons. He spent most of his career with the Braves franchise, first in Milwaukee (1954-1965) and then with Atlanta (1966-74), before returning to Milwaukee to spend two years in the American League as a designated hitter for the Brewers.

The biggest sports stars of the 1970s--including Julius Erving, Pete Maravich, Bjorn Borg, Mario Andretti, and Muhammad Ali--will always hold a special place in my heart, and Aaron is inextricably linked to the 1970s, even though his prime years were behind him by that time. I am not quite old enough to remember that fateful night in 1974 when Aaron broke Ruth's home run record, but when I watched Greatest Sports Legends or other vintage sports telecasts as a child I heard Milo Hamilton's famous call: "Here's the pitch by Downing. Swinging. There's a drive into left-center field. That ball is going to be out of here! IT'S GONE! IT'S 715! There's a new home run champion of all-time! And it's Henry Aaron!" That great moment was an early part of my introduction to sports, and an indelible memory.

It is also worth remembering what Vin Scully said at that time to place Aaron's accomplishment in historical perspective: "What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron."

Hank Aaron lived the right way, played the right way, and he remains baseball's authentic home run king.

Lubomir Kavalek: Chess Champion, Author, Trainer, and Organizer

Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek, one of the top 10 chess players in the world during the 1970s, has passed away at the age of 77. During his long and distinguished career he not only played at an elite level, but he also served as Bobby Fischer's unofficial second during the 1972 World Chess Championship, he trained many champions, he wrote hundreds of chess columns, and he organized tournaments.

Kavalek's chess career lasted for several decades. If you came of age as a chess player in the 1970s, then you remember Lubomir Kavalek as one of America's top players. If you came of age as a chess player in the 1980s, then you remember Lubomir Kavalek as a top trainer and organizer. If you came of age as a chess player in the 1990s or 2000s, then you remember Lubomir Kavalek as a chess writer who called a young Magnus Carlsen the "Mozart of Chess":

Kavalek left a deep imprint on chess history. Grandmaster Andy Soltis has said that if Kavalek had done nothing other than win his spectacular 1962 Student Olympiad game against Eduard Gufeld then Kavalek would still always be remembered. That game is remarkable--Kavalek's three passed pawns prevailed against Gufeld's Rook--but Kavalek was just 18 when he played that game, with a tremendous future in front of him.

Kavalek won the Czech national championship twice in the 1960s before defecting to the United States. After Fischer abandoned the tournament scene, Kavalek and Walter Browne emerged as America's top two players. Kavalek won two U.S. titles during the 1970s (and lost a playoff for a third title), while Browne won three U.S. titles during the 1970s (and three more during the 1980s). During that period, Kavalek and Browne battled--along with Robert Byrne and Larry Evans--to be the top ranked U.S. player on the FIDE (International Chess Federation) list, and on at least one occasion (January 1975) Browne and Kavalek were listed right next to each other, separated by just five rating points, behind Fischer (who was still listed even though he had not played since winning the World Championship in 1972) and Byrne. In January 1979, Kavalek ranked first and Browne second among U.S. players on the FIDE list. 

Kavalek organized the 1979 Montreal Tournament of the Stars, one of the strongest chess tournaments ever held. He also played in the event, starting off poorly with 1.5/9 but rallying to score 6.5/9 in the second half. Kavalek later said this was his best tournament performance. World Champion Anatoly Karpov and former World Champion Mikhail Tal shared first place.

Kavalek transitioned from being an active player to being a chess author, trainer, and organizer/promoter. He wrote a chess column for The Washington Post from 1995-2010, and then he wrote a chess column for The Huffington Post. Kavalek's chess writing sparkled with interesting analogies--in one column, he discussed similarities between the "baseline" styles of Bjorn Borg and Magnus Carlsen--in depth game analysis, and thoughtful musings about ways in which chess is both an art and a violent sport 

Kavalek understood that chess is much more than a game or a pastime. He declared, "Just to think about it as a game is degrading. It has certain elements of science and art and some competitive elements that have even to do with sport. It tests your imagination; it tests a lot of things. Sometimes it is not all pleasure. Sometimes you suffer."

Kavalek participated in nine Chess Olympiads--two while representing Czechoslovakia and seven while representing the United States--and he was a member of Team USA's gold medal winning 1976 squad. He was inducted in the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2001.

Chiefs and Browns Demonstrate That Football Really is a Game of Inches

"The inches we need are everywhere around us."-- Coach Tony D'Amato in "Any Given Sunday"

It is often said that football is a game of inches, and the truth inherent in that cliche was vividly illustrated during a few key plays as the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Cleveland Browns 22-17 to advance to the AFC Championship Game for the third straight season.

The Browns were trying to maintain the momentum from last week's dominating road win in Pittsburgh, the franchise's first road playoff win since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, but most analysts did not expect this matchup to be competitive. The Chiefs stormed to a 19-3 halftime lead, but the Browns were just inches away from trailing only 16-10 prior to intermission. 

Rashard Higgins led the Browns with 88 receiving yards on five catches (Jarvis Landry led the Browns with seven receptions, but he gained only 20 yards on those plays), and he had two catches for 48 yards on back to back plays near the end of the first half. After the second of those catches, Higgins dove for the right endzone pylon but he lost control of the ball, resulting in a touchback for the Chiefs. Kansas City's Daniel Sorensen delivered an illegal--but uncalled--helmet to helmet hit on Higgins that should have nullified the fumble and placed the Browns just inches away from tying the game with a touchdown and successful extra point. Instead, the Chiefs quickly drove for a field goal to extend their lead to 19-3. After the game, Cleveland Coach Kevin Stefanski praised Higgins' determination to score but also pointedly noted that he coaches his players to not extend the ball at the goal line precisely because of the high risk nature of such a play. CBS' Bill Cowher suggested that the NFL rule regarding an offensive player fumbling the ball into the endzone is overly punitive to the offensive team, and he suggested that the offense should receive the ball at the 20 yard line instead of the defense being granted a touchback. Cowher's colleague Boomer Esiason noted that it is a flaw in the NFL replay rules that Sorenson's dangerous and illegal helmet to helmet hit is not reviewable (replay review is only available for calls that are made, not missed calls).

The Browns proved their resiliency by fighting back in the second half and creating opportunities to win the game. The second half started disastrously as Baker Mayfield threw an interception deep in Cleveland territory, but the Browns held the Chiefs to an unsuccessful field goal attempt. The Browns then drove 77 yards in eight plays for a Landry touchdown reception. 

Former MVP and former Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes left the game at the 7:27 mark of the third quarter with a possible concussion. He passed for 255 yards and one touchdown with no interceptions while completing 21 of 30 attempts. The Chiefs' drive stalled after journeyman Chad Henne replaced Mahomes, and they settled for a field goal--their final points of the game.

The Browns responded with an 18 play, 75 yard drive that lasted 8:17, included two fourth down conversions, and culminated in a three yard touchdown run by ex-Chief Kareem Hunt. The Chiefs led 22-17 with 11:07 remaining in the fourth quarter, and they had to navigate the closing moments without Mahomes, who could not return to action due to the NFL's concussion protocols.

On Kansas City's next possession, Henne threw an interception in the endzone, and the Browns started their drive at their 20 yard line with 8:00 left. The Browns converted a fourth and one to retain possession but, facing fourth and nine at their 32 with 4:19 left, they punted the ball, and they never ran another offensive play. Perhaps they were counting on being able to stop the Chiefs' Henne-led offense, but the Browns had already burned two timeouts and the best case realistic scenario after punting would have been along the lines of needing to drive 70 or 80 yards for a touchdown with about two minutes left and no timeouts. It would be interesting to know the odds of accomplishing that feat compared to the odds of converting fourth down and nine yards to go; I am sure that the odds are against both, but I suspect that the statistics would show that going for it on fourth down is a valid choice in that scenario. 

Henne led the Chiefs to a first down, forcing the Browns to use their final timeout. The Browns sacked Henne for a six yard loss on second and eight. On third and 14, Henne rushed for 13 yards, placing the Chiefs just inches away from a game-clinching first down. Now, the Chiefs faced the punt or go for it decision on fourth and one in their own territory. After the game, Chiefs Coach Andy Reid said that there was no doubt--at least on his sideline--that the Chiefs would go for it. Henne's short pass to Tyreek Hill netted five yards, and enabled the Chiefs to run out the clock. Henne finished 6-8 for 66 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception. Officially, he had two rushes for 12 yards, but the second carry was a game-ending kneeldown in victory formation. 

The heavily-favored Chiefs won by just five points, but what if Higgins had not fumbled out of the endzone or what if a targeting penalty had correctly been called against Kansas City on that play? What if the Browns had gone for it on fourth down late in the fourth quarter instead of punting the ball away? What if the Chiefs had not converted on fourth and one, giving the Browns the ball less than 50 yards away from being able to score the potentially winning touchdown? Of course, Chiefs fans may wonder what might have happened had Mahomes not been injured, but the game seemed to be heading toward a close finish either way, as the Browns proved during the second half that they could move the ball and score touchdowns. The teams combined to run 123 plays from scrimmage, and a few inches here or there on a handful of those plays could have changed the outcome. 

