How can I describe what it’s like as a sports fan to grow up in the Philadelphia area, hyper-aware of the long shadow of New York’s grandiose self-regard? Bostonians have claimed ownership of the vicissitudes of this condition for too long – we Philadelphians know the disease of insignificance more intimately than those bloody Cantabs ever have or ever will. Boston created a joyous identity of their long-suffering. Down in Philly, that’s just not the way things get done. The City of Brotherly Love has never been much for an Irish wake. They don’t get misty – they get murderously rageful. And thus has our national sports identity evolved into that of the Comically Embittered Loser, trashy, quick to boo, quick to give up on their teams that always lose anyway so who gives a shit. Routinely, Mets fans invade Philadelphia en masse and fill the air with their self-love and drunken swagger, broadcasting a singular message of colonial disdain – “this pissass city is just a grimy satellite of our kingdom.”

Not any more, motherfuckers. One if by land, two if by sea. ’64 Phils? NO. ’07 Mets. This is reminiscent, on a smaller scale I know, but reminiscent nevertheless, of the Yankees’ epic collapse in the 2004 ALCS. That one series seemed like a paradigm shift that singlehandedly reversed the course of Yankees/Red Sox history. Bucky Fuckin Dent be damned – from here to eternity the Yankees are the team that blew a 3-0 lead to Boston when they had it in the bag. Nothing will EVER erase that ignominy from the record books, and believe me, you can still feel the reverberations hovering over the bombast in the Bronx. Who knows how long that black cloud will last (I know, I know, maybe not so long after all… we’ll see). The Great Mets Collapse of 2007 is an equal humiliation, and that it came at the Phillies’ hands feels like some sort of grand socio-political liberation from the living sports hell that is perpetual failure as a foregone conclusion in Philadelphia. This entire afternoon, I suffered the agonies of what that hell hath wrought in me – I waited moment by moment for the Mets’ comeback, for the Phils’ improbable collapse. I felt that it was certain, and yet it never came. The Wicked Witch died without so much as a whimper. Now… now if only we can get back to Kansas, Toto. Oh GOD that it might happen. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…

P.S. – Taylor/Pavlik thoughts are coming tomorrow – I am only beginning to process what I witnessed last night)

I-Berg prostitutes his childhood pictures yet again. This time for Tiki Barber and the Today Show as they explore the No Mas offices and what parents should tell their children about fallen athletes. Check the clip…

When kids lose their role models

Okay, okay, maybe we’ve overdone it a little on Taylor/Pavlik here this week, but look, we’re excited. I’m not going to go overboard with my pre-fight analysis – I just want to give you a few of the reasons why I think…

1. this fight will NOT go the distance
2. Pavlik will win

On the fight not going all the way, well, you don’t have to be Nat freakin Fleischer to call that one. Neither of these guys is what you would call a defensive expert, and both of them pack a serious wallop. Pavlik – we all know how he stupifies his opponents. And Jermain – people have forgotten how seriously Jermain can trade in the stupification business because of the type of dude he’s been fighting since he made the bigtime. I mean, look at who he’s fought since he won the belts – Bernard again and then Winky, two fighters who are the second and third best defensive fighters respectively (after Pernell) of the last twenty years. Then Kassim the Dream, and granted Jermain did not cover himself in glory in that thing, but still, that Ouma… I’m not exactly sure that Tyson could have taken him out. I’m not sure a machine gun could knock out Kassim Ouma. And then Jermain fights Cory Spinks, which was just… who needed that fight in the first place? Cory certainly was not interested in fighting that night. That was like watching boxing and the Tour de France at the same time.

No, make no bones about it – Jermain can bring it, and he’s seriously big to boot. He’s a 175 masquerading as a 160, and when he puts all that body in motion, you do not want to be on the other end. I have a feeling that the winner of this fight is going to look like he just lost a fight badly, and the reason that I think it will be Pavlik is this: for all his size and power, do you really think Jermain hits harder than Edison Miranda? I don’t. I think he’s faster, more difficult to hit cleanly – without question I think this will be a much tougher assignment than Miranda for Pavlik. But Miranda was throwing anvils at the Ghost, and he walked through them like he was Casper. Pavlik is one tough, rugged Youngstown type of bastard. Meanwhile, Jermain has NEVER fought anyone with the kind of pop that Pavlik has. Look at that list of big-name opponents up there – a 40-year-old Bernard? Bernard couldn’t punch when he was 25. Winky? Never a pleasant experience fighting the Wink, but the man don’t knock anybody out (and that said, he almost got Jermain). Kassim? A natural 147 fighting a guy who walks around at 190. Cory? Not even worth talking about – all he did was jab Taylor in the stomach like four times a round. The fact of the matter is that for the last two years, Jermain has fought guys who have next to nothing on their punches. Now he’s going to get in and trade with Kelly “I make dudes shit their pants before they figuratively die in front of me” Pavlik? Sounds like a heap of trouble.

