Category: Sports

Kevin Garnett, the All-Star forward for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves has apologized for his sophomoric, military-metaphored rant the other day. His apologia, however, was an exercise in damage control and irony.

First of all, here is what Garnett said — in the context of underscoring the gravity of an upcoming playoff game against the Sacramento Kings:

“This is it. It’s for all the marbles. I’m sitting in the house loading up the pump. I’m loading up the Uzis, I’ve got a couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I’m ready for war.”

Of course it was stupidly macho and juvenile, traits that are not mutually exclusive with NBA personnel. In his apology, inspired in no small part by the Wolves’ public relations staff, Garnett specifically referenced veterans and families with loved ones serving in Iraq.

He also acknowledged this: “I was totally thinking about basketball, not reality.”

Finally, something that makes sense.

Note to Stuart Sternberg, the wealthy former options trader and managing director of Goldman Sachs, who just bought a hefty 48 per cent of the Devil Rays. This isn’t how you became rich in the first place. And Vince Naimoli is still in charge. Shouldn’t you have waited until the team had won at least two in a row?

For the last nine years Rick Peckham, the well-modulated TV voice of the Tampa Bay Lightning, has been broadcasting Bolts’ games in tandem with color analyst Bobby “The Chief” Taylor. He has soldiered on through the bad old days that only ended a couple of seasons ago. He has called the play-by-play for a hockey team that had become all too familiar with 50-loss seasons. They were the Devil Rays of hockey.

“That was tough — not being able to win,” acknowledges Peckham. “You keep trying to look for positives in a young, inexperienced team. The Chief and I would pray that the opposition would call someone up (from the minors) in time for the game so we would have something to talk about.”

But as bad as those days were, the last two years have made it more than worthwhile, says Peckham. There has been no dearth of positives to chat about.

“Sure, it’s exciting,” says the 49 year old whose broadcast experience also includes 11 years with the Hartford Whalers (now Carolina Hurricanes). “Watching and covering a winner is always more fun, but it’s also the professional satisfaction. When we have our production meetings the morning of every telecast, we look at all our options. And there are a lot more. There are graphics to choose and topics to talk about. These days, as you can imagine, there’s a vast array of topics to talk about.”

Among them, the lack of respect accorded the Lightning by the national media. It’s especially apparent in the ESPN studio.

“People are just learning about the Lightning,” notes Peckham. “They are relative newcomers without a lot of familiar names. But they went 8-1 in the first two series. They outscored Montreal 14-5. It takes time, but I think people are waking up to just how good this team is.”

The success, says Peckham, has to do with more than talent, although that is obviously in ample supply. “They have the parts you need,” he stresses.

They have the cornerstones: 24-year-olds Vinny Lecavalier and Brad Richards. They have the undersized Martin St. Louis, who led the NHL in scoring, and goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who has been playing up to his elite status. They have veteran leadership in Dave Andreychuk, Tim Taylor and Darryl Sydor. They have a bunch of non-marquee names who know their roles. They have a taskmaster with a deft touch in head coach John Tortorella. And they have a general manager in Jay Feaster who is as astute as he is anonymous.

“Tortorella is very cognizant of players’ needs, especially for rest,” says Peckham. “He gives them days off down the stretch. He’s also a good communicator — very articulate.

“I think a lot of people would be surprised at how patient he can be,” adds Peckham. “He won’t yank a guy for making a mistake — especially if it’s one of commission. He knows which buttons to push. His style is to forecheck and apply pressure, which creates a high tempo. Players enjoy that. He’s got all the bases covered.”

But there’s also a downside to the upsurge in Lightning fortunes. Peckham and Taylor worked more than 60 regular season and playoff games for the Lightning’s contractual partner, Sunshine Network. But after they called Game 3 of the Montreal series, it was au revoir for the season. It was their last play-by-play telecast. Now that the team has gone where no Lightning franchise had even dared dream of going before, Peckham and Taylor are no longer on board to officially chronicle history. It’s strictly a national network tie-in now.

“It’s something we have to deal with,” Peckham says. “You’d like to be calling every game — especially now — but the networks (ABC/ESPN) have exclusive rights. We’ll try and stay as involved as we can and roll with it.”

As it turns out, that involvement — thanks to an arrangement between Sunshine and the Lightning — means that Peckham, Taylor and Paul Kennedy will be doing live pre- and post-game shows.

Speaking of talking, when Peckham isn’t doing it from his broadcast perch, he finds the experience nerve-wracking.

“I’m edgier when I’m not doing the game,” he explains. “I’m kind of nervous for them; you want to see them succeed. I’m much more emotionally involved. I don’t really relax.”

Peckham’s comfort zone is the broadcast booth — and while he does other sports (he called the ArenaBowl last spring on radio) — the up-and-down, rapid personnel-changing blitzkrieg that is hockey is his game. The key, he emphasizes, is self-discipline.