Losing close playoff games is nothing new to the Browns, whose fans have labeled many of those painful defeats with memorable names: Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble. The Browns' previous playoff loss, to Pittsburgh in 2003, came after Dennis Northcutt dropped a third down pass when a first down would have enabled the Browns to run out the clock on their division rivals. The Browns, after being pro football's dominant team in the 1940s (four AAFC titles in four seasons) and early 1950s (three titles and six straight championship game appearances to open the decade), have created an unfortunate organizational identity of being a team that consistently fails to find the inches that are everywhere around them. Browns fans can only hope that the 2020 season is the start of a new trend that will result in at least one Super Bowl win, as opposed to a continuation of decades of heartbreak.

The Chiefs are just the second NFL team to host three straight conference championship games. The first team to accomplish this was the Philadelphia Eagles, who hosted three consecutive NFC Championship Games from 2002-04 under the direction of Andy Reid. Reid's Eagles lost two of those NFC Championship Games, and they lost in the Super Bowl after winning the 2004 NFC Championship Game. Prior to arriving in Kansas City, Reid had a long history of losing in championship games, posting an 0-1 Super Bowl record and a 1-4 NFC Championship Game record, but he won his first AFC title and first Super Bowl last year, and he is now two victories away from becoming just the seventh coach to win back to back Super Bowls.

Browns Shock Steelers, Post First Road Playoff Win Since 1969

Due to COVID-19 protocols, the Cleveland Browns traveled to Pittsburgh without their head coach, their offensive line coach, and several players. Pittsburgh has been a house of horror for the Browns for the better part of the past 50 years, and there was little reason to believe that this would change during Sunday night's Wild Card playoff game--but the Browns' defense recovered a botched snap and scored on the first play from scrimmage en route to the Browns taking a 28-0 first quarter lead as the Browns tied the NFL playoff record for points in a first quarter. The Browns withstood Pittsburgh's second half rally to prevail 48-37. 

That is the third most points the Browns have scored in a playoff game, trailing only their 49-7 win over Buffalo in the 1948 All-America Football Conference (AAFC) Championship Game, and their 56-10 win over Detroit in the 1954 NFL Championship Game. 

Baker Mayfield earned a win in his first playoff start, completing 23 of 34 passes for 263 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. Ben Roethlisberger set an NFL single-game record (including regular season and playoff games) with 47 completions (in 68 attempts, a playoff single-game record) and he amassed 501 passing yards (second most in playoff history, trailing only a 505 yard performance by Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII) plus four touchdowns but he also had four interceptions. Mayfield's passer rating was a sizzling 115.5, while Roethlisberger's was 85.5. The Steelers ran more offensive plays than the Browns (84-65) and gained more yards (553-390), but the Steelers also had five turnovers while the Browns had no turnovers.

The Browns' last playoff win was a victory over New England in January 1995. Bill Belichick coached in that game--but for the Browns, not for the Patriots! The Browns' last road playoff win came in Dallas in 1969. Since that game, the Browns had lost eight consecutive road playoff games, with the two most recent losses--"recent" being a relative term here, since those "recent" losses happened in 2003 and 1995--both inflicted by the Steelers.  

The last time the Browns posted a plus-.500 regular season record was 2007, when Cleveland briefly became "Believeland" in the wake of strong performances by the Cavaliers, Indians, and Browns, but the "Believeland" joy did not last long: LeBron James soon quit during the playoffs before fleeing Cleveland for Miami (though he later returned to Cleveland and led the Cavaliers to the 2016 NBA title), the Indians did not win another division title for nine years, and the clock struck midnight after the 2007 season as the Cinderella Browns resumed being the sad-sack Browns. 

Just four years ago, the Browns narrowly averted posting an 0-16 season before finishing 1-15--and then they went 0-16 in the next season, forever placing themselves on the short list of worst teams ever. The NFL is built to produce parity, and Bill Walsh explained many years ago that a properly run franchise can go from the basement to the penthouse in three years. Thus, it is inexcusable that the Browns were so terrible for so long, but it is a good sign that the current regime has built a strong playoff squad so soon after the Browns' winless season.

These are not the same old sorry Browns, contrary to JuJu Smith-Schuster's attempt to revive (more or less) what the 49ers once said about the "same old" Rams--of course, the 49ers had the good sense to wait to make that comment until after the outcome was certain to be in their favor, while Smith-Schuster opened his mouth prior to Sunday's playoff game to write a check that his team could not cash. 

The Browns will deservedly be heavy underdogs next week when they travel to Kansas City to battle the defending Super Bowl champions but--regardless of the outcome of that game--these Browns should be a playoff team for the next several years. Mayfield seems to have that hard to define but easy to see "it" factor; he not only has the physical tools to get the job done--including a powerful arm and excellent mobility--but he has emerged as a fiery and determined leader for this young team. In addition, this season the running back duo Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt powered the Browns' most prolific rushing attack since the Leroy Kelly era, Jarvis Landry is the veteran leader of a very good receiving corps, Myles Garrett has emerged as an elite pass rusher, and the offensive line is not only talented but deep (as demonstrated in the Pittsburgh win after a combination of COVID-19 protocols plus in-game injuries decimated the unit to the point that Mayfield was playing behind at least one player who he had not even met until just before the game started!). "Believeland" was a mirage that briefly appeared during a two decade desert exile, but the Browns' victory over the Steelers is real, and there is good reason to believe that it is the start of something big for the team's long-suffering fans.

Nadal Dominates Djokovic to Win Record 13th French Open and Tie Federer With 20 Grand Slam Singles Titles

Move over Roger Federer: there is a new King of Grand Slam tennis. Rafael Nadal claimed his record 13th French Open singles title--and tied Federer for first on the all-time list with 20 Grand Slam singles titles--by defeating Novak Djokovic 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 in the French Open. Nadal is the first Open Era (i.e., post-1968) player to win four Grand Slam singles titles without losing a single set, breaking the record he shared with Bjorn Borg. Nadal is also the first Open era player to win six Grand Slam singles titles after the age of 30. For context, consider that Don Budge, Boris Becker, and Stefan Edberg each won six Grand Slam singles titles in their entire careers!

It has been fashionable for well over a decade to designate Federer as the greatest tennis player of all-time, even though Nadal owns a decisive 24-16 head to head advantage versus Federer, including 10-4 in Grand Slam matches. They have never met at the U.S. Open, but Nadal leads 6-0 at the French Open and 3-1 at the Australian Open, while Federer leads 3-1 at Wimbledon; it is important to note that Nadal beat Federer at Federer's best Grand Slam (Wimbledon) but Federer has never beaten Nadal at Nadal's best Grand Slam (French Open). Nadal has won 35 Masters 1000 titles compared to Federer's 28.

The only meaningful statistical advantage that Federer had over Nadal was total Grand Slam singles titles, though of course Federer enjoyed a head start since he is nearly five years older than Nadal. Now that Nadal has tied Federer--with a great opportunity to pass Federer--it is difficult to find a rational justification to rank Federer ahead of Nadal. Federer's fans would argue that head to head does not matter or that the head to head comparison is somehow unfair because so many of the matches were played on clay, which is Nadal's best surface. Head to head does not matter if one player has the clearly superior overall resume, or if the head to head sample size is small, or if the head to head sample size pits one player in his prime versus another player who either had not reached his prime or was clearly past his prime. Here, Nadal's overall resume is certainly not worse than Federer's, the head to head sample size is large, and--if anything--in the early going it could be said that Federer was in his prime while Nadal was still improving. In any case, Nadal built a head to head advantage early on in the matchup, and has maintained it ever since.  

Federer is nearly five years older than Nadal and the record shows that Nadal consistently accomplished more at a younger age than Federer did. For example, by age 21 Nadal had won three Grand Slam singles titles while Federer had not won any by age 21. Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam singles title at age 34; Federer had won 17 Grand Slam singles titles at age 34. Federer has been remarkably durable, and his fans speculated (hoped?) that Nadal's body would break down but Nadal has persevered to remain a dominant player in his mid-30s.

Nadal has a better career Grand Slam winning percentage than Federer, winning in 20 of his 60 appearances (.333) compared to 20/79 (.253) for Federer. 

What about Djokovic? He has a slight head to head advantage over Nadal (29-27), but Djokovic has won three fewer Grand Slam singles titles despite being just one year younger than Nadal. Djokovic's Grand Slam winning percentage (17/62; .274) is better than Federer's but worse than Nadal's. Djokovic has a head to head lead over Federer (27-23, including 11-6 in Grand Slam matches). 

It makes no sense to crown Federer as the greatest of all-time when he is not even clearly the greatest of his era. Taking everything into account (totals, winning percentages, head to head), Nadal has the best resume of this era, but it is possible that Djokovic could still pass both Federer and Nadal. 

The player who unfortunately is too often left out of this conversation is Bjorn Borg. If you are too young to remember Borg then the best way to explain him is that during his era he was Federer and Nadal combined. Borg dominated Wimbledon with five straight titles (1976-80), setting the modern record later broken by Pete Sampras (and then surpassed by Federer)--and at the same time Borg dominated the French Open with six titles in eight years (1974-75, 1978-81), setting the modern record later broken by Nadal. Borg is remembered for having a relatively brief career, but he had a long run at the top: his record of winning at least one Grand Slam singles title for eight straight years (1974-81) stood for 19 years until Sampras matched it. Federer equaled this mark in 2010, and then Nadal broke it by winning at least one Grand Slam title for 10 straight years (2005-2014).

