K.O.W. - El Matador disfrazó como un toro

Ricardo Mayorga, ironically nicknamed "El Matador" given his overwhelmingly bullish style, was on my mind this past weekend, both because of the Vernon Forrest match and because Mayorga's September 8th bout with Fernando Vargas is growing ever closer. It's a real shame that this is a PPV fight, because neither fighter is really PPV-caliber right now, and yet this promises to be a rock-em-sock-em robots kind of night that any fight-fan worth his salt will want to see for sure. I've no doubt that you've all seen the video of the Mayorga/Vargas brawl by now, so let me just take you back to a moment from that press conference to set up our Knockout of the Week. Before the fireworks started, Mayorga told the audience that he'd been training for two months already for Vargas and that he plans to be the same fighter that he was when he won his first world title. He then recommended that we all go back and look at the tapes to see just what kind of fighter he was back then.

So I'm taking him up on that. Here's the KO from his win over Andrew Lewis in March of 2002 that won him his first legitimate belt, the WBA welterweight title. He and Lewis had met the year before and the bout was stopped as a no-contest after Lewis suffered an ugly cut from a headbutt in the second. In the rematch, Mayorga predicted that he would stop the champion in three - it ended up taking him two more rounds that that. And a beautiful, brutal knockout it was. It's this type of wild-swinging savagery that has made such a mediocre, dubious athlete as Mayorga a major attraction for years now, and I can't imagine that will stop anytime soon. He says he wants to get back to 147 and fight Cotto and Mayweather and Hatton, et al. Hear hear, says Large. I'd pay to see any of those guys out-matador El Matador.

God Save the Queen

Oh what a day it was for John Bull 41 years ago this afternoon when England won its first and only World Cup championship with a 4-2 overtime victory over West Germany. The match was all square at the end of 90 minutes and so went on into extra time, where a controversy occurred that is perhaps only equalled in World Cup lore by the Hand of God fiasco. Eleven minutes into overtime England's Geoff Hurst brilliantly handled an Alan Ball cross in the German penalty area and turned with a laser shot that went over the German keeper, hit the crossbar and ricocheted downwards, bouncing (depending on your perspective) either on the goalline or beyond it into the goal before bouncing back out again. Referee Gottfried Dienst quickly conferred with linesman Tofik Bakhramov and the shot was ruled a goal, the deciding goal as it turned out (England would score again with less than a minute remaining after Germany moved all their defenders forward).

Debate has never really flagged about this episode. The video is below, so you can see for yourself - it's a tough call. The linesman's bizarre, immediate certainty that it was indeed a goal is worth some scrutiny without a doubt. Keep in mind that the entire ball must be over the goalline for it to count. It's a head-scratcher. As if the whole England/Germany thing wasn't a bit loaded before the bloody shot.

Return of The Viper

Is it me or did Vernon Forrest earn himself a big payday last night? His win over Carlos Baldomir for the vacant WBC title at 154 (the one vacated by Floyd after he won it from Oscar) was one of the most entertaining fights I've seen all year, and most of the credit for that has to go to Forrest's moxie. And yes, the rest of the credit goes to Carlos Baldomir's preternaturally hard skull. I mean... JESUS holms can take some headshots. Vernon ain't no Tommy Hearns, but he ain't no Winky either, and he was landing some wicked necksnappers on Baldomir last night and Tata just kept on coming like it weren't no thing (I liked Forrest in the post-fight interview with Merchant talking about his Mayorga flashbacks... which reminds me, anybody know why Merchant was on BAD and Kellerman did the Winky/Bernard fight?... is the other shoe finally dropping on ole Larry over there?).

The thing is, Vernon looked good last night, and he pretty clearly could have Floyd Mayweathered the shit out of Baldomir for as many rounds as he had to and walked away with the belt and not a scratch on his face. Instead, he spent most of the night staying in harm's way and landing heavy artillery on the human Humvee known as Tata. Because Tata is clearly UNBREAKABO (honestly, I would pay to see that guy just get hit in the head over and over again by like Klitschko just to see how many clean shots he could take before he even freaking blinked...) Vernon very frequently paid a price for it. Manny Steward put it best: "This is the most entertaining lopsided fight I've ever seen." Indeed it was. Forrest pretty handily won every round, even on my card the one in which he was penalized for a low blow. And yet there was a lot of drama in there, and I have to believe that it put Vernon in line for a marquee fight, maybe even a PPV-level affair. He has the height - you have to believe that he could carry 160 very comfortably. Would he be at a severe power disavantage against someone like Jermain? Absolutely, but I doubt the extra weight would slow him down much, and if he punched with the precision and cunning that he did last night, I think he would have a good chance at outpointing JT or Pavlik. My only hope is that he gets something substantial before the inevitable Mayorga rematch. He wants his revenge against Mayorga, fine, let him have it. But Vernon, please, fight somebody who's in the game first, somebody with some street cred. You deserve the real money, and based on what I saw last night, you still got what it takes to be on the A-list.

Beware the Mexican Journeyman

Seeing Andre Berto briefly hit the canvas last night, and do a step or two of The Dance before righting himself... it wasn't quite in the "Oh shit Roy Jones just got KTFO" category of shocker, but it wasn't all that distant either. There was NO WAY that I expected to see Berto dropped last night, and he was dropped clean, on a beauty of a punch too, a moving bolo-style uppercut from Cosime Rivera at the end of the sixth round that Berto clearly never saw coming.

What Berto and his team learned last night is something along the lines of what Irish John Duddy learned last year when he fought Yory Boy Campas - old Mexican battleaxes are no guarantee for an easy "step up in competition" kind of night. Going into the bout with Berto, Cosme Rivera was a 31-year-old with ten losses whose biggest claim to fame was getting pantsed by Zab Judah with a TKO in the 3rd. But still, there was reason to suspect Rivera was at least a potentially dangerous spoiler to Berto's coming-out party, because last October he exposed similarly hyped Joel "Love Child" Julio in what was supposed to be Julio's big "step-up" bout. Rivera gave as good as he got in that thing and knocked Julio down in the 12th before losing a split decision that seemed very suspect on the whole (I would have called it a draw).

Last night, Rivera proved the same kind of problem for Berto, exposing the depth of his inexperience. It's a classic phenomenon in boxing - we witnessed it recently when Edison Miranda met up with the brick wall named Kelly Pavlik - what does a young, overpowering fighter do when they are faced for the first time with an opponent who is not afraid of them? Berto came out last night launching his bombs, those frightening lasers that seemingly explode off his shoulders, and obviously expected that, like just about every fighter before him, Rivera would lay down at the first opportune moment. Instead, Rivera bobbed and weaved and slipped and picked his spots to counter, of which there were many. Berto's punches, for as impressive as they look, are not tremendously precise, and defensively he's working with next to nothing. He does not move his head at all, nor his whole upper body for that matter. He doesn't come in at angles, or time his attacks behind combinations. He doesn't slip punches, he backs off them, and he backs up straight and tall (which is what landed him on the canvas last night). All in all, he is a counter-puncher's dream, so much so that a third-rate talent like Rivera was picking him apart with ease.

