Serena Not Acting Like a Champion

I was enjoying Kim Clijsters performance against Serena Williams. Collected and measured with deep ground strokes, quick defense and at least one great offensive lob. Serena was managing to pump herself up at around 4 all in the second set, serving a number of aces and some tough play to fight off 3 break points to hold serve. It looked like a classic only-play-my-A-game-when-I-really-have-to display from Serena. She's done it many times and it's the biggest reason that I'm not a fan -- or it was.

She gave me another reason not to be in her corner tonight when, at 15-30, second serve, a line-person called her for a foot fault, giving Clijsters 2 match points. John McEnroe, doing commentary for CBS, said he saw no foot fault. The two replays we saw had inconclusive angles. The person with the best vantage point in the stadium made the call. Serena, you're down during a potential match game, you don't put your toes so close to the line that it might get called; they were definitely very close -- I suspect that more angles will appear in photos or other motion cameras. But the foot fault didn't cost her the match, what she did next is what cost her the match. She railed at the line judge. Shook a ball at her as she was cursing at her (we couldn't hear what she said, but we were told it was profane). Then she got even closer and shook her racket at the line judge. She walked back like she was going to serve, but went back again and yelled some more. One of the women commentators eventually said it was not how champions behave. John McEnroe, though, continued to blame the bad ending on a possibly errant foot fault call. Sorry, John, you're out of line, too. The lines person behaved 100% appropriately -- if she saw a foot fault she needs to call it; even if it had been match point. But the unsportsmanlike conduct was all on Serena Williams. And this was her second code violation of the match (the first was for racked abuse when she lost the first set). Second violation cost her one point -- in this case, match point.

S. Williams was out of line and deserved no special consideration. I do feel a bit bad for Kim Clijsters, not getting to win the match on her own racket. She had done the work, and was, at most 2 points from winning. I think she would have won, even if Serena hadn't lost it for herself.
Both the finalists seem like great sports. It'll be tough to root for one over the other. Go Kim Clijsters! Go Caroline Wozniacki!

Spread the 40-Love at the Tennis US Open

Hey! ESPN2! How about showing something a little more competetive than Andy Roddick thrashing M. Gicquel, 6-1, 6-4, 5-4 in tennis at the US Open's second round? There must be something a little closer and more interesting. Okay, so the third set is slightly closer than the first two, but it's 11:15 PM already, even here in the Central Time Zone, and you've wasted my prime time tennis viewing. Sheesh.

Big East Basketball Tournament Time: Over Time Times Six

I haven't been as big a fan of college basketball in recent years. The physicality and the rules changes have turned me off, but I got snared by the sextuple overtime (6 OT) basketball game last night: Connecticut and Syracuse in a marathon. I like that Syracuse plays zone and often extends it to a zone press. I didn't flip the TV on until about a minute into the first overtime, but I was hooked after that, staying up way passed my bed time; but it felt like watching a whole game. CT out rebounded Syracuse, especially on the offensive boards, at least in the OT's. But Syracuse stayed in it with some great free throw shooting from Paul Harris (13 of 14) and Jonny Flynn (a perfect 16 of 16) and Rautins' screened 3 pointers; that's a tough thing to do, come off a screen 20+ feet from the basket, catch the ball and shoot while still moving sideways; he had at least 3 of those that kept the Orange Men in the game. By the 5th OT CT had lost most of its tall timber and Paul Harris started taking over inside for Syracuse, although he missed numerous 2 foot and closer shots, including a wide open dunk when his exhausted legs wouldn't lift him 10 feet up to the rim -- he pulled his own rebound though and made the traditional lay-up off the glass.

For CT, AJ Price showed a lot of leadership, playing through 5 OTs with 4 fouls on him, not fouling out until CT was in desperation mode in the sixth overtime. But Price, CT's best free thrower, did miss one critical freebie at the end of one overtime (the 3rd? who can remember?) that would have put them up by 2 possessions, instead Rautins extended the game on the other end with another three. Nice to see some of the Syracuse benchwarmers get some minutes, Justin Thomas was doing jumping jacks in his zone defense while the rest of the 'cuse team were grabbing their shorts. They may not have much gas left to face West Virginia in the semi's tonight.

2008 NBA Finals First Game Wimper

I watched the end of the first game of the NBA finals tonight. I guess with a minute and one second left in the 4th quarter and down by six points that the Lakers decided to let the Celtics have game one and started thinking about game two. Kobe and company need to take a look at some archive film of another basketball team from their town, a college team, UCLA, who came back from 8 points down with 11 seconds left in a game (Can't remember the year, late 1960's?). Or Reggie Miller did it by himself in 1995 . Come on guys this is professional league, the finals. Geesh.