“In hockey there’s so much going on that you can’t describe every pass,” points out Peckham. “You have to edit yourself, so you don’t fall behind the play. You need to kind of edit on the fly.”

Peckham also edits out any temptation to speak in the first person plural. The Bucs’ Gene Deckerhoff and the University of Georgia’s legendary Larry Munson, for example, are graduates of the “we” school of home-team broadcasting. A lot of hard-core fans love it; many others don’t.

“This isn’t a criticism of anybody else, but that doesn’t work for me,” says Peckham. “I try to paint a picture of what’s going on, and that includes good plays by the other team. Now we don’t call it down the middle, but I don’t think we take the cheerleading approach.”

He says he and Taylor — not unlike the Lightning players — spend a lot of time on video critique sessions. He mainly uses the Internet to familiarize himself with Lightning opponents.

And whether it’s the Lightning or their opponents, he says, hockey players — for all the mayhem often associated with their game — are the easiest athletes to deal with of all the major sports.

“They have a reputation for being approachable and easy to talk to, and it’s well- deserved,” notes Peckham. “And the Lightning are a good example. Not just nice guys, but also savvy. You won’t see them talking out of turn or being brash. They aren’t that way, and they know how to stay out of (media) traps.

“I think people would find them very down to earth and even funny,” adds Peckham. “In fact, some of the funniest people are hockey players.”

Just don’t ask the New York Islanders, the Montreal Canadiens or, hopefully, the Philadelphia Flyers.

Sgt. Pat Tillman, who died in a firefight in Afghanistan, is being properly eulogized across America. In a time of national peril, when little — if any — sacrifice is required of most of us, he went out of his way to make the ultimate contribution.

As a member of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, he walked away from a multi-million dollar contract in 2002. He was that moved by the events of Sept. 11. He quit football and enlisted in the Army. He then turned down all interviews that would have lionized his patriotism.

Tillman had always felt fortunate to live in a country where so many had it so good. He felt especially lucky that, as a well-paid professional athlete, he had it much better than most. In the patriotic aftermath of 9/11, he then felt obliged to give something in return. He gave his life.

That life of 27 years will be memorialized in many places in many ways, especially by the Cardinals and his alma mater, Arizona State University, where he was a summa cum laude graduate and an academic All-American.

Here’s a tribute suggestion. Could the media muzzle its sense of hero worship and athletic hyperbole and permanently refrain from using the word “hero” as it relates to sports? The world of games and those who play them has no heroes. It has players. Some make winning plays. Some are more exciting and dramatic than others. None, however, are “heroic.”

It demeans the memory of Pat Tilman to call those who play games heroes. Many aren’t even good people.

Tillman was an elite Army Ranger. He was also an elite human being. He was a hero.

Call it a societal air ball. Recently the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks had to apologize for playing a hip-hop song over the public address system of Phillips Arena during a timeout. Seems that Hawk management was shocked — not unlike Claude Raines’ famous double-take upon discovering gambling at Rick’s in Casablanca — that the ditty was filled with obscenities and other, uh, graphic language. And it was a “Family Night” promotion.

Nice touch.

The Rays open in Tokyo. The Lightning are in the hunt for the Stanley Cup. And we’re still talking about football. But then the Bucs make it easy.

How is this for timing? On behalf of the John Lynch Foundation, John and Linda Lynch recently took out full-page ads in both metro dailies thanking everyone from “the fans that supported me and the community that embraced my family” to “Michael the Mailman.” The ad also underscored that the community work of the Foundation will continue — even though John Lynch will now suit up for the Denver Broncos.

It was the sort of classy gesture we’ve become accustomed to. And it was a reminder of the cheesy manner in which the Bucs let him go. Another day at the orifice.

Then just a couple of days later the Bucs announce the signing of mammoth defensive tackle Darrell Russell, a likely replacement for the departed Warren Sapp. Russell comes with baggage, as in serious issues with drugs, women and video cameras. According to Russell, he’s too often been in the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging with the wrong crowd — including those all-too-familiar with the date-rape drug GHB. To most others, he IS the wrong crowd.

When given yet another chance by Washington last year, he showed his gratitude by not showing up on time for a meeting — and was axed.

Now the Bucs are hoping he helps fans forget about Sapp. Multiple paternity suits and generic belligerence and arrogance never looked so benign.

Paul Hornung is a Notre Dame alum, NFL Hall of Famer and Heisman Trophy winner. He’s done — and seen — some things. He is not some 68-year-old white guy who doesn’t “get it,” unless “not getting it” means being honest about the self-evident.

But that’s the issue.

We live in a society where candor and citing the obvious will get you in trouble in a hurry on certain sensitive subjects. And none is more sensitive — or volatile — than race, as Hornung was recently reminded.