That said, Berto cleanly won the fight. He was the aggressor, he landed the more damaging blows (excepting, obviously, the knockdown punch) and he may have won every round other than the one in which he was knocked down (he benefited greatly, however, from some tomfoolery about his glove in his corner after the knockdown, which allowed him precious seconds to get off Queer Street). Certainly the bloom is off the rose with the young Haitian-American, and it should be - Cosme Rivera is not someone that you can imagine a young Floyd Mayweather, or even a young Miguel Cotto, having much trouble with. But unlike say, Jason Litzau, whose loss last December exposed him as an overhyped young fighter, I didn't feel last night that we were seeing the ugly truth of Berto. In fact, there was a lot to admire. He was in over his head experience-wise, he hit the canvas and was briefly in trouble, and yet he came back with fury and conclusively punished Rivera in the late rounds. What Berto now faces is a fact that has eluded many a supremely talented athlete before him - there's more to this game than raw power and speed (for more on this, see Miranda, Edison). Unfortunately for Berto, he's not exactly dealing with all the time in the world. He better get himself at least a loose grasp on some defensive fundamentals before his September bout with David Estrada, because as anyone who witnessed Estrada's bout with Kermit Cintron will attest, holms can take a serious punch and definitely has what it takes to scratch that bagel out of Berto's loss column.

Tour De France, Tour De France

We proudly introduce the first of what we hope will be many dispatches from our friend and co-conspirator Andrew Mason aka "DJ Monk One” , whose primary concern will be the will be the intersection between music and sports.

In 1983, twenty years before “electronica” would become a well-trodden section of HMV, the genre’s founding fathers were bored with it. Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk had taken up cycling, and were spending less and less time working on music in their Dusseldorf studio and more time adjusting the deraileurs on their custom-frame bikes. Wolfgang Flür, less bike-enamoured than his bandmates, remembers, “they would prefer to study cycling catalogues produced by Campagnolo, Shimano and other manufacturers of cycling accessories rather than think up ideas for new songs.” But with the purchase of one of the very first digital samplers (the E-mu Emulator), they found a way to merge obsession with profession.

The new technology enabled them to construct a song using the whizzing of the chains, clicking of the gears and even Schneider’s labored breathing to replace traditional percussion. The subject matter? What else but the Tour De France. The eponymous result, whose lyrics rapturously celebrate the peloton, Galibier, Tourmalet and other notorious stages of the race, was an immediate hit, even in the flatland of New York City, where it became a breakdance favorite.


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Andrew Mason aka “DJ Monk One” has spun in venues around the world, from the ritzy to the rusty. He maintains a spot on NYC’s longest-running hip hop radio show (The Underground Railroad on WBAI-FM) and weekly club residencies in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 2001, he helped found Wax Poetics Magazine, where he is a contributing editor. He has released several records of original music, the latest as Greenwood Rhythm Coalition. More importantly, along with CI and Buddy Schmeling he was a member of the immortal squad that captured the 2001 Williamsburg Three on Three Wiffle Ball Championship.

Classic No Mas - Roid Landis

(In the midst of this year's doping fiasco at the Tour de France, I thought I'd take us back to LAST year's doping fiasco at the Tour de France, and a post I wrote about the Floyd Landis debacle and the future of sports that are increasingly crippled by doping)

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.

"His head unmellowed but his judgment ripe"

I know that we don't pay him much homage here on No Mas, but I can't imagine that there is a more No Masian athlete in all of history than Gene Tunney. A Shakespeare-quoting fearless practitioner of the sweet science who twice slew the Tyson of his time and then walked away from the ring as if he hadn't a care in the world to marry a billionairess? Christ, I can't think of a way that I would rather be described, despite my utter ineptitude at boxing, memorizing Shakespeare, marrying billionairesses and knowing when I've had enough of a good thing.

Seventy-nine years ago today, Tunney fought his last professional bout. It was contested at Yankee Stadium, and his opponent was one Tom Heeney, a bag of potatoes from New Zealand destined to become the answer to a trivia question - "Who is the only man to face Gene Tunney in the ring after Jack Dempsey?"

The Manassa Mauler's spirit hovered over this bout, for although Tunney had outpointed Dempsey for the second time less than a year beforehand, the public had never warmed to the high-falutin' former Marine (Shakespeare-quoting never being noted as a big icebreaker amongst the pugilistic set). Meanwhile even in defeat Dempsey remained one of the oversized icons of the Jazz Age. When Dempsey attended a Heeney sparring session (one that featured a young sparring partner from Jersey by the name of Jim Braddock) and pronounced Heeney the favorite against Tunney, word began to circulate that Dempsey would be Heeney's second in the fight, one that stoked a to-that-point unspectacular amount of hype surrounding the affair.

Come fight night, with the Dempsey rumors still swirling (Jack was indeed in attendance, but only as a spectator), the crowd at Yankee Stadium reached a disappointing 45,000, not exactly a banner gate for a heavyweight title fight at that time, but not bad for a fight that even Tex Rickard's family must have known was a embarrassment to the spirit of competition. Tunney, one of the great technicians ever to ply his trade in the heavyweight ranks, gave Heeney a beating that sounds like it was remarkably similar to the one that Floyd gave Gatti. The bout ended by TKO in the 11th, and Tunney announced his retirement a few days later, claiming that there was no compelling opponent worth his while (which was undoubtedly true) and that he wasn't interested in sitting around and waiting for one.

The truth of the matter evidently had more to do with a promise that he had made to a woman. Unbeknownst to the world, he was already engaged to Polly Lauder, a socialite from Greenwich who was the heir to the Carnegie fortune. Upon accepting his proposal, she had made him promise that the Heeney fight, his final contractual obligation to Tex Rickard, would be his last. And so it was. By all accounts, Tunney lived happily ever after as a miserable sort of bastard, rich as hell, pretentious, a stalwart pal of George Bernard Shaw, and thoroughly uninterested in boxing or sport of any kind for that matter.

Deep Tennis with Steve Tignor

(Last year, you may or may not recall that I did a close reading of the epic 1980 Borg/Mac Wimbledon final - I called it Achilles vs. Hector. This year our resident tennis assassin Steve Tignor took the reins and interpreted for us in detail the greatest tennis match of all time. I know the Wimbledon moment has passed us by a little, but don't blame Steve for that - he sent this to me and I was all on my honeymoon and shit and I couldn't deal. But this post is so entertaining that better late than never for shizzle. Enjoy - L)

The week before Wimbledon this year, I popped the official DVD of the 1980 All England final—perhaps you’ve heard of it, Bjorn Borg vs. John McEnroe?—into my computer. I’d just seen Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal play the French Open final and was anticipating a rematch in London, and I wanted to do a little compare and contrast. I had also never seen Borg-Mac 1980. I was a rabid Borg fan as a kid, but for some reason I had gone to a Little League practice the morning of that match. My only memory of it is the awe in my dad’s voice as he described it while driving me home. For some reason, I don’t remember being all that upset that I’d missed it, even though I’d sat transfixed the year before as Borg held off Roscoe Tanner in another five-set final.