Nearly 40 years after he retired (not counting his brief comeback), Borg still holds many records, including some feats that may never be matched: 

1) Best Grand Slam tournament winning percentage (.407; 11/27)

2) Best Open Era Grand Slam singles match winning percentage (.898; 141-16).

3) Best overall winning percentage against Top 10 players (.725)

4) Four consecutive years with overall match winning percentage above .900 (1977-80) 

5) 10 consecutive titles won

By virtue of their longevity, Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic have amassed larger totals than Borg, but ranking tennis players purely by totals would be like ranking NFL running backs purely by yards and then calling Emmitt Smith the greatest running back of all-time. Borg was the best player of his era on both clay and grass, a simultaneous dominance that may never be matched again. Borg did not have a contemporary who dominated him the way that Nadal dominates Federer. 

There is no way to prove this unless someone invents a time machine, but I would submit that from a standpoint of skill set, physical conditioning, and mental toughness, Federer at his Wimbledon best would not beat Borg at his Wimbledon best (assuming that both players are provided identical equipment). We don't even have to talk about Borg versus Federer at the French Open. 

Borg versus Nadal at the French Open might be the most intriguing hypothetical one on one matchup in any sport. Nadal has played longer than Borg did and thus dominated for a longer time, but what would happen if Borg at his French Open best played Nadal at his French Open best? That is a tough call. However, Borg at his Wimbledon best would beat Nadal at his Wimbledon best.

In the absence of those time machine matches, all we can say for sure is that (1) Nadal is nudging aside Federer for the distinction of most accomplished Open Era career, with Djokovic potentially waiting in the wings, and (2) some of Borg's winning percentage records may never be touched.

Related Articles: 

Another Perspective on Borg/Nadal/Federer (February 7, 2009) 

Sports Illustrated Figures Out That It Was Premature to Crown Federer (May 14, 2009)

How Can Federer be the Greatest Player of All-Time if He is Not Even the Greatest Player of His Time? (June 19, 2011)

Federer and Nadal as Non-Religious Experience (March 27, 2012)

MLB Strikes Out, as Usual

Buster Olney's article How shortsighted greed is tearing baseball apart provides a great summary of some of the reasons that MLB is falling apart. It is worth emphasizing that he sees a direct connection between the flawed tanking mentality that has also harmed the NBA and the current mindset that is damaging MLB:

It's the Luhnow mindset as applied to labor relations.

Under Luhnow, the Houston Astros were the sport's supreme practitioners of tanking, becoming the first team since the 1962-65 Mets to lose at least 106 games in three consecutive seasons. In Luhnow's first three seasons as Houston GM, the Astros spent a total of $137.4 million in payroll--$53 million less than the next-lowest team, the Pirates ($190.7 million). The Astros drew a 0.0 in local television ratings for consecutive seasons. They manipulated the service time of some of their best young players, as did other teams. Luhnow's team engaged in ultra, next-level sign-stealing, and traded for Roberto Osuna fresh off his 75-game suspension under the sport's domestic violence policy.

But so long as the math made sense, Luhnow pushed the envelope and the Astros won a World Series in 2017. Of course, in the big picture, Luhnow's management turned out to be a disaster for many reasons besides wins and losses. Under his watch, the Astros helped to drag the sport under a low bar of credibility as other teams tried to replicate his formula, with fans left to wonder if what they paid to see was farcical.

Throughout those years, which included Luhnow giving the OK for a club employee to monitor the opposing dugout from an adjacent camera well, you kept waiting for someone to step up and lead. You kept waiting for someone to acknowledge the astounding accumulation of damage to good-faith competition and operation, just as you keep on waiting for someone on the owners' side to end this embarrassing negotiation with the players' association, rather than engaging in this battle of reconstituted Spam offers.

The house of baseball is burning and somebody needs to put out the fire immediately, by making a deal that moves the sport forward beyond this absurd fight over increments.

The opportunity to own the sporting stage in early July is gone. The potential goodwill (and ratings) all but certain for the first big sport out of the gate may be all but squandered.

Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts talking about a cash-flow problem when tens of millions of people have lost their jobs? Not good. Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt, who has seen the value of his franchise multiply by at least a factor of 10, talking about how you can't make money in baseball? Not good.

If COVID-19 had not prevented the 2020 MLB season from starting on time, the focus would have been on MLB's weak, incompetent, and impotent response to widespread cheating. Now, the focus on that fiasco may have faded a bit, but only because MLB seems determined to commit suicide.

MLB has been a disaster for over 25 years; the best thing that the sport did in that time period, paradoxically, is to have a strike that ended Michael Jordan's baseball career; this hastened his NBA comeback, during which he won three more NBA titles, culminating in the "Last Dance" season. The strike was terrible for baseball, but I would gladly give up the World Series in exchange for watching Michael Jordan play in the NBA again.

Bud Selig was a horrible Commissioner who presided over the destruction of MLB's once-cherished record book; it is a travesty and an embarrassment that he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame at all, let alone that he was welcomed while Pete Rose remains banned. Rob Manfred, Selig's successor, may turn out to be even more horrible than Selig was--as bad as Selig was, MLB did not die on his watch; if Manfred and crew do not get their act together, MLB may lose the entire 2020 season, and suffer permanent damage.

Don Shula's Legacy of Winning With Integrity

Don Shula, the NFL's all-time leader in regular season coaching wins (328) and combined regular season/playoff wins (347), passed away on May 4 at the age of 90. Shula is best known for leading the 1972 Miami Dolphins to a 17-0 record and the Super Bowl title, the only perfect season in NFL history (three other teams--the 1934 Chicago Bears, the 1942 Chicago Bears, and the 2007 New England Patriots--enjoyed undefeated regular seasons but did not win the NFL Championship or Super Bowl). The Dolphins repeated as Super Bowl champions in 1973, posting a 15-2 overall record. From 1971-73, the Dolphins went 44-6-1 overall with three straight Super Bowl appearances and two Super Bowl titles.

Before he became a coach, Shula had 21 interceptions while playing for three teams during his seven season (1951-57) NFL career. Shula spent two seasons as a college assistant coach before becoming an assistant coach for the Detroit Lions in 1960. He then served two seasons as the Lions' defensive coordinator (1961-62) before becoming the Baltimore Colts' head coach in 1963. At that time, Shula was the youngest head coach in NFL history. The Colts went 7-7 in 1962 (the season before Shula arrived), and by 1964 they were a 12-2 team that advanced to the NFL Championship Game before losing 27-0 to the Cleveland Browns. 

During his 33 year NFL head coaching career, Shula made 19 playoff appearances, won 16 division titles (including four straight from 1971-74, and five straight from 1981-85), won five AFC titles (1971-73, 1982, 1984), led Baltimore to the 1968 NFL title (the Colts lost Super Bowl III to the AFL champion New York Jets), and posted a 2-4 record in the Super Bowl. Only Bill Belichick (nine) has been a head coach in more Super Bowls than Shula. Shula is one of 13 coaches who have won at least two Super Bowl titles, and only Belichick (six), Chuck Noll (four), Bill Walsh (three), and Joe Gibbs (three) have won more Super Bowls than Shula. Shula is the only four-time winner (1964, 1967, 1968, 1972) of the AP NFL Coach of the Year award, an honor that has been presented since 1957. Only four NFL coaches amassed at least 250 regular season wins: Shula, George Halas (318), Bill Belichick (273), and Tom Landry (250).

Shula long ago established his position in the NFL coaching pantheon, but during the first portion of his coaching career he battled the stigma that he could not win the big game. He did not win a playoff game until his sixth season in Baltimore, when he took the Colts to the 1968 NFL title, but much of the luster of that accomplishment was wiped away by the Colts' loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III. Shula lasted just one more season in Baltimore before moving to Miami to coach the Dolphins, a 1966 AFL expansion team entering its first season as an NFL team. The Dolphins had not won more than five games in a season prior to Shula's arrival, but they went 10-4 in his first season, dominated the league for the next three seasons, and only posted two losing records during Shula's 1970-95 tenure with the franchise. By the time he retired, Shula--much like former UCLA coach John Wooden--had conclusively overcome the stigma/perception/narrative that he could not win the big game.

Former NFL coach Bum Phillips once said of Shula, "Don Shula can take his'n and beat you'n, and he could take you'n and beat his'n." Shula's record speaks for itself, but Shula was most proud of how he compiled that record: "If I'm remembered for anything, I hope it's for playing within the rules. I also hope it will be said that my teams showed class and dignity in victory or defeat."

In addition to integrity and sustained excellence, Shula's coaching career is also distinguished by the adaptability that he displayed. His early Dolphin teams were characterized by a tremendous running attack plus a stout defense, but in the 1980s Shula opened up his offense to take full advantage of Dan Marino's passing ability. The Dolphins advanced to one Super Bowl with Marino, and they were a perennial playoff team during the early to mid 1980s before having a few subpar seasons in the second half of that decade. Shula led the Dolphins to four playoff appearances in the first six years of the 1990s--including a trip to the AFC Championship Game after the 1992 season--before he retired.

Shula left big footprints to fill. The Dolphins have made just two playoff appearances since 2001, and they have not advanced to the AFC Championship Game since the 1992 season. Hall of Fame Coach Jimmy Johnson inherited a 9-7 team from Shula, and went 8-8, 9-7, 10-6, and 9-7 in his four seasons with the Dolphins.

