The Kingpins of Cowtown

All-Star overkill

Lots of chatter this morning about the marathon All-Star game in the Bronx last night. Michael Young finally knocked in the winning run for the AL in the bottom of the 15th inning. Yippee! Snore.

If MLB and Fox hadn't orchestrated such a marathon, self-congratulatory pre-game, the actual game might have ended before midnight. I'm a lifelong Yankees fan, and I'm sad to see the stadium go dark, but c'mon ... it's hard to get misty-eyed when the team's building a $1 billion replacement right next door.

And excuse me for saying so, but why is the Josh Hamilton story so much better than that of a player who didn't get addicted to drugs and alcohol? Like, say, Ian Kinsler.

We (fans and media) love the risen-from-the-ashes melodrama -- with a side order of faith. I say ... snore ... it's time to let Hamilton just play and quit trying to anoint him mythical status.

Serve and volley at Wimbledon

I love tennis pictures because they create all sorts of possibilities.

Like this one. Is Jelena Jankovich trying to blow this ball over the net?

Anywho, I'm enjoying Wimbledon this week. But I am concerned that with Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova losing today, the beauty pageant aspect will be lost.

U.S. Open playoff: Go Rocco!!

I'm so rooting for Rocco Mediate in today's 18-hole playoff at Torrey Pines.

Nothing against Tiger. He's awesome. But I followed Rocco a bit at Colonial, where he was struggling to make the cut and couldn't really get anything going, and he had the same demeanor. All smiles, chatty, just a nice guy.

And sometimes, I like to see nice guys finish first.

Avery Johnson takes the (high) road less traveled

The guy ends up taking the fall for the Dallas Mavericks failure as an organization, yet he couldn't be more gracious. Watch his news conference today, and try to remember the last time you've seen anyone in pro sports be this reasonable.

How the mighty fall

Cowboys driving with a minute left. Yanks down to one more out. Mike Tirico voices what I'm thinking: It's a big night for the little guy. Buffalo and Cleveland, the Rodney Dangerfields of big US cities,  could both pull off the big upsets.

Bobby Abreu homers to make it 6-4, but A-Rod pops out. Could be his last AB in pin stripes. Jorge Posada is the Yankees last gasp.

"Game of the year in the NFL season so far," Tirico says, setting up Cowboys with four chances to score from the 4-yard line with 24 seconds.

I can't take it!!!! My remote finger is cramping.   

The Mayne man

Kenny Mayne's tease to the post game commentary on ESPN: "Essentially, a lot of experts telling you what to believe."

Classic Kenny. Too bad he can't dance to save his spiky head.

Where is my sports mojo?

Cowboys get a field goal after a long drive to pull within four points 17-13, and then, in a flash, Terrence McGee returns a kickoff for a touchdown. Boom, it's 24-13. Just doesn't seem like Dallas' night.

Yankees can't catch a break, either. Still trailing 6-2 with three innings still left. Will this game ever end?

My sports karma is way off this week. Every team I root for has lost in agonizing fashion. My Gators went down for the second straight week in a heartbreaker Saturday at LSU. TCU and UT lost. I got whipped in my standing Sunday tennis doubles match. Finished 7th in my fantasy baseball league, and my 3-year-old son beat me in mini-golf. I'm going to take up piano.

Romo referendum: Yea or nay on the backward hat

All is right in Tony Romo's world: the Cowboys are undefeated, he's shredding defenses, he's scrambling like Staubach and talk radio palookas are proudly declaring their Romo-sexuality. (Guess what, guys, we always knew.)

So, of course, someone has to find a nit to pick with Tony Terrific. Seems a few fans don't like the way he always wears his hat backwards. Little Lebowski and silver-fox S-T columnist Ray Buck got an e-mail from one woman, who says Romo's style isn't cap-tivating, in fact it's "disrespectful."

Hmmm, what do you think? We've got a poll going because, well, we've got nothing better to do and T.O. hasn't had a tantrum all season. So vote on the Romo hat referendum. It could save lives.

Black is back

Seems like the Kingpin of Cowtown has a problem with basic black, which seems to be the prevailing theme for night sessions at the National Tennis Center. I'll agree that Roger Federer went too far with black socks and tennis shoes, and could have used some white trim on his shorts and/or shirt, but I kind of like the idea of making black the mandatory color at the Open just as white is at Wimbledon.

That would perfectly capture the essence of each tournament and the environment the players encounter. In fact, with form holding up during the first three days, fashion is the hot topic of conversation at the Open, and while you may want to talk about Maria Sharapova -- Lady in Red -- I prefer the men and women in black.

I kind of liked Andy Roddick's black ensemble, while I didn't think Serena looked all that splendid in her black skirt with the pink ribbon across the top. Maybe they should roll out a red carpet and hire Joan Rivers to comment on tennis fashion when the players emerge from the lockerroom and enter the court. We can only imagine what Joan would say about some of the get-ups. In fact, I'd like to see Rafael Nadal sport a pair of black clam diggers with matching black sleeveless top. And Sharapova, in addition to all the other Ovas and Itchs in the field, would probably look good in basic black.

Kind of reminds me of the Paladin look in Have Gun Will Travel. Never heard of Paladin? Well, take a look at one of the popular TV Westerns back in the day. -- Pete Alfano

 

The good, the bad and the Jerry

Kicking back on the recliner last night, reading my new edition of Sports Illustrated, I came across one of my favorite stories, and one of my least favorite in some time.

First, the bad: An obtuse, yet smoochy profile of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, dubbed The King of Texas. Took me three readings (the last one out loud) to grasp the writer's point in the lead. Here it is:

His "tolerance for ambiguity" -- his phrase -- is high enough to register somewhere between impudence and daredevilry. Where else would you put it? When the big oil companies, who are hardly in the business of prudence, abandoned their dry holes in the late '60s, it was Jerry Jones who offered to lease their failures. He barely understood their caution anyway. Spending $14 million to drill, say, 18,000 feet and then just walking away because of something called budget -- was that any way to find oil or gas? "Unthinkable," he says. "That's just unthinkable."

Um, OK, dude. Jerry's a maverick, a visionary. That's what he's trying to say, I think.

Now the good:  Venus Almighty, a wrap-up of Wimbledon. Check out this lead, which many of us cubicle dwellers can relate to:

Let's pretend you are, say, an insurance salesman. You're damn good at your job, world-class even. You clock in every day. You miss family functions on account of work. You try like hell to improve your performance rating and keep ascending the ladder. But there are these two colleagues -- siblings, no less! -- blocking your progress. They seem to pop into the office only when the mood strikes. They miss all the meetings and those insufferable "team building" outings because they're off acting or designing clothes or doing Lord knows what else. They take lots of sick leave, too. But when there's money on the table, they're the best around. They swoop in, perform with breathtaking skill and close the biggest accounts. Argh!

So perhaps you can commiserate with the rank-and-file on the WTA Tour. Most of the women are full-timers, devoting their lives to tennis. Yet, again and again Serena and Venus Williams emerge, often from far off the radar, to win the biggest tournaments.