So here was my chance after all these years, and it couldn’t have been more convenient. Borg, Mac, their headbands, and their short shorts appeared in the corner of my computer screen; I could check in on it as I worked. (The fact that my boss came by to see some of it with me is a definite perk of working at a tennis magazine.) Now that Federer and Nadal have given the world their own version of Borg-Mac, it seems like as good a time as any to look back at what I sometimes think of as the Match That Ruined Tennis. The sport has spent 27 years trying to recreate it, and only this Sunday did we get something even remotely comparable. It’s a lot to live up to. Was it really that special? How does it measure up to Fed-Nadal 2007? I’ll transcribe the notes I took as the match progressed.

Locker room before match: Borg and McEnore are the only guys in there—that must be a weird feeling after having the other players around for two weeks. Literally, in tennis the more you win the lonelier you get. They carefully avoid even a hint of eye contact even as they walk onto the court. This year I noticed Fed and Nadal did the same thing, except for the moment when Nadal offered to let Federer walk out first and Federer shook his head. Still, that’s more than Borg and Mac give each other. Even before he steps out there, Borg seems utterly detached and deep in some other place.

McEnroe’s clothes: These were the days of his red, white, and blue shoulder stripes. Thinking back to 1980, I remember seeing McEnroe’s ascendance and enthusiastic pro-American attitude as part of the move toward Reaganism (he’d be elected at the end of the year). McEnroe had the rat’s nest of hair and a punk’s reputation, but he was part of the general cultural trend as the 80s began away from the counterculture that had dominated the 70s. This was a patriotic, Davis Cup-playing, suburban kid at heart. I think when he won beat Borg the next year, on July 4th, he came over to Bud Collins and said Happy Birthday, America.

Borg’s clothes: This was his apogee—green Fila pinstripes, green-and-gold wristbands, Diadoras, black-and-orange Donnay, fingers covered in little bandages. He never looked more Borg. His physique would fit in well today; he must have been intimidating strictly as an athlete back then.

The broadcasters: This is the BBC tape, I believe of John Barrett and Dan Maskell (I know you know his deep, murky voice). The first word either speaks is at 40-15, and I think it’s just to say the score. It’s perfect.

Changeover: In those days, the two players would get water out of the same machine behind the umpire’s chair. It’s funny to see McEnroe and Borg wait, almost in line, for each other to get their drinks.

Crowd: The camera keeps finding a group of strange characters wearing Edwardian jackets, smoking cigars, and rooting loudly for Johnny Mac. There was a more rambunctious atmosphere in Centre Court than there is today.

Borg’s behavior: The announcers mention more than once that Borg is the ultimate gentleman and an exemplar of how tennis players should behave. This was obviously the way the world thought of him at the time. Do we still see his absolute silence and reserve that way? I feel like now we see it as a little odd and repressed, more about mystique than behaving like a gentleman—would we really school young players now to be as utterly impassive as Borg? Maybe I say that because while watching this, I know that in another 14 months or so he loses to McEnroe at the Open, pretty much snaps, and leaves the sport forever.

Between points: McEnroe was Nadal-like in the amount of time he took. He was slow getting the balls, then in his service motion he rocked back and forth for an extended period before tossing the ball. One memorable and oft-repeated camera shot came from directly behind McEnroe when he was serving. His upper body would rock left and right as he stood sideways to the baseline, while Borg did the same as he waited to return, stepping back and forth on each foot as he went into his ready position—lots of nervous energy out there. But all that motion made McEnroe’s serve hard to read, like the herky-jerky motion of a baseball pitcher. Perhaps that accounts for the number of missed returns from Borg, despite the mediocre pace McEnroe was generating.

Borg trying to play Mac: The Swede is baffled by McEnroe in the same way that Federer often is by Nadal. It doesn’t look like Borg knows how to play this guy with the corkscrew lefty serve. The ball is always leaving his strike zone, and Borg is always trying to catch up with it, but it’s hard with that two-handed backhand.

Early play: I’m amazed by the amount of times Borg comes in. He seems to consider it a race to the net; whoever is stuck at the baseline is doomed to try to deal with the awful bounces on this worn-down Centre Court. But because Borg is at the net, where he's only semi-comfortable, he doesn’t look like he’s playing his best tennis. Still, he’s more adept at winning points with volleys than he’s given credit for today, though his overhead was startlingly weak. He has trouble getting them past McEnroe, even on grass.

Borg’s serve: This was truly a thing of beauty, as relaxed as Federer’s but somehow even simpler. The story I’ve heard is that in 1976 Borg’s coach, Lennart Bergelin, made a very slight shift to Borg’s foot position, Borg worked hard at it for a couple weeks before Wimbledon that year, and then won the tournament for the first time, in part because his serve had improved so much.

As this match goes on, it’s clear Borg won it because of his serve. He was lights out on it that day, while the rest of his game was a little inconsistent. Grass really wasn’t his surface, and despite his stone face, he really did appear nervous much of the time. In the final set, I believe he won 26 of 28 points on his serve. In fact, the match as a whole shows that the serve has not become more important through the years; it was far and away the most crucial element of this match for both players. Neither guy could handle the other’s delivery.

Returns: These have become much more aggressive over the years. Neither Borg nor Mac took theirs early; Borg stood way behind the baseline and took a full swing. I’m surprised by the amount of times both guys shank seemingly makeable returns. The bounces on the grass must have had something to do with that.

Borg like Federer: McEnroe pretty much controls the first two sets but only comes away with one of them. At the very end of the second, Borg, who has been sluggish, comes to life, breaks serve for the first time, and sneaks out the set 7-5. The crowd also comes to life—it’s a match now; the sleeping giant has stirred. The whole thing plays out much like Federer’s 2004 final against Roddick, where he grabbed the second set with a couple surprise winners.

McEnroe like Nadal: Just like Rafa this year, McEnroe faltered when he could have taken a commanding lead—he still didn’t quite believe he could win. Serving at 5-6, 15-0 in the second, McEnroe flubs an ill-advised drop volley. Maskell wonders whether this could cost him the set. He’s exactly right, as Borg rips a passing-shot winner and goes on to win the game.

Linesman: They didn’t bend down to see the lines better; they sat in chairs in blue suits with their legs crossed. I thought they might start smoking.

McEnroe's groundstrokes: They were longer than what I remember at this point. At his peak, he shortened them into little no-backswing flicks, but here they were full strokes and pretty inconsistent. As for his touch, he definitely had it, but mostly he hit straightforward volleys; he showed his skills off with a number of topspin lob winners, the same ones that would send Borg out of the U.S. Open and out of the game a year later.

Fourth set: The sun comes out at this point; it looks like a different day entirely. The early part of the match had been played in a sort of nervous gloom. Now it appears that Borg is going to win and all is right with the world. In fact, Borg very nearly wins much earlier than he eventually will. He serves for the title at 5-4 and goes up 40-15. His first serve wide appears to be in and McEnroe misses the return. But the line judge makes a late out call. The crowd is already screaming, but Borg just walks back to serve and eventually gets broken. If the linesman doesn’t make that call, this match is barely remembered today. (I’m certainly not writing this post.)