I don’t know if you watched the preview show on HBO, but there was one important clue in there as to where Jermain’s, and even more telling, Manny Steward’s head is at. Suddenly, Jermain and Manny are both talking about how Jermain needs to jab more, get back to the way he used to fight, use his footwork more, box more. And I’m like dah… what? When the hell did Jermain used to be like Sugar Ray Leonard? When was this magical time?

I’ll tell you when – it was never. Jermain always has been a clumsy-ass bull in a china shop who overwhelms his opponents with his pure mass and raw power. This guy used to be a boxer like I used to be a surfer. So why suddenly is Manny Steward talking about how Jermain needs to box more? Do I really need to answer that? There’s going to be two bulls in the ring Saturday night, and ole Manny at least seems to be plenty aware that one of them has a sharper pair of horns. That alone should tell you everything you need to know when you’re making your wager. Enjoy the fight, make sure you tune in early for Berto/Estrada, because that should be a wangdanger too, and look for me and I-berg – we’ll be the only guys in Panama hats besides Bert Sugar.

( When it comes to September 28th in the history of sports, there’s really only one thing worth talking about, and no, it’s not the Black Sox Scandal…)

Despite the fact that he was a Red Sock his whole career, Ted Williams was very No Mas. Actually, to say that is perhaps to overestimate the No Masian virtues, because Ted Williams was some kind of a son of a bitch, and I mean that with the utmost respect. Basically, we here at No Mas admire his churlishness in the pursuit of excellence and his overall ‘damn the torpedoes” demeanor. Holms said what was on his mind and walked with a swagger and never backed down from a challenge one day in his life. He was the anti-ARod, John Wayne with a bat.

September 28th, 1941 – Teddy Ballgame played both ends of a doubleheader against the A’s to finish out the season. The day before, Red Sox manager Joe Cronin (evidently having never met Williams before) suggested that Ted sit out the rest of the season to preserve his .401 batting average. One can only imagine how many profanities Williams used to qualify his answer of ‘no.” He went 1-4 and his average dropped to .399. The next day, however, he picked up the slack, going 6 for 8 on the afternoon to finish the year at .406, making him the first man to hit .400 in eleven years, and the last man ever to do it. Also making him a dude with a pair of cojones the size of basketballs.

September 28th, 1960 – Williams is 42 and has announced his retirement, and the Red Sox, a miserable edition, are hosting the Orioles for their last home game of the season. In the eighth inning, the old Thumper thumps one, a 450-foot home run into the right-center field seats behind the bullpen at Fenway. It was his 521st home run in what would turn out to be his last major league at-bat. Still, he refused to come out for a curtain call. Ted Williams was not a curtain call kind of guy.

Among those in attendance that day was John Updike, who soon afterwards wrote an article about the game and Williams’ career for the New Yorker called Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu. It’s not quite as long as Ulysses and about as pretentious, but worth a look if you have a long flight ahead of you.

(No Mas welcomes the one and only Unsilent back to the team, and he comes out of his corner with both gloves flying… don’t call it a comeback, he’s been here for years…)

On Saturday night Kelly Pavlik will face off against Jermain Taylor for the latter’s Middleweight title, but don’t expect to hear about it on SportsCenter. Those of us who still consider ourselves boxing fans hardly need any reminder – it’s a fight night we’ve been looking forward to since Pavlik stopped Edison Miranda in dramatic fashion prior to Taylor’s last defense. Yet the average sports fan remains oblivious to this potential Fight of the Year. Typical pundits and commentators continue to offer the same explanation for the lack of mainstream buzz around such an event – “boxing is dead.” But in a year when a mediocre fight like Mayweather/De La Hoya broke the record for pay-per-view buys how can this possibly be true?

It isn’t.