Refuting False Narratives About the Legacies of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick

Tom Brady has publicly announced that he plans to leave the New England Patriots via free agency, though he has yet to announce where he is going. Not surprisingly, Brady's statement has unleashed a wave of commentary about his legacy, and Bill Belichick's legacy, as well as a reexamination of previous all-time greats who could have played their entire careers for one team but elected to see if the grass was greener elsewhere--with Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, and Peyton Manning being perhaps the three most prominent examples.

Both Belichick and Brady have more than secured their individual legacies. Belichick was a key contributor to two Super Bowl champions as an assistant coach before winning six Super Bowls as New England's head coach. Any short list of the greatest football coaches of all-time must include his name, and nothing that happens in the rest of his career will change or diminish that. Belichick is the second oldest head coach in the NFL now, and he is tied with several others as the eighth oldest head coach in NFL history. A career is judged by the overall body of work, with an emphasis on what happened in the prime years; Belichick's career is not going to be defined by what happens in his final seasons. Of course, if he wins Super Bowls as an elder statesman coach that could potentially add to his already established legacy, but no sensible person is going to hold it against Belichick if he does not win another Super Bowl. Don Shula, Chuck Noll, and Tom Landry are three of the greatest coaches of all-time, and their careers ended long after their final Super Bowl victory with no damage done to their legacies.

Brady is a six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback who is nearing the end of his career. If he wins another Super Bowl, he can add to his legacy, but few quarterbacks have even played as long as Brady, let alone won championships at his age; if Brady does not win another Super Bowl, it does not hurt his legacy any more than Joe Montana's time as a Kansas City Chief did.

Speaking of which, without looking it up do you even remember how long Montana played in Kansas City, what statistics he posted, and how the team performed? Unless you are an NFL addict with a great memory or you are lying, the honest answer is "No."

Before revisiting the end of Montana's career, it is worth briefly mentioning Joe Namath, whose name is sometimes brought up in this context. While it may have been painful at the time for NFL fans to watch him finish his career as an L.A. Ram, Namath secured his legacy by leading the New York Jets to victory in Super Bowl III. Nothing that happened after that caused long-term damage to Namath's legacy. He will always be remembered as a triumphant Jet, and no one spends much time thinking about his brief time as a stumbling Ram.

Back to Montana, who spent two years as a Chief, making the Pro Bowl in 1993 (his first season with the team) and compiling a 17-8 regular season record (he missed seven games due to injury) in 1993-94. Montana led the Chiefs to the 1993 AFC Championship Game, but the Chiefs lost 30-13, and Montana was knocked out of the game with a concussion in the third quarter. Montana quarterbacked the Chiefs to a 9-7 record and a loss in the Wild Card round in 1994 before he retired at 38. Those two seasons are a solid postscript to a Hall of Fame career, but they had no impact on the legacy that Montana had already forged by winning four Super Bowls as a San Francisco 49er.

Consider an example from a different sport. Michael Jordan had already retired and come back once as a Chicago Bull before he came out of retirement in 2001 to play for the Washington Wizards. Jordan never averaged less than 28 ppg in a full season with the Bulls, and he never averaged more than 23 ppg in his two seasons with the Wizards. Jordan led the Bulls to six titles in six NBA Finals appearances, and he was not able to take the Wizards to the playoffs even once. No, Jordan the Wizard did not accomplish as much as Jordan the Bull, but Jordan the Wizard added some clips to his career highlight reel, and did not harm Jordan's legacy at all.

Brady and Manning spent much of their careers battling for individual honors and Super Bowl titles. Manning won one Super Bowl in 13 seasons as a Colt before finishing his career as a Denver Bronco. Manning earned three Pro Bowl selections as a Bronco while also making the All-Pro First Team twice, and winning another Super Bowl title. Interestingly, his two playoff runs that ended in Super Bowl wins are two of his four worst postseasons statistically (based on the NFL's passer rating system). Winning a second Super Bowl--albeit while no longer a star player (he had nine passing touchdowns and 17 interceptions in his final regular season before the Broncos won the Super Bowl)--perhaps added a bit to Manning's legacy, but certainly no one dwells on how limited a player Manning was by that time, nor would any rational commentator have held it against Manning if his Bronco years had not been capped off with a championship.

Supposedly, next season is going to represent some kind of referendum in a made up Belichick versus Brady competition: Can Brady win without Belichick? Can Belichick win without Brady? Will neither one win?

This is nonsense. If there were to be a genuine, meaningful Belichick versus Brady competition then we would need to pit them against each other when both were in their primes, and we would need to supply them with comparable supporting casts. Give prime Brady a different coach and a solid supporting cast, and how much would he win? How much Brady wins as a past his prime quarterback can only tell us so much.

The other side of the question is how much would prime Belichick win with a different quarterback and a solid supporting cast? 

Actually, we did get a glimpse of that during the 2008 season that Brady missed with an ACL injury, and we saw the Patriots go 11-5 with Matt Cassel as the starting quarterback. Cassel left the Patriots after that season, and went 26-40 as a starter during the rest of his career. During his first head coaching job, Belichick inherited a 3-13 Cleveland team and in four years he turned them into an 11-5 squad that won a playoff game (which is the last playoff game that the Browns have won). So, we do have some evidence about what Belichick can do as a coach without Brady.

All that we know for sure is that the Belichick-Brady tandem is the greatest coach-quarterback duo in NFL history (throw in the AAFC years, and you could make an argument for Paul Brown-Otto Graham, who won seven championships and made 10 championship game appearances in 10 seasons together). Whether or not either of them win any more Super Bowls in the final years of their respective careers does not change the significance of what they accomplished together, nor "prove" that one was more integral to their shared success than the other.

UEFA's Strong Response to Cheating Emphasizes MLB's Incompetence

The public recently learned The Disgraceful Secret of the Astros' and Red Sox' Success: Cheating, and we also saw Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred set the price that an MLB owner must be willing to pay for cheating to win a World Series title: $5 million. Manfred made it clear that if a team cheats to win the World Series then that team keeps the title and "the piece of metal" (as he dismissively referred to the trophy awarded to his sport's champion). How many MLB owners would pay $5 million to win a World Series title?

Fortunately, not every sport responds so casually to cheating. In Foul Balls and Red Cards: How Baseball and Soccer’s Different Approaches to Cheating Illustrate the Power of Organizational Response, authors Reid Whitten and J. Scott Maberry (both from the law firm SheppardMullin) contrast the punishment that MLB prescribed for the Houston Astros with how UEFA (the governing body of European soccer) dealt with cheating committed by Manchester City, one of the English Premier League's top teams (footnotes omitted):

In both cases, the team's cheating threatened the integrity of the whole sport. In both cases, the integrity of the sport is critical to the business model of the respective leagues. If fans begin to think one side has been allowed an unfair advantage, they will quickly lose faith in the competitive nature of the sport. Fans would then, slowly but surely, lose interest in spending money to support their teams.

For those reasons, in both cases, the governing leagues needed to respond quickly and decisively to reassure fans that the games are fair and to restore the integrity of their respective organizations. Where soccer succeeded in doing so, baseball has failed.

The highest prize in European soccer is the UEFA Champions League trophy. The Champions League is a season-long competition where the best club teams from countries from Ireland to Russia, from Poland to Portugal play in an international tournament of the champions of the various national systems (Manchester City, for example, is one of the most dominant teams in the English Premier League). It is an honor just to make the Champions League tournament and, when a team wins that tournament, it stakes its claim as the best team in Europe.

Among other violations, the UEFA's investigation of Manchester City found that the team's owner, a billionaire from the United Arab Emirates, funneled his own money to companies who had signed sponsorship agreements with the team, which enabled the team owner to evade limits on spending his own money on the team. The punishment, announced in February, is a two-year ban from playing in the Champions League. No trophies, no mid-week competitions on the world's biggest stage for soccer clubs, no ticket sales, television rights, or website clicks for updates. Done. Two years. You cheated, you're out of the Big Dance...

We predict that the UEFA's approach will help lead to a healing of Manchester City's wounds to European soccer, whereas MLB's response has merely magnified the Astros' threat to baseball.

In MLB's missed opportunity is a lesson for all organizations: sometimes it feels too harsh to punish wrongdoers inside an organization. But when the organization's very integrity is threatened by the cheating, the cheaters have to be dealt with.

When the walls of your house have rotten boards, you need to find the rot and cut it away, not paint it over. Cutting out the rot is difficult and sometimes painful. But it may be just the thing that keeps your house standing.

MLB has been a bad joke for more than a quarter century, dating back at least to the 1994 strike that wiped out the sport's crown jewel event, the World Series. We have also witnessed fake home run records (and, in some cases, inflated pitching statistics) created by PED cheaters, and the 2002 MLB All-Star Game ending in a tie as clueless Commissioner Bud Selig shrugged his shoulders impotently on national TV. MLB's simultaneous embrace of Alex Rodriguez--who should have received a lifetime ban--and ostracism of Pete Rose (even as MLB makes millions of dollars now by partnering with legalized betting operations) is bizarre, though not quite as bizarre as the fact that Selg is in the Baseball Hall of Fame but Rose is not.