The tiebreaker: This is when the great shots start coming, terrific running passing shots and stab volleys at absolutely crucial times. No Wimbledon men’s final had been decided in a tiebreaker (the breaker had only been introduced at the tournament a few years earlier) and there does seem to be an almost novel tension to the whole thing—as if everyone is asking, “Can Wimbledon really be won like this?” For the record, the famous shot of McEnroe flat on the ground came at 8-8, after he lost a set point. McEnroe also saved a championship point with a net-cord winner—no apology given or expected at the time. (Imagine if that happened today?) After dumping the final volley in the net to lose the set, Borg flashed a look at his box for the only time all match; it’s barely perceptible and lasts about a nanosecond, but you can feel the emotion coming from him.

Borg questioning call: He just looked up at the chair umpire for a second, wordless, like a mute.

Fifth set: The play is very high now and the service games go quickly until Borg goes up 7-6. Then it ends just as quickly and severely, with Borg hitting two backhand pass winners and suddenly dropping to his knees. The crowd is on its feet in that I-can’t-help-it-I-have-to-stand way that’s usually reserved for team sports.

Borg drops to his knees in spontaneous emotion—really, has there ever been, in any sport, a cooler victory celebration than this? it’s raw emotion in a contained and elegant form—but then he’s back in total control of himself a second later. He walks to the net looking down at the ground, walks around the net post, sits down, and flashes just a bare smile to the camera. It looks like he says one word, but I don’t know what it is (somewhere I’ve heard that it’s “incredible” in Swedish).

Overall, the level of play was far more primitive than Federer vs. Nadal—points were quick and almost perfunctory, up and back rather side to side, quick and clipped rather than long and loopy. But watching this I get the feeling that it was essential that new racquet technology come along soon. These guys were changing the game—Borg with his topspin, McEnroe with his all-court touch—but they didn’t quite have the tools to do all they could with their skills.

Whatever deficiencies it seems to have today, Borg-McEnroe makes up for in theater, and the drama comes across 27 years later. These guys were perfect adversaries and iconic personalities; they made tennis matter more than it ever has before or since. Will we look at Federer and Nadal the same way when we watch their Wimbledon DVD in 2034? I’m going to say yes.

A World Without Sports

I, Large, am officially prepared to announce the return of Large today from my wedding and honeymoon Mexican adventure. The picture on the right is of me drinking coffee at the hotel in Vallodolid where Montezuma eventually caught up to me after some very suspicious (but admittedly tasty) chicken soup.

Down in Tulum I pretty much experienced, for the first protracted period in my life perhaps, A World without Sports. Not that sports aren't everywhere in Mexico - Franchise would be heartened to know about the apparent popularity of the old-school supercheesy mask-and-cape variety of professional wrestling on television, and I did on my last night at the hotel mentioned above manage to catch some Winky/Bernard highlights. But on the whole I ignored the entire universe of professional athletics during our trip, which is something that I haven't done... well, probably ever now that I think about it.

In doing so, I must confess that I experienced a different, heretofore unknown version of myself, possibly a better version - who knows about that. Fever Pitch is the best book I know of in capturing the unique brand of OCD that afflicts the sports fanatic, and though I can't say that I am anywhere near the class of Phillies or Eagles fan that Hornby is with Arsenal, I more relate to his book on the level of an obsession with the entire panoply of sporting occasions. I think the average No Mas reader will understand that concept - it's just the literal need to be on top of shit from table tennis to judo to the FINA World Championships to... whatever. Thumb-wrestling. Just to check out whatever exciting action there is to be checked out, and ESPECIALLY if it involves a fight of some kind.

The internet and proliferation of cable sports coverage has made this type of obsession all-too-easily a 24-hour pursuit, and for as many joys as it visits upon us, let's be truthful - it can start to wear on a man. It was a sincere goal of mine to let it all go the past two weeks, to consciously resist even the tiniest submission to the gravitational pull, and but for one slip late in the game (seeking out the Bernard/Winky highlights) I succeeded. Let me tell you something friends - it's not so bad on the other side. The world does in fact continue to orbit the sun whether you read the morning boxscores or not, and when you miss a big pay-per-view fight featuring a Hall-of-Fame boxer from Philly, you do not spontaneously die. That might seem like an obvious statement to some, but my people out there... I know you feel me, and I hope you are reassured.

But look, enough. I'm back like MacArthur motherfuckers. Baldomir/Forrest? On it. Tour de France? On it. Gambling referees, doping cyclists, the abomination of Bonds, Ricky Fatton vs. Everybody, the rise of the Phillies... Yo check it out, I am on that shit. The blissful beaches of Tulum are all but purged from my muscle memory, and not without a pang I admit. But if I'm being completely honest I have to tell you... it's good to get back in the hunt.

Classic No Mas - The Boilermaker and Ruby Robert

(Large here - I'm back, married, tan, but a little beleaguered at the moment. I'll be back in the No Mas hunt in the next few days... haven't seen that Winky/Bernard fight, very curious about that... but until I have my feet under me, I thought I'd run a few Classic No Mas pieces, starting with this one from last July)


July 25th, 1902. James J. Jeffries, The Boilermaker, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, fights Ruby Robert Fitzsimmons in a much-anticipated rematch at the Arena in San Francisco. They touch gloves, and it's on.

Jeffries, a Goliath of a man, had won the heavyweight title from Fitzsimmons three years prior, developing what became known as the Crouch to counter Bob's lanky, long-armed left hook. It worked like a charm. He finished Fitz in the eleventh of a bout scheduled for twenty.

Three years later, Fitzsimmons, a fiery Cornishman, was out for revenge. Rumors abounded before the bout that Fitz planned to fill his gloves with Plaster of Paris. "Let him do it," Jeffries replied. "I'll flatten him anyway."

In retrospect, such confidence was understandable. Jeffries went into the fight a solid 219 pounds of muscle, while The Ruby One weighed in at 172, which was heavy by his standards.

Still, Fitz gave a good account of himself, fighting with fury in the earlygoing of what was a surprisingly bloody affair. Neither man much cared for the other. Fitz in particular loathed Jeffries and yearned to regain the title that he had taken from Gentleman Jim Corbett back in 1897.

But it was not to be. Jeff was too big, too strong. He had his way in the middle rounds before unceremoniously disposing of Fitzsimmons in the eighth.

Ruby Robert would continue fighting until 1914, winning the light heavyweight title and, towards the end, the much sought-after Australian heavyweight crown. Meanwhile, Jeffries had only two more bouts in his prime, retiring undefeated before his comeback in 1910, at the age of 37, to try and unseat Jack Johnson for the honor of the white race.

But that's another story.

Little Mo

On this day 53 years ago, the career of arguably the most talented women's tennis player ever to pick up a racket was tragically and prematurely ended, as 19-year-old Maureen Connolly, Little Mo, was thrown to the ground while horseback riding. Her right leg was completely crushed. She would never play competitive tennis again.