Boxing is arguably more “alive” now than it has been since Mike Tyson helped turn the sport into a national punchline some ten years ago. In case you hadn’t noticed, boxing is having one hell of a year and it’s only going to get better in the next three months. So why is it that a sport filled with so many dynamic young fighters (too many to list) hasn’t been able to recover in the eyes of omniscient journalists? In one word, coverage. In another word, money.

ESPN, the epicenter of the American sports landscape, once prided itself on bringing athletic competition to the masses of fans desperate for more coverage. In its more idyllic days the network might even have considered it their responsibility to cover (and even promote) events for the benefit of the fans and the sport itself. Ten years ago (the same year as the Tyson/Holyfield debacle) any semblance of noblesse oblige in Bristol was gradually replaced by its responsibility to the Walt Disney Company and its legion of shareholders. If the network doesn’t have a stake (be it direct or indirect) in an event you’re not likely to hear it discussed on their flagship show.

On those rare occasions when SportsCenter shifts it’s focus onto boxing it is seldom positive. Typically the story in question is in place to perpetuate the idea that boxing is more joke than sport (or it’s a promo for their reality show, The Contender). In the past we’ve been treated to countless stories on the sad on-going career of the seemingly punch-drunk Evander Holyfield. The lone “boxing” stories that I’ve seen crack SportsCenter‘s rotation this week have involved Pretty Boy Floyd dancing like a fool and the downward spiral that is Mike Tyson’s life. The last time SportsCenter featured any real boxing coverage the commentators were debating whether or not two fading stars could “save” the sport. In Mayweather/De La Hoya we had two ring legends who were fighting for nothing more than money and the opportunity to make more money.

So what should we expect from the producers next week, an interview with the Middleweight champion or a story about the Golden Boy prancing around in fishnets? These are the decisions that keep Norby Williamson up at night.

The ESPN brand is so vast that it has become the lone source of sports highlights, analysis, and previews for many of the nation’s casual sports fans. At this point, a picture of Pete Weber might be more recognizable to a dedicated ESPN consumer than one of Jermain Taylor. Ever since ESPN bought up the Arena Football League, Tony Graziani’s name has been on the lips of SportsCenter anchors more than Kelly Pavlik or Andre Berto or any of the other emerging marketable stars. It makes sense for any major corporation to “keep things in the family” but Disney goes off the deep end. Take for example their recent refusal to air promos for the World Series now that they aren’t broadcasting the post-season.

Citing network policy, ESPN says it does not accept advertising that promotes competitive programming on other networks unless it is contractually obligated to do so , and it states that it’s not obligated to under its new media deal with MLB. It says other networks have similar policies.

…yeah, because why would a sports specific network want to let people know when and where they can watch the World Series when they could be running promos for the World Series of Poker reruns on ESPN2?

So what is it that’s taking up all of the airtime on your average SportsCenter broadcast? Take a look at my quick recap of the final third (or so) of Wednesday’s episode.

(Here’s my unedited and unabridged entry from September 26th of last year. It’s, uh, rather appropriate one year later. People, let me tell you, I harbor the exact same dream today. And I anticipate the same heartbreak. -Large)
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As the Phillies march toward the Wild Card and make us all finger-chewing scoreboard-watching wrecks in the process (I already have it all planned out – Mets in the NLCS, Yanks in the Series – then I can die), it seems fitting to take you back to a little Fightin’ Phils on-this-day minutiae.

On September 26, 1950, as the Whiz Kids were walking off with the N.L. pennant, Phils’ reliever Jim Konstanty set a modern era record by appearing in his 71st game on the season. He would finish the year with 74 total appearances, a record that would stand until 14 years later, when the K.C. Athletics’ John Wyatt made it into 81 games. The current record is 106 games, set by Mike Marshall with the Dodgers in 1974, and anyone who’s read ‘Ball Four” knows that Mike Marshall was a real march-to-his-own-drummer kind of guy.

September 26, 1964 , The Phillies host the Braves at Shibe Park. The Phils are in the process of the worst collapse in major league history, losing 10 of their last 12 games (and 10 in a row mind you) to blow a 6 1/2 game lead in the N.L. and end up losing the pennant by a game to the Cardinals, forever earning themselves the moniker ‘the foldin’ Phils” and beginning Gene Mauch’s reputation as a snakebitten loser. There are people in Philly to this day who get a murderous gleam in their eyes when you bring up the ’64 Phils , my Grampa Noyes was one of them (picture to the right is a sheet of pristine World Series tickets the Phillies had already printed up before the collapse). This game with the Braves was number six of the 10 straight losses, but it’s also notable for the fact that the two teams set a major league record by using 43 total players in the game. The Braves win it 6-4 when Rico Carty triples in three in the ninth off Bobby Shantz. Motherfuckin Rico Carty.