What Mariano Rivera Taught Walter Iooss Jr. About Gratitude and Humility

The December 12, 2011 issue of Sports Illustrated included an article by Walter Iooss Jr. and Chris Ballard titled "The Education of Walter Iooss Jr." Iooss' stories about athletes he photographed ranging from Jim Brown to Muhammad Ali to Michael Jordan to Tiger Woods--and many more--provide fascinating insights not only about those athletes, but also about Iooss and the art of photography.

What stopped me in my tracks, though, and inspired this brief article, is an exchange that Iooss had with Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankees' great closer. The conversation began when Iooss asked Rivera how he learned the pitch that brought him so many victories, the cut fastball (or cutter):

Then one time I asked him, "Who taught you that cutter?"

He said, "God."

I said, "God did?" Being an atheist, I said, "God never taught me anything."

Mariano said, "Oh, yes, he did, Walter."

He was very calm. He said, "He gave you your great talent. You should be thankful."

That humbled me. The truth is, I see photos everywhere. I look at someone sitting next to me at lunch, and instantly I'm putting up a background in my mind. That's just churning all the time. If the beauty's there, I want to take a picture of it.

Rivera's gratitude and humility are qualities well worth emulating. Iooss' drive to use his gift to capture beautiful images and share them with others is likewise inspirational.

Dr. Jonathan Gelber Examines The Intersection of Law and Medicine in Sports

Dr. Jonathan Gelber's book Tiger Woods's Back and Tommy John's Elbow: Injuries & Tragedies That Transformed Careers, Sports, and Society packs a lot of interesting information into less than 200 pages. Dr. Gelber begins with the legend of the "Cobra Effect," which is an example of the sociological concept of unintended consequences: as the story goes, an Indian Raj sought to curb the presence of cobras in his territory by offering a bounty for dead cobra skins--but the unintended consequence was that his citizens bred cobras in order to kill them for the bounty, and then after the Raj canceled the bounty the breeders set these cobras loose in the countryside since there was no longer any value for killing the cobras.

There are many examples of the "Cobra Effect" in Dr. Gelber's book, and here is one to whet your appetite to read about the rest of them.

It is well known that L.A. Dodgers' pitcher Sandy Koufax retired in 1966 at age 30 to prevent permanent damage to his left (pitching) elbow. Dr. Robert Kerlan, the Dodgers' team doctor, diagnosed Koufax with arthritis, the result of years of trauma to Koufax' elbow. A few years after Koufax retired, Dr. Kerlan partnered with Dr. Frank Jobe to form the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic, which later became world-famous for treating athletes from a variety of sports.

In 1974, Tommy John--then a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox--suffered an elbow destabilization injury that Dr. Gelber suggests was similar to the one that had eventually forced Koufax to retire. Dr. Jobe, consulting with hand surgeon Dr. Herbert Stark, decided to perform a radical new surgery, taking a tendon from John's forearm and carefully threading it through John's elbow to stabilize the joint. John went on to win more games after undergoing the procedure than he had won before, and the operation is now known as Tommy John surgery.

The "Cobra Effect" here is that Tommy John surgery has gone from being a radical solution to an injury that threatened to end a pitcher's career to a procedure that has become commonplace among young pitchers, many of whom undergo the surgery not to cure injury but based on the false belief that the surgery inherently increases performance levels. As a result of this, Tommy John has publicly stated his opposition to how prevalent his namesake surgery has become among young athletes, noting that over half of such surgeries are performed on patients who are between 15-19 years old, and that one in seven of those kids will never fully recover.

Other "Cobra Effect" stories examined by Dr. Gelber include Magic Johnson and HIV, Lyle Alzado and steroids, Len Bias and drug abuse/mandatory minimum sentencing, Hank Gathers and athlete screening for underlying health issues, Ayrton Senna/Dale Earnhardt and race car safety issues, Duk-koo Kim and efforts to make boxing safer, Tom Brady and measures to protect the quarterback from injury, plus Tiger Woods' back injury and the use/abuse of opioid drugs. 

This book is thought-provoking, and I recommend it with just two caveats: (1) The existence of a "Cobra Effect" is suggested but not conclusively proven in some of the examples and (2) the book would be even better if it had been lengthier so that some of the issues raised could be discussed in more depth.

The Disgraceful Secret of the Astros' and Red Sox' Success: Cheating

The Houston Astros have been widely portrayed as a model franchise in terms of utilizing analytics to build a successful team: the Astros tanked to accumulate draft picks, and then they used analytics to decide which players to draft, which veteran players to acquire, and how to maximize the talents of those players during games.

All of that sounds great in theory--but the reality is that the secret edge that pushed the Astros over the top and enabled them to win the 2017 World Series was old fashioned cheating: the Astros stole the opposing team's signs during games and then made noise in their dugout to alert their hitters about which pitch to expect.

If Bud Selig were still the Major League Baseball Commissioner, the Astros would have probably received a slap on the wrist while Selig broke his arm patting himself on the back, which was baseball's version of crime and punisment as Selig presided over the "Steroids Era." Fortunately, Rob Manfred at least has some sense of how serious this offense is: Commissioner Manfred assessed a $5 million fine against the Astros, stripped the franchise of its first and second round picks in both 2020 and 2021, and suspended General Manager Jeff Luhnow and Manager A.J. Hinch for the 2020 season (the Astros subsequently fired both men, neither of whom will be permitted to work for any other MLB team next season). Many baseball insiders have publicly expressed surprise at these supposedly draconian punishments but Manfred--although he showed more sense than Selig, an admittedly low hurdle to clear--did not go far enough. The Astros still go down in history as the 2017 World Series champions, and not one player who participated in the cheating has received any punishment.

It is becoming increasingly hard to understand why Pete Rose is burdened with a lifetime ban, while cheating players such as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez are embraced by Major League Baseball, and cheating teams like Houston and Boston (see below) retain their coveted (but forever tarnished) World Series crowns.

MLB has a lot to learn from other sports. In track and field, cheaters like Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and others are stripped of their Olympic and World Championship medals. In cycling, Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France titles were voided.

If MLB and its leadership had any courage or any sense, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and every other "Steroids Era" cheater would be removed from the record book and banned from Hall of Fame consideration--and the Astros would be stripped of the 2017 World Series title, with every player who was involved in the cheating being disciplined by MLB. Manfred's excuses for not punishing the players--too many players were involved, many of the players play for other teams now, and he did not feel like he could determine the relative guilt of each player--are weak, and provide an open invitation to players to cheat in the future, with the knowledge that if they are caught then they will keep their World Series rings while their manager and GM take the fall.

The investigation into the Astros' wrongdoing revealed that Alex Cora--who played a major role in Houston's cheating as a bench coach--similarly participated in cheating perpetrated by the Boston Red Sox as he served as that team's manager during their 2018 World Series championship season. Cora should be banned for life, and the Red Sox should be stripped of their title--but it is possible that Cora will get off with no more than a one year suspension, and it is likely that the Red Sox will pay a price that does not include losing their championship.

Of course, Boston is another franchise that has been lauded for profitably utilizing analytics.

Analytics have proven their value in many fields, from science to retail to law; law is my profession, and as a Customer Success Manager for Lex Machina--the pioneer and leader in the legal analytics field--I am well aware of the tremendous value provided by analytics that are accurate, complete and relevant. However, this MLB cheating scandal renews the question of just how valuable or reliable baseball analytics are; if the analytics provide a decisive edge, then why would two teams that are deeply immersed in analytics risk getting caught stealing signs?

I have often written about the strengths and limitations of "advanced basketball statistics" and the application of real basketball analytics, but the widely held assumption for quite some time is that analytics work better in baseball than in basketball because baseball is a station to station game of discrete actions, not a free-flowing game of interconnected simultaneous actions.

The Houston and Boston cheating scandals do not "prove" that baseball analytics have no value, but these scandals do legitimately raise the question of how much of an advantage Houston and Boston gained through analytics compared to how much of an advantage they gained by breaking the rules.

Why do I criticize the Astros and Red Sox after previously expressing the opinion that the so-called "Spygate" and "Deflategate" situations involving the New England Patriots were overblown by the media? Simple. The Astros and Red Sox unambiguously and deliberately cheated, and their cheating led directly to the championships that they won. In contrast, the Patriots committed a technical rules violation in "Spygate" that may not have even conferred a significant competitive advantage, and it is not even clear that they did anything wrong in "Deflategate." While baseball pitch signals are concealed, the signals that the Patriots filmed during "Spygate" can be viewed by anyone watching an NFL game on TV; the systematic gathering and collection of those signals for later analysis is not permitted (and that is why the Patriots were punished by the NFL), but this is not the same as intercepting a catcher's signals in real time and banging a trash can in the dugout to let the batter know in real time the exact pitch that is coming. Further, the Astros and Red Sox attempted to conceal what they were doing, while the Patriots' videographers were wearing team colors, and their presence could not have been more obvious if they had been waving semaphore flags. Regarding "Deflategate," independent scientists examined the evidence and concluded that the methodology and conclusions of the infamous Wells Report were flawed.

NFL cheating incidents that should outrage fans include (1) the 2010 Saints putting "bounties" on opposing players en route to winning the Super Bowl, (2) the Denver Broncos circumventing salary cap rules to stack enough talent around John Elway to enable him to win two Super Bowls in the 1990s, (3) the San Francisco 49ers circumventing salary cap rules during the 1990s, and (4) the massive steroid use that fueled the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1970s championship teams (and may be responsible for the sad, early demises suffered by many of the players from those teams).

