Sporting Fools

I can't lie -- I wrote off the Suns initially. I called them a flash in the pan. I even said I'd vote for Shaq over Nash for the MVP. This was wrong. I need the Suns. The people need the Suns. Basketball fans have been denied a professional team that can score for too long.

Even better than that, the Suns force their opponents to score. Before this series was set, the scoreboards in San Antonio probably didn't have three digits on them.

There's no way the Spurs can keep up with the scoring pace they've set: 121 points in Game 1 and 111 points in Game 2. They've already hit their three-game total from the 2003 Finals against the Nets.

The recent comments by NBA Commissioner David Stern mark the first time basketball's chief has said he'd consider the policy change, which is being pushed by some teams.

"I don't doubt it will eventually happen, but at a price that recognizes that value," Stern said. Stern said the league's teams lost money this season, though he wouldn't be specific.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and New Jersey Nets Chief Executive
Brett Yormark are among team executives who say it's time to stop treating uniforms as commercial-free zones.

"If it were up to me, they would already be there," Cuban, whose $87 million payroll this season was second to the New York Knicks, said in an e-mail interview.

Members of the American Football Coaches Association will make their votes in the final coaches' poll public starting this season, executive director Grant Teaff said Thursday.

Teaff said most coaches did not want to release the votes because of the scrutiny it would bring, but decided to vote for the change to quell any "uncalled-for controversy." He said there are no circumstances where the group would allow their in-season voting to be made public.

"The in-season polls are just a barometer," Teaff said. "The final poll that determines the two teams that play in the national championship seems to be the one every wants to know about."

Last season, DeBerry was asked to remove a banner from the locker room which displayed the "Competitor's Creed," including the lines "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

"Fisher is fighting a heck of a battle over here at your academy (with) the U.S. government," Bowden was quoted as saying in the Gazette of Colorado Springs. "He's fighting a heck of a battle because he happens to be a Christian, and he wants his boys to be saved. I want my boys to be saved."

Bowden's comments came as a Pentagon task force investigates claims of religious intolerance at the academy, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

"We realize we have other religions with us," Bowden said. "The coach has a responsibility to these boys to try to influence their spiritual life, their physical life and their academic life. ... We know we're going to get challenged on it, but that's what we believe in. I ain't gonna back down."

"To sit around and think that labor peace is going to just fall off a tree, they're reading the wrong tea leaves," said Gene Upshaw, the union's executive director. "It's time for them to wake up to the fact that we have a problem, and we need to get it fixed."

Upshaw said that, in the latest talks with the league, the union has been offered 57 percent of the league's designated gross revenues "when they admit to us under the old agreement we've been getting 59 to 60 percent. So why would we accept something less than what we're already getting? We're not going to do that."

Under the current labor agreement, a salary cap will be in effect for the last time for the 2006 season, and if there is no extension, the 2007 season would be uncapped, meaning teams could spend as much as they want to sign free agent players. Upshaw said if it came to an uncapped year, he would decertify the union, a move that essentially would mean all players would become free agents.

Rosenhaus, an agent for 17 years, has been both admired and resented. Sports fans have sent him irate e-mail messages, calling him Darth Vader or Satan. Competing agents have accused him of stealing clients. Rosenhaus offers no apologies; he is determined to fight for his clients, regardless of the animosity it may cause.

"I worry about the P.R. hit that my clients take, but I never worry about the P.R. hit that I take," said Rosenhaus, who represents 91 players, the most of any N.F.L. agent. "I've been hired to do a job. I pride myself on being a dealmaker. Not a tough negotiator, not a hardliner, not someone who pounds the teams. I want to be viewed as a guy who can make a deal. Once I get what's fair, I pull the trigger."

Bain and Game Plan LLC, a Boston-based firm that arranges the sale of professional sports teams, in March made a $3.5 billion offer for the league, which still hasn't resolved a labor dispute with players that forced it to cancel its season. The new offer, which topped $4 billion, was made yesterday, said the people, who asked not to be identified.

"We haven't given up, that's for sure,'' Bob Caporale, Game Plan's chairman, said in a telephone interview. He declined to confirm that a revised offer was submitted to the league.

League spokesman Frank Brown said, "I will not confirm any aspect of what you're reporting.''

John Moag, chief executive of Baltimore-based investment banking firm Moag & Co., said the new offer won't be enough to convince owners to sell.

"It remains highly unlikely,'' Moag said in an interview. "The owners didn't buy these teams to make a killing. They bought them to enjoy and hold onto.''

Eschewing their outdated reputation as a slug-it-out, half-court team, the Spurs played long stretches at Phoenix's frenetic pace, pushing the ball whenever the opportunity presented itself. When the Suns went small, the Spurs downsized as well.

"If that's what it takes, that's what we're going to have to do," Popovich said. "We're a pretty flexible team going between big and small because we've done it against so many teams all year. We're willing to be the chameleon."

Nothing against Anaheim, Florida or the sainted Red Sox, but those of us who still are hardball purists find this slightly off-putting.

The wild card is a good idea. It keeps about a dozen cities thinking baseball through the media uproar that accompanies the onset of football season.

But obviously, the reward for winning the division is far too small. Something needs to be done to roughen the road for the wild-card teams and smooth the path for the suddenly pitiable Yankees and Braves.

The best idea out there is to have the best two runners-up in each league meet in a one-game "play-in."

This idea (advanced on numerous fronts the last two years) would impose a steep penalty on the wild-card teams and thus reward the divisional winners.

Teams almost certainly would want to avoid the play-in game, to avoid the drain on their pitching staffs, and that would create real pennant races through the final week of the season.

Nearly 60 years after Jackie Robinson painfully integrated major league baseball, his collegiate proteges often feel just as alone.

With the nationally televised NCAA tournament beginning in two weeks, the lack of diversity will again be impossible to hide under the oversized batting helmets and home-plate hugs.

From March Madness to June Sameness.

Of 11 Division I baseball programs in Southern California, there are only 10 African Americans.That's less than one per team, and six teams have none, including former national champion USC.

"People see these numbers and are surprised," said Richard Lapchick, president of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport. "But this decline has been happening over years."

• He's 41 -- That's old for a pitcher or a baseball player in general (save Julio Franco)
• He's not physically conditioned -- Now he's physically imposing, but unlike a Roger Clemens, he's not in great condition. He's got tons of nagging injuries and he just can't hold up for more than 70% of the season.
• He's getting rattled -- Johnson is the classic bully. He hates getting hit and when he does get hit, he unravels. As the Mets collected single after single and made Johnson work in each inning, you could see the unit seething. But so what? Since when did having an ugly stare get someone out?
• He's lost velocity -- He'll hit 95 on the gun three times a game, everything else is between 91-93 so I think he's going to have to start getting better control of his other pitches.

Randy Johnson is exactly what he's going to be -- A very good pitcher on the decline. And this was one of those areas where George Steinbrenner let his emotions ruin his judgment. He envisioned the 31-year-old Randy Johnson and got the 41-year-old. Again he's good enough to win 15 games, but he's not going to lead a staff anymore.

Johnson Sounds Like a Man Who's Lost It [Newsday]

Intimidation Factor Eludes Johnson [NYT]