Want to know who the next American tennis superstar is? Well, according to today’s Washington Post, it’s this dude. He’s 6’6″, 18 years old, and he’s got Jim Courier and Patrick McEnroe up his ass. Rafael Nadal… you have been served.

In other tennis news, the Legg Mason gets under way today down in D.C. Agassi, Roddick and James Blake are all in the draw, as well as Lleyton Hewitt and a certain American teenage wunderkind. Coverage is on ESPN2.

Some feel Querrey could be answer for U.S. tennis (Washington Post)

Although I find it hard to believe that anyone in Philly is mourning the loss of Bobby Abreu to the Yankees (let’s face it – overpaid underachievers like Abreu all flock to the Bronx eventually), the general tenor of the sports page today is one of great malaise. Jim Salisbury rues the deal as a salary dump. There’s a piece on Abreu’s highlights as a Phil – all those opulent numbers – sound and fury signifying less than nothing. And finally, there’s 12 new slogan ideas for the post-Abreu Phillies. My favorite – “Stop whining, or we’ll buy the Sixers too.”

Personally, I love the Abreu move. Phils are in the tank this year anyway. Get rid of the Abreu-tross and dump Lidle on George as well. You know what we say down in the Mothership – wait till next year, or, you know, some other year.

Deal nothing more than a salary saver (Philly Inquirer)
Going, going, gone (Philly Inquirer)
12 New Slogan Ideas for the Phillies (Philly Inquirer)

In today’s Washington Post, Justin Gatlin’s coach, Trevor “Balco” Graham, claims that Gatlin was set up for a postive test for an anabolic steroid by an evil massage therapist.

Dah… we’ll get back to you on this one.

Gatlin’s coach blames massage therapist (Washington Post)

Like most boys, I imagine, who were ten years old in 1980, J.R. Richard was fascinating to me. I loved his name, I loved that he was 6’8″, and I loved the fact that he mowed motherfuckers down like it weren’t no thing. He was the most exciting pitcher in the majors, and I, a young power pitcher myself, idolized him. Despite the fact that he was black and I was white, that he was a righty and I was a lefty, for about a year there I was always J.R. Richard in our backyard wiffle ball All-Star games. “J.R. Richard starting for the N.L.,” I would proclaim, and only later would I morph into Steve Carlton, and that tells the story right there.

I remember getting teased by other kids when the Richard controversy began that summer, when he started leaving games early and complaining of exhaustion, when the rumors began that he was losing his marbles. “He’s just a lazy nigger,” I heard often from kids in the overwhelmingly racist white Philly suburb of my youth. Though I would never say such a thing myself, had been taught never to utter that word, I confess I started to think something along the same lines. I was embarrassed that I had liked him so much and now he was turning out to be a nutcase. I started to make fun of him too – I would take myself out of wiffle ball games as Richard and exagerratedly say, “Oh I’m too tired to pitch anymore, I need to go see the doctor…”

On July 30th, 1980, 26 years ago today, the world learned that J.R. Richard was not lazy, or crazy, but dangerously ill. He had a massive stroke due to an arterial blockage in his right shoulder and nearly died. His career was effectively over, and a downward spiral began in his life that would lead to homelessness and despair.

What happened to this man was an enormous tragedy, and what the public made of it was a heinous crime. I was only ten years old – what the fuck did I know – but nevertheless, J.R., I admit that I joined the cackling masses. You were my hero and I turned against you. This many years later, that makes me feel like a coward, and I apologize to you wherever you are.

Unlike you, with that pissass hangover you woke up with this morning, Justin Gatlin is completely fucked. News broke today that The World’s Fastest Man tested positive for unusually high levels of testosterone in April, and now faces a lifetime ban from track and field.

Gatlin is a classic case, because he’s said all along that he was going to be the guy that singlehandedly cleaned up all of track and field’s drug problems. Evidently, he planned to do that with the help of a lot of drugs.

I’ll toot my own horn a bit and tell you that I called this one in Athens, but then again, who didn’t? Gatlin’s coach is Trevor Graham. It doesn’t take Miss Marple to get to the bottom of that one.

I like Gatlin, but as with so many cocky sprinter idiots, he throws around the Lord’s name a little too much in regards to his triumphs and it’s hard to feel too bad for him on the whole. He resorted to the old “I have no idea how this situation came to pass” defense, which is wearing awfully thin. Maybe, like Roid Landis, he will blame it on drinking too much whiskey. That was original at least. Or maybe something like this – “The night before the meet I ate this peanut buster parfait at Dairy Queen, but I swear, the shit tasted a little testosteroney…”

Gatlin, with Asafa Powell, co-holds the world record in the hundred meters. Looks like now the record belongs solely to Powell, until he tests positive for something, which shouldn’t be very long in coming.

Gatlin Admits Failing Drug Test (BBC Sport)
Sprinter Gatlin tests positive (L.A. Times)

“Hello… yes yes make it quick I am a very important man, I am Jacques Rogge for criminy’s sake, I am the Emperor of the Olympics and many people are trying to bribe me right this second… what? what do I think of cycling? it’s great no problems, cycling is a wonderful sport where men do things with cycles or some such thing… doping is one of those problems that happen when people go near to the doping places… yes yes goodbye to you Mr. Reporter Man I must go now to bathe in the blood of a thousand virgins…”

Rogge defends under-fire cycling (BBC Sport)

I know we’ve been a little Floyd heavy recently here on No Mas (no not that Floyd, fuck him already), but what are you gonna do? He’s had a lot of good anniversaries, and look, here at No Mas we love Floyd Patterson.