Little Mo was the tennis phenom of phenoms - she won the U.S. Championships in 1951 at the age of 16, and would remain the youngest player ever to win that title until Tracy Austin bested her in 1979. After her auspicious debut, there was simply no stopping Connolly, and one can only imagine what she might have achieved had she not been injured. In her brief time as a professional, she won three straight U.S. Championships (1951-53) and three straight Wimbledons (1952-54) and in 1953 she became the first woman ever to win the Grand Slam. In all, she won nine straight majors before her accident.

The nickname "Little Mo" was a reference to a famous battleship, the U.S.S. Missouri, known as "Big Mo" - the point was that Connolly, 5'4" and 115 pounds, packed a hell of a punch. I became fascinated with the Maureen Connolly story as a young boy because of a popular TV movie, "Little Mo" that first aired in 1978. It featured some big-time stars in early incarnations - Mark Harmon, Anne Baxter and Leslie Nielson - and Tony Trabert made a cameo appearance as himself. The movie, as did many a TV movie of that period (for some reason it is linked in my mind with a Jan and Dean TV biopic), presented Connolly as a determined and super-talented but also bratty, self-centered adolescent who ultimately is humbled, first by her famous coach (the great Eleanor "Teach" Tennant, played by Michael Learned) and then by fate. I remember that the end of the movie shows a once-embittered Connolly coming on to a court to help a young player who is struggling with her serve, a scene which is evidently not too far from the truth - Connolly went on after the accident to become a great coach herself and guide the career of many a young player at the time.

But tragedy stalked her like a u-boat. She died of cancer at the age of 34. Today, sadly, in the era of the Williams and with Steffi and Martina in our rear-view mirrors, you rarely hear much talk about Little Mo, although there is a tournament named in her honor, The Maureen Connolly Brinker Cup, an international team competition between the U.S. and Great Britain.

Perfect 10

On this day, July 18, 1976, Romania's Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect ten in the history of Olympic gymnastics with her performance on the uneven bars. The sprightly fourteen-year-old from Romania captured the hearts of the Montreal crowd and instantly destroyed the self-image of every Olympic gymnast past, present and future. She also unwittingly empowered her coach Belya Karolyi, who now had total perfection on his resume, to randomly alternate between screaming at teenage girls and giving them fatherly shoulder rubs--a tactic he would continue to employ for the next thirty years with total impunity.

Note: At the end of the routine you can see the scoreboard wasn't even set up for the possibility of a ten and she is actually given a one. Can anyone identify the other girl wearing the two-tone sweatsuit and the extremely pained expression: is that Nellie Kim?

Sparky Anderson, Autograph Hound

The New York Post revealed a few tantalizing excerpts from Joe Dimaggio's diaries today, which are expected to fetch upwards of 1.5 million dollars at auction at Sotheby's.

Among the scandalous revelations:

1. The Yankee Clipper had extremely poor penmanship.

2. He was not pleased with Mr. Coffee's initial contract offer.


3. On February 1, 1992, at the La Gorce Golf Club in Miami, his tab was $38 and he left a seven dollar tip.

4. He hated airplane food.

5. He hated banquets in his honor.

6. He hated Old Timers Day because everyone in the clubhouse asked him for an autograph.

7. Sparky Anderson asked him for six autographs.

I just gotta know how many autographs Earl Weaver asked him for. And what about Lasorda. I'll bet Tommy went for at least four autographs. I may not have 1.5 million just now, but when Knopf puts the complete and unexpurgated Dimaggio out in hardcover, I can tell you one thing, I will have my $85 at the ready.

NY Post: Joe D's Diary is a Diamond in the Rough

Three for four, and the streak was no more

On this day 66 years ago, July 16, 1941, the number 56 was etched into baseball's annals forever when Joe DiMaggio hit safely in his 56th consecutive game, going 3-4 (two singles and a double) against the Indians in a 10-3 win for the Bombers.

Of course, no one knew right then that 56 was the number that would be associated with Joe D for all of baseball eternity. The streak had been going on for over two months, had survived numerous scares, and completely captivated all of America in the process, even prompting the recording of a song that became a nationwide hit (see below - if you're using Safari, the player might not work - try Firefox).

It was the very next day, 66 years ago tomorrow, that the gods finally stopped smiling on Joltin' Joe. After 56 games of near-misses and bizarre scrapes, including DiMag getting some hero's treatment on a probable error in game number 30 to keep the streak alive, to leaning out over the plate to smack a certain ball four for a single off Philadelphia's Johnny Babich in the 38th game, to having his favorite bat stolen right before the 42nd game - after all of that, it was only natural that it took some otherworldly plays in the field to finally clip the Yankee Clipper.

Those plays were executed by Indians' third-bagger Ken Keltner, if not the Brooks Robinson of his day, certainly the Graig Nettles. He robs DiMaggio of certain hits in both the first and the seventh with Nettlesian backhands off hotshots down the line. Both times, DiMag is out by a hair at first. In his final at-bat of the game, Joe D faced Cleveland reliever Jim Bagby Jr., on his way to becoming a trivia question answer for all time. Joltin' Joe grounded meekly into a doubleheader, and the streak was over as might have been predicted, not with a bang but with a whimper.

It's odd, though, isn't it, that for all the amazing things that DiMaggio did as a ballplayer, what are the first things you think of when you hear his name? A 56-game hitting streak and Marilyn Monroe, with Mr. Coffee a distant third. Even the true immortals ultimately get boiled down to a couple Wikipedia bullet points. I'm not sure that bodes so well for the rest of us ham-and-eggers.

Kid Chocolate

On this day, July 15, 1931, Kid Chocolate, born Eligio Sardinias, defeated Benny Bass at Philadelphia's Barker Bowl for the junior light-weight championship of the world and became the first Cuban ever to wear a title belt.

Born in 1910 in Havana, where five years later Jess Willard would take Jack Johnson's crown, Chocolate got his fighting start defending his turf against rival newsboys. As he rose through the amatuer ranks he was spotted by "Pincho" Guttierez, a manager who dreamed of bringing the lightning fast featherweight to New York to seek fame and fortune.

They quickly found it. The Kid won his first forty-five professional fights and quickly built a following with his stylish footwork, good looks and lightning fast hands. The newspapermen dubbed him "The Chocolate Bon Bon" and a young Sugar Robinson, who later said he had never seen anything like Chocolate's fluid style, became his friend and disciple.

In 1930, Chocolate's unbeaten streak came to an end at the Polo Grounds against the heavier Jackie "Kid" Berg, and he also suffered losses to Fidel LaBarba and "Battling Battalino". But after some time away from the ring, Chocolate came back and TKOed Benny Bass in the seventh to finally claim the title.
He would later KO Lew Feldman at a packed Madison Square Garden to add the featherweight crown, and he went on to defend it twice, but after being knocked out by Tony Canzoneri in 1933, he began a long and steady decline. He fought his last bout in Havana in 1938 and died in his native city fifty years later. Unlike the other great Cuban champions of the fifties and sixties: Benny Paret (who died in the ring fighting Emile Griffith), Kid Gavilan and Luis Rodriguez (who both elected to stay in the States after the Cuban revolution outlawed professional boxing), Kid Chocolate's achievements are recognized by the Cuban government: he has a stadium named after him near the Capiltolio in Havana.