Yankee Billy Crystal

Reuters reported that actor/comedian Billy Crystal lived his dream to play baseball for the New York Yankees today. It was a spring training game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Hey, Billy, who couldn't play against the Pirates, eh?

Gators Gall

Here's what I think should have happened. I think Florida Gators football coach Urban Meyer should have been called for unsportsmanlike conduct when he called timeout an instant before the Auburn Tigers kicked what would have been the winning field goal last Saturday. That could have done two things: nullified the timeout and given Auburn the choice to accept or decline the penalty. Obviously they would have declined, but if Wes Byrum had missed that first one, they would have had a second shot at it -- from 15 yards closer.

I'm no NCAA football official so I don't know how much latitude a referee has in assessing an unsportsmanlike penalty, but if its like other sports there is just enough. College sports don't need that crap. I know it's big business and that most of these kids are only student athletes in the broadest application of the term student but they are still more or less what I just said: kids -- and so are many of the fans.

Of course the stunt could have backfired; Byrum could easily have missed the first attempt and made the second attempt -- after all he would have just practiced it. Ask any basketball player, the second free throw is much easier than the first in a pressure spot. But Byrum banged both kicks clean through the uprights and I like what he said, "After the first kick, I really felt more relaxed. I felt like I was going to make it. It just doesn't get any better than that."

No More No-Hitters?

My father has an idea.

Dad's been around baseball a long time, he was a player and a manager in city leagues back when there were city leagues. More recently he's been a high school baseball coach, retiring from that only a few years ago. And he's been a fan forever; currently he's an Atlanta Braves fan, I think primarily because he gets all their games on television thanks to his satellite dish.

Dad's idea? A new baseball pitching role: the "opener", or maybe call it the "establisher" to avoid confusions with "Opening Day" or "Home Opener". But it's the opposite of the closing pitcher, or "Closer".

He mentioned this to me while I was visiting him over Labor Day this year. We were watching the first football game of the season for Auburn University on Saturday, September 1st. My son is a freshman there and he was at the game. We never spotted him in the sea of orange shirts in the Auburn stands, but he enjoyed his inaugural college football game. (Auburn defeated Kansas State in dramatic fashion, scoring two touchdowns in the final three minutes.)

As we watched, ESPN2 started interrupting with updates from the Red Sox / Orioles major league baseball game. A rookie, Clay Buchholz, was pacing toward throwing a no-hitter in only his second career start. This is a pretty big event, covered everywhere including the blogosphere. A no-hitter has always been a rare event, but in this age of protecting pitchers' arms and maximizing winning percentages even "complete games" are pretty rare and getting more so. Managers are quick to pull starting pitchers who stumble, early or late in a game and even pitchers enjoying a shut-out are often pulled for as little reason as that their pitch count is climbing beyond their normal range. No more are pitchers heroes-on-the-mound, giving up their bodies for their team and because its their game.

Depending on when a "starting pitcher" is pulled determines which role will come on in relief. There's middle-relievers, short-relievers and closers. It's not uncommon to see all four types in one game, and sometimes more than one of the relievers if the situation calls for a left-hander when a right-hander is in the game. But through the years of the rise of the relievers, the Starter has still been something of a sacrosanct role. A prime statistic for a starter was his number of complete games, but as the shame of leaving a game before all nine innings were in the book diminished, the new statistic of "quality starts" gained prominence.

Well my dad would shove quality starts into the dust bin of history as well by beginning each game, or important ones at least, with a team's ace opener, a pitcher that can come out hot and establish dominance at the dawn of the game the way a closer can vanquish the last hopes of the opposing team in the twilight innings.

Dad's thought was that the Opener might only face 2 or 3 batters, just like a Closer. I wondered if the Opener might run all the way through the line-up once, getting 7 or 8 outs before any batter gets a second look at his stuff. Of course once the taboo of starting with Starters is lifted, managers will find what works best with the rest of their style -- maybe the Opener would just pitch until he faces a strong opposite-handed batter. Starters might not even be called Starters anymore, they could be called "Gamers" or something.

The key is to break that taboo of starting pitchers and sticking with them deep into the game. Establish dominance early with a system that includes Openers and works with the bullpen you've built. A pioneering manager could earn a spot in Cooperstown with success and have a lot of fun watching the other clubs try to catch up.

I know my father would like to see an Opening Pitcher in practice. He didn't get the chance to try this idea with his own teams, but ask him sometime about "two platooning" his pitchers one year in city league -- he'd do a mid-inning triple swap among his catcher, pitcher and short-stop to keep an opposite-handed pitcher facing key batters. You bet the umpires loved it. Who'd love Opening Pitchers? Fans would, if their winners. Remember you saw it here first.