Of course, the media picks and chooses who to target and who to absolve in these situations. New England Coach Bill Belichick rarely provides useful soundbites to the media, so it is OK for the media to dub him "Belicheat." The Saints were a fairy tale story in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, so their intentional maiming of opposing NFL players is readily forgotten; Gregg Williams, the ringleader of the Saints' bounty scheme, is back in the NFL and is a respected coach, even though some players say that he is still coaching his players to intentionally injure opposing players. Elway's Broncos, and the 1990s 49ers are also popular, so their transgressions are forgotten. The Steelers are part of the NFL's ancient and storied history, so no one cares to examine their widespread steroid abuse.

It will be interesting to see how the media choose to depict the Astros and the Red Sox. For me as a baseball fan, Major League Baseball has not been the same since the strike canceled the 1994 World Series, and then the "Steroids Era" combined with Bud Selig's bumbling (remember the 2002 All-Star Game that ended in a tie while Selig shrugged?) permanently stained the sport and its once-hallowed record book--though, as a basketball fan, I thank MLB for having a strike that lasted so long that it helped push Michael Jordan back to the NBA. This latest scandal just confirms to me that the baseball record book before 1994 was nonfiction, while the baseball record book post-1994 is fiction, replete with fraudulent home runs, fraudulent MVPs and, now, fraudulent champions. This is not to say that other pro sports are pure or flawless, but the past 25 years or so have been brutal for MLB.

NFL Responds Quickly to Myles Garrett's Criminal Foolishness

"Is he on steroids or is he mentally ill?"

That was my first thought after I saw Myles Garrett rip off Mason Rudolph's helmet and then hit Rudolph upside the head with that helmet near the end of Cleveland's 21-7 win over Pittsburgh on Thursday Night Football. The two previous helmet-wielding offenders who immediately came to my mind fit into at least one, if not both, of those categories: Lyle Alzado (who later admitted being a steroid user) and Kyle Turley (who was subsequently diagnosed with CTE, a brain injury that either caused or exacerbated mental health issues including rage, depression and suicidal thoughts).

In a 1982 playoff game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets, then-Raider Lyle Alzado ripped off Chris Ward's helmet and threw it at Ward. The helmet did not strike Ward. At the time, there was not a specific rule against what Alzado did, so Alzado was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct. Subsequently, the NFL enacted Article 17--informally known as the "Alzado rule"--stipulating, "A player may not use a helmet that is no longer worn by anyone as a weapon to strike, swing at, or throw at an opponent." The penalty for this offense is 15 yards and automatic disqualification, and an automatic first down if a defender commits the penalty.

In a 2001 regular season game between the New Orleans Saints and the New York Jets, then-Saint Turley ripped off Damien Robinson's helmet and threw it across the field (but not at any particular person). Robinson had committed a facemask penalty against Saints' quarterback Aaron Brooks, bending Brooks' body awkwardly in the process. Turley and Robinson received offsetting personal fouls, but Turley was ejected for the helmet toss. Saints' Coach Jim Haslett contemplated cutting Turley immediately, but after seeing what Robinson did to Brooks--who initially thought he had suffered a broken neck--the Saints instead fined Turley $25,000 and recommended that he seek anger management counseling.

Garrett, his Cleveland teammate Larry Ogunjobi, and Maurkice Pouncey of the Steelers were each ejected from yesterday's game; Ogunjobi pushed Rudolph from behind during the scuffle, while Pouncey threw punches at Garrett and then kicked Garrett while Garrett was on the ground. The NFL announced today that Garrett is suspended indefinitely without pay, meaning he will miss at least six regular season games plus the playoffs if the Browns qualify, and he will have to apply for reinstatement before he is permitted to play again. Garrett was also fined an undisclosed amount. Pouncey was fined and suspended for three games without pay and Ogunjobi was fined and suspended for one game without pay. The Browns and Steelers were each fined $250,000. It is possible that the league will issue additional fines and/or suspensions upon further review of the entire incident, including the actions of players from both teams who left their respective bench areas to join the fracas.

After the game, Cleveland Coach Freddie Kitchens insisted that he does not condone fighting or any actions that would result in penalties, but the reality is that the Browns are the most penalized team in the league. They have signed numerous players who are clowns and/or criminals, so it should surprise no one that the Browns often act like clowns and criminals. The Garrett incident on Thursday is just the dramatic low point in a season packed with Browns players committing stupid and/or dangerous penalties, and engaging in various forms of conduct on and off the field that reflect a lack of discipline. As the saying goes, "You are either coaching it, or you are allowing it to happen."

If Kitchens does not condone undisciplined football, then it is his job to cut, bench or coach up players who are not disciplined. Undisciplined players and teams rarely win anything of consequence.

It must be noted that the Steelers are hardly blameless, though their role in the fracas is overshadowed by Garrett's over the top foolishness; the situation began with Rudolph trying to take off Garrett's helmet, and according to some accounts, kicking Garrett in the groin. It should also be noted that after Garrett and Rudolph were separated it was Rudolph--sans helmet--who charged at Garrett before Garrett hit him. Rudolph should absolutely be fined, if not suspended for one game. Pouncey was almost as out of control as Garrett, but this is Pouncey's first offense (at least to my knowledge), and he was taking on a player his size who had just assaulted his quarterback. Pouncey earned every bit of his suspension and fine, but he is not in the same category as a serial offender like Garrett who committed an act that could have caused serious injury.

The bottom line is that nothing that happened excuses what Garrett did, which could have resulted in serious injury if he had hit Rudolph from a different angle. The difference is that what Rudolph did is essentially commit a personal foul as a play was concluding, and Pouncey retaliated after seeing his quarterback get hit upside his bare head with his own helmet, while Garrett committed the most dangerous and flagrant offense of anyone involved in the melee--and Garrett did not just fling the helmet impulsively, like Turley had done; Garrett clearly aimed directly for Rudolph's head.

This is also not Garrett's first offense. He has had multiple late hits/dirty hits, including one that caused a season-ending injury to Jets' quarterback Trevor Simien and resulted in a fine from the league. The Browns are unlikely to cut ties with Garrett; he has rare physical talent, and the Browns will be leery of getting rid of him only to then see him possibly blossom somewhere else. However, this is where the league must step in--thinking about Garrett's mental health, and the physical health of opposing players--and must not permit Garrett to take the field again until there is a definitive answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article. To do otherwise makes a mockery of the league's purported emphasis on player health and player safety.

Myles Garrett needs help--and the players who play against him need protection.

Federer, Nadal and Djokovic Reconsidered--and Why Borg Still Stands Alone

Rafael Nadal's triumph in the 2019 U.S. Open is his 19th Grand Slam singles title, placing him just one behind Roger Federer on the all-time list. This is the closest Nadal has been to Federer on that list since 2004, when Federer led Nadal 1-0 in Grand Slam singles titles won. Federer had captured four Grand Slam singles titles by the time Nadal won his first, the 2005 French Open.

The thin reed upon which Federer fans prop their man over Nadal appears to be about to snap. Federer is 38 years old, while Nadal is 33 years old. Some may have assumed that Federer's much-praised finesse style would prove to be more enduring than Nadal's pounding, powerful style, but--despite Federer's five year lead in age--Nadal is now the first male to win five Grand Slam singles titles after the age of 30, and Nadal seems likely to add to that total no later than the 2020 French Open. If Nadal matches or breaks Federer's record, there will be no rational basis to rank Federer ahead of Nadal--but the reality is that a rational evaluation of these players has favored Nadal for quite some time.

The first time that I wrote about Nadal versus Federer was Federer's Fifth Wimbledon Final is One for the Ages, when I wondered if Nadal would soon surpass Federer: "Will the younger Nadal eclipse Federer on grass next year and become the sport's undisputed number one player or will Federer continue to hold him off as he marches toward Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam titles? I think that Nadal is closer to beating Federer on grass than Federer is to beating Nadal on clay and that 2008 could very well be Nadal's opportunity to match another Borg feat: winning the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year."

That analysis proved to be prophetic, as Nadal not only routed Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in the 2008 French Open Final (tying Bjorn Borg's record by winning that Slam for the fourth straight time) but Nadal then defeated Federer in an epic five set Wimbledon Final, after which I wondered why anyone would rank Federer higher all-time than Nadal: 

Even when Federer was at the absolute peak of his powers Nadal still held the head to head advantage, a fact that some people dismissed by noting that the vast majority of Nadal's wins over Federer came on clay--but that is not relevant in a discussion about the greatest player of all-time, because the greatest player of all-time should be able to win on multiple surfaces and should not have a losing record against his main rival. Nadal is just entering his prime years but he already owns four more Grand Slam wins than Federer did at the same age. Just like I thought that it was too soon to call Federer the greatest of all-time two or three years ago, I think that it is too soon to call Nadal the greatest of all-time now--but in many ways Nadal seems to be making a more potent case to claim that title than Federer ever did. Who can say for sure that in four or five years Nadal won't own more career Grand Slam titles than Federer's 12? Nadal has more speed and hits with more power than Federer and Nadal is also in better physical condition; perhaps Federer has a more delicate touch on certain shots but that is not enough to cancel out Nadal's advantages.