He has also been more recently blessed with a living legacy. After seeing what he felt was a resemblance to himself in old fight pictures, rising middleweight Peter Quillin--also of Afro Cuban descent--took on the name "Kid Chocolate" and added the flourish of throwing out Hershey's kisses to the crowd before each one of his fights. So far it seems Quillin has substance to go with the shtick: he is 13-0 with eleven knockouts.

The 005 Club

On this day in 1968, Hank Aaron joined the 500 Club, with a three run blast off Mike McCormick. These days, standards at The Club have slipped and they'll let just about anybody in--Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Frank Thomas--one of the new guys on the admissions committee even voted for Fred McGriff. "Ah, what the hell, he's only seven short..."

But back in Aaron's time, they didn't give you any breaks. There were only seven guys in it before ol' Hammerin Hank knocked on the door: Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Eddie Matthews who had been accepted exactly one year before. The first time Hank came round, Williams made some vague threats about "initiation rituals" and even brandished a paddle briefly, but in the end, he just gave Hank a scotch and soda and hung his picture up on the wall with everybody else's. Those were the good old days when you could still get a seat at the bar on a Tuesday night.

Today, there are twenty one members of the club, and the pool room's just overrun. Meanwhile with A-Rod fixing to make himself the youngest member of all time in the next couple weeks and Thome, Manny, and Sheff threatening to break in before the end of the season, the old timers are talking a whole lot of ain't like it used to be and threatening to open something called "The 005 Club" right across the street. The word is that a few of the younger guys will be invited, but definitely not Double B. Not even Willie would argue for him. As The Splendid Splinter said himself, "A club has got to have standards otherwise it just ain't a club no more." Amen, my brother.

Where the Dodgers Dined

In honor of two old New York baseball shows worth checking out this weekend (Glory Days at the Museum of the City of New York and HBO's Ghosts of Flatbush), we take you back to the No Mas x Frank 151 Sports issue for a chat with the owner of Bamonte's, the official trattoria of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Since 1900, both working class locals and well-heeled epicures have been frequenting Bamonte’s, an iconic Italian bar and restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days celebrity diners include Jack Nicholson and Mike Piazza, but in the 40s and 50s Dem Bums were the ones turning heads in the joint.
Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo, or Duke Snider might stop by to celebrate a big victory with clams casino or get over a tough loss with the famous veal scaloppini. The Brooklyn Sym-Phony Orchestra, five Dodger fanatics who provided a hand-made soundtrack for every game at Ebbets Field, were such regulars Bamonte’s was their unofficial clubhouse.

Lovingly watched over by the ghosts of the boys of summer, Bamonte’s continues to thrive today. Proprietor Anthony Bamonte and his childhood friend and daytime bartender Johnny Pizariello recently took a moment to reminisce about the good old days.

Chris Isenberg: The trolley used to run from Ebbets Field to here?
Anthony Bamonte: It used pass on Lorimer Street.
Johnny Pizzariello: You know that was one of the ways, supposedly, that the Dodgers got their name, people dodging to get out of the way of the trolley. Nobody knows for sure.

CI: How many stops to Ebbets Field from here?
AB: I don’t know exactly, 20 minutes, half-hour?
JP: Yeah, the bus on the corner now goes to where Ebbets Field used to be. It’s the same route.
AB: It wasn’t like today, see. The ballplayers were regular guys from what I remember. They had a job plus they played baseball. It wasn’t like today. I mean a lot of these baseball players today are regular also. But in those days it was a working class job. Those fellas couldn’t put two dimes together right, right John?

CI: This neighborhood was mostly Dodgers fans?
AB: Well you had quite a few Yankees fans too. You were either a Dodger fan, a Yank fan, or a Giant fan. But these guys, if you threw a dime down they would fight you for it. Right Johnny? Going back to those days those guys were die-hard fans.

CI: So you would have both factions in here rooting?
AB: Most of the fellas here used to be Dodgers fans.

CI: Did you get to go to any of the World Series games?
AB: No, just regular season. I didn’t go that often. Little Joe-Joe, the midget [who at 92 is the last surviving member of the Brooklyn Sym-Phony], he used to give me one cymbal and he’d hold the other and say, “That’s my partner. He’s coming in with me.”

The Sym-Phony. They would play things like “Three Blind Mice” to get on the umpires. When they first started, it was just like a nothing thing, really. Who knew it was gonna be like it is today? They just donated the drum to the Hall of Fame [Cooperstown].

CI: So when Jackie Robinson came up you were seven, do you remember people talking about him at that time in the neighborhood?
AB: One thing I do remember is one time he had to go on the field and there was a threat on his life. Someone was going to shoot him. He went out there anyway. He was a brave man.

CI: How did the neighborhood feel about him breaking the color line? Was the opinion mixed?
AB: I don’t really remember that.
JP: New York wasn’t bad at all. He had trouble in other cities, like St. Louis. New York had a lot of blacks at that time. There was no racial things in New York in the 40s and 50s. That all started in the 60s.

CI: Can you tell me a little about ’55 when the Brooklyn Dodgers won it and how the neighborhood and people in here reacted?
AB: When the team won, at night they would go around in cars and trucks and they would have horns or anything that would make noise. They would hang a dummy that would say Yankees or whoever off of a pole on the truck. They would go through the neighborhood of the Yank fans and they would “give ‘em the business”. Remember the time they used to go around with the dummy on the truck Johnny?
JP: Yeah, they hung the dummies on the lamp posts too.
AB: You don’t see none of that today.

CI: In ’55 did they go nuts in here?
AB: Yeah it was like a big thing for people, from what I could remember. John, what do you remember from on the Northside in ’55?
JP: The tickertape parade on Broadway and in the neighborhoods. It had nothing to do with the city. The people themselves had their own parade.
AB: It was a different era, different type of people, different attitudes. You know what it was in those days? You had that loyalty. Today, I don’t really think there’s loyalty, not compared to what it was in those days.

CI: Who were you closest to out of the ballplayers that came in over the years?
AB: Tommy Lasorda, and then I became friendly with Joe DiMaggio at that time. Joe came here for like seven years.
CI: Can you tell us about DiMaggio?
AB: Joe was a good guy, to me anyways. At the beginning, see, Joe is the kind of guy who waits to see the person you are. Once he sees what kind of person you are, he either likes you or he doesn’t. Anytime he used to come to New York, he used to come here. Joe was a good person. We used to reminisce about the good times.