And finally, September 26, 1975 – the Phils and Mets play a miserable doubleheader. Phils win the first game 4-3 in 12 innings in a game twice delayed by rain. A third rain delay finally ends the evening in the third inning of game two, although the game isn’t called for good until 3:15 a.m. About 200 fans were left in the Vet. This is interesting because… I don’t know why. It happened. The ’75 Phils were cooler than the other side of the pillow. Dave Cash, Jay Johnstone, Tommy Hutton, Willie Montanez. Dick Allen in his second Philly go-round. Check out my man Downtown Ollie Brown over there. I loved him. His batting stance was ill.

Look I have to fess up – I didn’t even know that two-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves was on this season of “Dancing with the Stars.” I learned that last night, when I tuned in to check out Floyd’s debut. So, with that as a disclaimer for just what kind of DWS fan I am, I bring you my assessment of both Floyd and Helio’s performances on last night’s show, dubbed “Testosterone Tuesday” by the diabolical geniuses behind this ballroom-dancing clusterfuck.

FLOYD
Oh Jesus that was embarrassing. What WAS that? I just don’t… okay okay, here’s the breakdown. We start by learning that Floyd is the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, and that he is dancing with the best pound-for-pound dancer in the world, a muscular Latin chick who looks like she’s at least a junior welterweight if Floyd is a true 147. We watch them training. Floyd announces that he is trying to do something that has never been done before – train for “Dancing with the Stars” and train for a world title fight (Hatton) simultaneously. I checked the Ring Encyclopedia on this, and he’s right – it never has been successfully accomplished before, and it’s only been attempted once, by Rocky Graziano before the second Tony Zale fight.

The meta-narrative for the Floyd training sequence (and I’m talking META-narrative – maybe 20 seconds of development on this) is that Floyd is a talented dancer but headstrong, difficult to train. His Latin chick storms out on him after a saucy exchange. She comes back. Floyd vows that he will defer to her wisdom, that he will not let her down. The faces of Mickey Goldmill and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to Floyd in a dream. “Use the FORCE Rock!”

Now is the time on Sprockets when they dance. Look, I know as much about ballroom dancing as I-berg knows about judo, but this just does not look like ballroom dancing to me. Floyd looks really nervous, unlike how he looks, say, before a big fight. He jumps around doing hip-hop type crunk thrusts while his babe kicks and shimmies and seems to be doing a completely different dance than he is. The music sounds like a salsa remix of a 50 Cent song. This, we’re informed, is what’s known as a “Cha Cha Cha.” I’ll bet all those crunked-out homies in Atlanta didn’t know that’s what they were up to. Afterwards, while the judges express enthusiastic unease, Floyd drips buckets of sweat from his forehead and smiles awkwardly. Later on they get their scores, three sixes, which I gather is not good. I think Floyd is rightfully on the chopping block, which is very good news to Large, both because I’m embarrassed for him and because if he gets voted off I don’t have to watch this shit anymore. It’s in my No Mas contract.

HELIO
Helio is paired with the woman who was the winning professional on last year’s show, and she is kind of hot in a blonde boopsie sort of way. To the camera, Helio says that he is the two-time defending Indy 500 champion, and he guarantees that he will make what’s-her-face the two-time defending DWS champion. Nice one. They train. Ten-second interlude while Helio has a terrible career-threatening accident on the racetrack. What’s-her-face paces nervously in the dance room – will Helio appear? is Helio dead or unrecognizably disfigured? No, wait, there he is, he’s not dead. He’s not even hurt. Ha ha ha. They train some more.