Federer is a great and graceful player, but his public image and status have been boosted by the adoring fan letters disguised as analysis that many writers have penned on his behalf, as I noted in my 2013 article titled Why is Rafael Nadal Not Praised Now the Way that Roger Federer Was Praised in 2006?: 

When David Foster Wallace gushed over Roger Federer in an August 2006 essay, the 25 year old Federer had won eight Grand Slam singles titles in 29 appearances (.276 winning percentage) and had amassed six first round losses--yet Wallace and others openly and enthusiastically touted the notion that Federer had already established himself as the greatest tennis player of all-time. The first dubious aspect of such a wide-ranging declaration is that it is unfair--if not impossible--to compare Open Era players with players from earlier eras; the rules, conditions and overall context were just too different. If Rod Laver had been permitted to play in the Grand Slam events during his prime years then he likely would have set unbreakable records--but we cannot know for sure what he would have accomplished, so all that can be intelligently said is that Laver deserves to be prominently placed in any discussion of the greatest tennis players ever: he should not be punished for "only" winning 11 Grand Slams, nor can he be credited with all of the Grand Slams that he almost certainly would have won.

The second dubious aspect about declaring Federer to be the greatest player of all-time is that he has never established the simultaneous Wimbledon/French Open dominance displayed by Bjorn Borg. When Borg made his final Grand Slam appearance in 1981--at just 25 years old--he held the modern male record for both Wimbledon titles (five) and French Open titles (six) and he had won the "Channel Slam" (capturing Wimbledon and the French Open in the same calendar year) a still-unmatched three times in a row. Sampras and then Federer dominated Wimbledon during their primes and Nadal has dominated the French Open but no one has ever mastered grass and clay at the same time the way that Borg did...

While Borg-Nadal is difficult to call, it is very hard to understand how anyone who supported Federer's greatest player of all-time candidacy circa 2006 would not be even more strongly in favor of Nadal now: Nadal has achieved more at a younger age than Federer did, Nadal has a much better Grand Slam winning percentage, Nadal has consistently dominated Federer head to head and Nadal does not have a problematic individual matchup or surface. The only advantage that Federer has ever held over Nadal is that Federer has been healthier/more durable, which will make it even more remarkable if Nadal wins four more Grand Slams to tie Federer's mark.

Mary Carillo offered a very insightful and objective take on the Federer-Nadal rivalry:

I have said and argued with John McEnroe and Ted Robinson during our French Open telecasts for many years that you cannot anoint Roger Federer the greatest of all time if he isn't the greatest of his own time. And it's not just on red clay. Nadal has the edge on hard courts as well. Like in boxing, it's all about the matchup. When Roger is playing at his luminous best he has no need to worry about the other side of the net. But if he is playing Nadal, even his best is often not enough.

People conflate [Federer's] beauty with supremacy and blur the line between high art and [Nadal's] impossible-to-ignore domination. I think Roger Federer is the most stylish, elegant and gifted tennis player I've ever seen. Roger is all that is right in this tennis world. Rafa Nadal is his perfect rival--powerful, explosive, gritty and gutsy.

While Federer's fans struggled to accept the notion that Nadal is greater than Federer, another player showed up as a worthy challenger to both champions: Novak Djokovic. Djokovic won his first Grand Slam singles title at the 2008 Australian Open and on July 4, 2011 he became the first player in seven years other than Federer or Nadal to be ranked number one in the world. Except for a 10 month run at the top enjoyed by Andy Murray from November 2016 through August 2017, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have been the only players ranked number one since 2004.

Djokovic has held the top spot since November 2018, but Nadal's U.S. Open win puts him in great position to be the year-end number one ranked player for the fifth time (which would tie him with Jimmy Connors, Federer and Djokovic for second most all-time behind Pete Sampras, who accomplished this feat six times). The ranking system has typically been weighted to reward activity and other factors that do not necessarily correlate with greatness, and thus the ranking statistics should just be considered a small part of evaluating the greatest players of all-time. It is doubtful that any reputable tennis evaluator would consider Sampras and Connors to be among the top five players of all-time or to be greater than Bjorn Borg, who was the year-end ranking leader just twice even though he had a four year stretch during which he made the Finals in 11 of the 12 Grand Slams that he entered, winning seven of them (he did not play in the Australian Open in any of those years, and he skipped other tour events as well, which negatively impacted his ranking). It is worth noting that from 1946-76, the Australian Open was won by a non-Australian just four times; the Australian Open has been a Major/Grand Slam event in name since 1924/25 but for most of its history non-Australian players did not treat it as such.

Federer holds the male singles record with 20 Grand Slam titles, but he has played in 78 events. His winning percentage of .256 is not dominant compared to the other players who are in the greatest player of all-time conversation. Federer achieved his peak career Grand Slam winning percentage (.366) in 2009 after he won Wimbledon, his 15th title in 41 Grand Slam events. Federer has won six times in 20 appearances (.300) at the Australian Open--the least important of the four Grand Slam events--and he has won 14 times in 58 appearances (.241) at the other three Grand Slam events. He has one win and five Finals appearances in 18 trips to the French Open, an event that he skipped three times. Federer has lost in the first round of the French Open four times and he has lost in the first round of Wimbledon three times.

Nadal has won 19 Grand Slam singles titles in 58 appearances (.328). His peak career Grand Slam winning percentage was .368, achieved after he won the 2014 French Open, his 14th Grand Slam singles title in 38 appearances. While Federer padded his career numbers by winning the Australian Open six times, Nadal is 1/14 in his Australian Open appearances (with five total Finals appearances) but 18/44 (.409) in the three most important Grand Slam events. He has lost in the first round of a Grand Slam event just twice, once at Wimbledon and once at the Australian Open.

Nadal has a 24-16 career head to head record versus Federer, including a 10-4 record in Grand Slam matches. Nadal is the only player who has beaten Federer in a Grand Slam Final on grass, clay and hard court; if you believe that Nadal is a one surface wonder then you have been reading too much propaganda and not enough objective analysis.

Djokovic has a 16/59 record in Grand Slam singles events (.271) and this is essentially his peak career winning percentage (he stood at 16/58 prior to the 2019 U.S. Open, .275). Even more than Federer, Djokovic's Grand Slam singles record is boosted by his performance in the Australian Open, where Djokovic has won seven titles in 15 appearances. He is 9/44 (.205) in the other three Grand Slam events, including just 1/15 (with four total Finals appearances) in the French Open. Djokovic has lost in the first round of a Grand Slam event twice, both times in the Australian Open.

Djokovic owns the advantage in his career head to head matchups with both Federer and Nadal. Djokovic leads Federer 26-22, including 10-6 in Grand Slam events and 4-1 in Grand Slam event Finals. Djokovic leads Nadal 28-26 overall, though Nadal is up 9-6 in Grand Slam events and they are tied 4-4 in Grand Slam event Finals.

The mainstream media narrative is apparently etched in stone that everyone is chasing Federer, but when you look at the numbers and the percentages without considering subjective propaganda, it is difficult to see how anyone would rank Federer first among these three players, let alone as the greatest player of all-time across eras that operated under vastly different conditions and circumstances. Nadal is the all-time career leader with 18 victories in Wimbledon/the French Open/the U.S. Open, ahead of Federer (14), Sampras (12), Borg (11) and Bill Tilden (10). Nadal has a decisive head to head advantage over Federer, has played Djokovic essentially to a standstill overall (and with an edge in the Grand Slam events) and Nadal has a significant edge in overall Grand Slam event winning percentage. While Djokovic enjoys the head to head advantage over both of his rivals, his overall accomplishments do not quite measure up: fewer Grand Slam titles, a worse Grand Slam event winning percentage than Nadal, and nearly half of his Grand Slam event wins coming in the Australian Open. Djokovic is perhaps the greatest Australian Open player of all-time, though!

Anyone who sees the larger historical perspective is amused by all of the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic talk, because none of those guys measure up to Bjorn Borg, who I described as the "Sandy Koufax of tennis." Borg outdistanced his contemporaries by a greater margin than any player in the Open Era. Consider these statistics:

* Borg was the youngest player to win the Italian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. Borg's records for the French Open and Wimbledon have been broken but he is the only player who was simultaneously the youngest ever champion of all three events.

* Until the age of 21, Borg never lost to a player younger than he was.

* Borg achieved the French Open/Wimbledon double each year from 1978-80. No player before or since has accomplished this feat in three straight years, or even two straight years.

* Borg tied the all-time record by winning three Grand Slam titles without losing a set (1976 Wimbledon, 1978 French Open and 1980 French Open).

* Borg simultaneously held the record for most career French Open singles titles (six) and most career Wimbledon titles (five). While both records have since been broken, no other player in the Open Era has simultaneously held both marks. For half a decade, Borg was the best grass court player in the world and the best clay court player in the world. In other words, he was Nadal and Federer rolled into one, while competing against at least two players who should still be listed among the 10 greatest of all-time (Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe).

* Borg won five straight Wimbledon titles from 1976-80, a feat that had not been accomplished since the 1880s, when the defending champion was automatically seeded into the next year's Finals.

* When Borg retired from Grand Slam competition at the age of 25 he ranked second all-time with 11 Grand Slam singles titles, trailing only Roy Emerson. Emerson won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, but six of his were in his native Australian Open; until the 1980s, non-Australian players regularly skipped the Australian Open, and Borg only played the event once, as a teenager.