In a radio interview the other day Hornung opined that his alma mater should “ease it up a little bit” on its standards. Specifically, such easing would enable Notre Dame to get more black players. “We must get the black athletes if we are to compete” were his words.

When the usual suspects, including Notre Dame officials, either recoiled in horror or simply backed away from such heresy, Hornung modified his stand. He was remiss, he said, because he “didn’t include the white athletes.”

Here is what Hornung should have — and probably meant — to say:

“Notre Dame has more than its share of black football players. What it doesn’t have is its share of blue-chip black players. And that has everything to do with standards — both academic and behavioral.

“It makes no sense, for example, for Notre Dame to play a daunting schedule, be expected to compete for the national championship and be precluded from recruiting the same blue-chip black players that the Oklahomas and Miamis do. Do you really think Notre Dame stood a chance of recruiting, say, Willie Williams, the nation’s top linebacker prospect who will either go to jail or the University of Miami? Do you think the administration or alumni would have bought the argument that nobody knew he had double-figure priors before he took his punk act to Gainesville?

“Here’s the reality, regardless of who doesn’t like it. If you look at high school graduation rates — and SAT scores — it’s obvious there’s a big disparity between blacks and whites, whether they play sports or not. (This isn’t the forum to debate why this is so, but suffice it to say it has more to do with a dysfunctional black culture than throwing more money at public schools.)

“Anyhow, the disparity is real, and the chasm only grows wider. As a result, it is OBVIOUSLY more challenging to get black athletes into universities — or black non-athletes for that matter. It forces universities and their revenue sports — football and basketball — to get creative and apply other criteria. Leadership, economic hardship, special skills, first in family to go to college, etc. Notre Dame has to get with the program and adjust.”

What Hornung is saying is that Notre Dame, which doubtless already does some of that, needs to do a lot more of that. In effect, Notre Dame needs to lower standards — or expectations. It won’t win big by recruiting more Irish.

Hornung did nothing wrong. Just got ensnared in another PC dragnet. Let’s not pretend it is anything other than that.

The NFL does not stand for the “No Fun League.” That’s the disparaging reference made by those who say the league is overreacting with a recent rule change. Starting next season, there will be automatic 15-yard, unsportsmanlike conduct penalties — in addition to fines — for “organized and choreographed” end-zone displays that include “extraneous objects” such as Sharpies, cell phones and eventually lap dancers.

What the league is apparently trying to do is rebottle the genie of hip-hop culture that increasingly dominates the playing — and marketing — of pro football. Officials, such as Rich McKay, co-chair of the league’s competition committee, are trying to avoid the appellation of the “No Class League” without actually using those words. That’s because rehearsed showboating is a boorish, juvenile, attention-attracting stunt — not a manifestation of exuberance or expression of jubilation.

By cracking down on its classless celebrants, the NFL would also be doing a major favor for a lot of high school football programs, which desperately need better role models.

Let’s go over this one more time. Steroids threaten the game’s players and integrity; serial spitters further pollute the image; un-capped salaries create competitive apartheid; and the designated hitter remains an iconoclastic misstep.

But Major League Baseball has drawn a line in the diamond. Visible tattoos are taboo on pitchers. As a result, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Justin Miller — and anyone else with an illustrated arm — will have to wear long sleeves to avoid any distraction to batters.

Call it a minor establishment victory against seepage from the popular culture. But why stop there? Apparently gold chains are still an acceptable accessory. And how about hitters and their earrings? Or perhaps MLB doesn’t want to rock the bijou boat and remains content that the Rolexes and pinky rings are still staying in the locker room. For now.

Can it be just 14 months ago that we were reveling in the Jon Gruden mystique and retracting our harshest Glazer critiques?

Sure, a disappointing season ensued, but stuff like that happens in the National Football League. That’s why NFL also stands for “Not For Long.” Injuries and parity scenarios are co-conspirators.

But the John Lynch debacle exhumed all the old Glazer rancor. We weren’t so much reminded that professional football is a calculated, unsentimental business, but that the Glazer operation is truly classless. They and their main minion, General Manager Bruce Allen, are to public relations what Elmer Fudd is to elocution.

And it hardly helps that the Bucs’ Gruden-inspired, free-agent plunge is looking increasingly like a rent-a-player philosophy that ignores the future — as well as rap sheets.

Then there’s the timing of the announcement of the Bucs’ new training facility and headquarters on the site of the old Tampa Bay Center mall just east of the RayJay. It will be state-of-the-art, encompass 145,000 square feet and cost $30 million.

Make that $18 million to the Bucs. The Community Investment Tax will pick up the rest.

Moreover, the invitee list to the well-hyped unveiling of the design omitted any government officials. Not even the Tampa Sports Authority, whose responsibility — and burden –it is to oversee taxpayer money for the Taj Glazer.