Their chosen dance is the Forbidden Fox-trot. This, I must say, looks a little more like ballroom dancing to me – two people cheek to cheek gliding around the dancefloor and every now and then dipping each other and kicking. Good times. The song is “Bewitched” and at the end, the chick does a little Samantha-like nose twitch and then breaks into a huge fake “oh this is much fun” laugh that makes me want to punch her. On the whole, Helio doesn’t really embarrass himself, but he doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing either, at least to my eyes. The judges, though, love him. He and his blonde babe get two eights and a nine, which I gather is an awesome score. It seems Helio is an early favorite to take the checkered flag. I just want you to know right now that if Floyd gets voted off and Helio stays on, I’m still bailing on this thing. Tune in tomorrow for my recap of the results show, which hopefully will send Floyd back to the gym to do what he does best – skip that mothafuckin rope son!

It’s taken me this long, a good ten days of repeated listening, to finally come to this conclusion: the song “Barry Bonds” on Kanye West’s new album has little or nothing to do with Barry Bonds. You know how it is – the lyrics kind of fly by and you’re getting your groove on and all, and hey, it’s called “Barry Bonds” so you figure it’s probably about Barry Bonds and you’ll figure it out eventually just not now.

It hit me last night. It was during the Lil Wayne part, which is dope (the track is fat on the whole), and I was like, wait a minute, holms is just free- associating. There’s not a single word of this that’s about Barry Bonds.

Then I went back. I found only one brief passage that may (may) be referencing His Barry-ness. Kanye says:

I did it, that asshole done did it,
Talked it then he lived it,
Spit it then he shit it
I don’t need writ-eers, I might bounce ideas,
But only I can come up with some shit like this

From what I can gather, Kanye is drawing some loose comparisons here between Bonds and himself – two self-serving, temperamental dicks who talk a lot of smack but then deliver. Later on he says, “my head so big you can’t sit behind me,” which may also be referencing Mr. Bonds, because as we all know Barry has a big head. Other than that, this song is not about Bonds in any way other than to bring him in on the punch-line of the chorus – “here’s another hit, Barry Bonds.”

It’s good that we had this talk. Large out.

Let’s face it – the fact that Floyd Mayweather is appearing on this season of “Dancing with the Stars” is not the greatest advertisement for the sport of boxing. Yes, the show has included top-tier athletes in the past, but always ones whose careers were over, or, in the case of Evander Holyfield, should have been over. Floyd is the the uncontested pound-for-pound king of boxing today, and he’s on this piece of shit. I mean, would Peyton Manning do this crap? Bad example – Peyton Manning is a slut. How about Derek Jeter? No way. LeBron? Maybe LeBron now that I think of it. I guess what it comes down to is that the line between athletes and media whores is almost non-existent today.

The season premiere of “Dancing” was on last night and Jesus it is an awful viewing experience. I’ve never watched it before (tuned in for about five seconds in season one to see Evander, and immediately averted my eyes from the horror), and once I realized that Floyd wasn’t going to be dancing last night, I turned that shit off so fast I got whiplash. Of course, I never really expected that a show about washed-up, D-level celebrities (or, you know, best boxers of their generation) ballroom dancing was going to float my boat, but even then I couldn’t believe how bush league the production value was. This is like a major phenomenon, this show, or so I understand, and it looks like some crap you’d see late Saturday morning on local TV in Philly, i.e. the Al Alberts Showcase (“on the way to Cape May…”).

Floyd makes his dancing debut tonight. I’m gonna Tivo that shit so I can just watch him. I’ll give you a full report tomorrow. Something tells me it’s going to make me start hoping in dire earnest that Ricky Hatton beats his ass.

His jaundiced eyes blazing, his Stanozolol-fueled muscles glinting in the sun, nineteen years ago today Ben Johnson won the men’s Olympic 100m final in Seoul. His time was an astonishing 9.79 seconds, a new world record that broke the 9.83 mark that he had set the previous year at the World Championships in Rome. To give you an idea of just how fast that time was, if it had stood on the books, it would still today be the fastest time in Olympic history (equalled only by Donovan Bailey at the Atlanta Games in ’96).

Of course, Johnson’s time did not stand. Three days after winning what many considered to be the greatest 100m race in history, he was stripped of his gold medal due to a urine sample showing high levels of anabolic steroids, most notably stanozolol. It was the biggest Olympic drug scandal ever, and it inaugurated a new era of drug awareness and paranoia at the highest levels of track and field competition. Even now in Olympic circles, the 1988 Games are referred to as “The Drug Games” and Ben Johnson’s eerie yellow-eyed stare remains the hallmark memory of Seoul. (To view the print above, go to the artwork section of our store, and below check out the above side and front camera angles of the infamous race – shit is unbelievable.)