* Borg remains the youngest player to ever win 11 Grand Slam singles titles (25 years old).

* Borg still holds the highest career Grand Slam tournament winning percentage (.407; 11/27).

* Borg still holds the highest career Grand Slam match winning percentage (.898; 141-16).

* Borg still holds the highest career Grand Slam five set match winning percentage (.889; 24-3).

* Borg remains the only player who posted five straight years with a Grand Slam match winning percentage above .900 (1977-81).

* Borg still holds the highest career Wimbledon match winning percentage (.927; 51-4).

* Borg still holds the record for consecutive Wimbledon matches won (41).

The main knocks against Borg are his lack of longevity and the fact that he never won the U.S. Open. The funny thing about Borg's longevity is that he won at least one Grand Slam title in eight straight years (1974-81), a record that stood alone until Sampras matched it in 2000. Federer achieved the feat from 2003-10, and Nadal now holds the record with 10 (2005-14). In terms of Grand Slam dominance--as opposed to mere Grand Slam participation--Borg enjoyed enviable and nearly unmatched longevity. Regarding the U.S. Open, Borg reached the Finals four times in nine appearances, and his Finals losses all came at the hands of Connors or McEnroe, two of the most decorated U.S. Open champions ever. The lack of at least one U.S. Open title is the only legitimate mark against Borg, and in terms of ranking the greatest players of all-time that one negative mark does not outweigh all of the positive marks listed above.

Borg remained solidly in second place with 11 Grand Slam singles titles from 1981 until 1998, when Sampras tied him. Sampras passed him in 1999 and retired in 2002 as the all-time leader with 14 Grand Slam singles titles. Sampras won 14 of the 52 Grand Slam singles events that he entered (.269). He never made it to the French Open Finals, and he only made it to the French Open semifinals once in 13 tries. Sampras was not nearly as dominant as Borg. While Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have each subsequently passed both Borg and Sampras in terms of total Grand Slam event wins, no one has approached Borg's .407 Grand Slam event winning percentage or his astonishing 16 Finals trips in 27 appearances (.593). Borg on his best day could beat anyone from any era on grass or clay. That is clearly not true of Sampras, Federer or Djokovic, particularly regarding clay. Borg versus Nadal on clay would be an incredible spectacle but Nadal at his best is not beating Borg at his best on grass.

It will be interesting to see if Nadal surpasses Federer in term of total Grand Slam events won. I suspect that if this happens, the Federer acolytes in the media will shift the goalposts (apologies for mixing sports metaphors) and find some other reason/excuse to still rank Federer ahead of Nadal--and no one will seriously talk about why Borg should still be listed ahead of both. Borg is the victim of a phenomenon brilliantly described by William Goldman in the wonderful book that Goldman co-authored with Mike Lupica, Wait Till Next Year. Goldman wrote, "The greatest struggle an athlete undergoes is the battle for our memories. It's gradual. It begins before you're aware it's begun and it ends with a terrible fall from grace. Stripped of medals, sent to Siberia...It really is a battle to the death." He noted that Wilt Chamberlain's accomplishments were so outlandish that he is the exception to this rule, but that most athletes are downgraded--if not forgotten--as time passes.

Think about how even Michael Jordan has seen his status decline in the less than 20 years since his final retirement. Many commentators say, with a straight face, that LeBron James is greater than Jordan--never mind that James has won fewer championships, fewer regular season MVPs, fewer Finals MVPs, fewer scoring titles and fewer of just about anything else that matters. Another aspect of this that was true when Goldman wrote those words over 30 years ago and is even truer now is that the sports/entertainment business makes its money by promoting today's games and today's players. If ESPN states that LeBron James is not as great as Michael Jordan or--gasp--Julius Erving then ESPN is essentially devaluing the product that it paid billions of dollars to broadcast. The same is true to a lesser but still significant extent for other media outlets. You are not going to make much of a living as a writer, commentator or analyst talking about how great Bjorn Borg, Julius Erving and Michael Jordan were; maybe you can write a retrospective about them to commemorate the 20th or 30th anniversary of one of their accomplishments, but on a day to day basis your bread is buttered and your paycheck is signed based on praising Federer and LeBron James. How/why the media picks favorites among athletes who are/were contemporaries--why Federer over Nadal, or James over Kobe Bryant when they were both active and Bryant was winning championships--is an entirely different discussion that extends beyond the scope of this article.

When Did Sports Journalism Lose its Way?

In an ideal world, reporters would report facts/news, commentators would offer their opinions about the facts/news and entertainers would not pretend to be reporters or commentators. That ideal world never existed in reality, but there were times and places where it came closer to existing than it does in our current time and place.

The issue is much broader than sports, but here we will focus on the decline of sports journalism. Anyone under 45 years old probably does not remember that there was a time when Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon and other television personalities were first-rate sportswriters/commentators.

Here is an example of an excellent Wilbon column: Lacy Leaves Towering Legacy.

Here is an example of an excellent Kornheiser column: Astros' Ryan Going Out In Glory, if Not a Blaze.

Wilbon, Kornheiser and other talented reporters and columnists traded in their newspaper bylines for the fame and riches they could acquire by screaming at each other on television. Maybe most people who were offered fame and riches would have made the same Faustian bargain, but the deal comes with a price--for them, and for us. I discussed this with Woody Paige more than a decade ago and he readily acknowledged that he did not derive the same satisfaction or meaning from appearing on television that he did from writing a great article or column.

T.J. Simers, a long-time co-panelist with Paige on ESPN's "Around the Horn," once said that he hated the show but "I hear a cash register going off in my head when I do it. TV makes us do this. They want us to be stupid, to try to top ourselves. On 'Around the Horn,' if you're low-key and sensible, you aren't going to be on the show anymore. You have to be over the top. ESPN will hire you for your credibility, but after a minute they've had enough of that...The producer is yelling 'Conflict! Conflict!' in your ear. TV wants conflict. TV wants outrageous opinions."

It does not have to be that way, though I do not have much hope that things will substantially change any time in the near future. ESPN and its imitators have dumbed down sports discourse, and there is no clear path out of the murky swamp back to dry, sane land. Many of the top sportswriters traded in their credibility for TV's cash, and as a result we are now cursed with both low quality TV and with a large amount of low quality sportswriting. There are very few great all-around sports writers now, as the few who know sports often lack writing chops and the few who have writing chops often do not know sports. Someone who has a deep understanding of sports--the strategy, the personalities, the psychology of competition--and the capacity to tell a coherent and compelling story is rare indeed. That combination has always been uncommon, but if you look at an old copy of Sport--particularly when it was edited by Dick Schaap--or Sports Illustrated you will find many articles and columns that are thoughtful and thought-provoking. Sadly, there is no publication or online site that has that cachet now, or that deserves it.

Speaking of Schaap, he was perhaps the first great sportswriter to transition successfully to television, but Schaap found a way to conform to the limitations of that medium while also retaining his intelligence and wit. When he hosted the Sports Reporters there was more light than heat--more substance than hot air, more intelligent debating as opposed to mindless screaming and bickering.

It is too much to expect anyone to be another Dick Schaap, but it should not be too much to expect writers to get their facts straight, commentators to provide intelligent opinions about those facts and TV personalities to scream less and think more. I hope that the general public is not as dumb as ESPN and its imitators think but I fear otherwise.

Tiger Woods Experiences the Full Career Arc of A Champion

Tiger Woods, who just became the second oldest winner of The Masters, is experiencing the full career arc of a champion. That arc begins with the wonder years, when the prodigy becomes the youngest to accomplish certain feats or win specific events. It would be wrong to say that at this stage championships are inevitable--nothing about competition involving skill is inevitable--but there is an expectation that the prodigy will achieve and sustain greatness. Because of that expectation, the first championships may come more with a feeling of relief than of joy, and there may be an accompanying feeling of pressure to maintain a high standard of play.

After those first titles, the champion goes through his prime, when winning titles appears to be effortless. That perception is incorrect, of course; championships are only achieved after much hard work is put in, and the margin between winning and losing is rarely large, even if the final score suggests otherwise.

Father Time is undefeated, so at some point the champion ages and new contenders enter their own wonder years. Each title won by the champion at this point may be his last, and thus these latter titles may feel more meaningful or precious; the hard work that must be put in to win these titles is apparent to everyone: Tiger Woods has to get up in the middle of the night to loosen up his back before playing the final round at Augusta.

Winning a first title is great but winning a title in your 40s--when there is much doubt (including, perhaps, even at least a little self-doubt--is very satisfying.

The images of Tiger embracing his children--who are too young to remember prodigy Tiger or dominant Tiger--are priceless, and it is an added blessing that his mother was able to witness Tiger's triumph as well; Tiger's father is no longer with us but he is surely smiling down on his son.

Watching Tiger win a major as an older player who is no longer consistently dominant brings to mind Bill Russell's last title run with the Boston Celtics and Pete Sampras' final U.S.Open title. The difference, though, is that Russell had already announced his pending retirement and Sampras never played again on Tour (though he did not formally announce his retirement until shortly before the next year's U.S. Open), but Tiger iso regaining his mental and physical strength; it is doubtful that he will ever dominate to the extent that he did during his prime, but he could conceivably be a credible contender in majors for the next several years, and--with his 15th major win under his belt--possibly even renew his quest to break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 wins in majors.