On this date 49 years ago, July 27, 1957, Floyd Patterson won a tenth-round TKO over Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson at the Polo Grounds. It was a rematch. The first bout was one that elevated Patterson to mythical status – Floyd broke his hand in the earlygoing and still fought on to prevail in a bloody 12-round split decision. It earned him a shot to fight Archie Moore for the vacant heavweight crown.

After defeating Moore with a fifth-round knockout, Patterson, always a gentleman, granted Jackson a rematch as his first title defense. With his hand intact, Floyd dismantled the Hurricane, knocking him down nine times in the fight and leading on all scorecards 9-0 when the ref stopped it in the tenth. The beating he gave Jackson was so severe that Jackson’s license was briefly suspended after the fight to protect him.

Hurricane Jackson was a rangy fighter, 6’4″, with a long reach that he used to great advantage against Floyd in the first fight (this fight is worth catching, by the way – it used to be on Classic every now and then – keep an eye out for it – it’s a brutal affair). He was one of those very good but not quite great fighters destined to be known by later generations only for having fought someone great. Count him with your Earnie Shavers and Nino Benvenutis and Rex Laynes. Besides losing to Patterson twice, Jackson has two other claims to fame – he twice beat Ezzard Charles, and he was trained by Whitey Bimstein, the corner legend who trained Gene Tunney, Harry Greb and Rocky Graziano to name a few.

I remember a cohort of mine in the NBC research room at the Athens Olympics getting unreasonably irate when he learned that weightlifting was one of the sports on the IOC’s chopping block for Beijing.

“But they can’t get rid of weightlifting,” he said. “It answers man’s eternal question to himself – can I pick this thing up?”

We laughed about that with the ardor of two dudes who had been averaging three hours of sleep a night for a month.

The reason that weightlifting has been considered for removal from the Olympic program has nothing to do with its viability as a sport. As my friend so eloquently pointed out, it’s one of the truly classical events, man versus mass, as essential as sport can be.

But weightlifting has become so tainted by drug use that it’s competely lost its credibility. At every major event, winners are stripped of medals after positive drug tests. It’s reached the point where this elemental sport is in danger of extinction. In the war on drugs, drugs won and weightlifting lost.

(Above is Leonidas Sampanis, who won Greece’s first medal at the Athens Games, only to later break his countrymen’s heart when he was stripped of his medal after testing positive for excessive levels of testosterone.)

It seems that cycling now finds itself at a similar crossroads. The Beatitude of Lance dominated the cycling stories in the U.S. for the past seven years, but elsewhere in the world, especially Europe, the subject of doping is never far behind when the topic of cycling comes up. From my Olympic experience I can tell you this – in Olympic media circles, it is understood as fact that Lance doped his way to the top. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. If he were anyone else – if he wasn’t a cancer survivor with a bracelet empire, if he were just some other Texan shithead on a bike – the American media would have sold him down the river a long time ago.

Just as in weightlifting, the temptations to dope in cycling have moved beyond the realm of temptation. It’s now a question of survival, as basic as – do you want to be competitive or not?

The strange thing is that the reason we want drugs out of sports is to preserve the quixotic “level playing field,” and yet in both of these irredeemably tainted sports, the playing field is as level as can be. Everyone’s on dope. The august I-berg put it best yesterday – “so that means Lance was still better than everyone else.”

Yes it does. And that might be where we’re at with weightlifting and cycling and… shit, let’s just say it… the entire universe of track and field. It’s not an ideal situation by any means, but if it comes down to just letting the athletes do drugs or obliterating their sports entirely, I say let them eat cake.

I guess the barbed wire rings on our logo didn’t help the cause (being a Philly guy, I thought it was cute). But whatever the bullshit reason, the USOC yesterday axed Philadelphia and Houston from the potential list of American cities to bid for the 2016 Summer Games. Three cities are left in the hunt – L.A., San Francisco and Chicago.

San Francisco, okay. That’s a good one. But L.A.? Fucking fuck, they already had an Olympics – they had TWO Olympics. Christ, why not just have them in Atlanta again?

And Chicago? Are you serious? Chicago makes the cut but Philly doesn’t? All’s I have to say about that is blow me. Philly will rise, fuck right we will.

USOC selects three cities to advance (USOC)

I also considered titling this post – “Does this mean we don’t have to listen to him call matches anymore?”

But the “fall of the mighty” angle seems more pertinent, particularly when set against the fact that Andy Roddick, one of Brad Gilbert’s former superstar pupils, just announced that he’s hired Jimmy Connors as his new coach. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Gilbert is signing on with the Lawn Tennis Association to coach Andrew “The Little Wanker” Murray. And, lest we forget, help the LTA with “some other projects.”

This is the same Brad Gilbert who brought Andre Agassi back from fatness and Brooke Shields, and then took Roddick to the top of the charts before being fired by ARod’s gay mojo in December of 2004. Somehow, what that resume gets you these days is a gig with Andrew Murray and the LTA. It boggles the mind.

Cut to Wimbledon 2007. Murray hoisting the trophy on Centre Court, having just dispatched Federer in four. Roddick is only to be found in the tabloids, where he and Connors are trading insults after their acrimonious divorce.

As a postscript – I remember when Roddick had just hired Gilbert, I saw Agassi being interviewed, I think by Ted Robinson. Ted said – “I spoke with Brad earlier today… he said to tell you you’re now his second favorite player.”

Without blinking, Agassi deadpanned, “That’s funny, because he’s now my second favorite coach.”

Gilbert accepts Murray coach role (BBC Sport)
BRAD GILBERT FACTFILE (sportinglife.com)