CI: What did DiMaggio like to eat?
AB: Tomatoes, pasta, ravioli, he used to like the sausages and the peppers. He loved tomatoes. It’s a funny thing he loved tomatoes, and Tommy LaSorda loved tomatoes. I used to get these tomatoes and he used to say, “Anthony where do you get these tomatoes?” And I would tell him Florida, and he would say, “No way, you get these in Florida? No way, I come from Florida and they don’t…” And I used to tease him and say, “Well Joe that’s because they are all up here.” I had to go downstairs one day and I showed him the box. “Joe here’s the box.” Joe would say, “How come they don’t have them in Florida?” I would tell him, “Don’t ask me, ask them in Florida. What am I gonna do, lie to you?”

CI: Do you watch baseball anymore? Do you go to any games?
AB: No, I don’t follow it too much.

CI: How come you aren’t interested anymore?
AB: I was never what you call a real fan, I mean I watched it, but not like Johnny.
JP: When they were playing baseball then there was nothing else. Today, with television there’s a hundred things going on, too many things. Baseball that was it, nothing else was going on.
AB: That’s true.
JP: Football wasn’t big, basketball wasn’t big. Nothing!
AB: That’s why baseball was the American sport, it was like stickball. You played stickball on the street.

CI: When did they first start talking about the Dodgers leaving?
JP: That was 1957. They hated O’Malley, they made dummies of him and they burned them.
AB: We had a flag pole in the yard and the Hall of Fame sent me a letter, they wanted the flag pole. Someone told them that the flag pole came from Ebbets Field, I could have told them it came from Ebbets Field. They wouldn’t know the difference. Someone made them understand that it was from Ebbets Field. As far as I know it came from the American Legion Post, if it was from Ebbets Field, it was news to me.

CI: What did the Dodgers Sym-Phony guys do when they took the Dodgers away?
AB: After they left that was it. Those guys still came in. They were regular guys, nothing special, like me. They were regular working people. They did this as a pleasure, out of loyalty to the Dodgers.

CI: How upset were they when the Dodgers left?
AB: They were all upset.
JP: Everyone was upset.
CI: What do you think it did to Brooklyn and the neighborhood when they left?
AB: It took the sport out of it, you feel like you didn’t have a team to root for.
JP: The expression was, when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California that’s when baseball stopped becoming a sport and it became a business.
AB: It’s all big business today. Look at football, the same way, when the hell did you ever see football being played on turf? Football was always played on dirt from what I could remember, same thing with baseball.


PHOTO CAPTION
Carl Furillo (about to pitch the ball), Joe-Joe the Midget (L of Furillo), and the rest of the fellas playing Bocce Balls in Bamonte’s yard, circa 1941. “They would play for 10 Cents beers. Whoever lost would pay the round.” -Anthony Bamonte

Photo: Matthew Modine
Words: Chris Isenberg and Bud Schmeling

Burr vs. Hamilton: Squawkin in Weehawken

On July 11, 1804, 203 years ago this morning, one of the greatest mano-a-mano battles in American history was fought, and the result was conclusive. Sworn enemies Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr duelled on a bank of the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey - Hamilton was mortally wounded, and died a gruesome death the following day.

Duelling was a familiar practice at the time. In fact, Hamilton's son, Philip had been killed just three years prior on the same riverbank in Weehawken, duelling to defend his father's honor (those Hamiltons - tremendously honorable, but unsound on the matter of duelling).

How these two Founding Fathers - one the first and most influential Secretary of the Treasury in the history of the Union, the other a war hero and third Vice President of the U.S. - came to be trading shots in the wee hours of the morning 203 years ago is a story as generally stupid as most questions of honor. Burr had recently lost a race for Governor of New York in spectacular fashion, and blamed his ignominious defeat on the many public condemnations mounted by his rivals. One of these rivals was Hamilton - the two had been at loggerheads for years. Oddly, like so many insults of the Gentlemanly Era, the one that provoked Burr to reach for his duelling pistol seems awfully tame by today's standards. Motherfucking ass-licking gutterswine? Not quite. The line that led to Hamilton's murder was included in a letter written by Dr. Charles Cooper to Hamilton's father-in-law, a letter that eventually was published in the Albany register as an anti-Burr piece. It reported that Hamilton had offered a "despicable opinion" of Burr at a dinner party.

What that opinion was exactly, no one knows. Burr didn't know, or care. As far as he was concerned, it was despicable, and so it was on. He demanded an apology, and Hamilton refused, on the hilarious grounds that he'd insulted Burr so many different times in so many different places that he couldn't remember if the actual insult at question had ever happened. Therefore, he reasoned, he couldn't apologize for it. Burr found this explanation highly unsatisfactory, and it was on to the guns.

What actually transpired in the duel is still disputed today, and sadly there was no referee. What is known is that neither Burr nor Hamilton were any strangers to the duelling arts. There were two seconds at the affair, William P. Van Ness for Burr and Judge Nathaniel Pendleton for Hamilton. The general understanding of the chain of events is that Hamilton fired first at the ground, a customary gesture in duels of gentlemanly disavowal of the whole business, one that, obviously, begs a similar retort. Burr was having none of it, however. Without a second thought, he shot the shit out of Hamilton, something that Hamilton himself evidently noted out loud as he collapsed to the ground. "You shot me?" he said. That Burr replied, "Damn right bitch," has never been corroborated.

Today some believe that Hamilton didn't purposefully waste his shot, but that he simply misfired. There's much speculation that he may have been suicidal. Burr's behavior requires little speculation - he wanted to kill the man, and then he killed him. By all accounts, Burr was a murderous motherfucker who did not play.

Hamilton died the next day at the house of a friend in Manhattan. One of the last things he did before his death was to renounce the practice of duelling, which must have been a great relief to those crowded around his deathbed, lest he decide to squeeze in one last duel right before he died.

Bronx Zoo - The All-Star Edition

With the 2007 All-Star Game on tap for tonight, I thought we'd take it back thirty years to the 1977 edition, which was fittingly held at Yankee Stadium, and fittingly included both Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin. This was less than a month after the infamous dugout fight between the two principals at Fenway, and you can see from the batting orders below that Billy still wasn't showing Reggie any love.

National League

Joe Morgan, 2B - Reds
Steve Garvey, 1B - Dodgers
Dave Parker, OF - Pirates
George Foster, OF - Reds
Greg Luzinski, OF - Phils
Ron Cey, 3B - Dodgers
Johnny Bench, C - Reds
Dave Concepcion, SS - Reds
Don Sutton, P - Dodgers

American League

Rod Carew, 1B - Twins
Willie Randolph, 2B - Yankees
George Brett, 3B - Royals
Carl Yastrzemski, OF - Red Sox
Richie Zisk, OF - White Sox
Reggie Jackson, OF - Yankees
Carlton Fisk, C - Red Sox
Rick Burleson, SS - Red Sox
Jim Palmer, P - Orioles

As had been his wont all season with the Yankees, Billy batted Reggie sixth, behind freakin Richie Zisk of all people. Talk about an insult. And Reggie wasn't the only person Billy managed to piss off in this game - he also courted the ire of Nolan Ryan, who he left off his original roster and who then subsequently spurned his offer to substitute for teammate Frank Tanana, which prompted a war of words between the two.

Meanwhile, the N.L. manager Sparky Anderson had no such personnel issues, and his squad, filled with members of his own Big Red Machine, put the game on ice before many fans had even made it to their seats. Joe Morgan led off with a dinger off of A.L. starter Jim Palmer. After Steve Garvey flew out, Dave Parker singled, and George Foster (in the midst of his 52-HR monster season) doubled him home. Then the Bull, Greg Luzinski, hit a two-run blast. 4-0. Garvey added a home run in the third to make it 5-0. Not a great outing for Jockey Jim Palmer.

The A.L. clawed back with two in the sixth and another in the seventh (couple of RBI's from the aforementioned Zisk in there) to make it 5-3 but in the top of the 8th the N.L. added a deuce that took the wind out of their sails. The final was 7-5, with Palmer getting the loss, and Don Sutton, the MVP, the winner. It was the sixth straight victory for the National League in a streak that would eventually reach eleven consecutive games.

Examining the rosters I'm amazed at the depth of both squads. The A.L. boasted seven future Hall-of-Famers - Yaz, Reggie, Palmer, Eck (still a starter with Cleveland), Carew, Fisk, and Brett - while the N.L had eight - Bench, Carlton, Morgan, Schmidt, Seaver, Sutter, Sutton, and Winfield - along with one more-than-deserving Hall-caliber player who would be later be banned from Cooperstown due to his wagering proclivities.

More than all of those superstars, however, it's the lesser (but nonetheless great) players on these rosters that trigger my nostalgia. The Braves' Willie Montanez backed up Garvey at first, and just hearing the name makes me feel seven years old again. Manny Trillo and Bruce Sutter were both still Cubs, Goose Gossage was still a Buc, Joaquin Andujar was still an Astro and Winfield was still in San Diego. On the A.L. side of things, how do these names strike you - Don Money, Dave LaRoche, Ron Fairly... and Butch Freakin Wynegar for Christ sake? Oh my childhood rises before me. Also, one sad memory - a second-year phenom named Fidrych sat the bench for the A.L., selected for the team but unable to pitch, suffering already from the injury that would prematurely end his career.

(P.S. - I used only 1977 Topps cards for this piece, and may I just say here that I think these are my favorite cards of all time, or at least of my lifetime. I'm also partial to the '71's (classy) and the '72's (freaky-deeky) but nothing for me matches the perfectly balanced design of the '77's, particularly the All-Star cards, which still today fill my stomach with excited butterflies. I realize this is a MUCH bigger topic to be covered in full some other time, but I'd thought I'd just throw it out there to get things rolling.)

The Bronx is Bumbling

Beyond the fact that I liked Turturro as Billy Martin and even Daniel Sunjatta as a suspiciously slender Reggie Jackson, but thought Oliver Platt was badly miscast as Steinbrenner, my real problem with The Bronx is Burning was the whole premise of the adaptation: this project should have been a documentary.

What makes Mahler’s book great is the weaving of New York City’s 1977 storyline—the mayoral race, graffiti writers, newspapermen, cops, the disco scene, the 44 caliber killer, the blackout—with the ’77 Yankees storyline. City history and sports history are on completely equal footing.

In the dramatized Bronx is Burning last night on ESPN, which seemed not to have the budget to afford extensive period shooting on location, the city history part of the story boiled down to a ten second documentary clip on Abe Beam letting go of civil servants and some extremely wonky Son of Sam scenes, which only served as a painful reminder how much better Spike Lee had already treated the exact same material.

The inter-cutting of documentary footage—from Chambliss’ ’76 pennant winning blast to Abe Beam at the City Hall podium, and especially the post-episode interviews with Reggie Jackson and former Sport Magazine contributor Robert Ward (who got the infamous “straw that stirs the drink” interview and plays himself in the mini-series), raised the prospect again and again of how much better a documentary could have been.

Without a doubt, to serve its audience, ESPN even if they had gone the documentary route, would have had to give the NYC side stories a lot less airtime than the book did. Still a doc that leaned more towards ESPN’s own “Once in a Lifetime” and less to PBS’s “Unforgiveable Blackness” would have been a million times better the pale and static imitation they’ve served up. If the producers thought they needed a little star power, they could’ve had Turturro narrate and spent the rest of the extra budget they would've saved clearing music for a great soundtrack (ala Once in a Lifetime).

Overall, it’s encouraging that ESPN had the ambition to take on a project of this dimension, but so far the execution is pretty disappointing.

Large Wedding

People, people, I have an announcement to make. I'm getting married tomorrow up in Amherst. I leave today. After the wedding I'm off to Mexico for a few weeks, and so I'm turning over the No Mas reins to the august I-Berg and the one and only Madsear (expect a lot of rugby talk and glut of reminiscences about the time a certain somebody met Dick Tidrow when he was eight). I'll be filing some dispatches now and then, although not that many, because I have a lot of nothing to do, a hell of a lot of nothing. But I'll be back at the helm on the 23rd - until then, enjoy the guest curating and keep your gloves up. - L

July 6, 1957

While we celebrate Venus Williams' astounding victory at Wimbledon today, her fourth career Wimbledon title, it seems fitting to remember that yesterday was the gold anniversary of a ground-breaking moment in sports history - Althea Gibson's victory over Darlene Hard in the 1957 women's final at Wimbledon. It was the first time that a black athlete, male or female, won at Wimbledon, and it marked the triumph of a career that it is no exaggeration to say was to tennis what Jackie Robinson's was to baseball. From paddle tennis on the streets of Harlem to victory at the world's most prestigious tournament, Gibson changed our idea of what this sport was and who it was for, a paradigm shift that most certainly paved the way for the emergence of the Williams sisters four decades later.

No Mas TV Guide - 6/5

Wimbledon
ESPN2, 8 a.m. (NBC at 12 p.m.)
A lot of exciting results already - Venus past Kuznetsova (what happened to her anyway?) to make the semis, with that Henin/Venus final looking likely, tasty, and grudge-licious. Nadal endured another five-setter - he seems ripe to stumble into the final and get flicked by Fed like a tired mosquito. Great win for Baghdatis today over Davydenko, with the Baghdatis crowd of Greek hooligans stoking the atmosphere. Still to play today are two men's quarters - Fed/Ferrero and Roddick/Gasquet. Not that I think the Rod has a chance against Sir Fed, but I gotta say... he's looking good.

The Legend of Drunken Master
Spike, 11 a.m.
The true sequel to Drunken Master, not nearly as good as the original, but the last fight scene is completely amazing and should be studied by everyone who has ever fought a drunken kung fu battle to the death in their mind.

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
ESPN Classic, 1 p.m.
Oh yeah. A movie about a team from Pittsburgh, called the Pythons, composed solely of Pisces? How much more 70's can you get? Throw in the good Doctor J and, of course, the young Monty Burns, and you got yourself some serious shit.

Ken Norton v. Muhammad Ali
VS., 8 p.m. & 11 p.m.
One of two men to defeat Ali in his prime (I'm leaving the Leon Spinks debacle out of this consideration), Ken Norton famously broke Ali's jaw in this 1973 slugfest. Norton is also, with Frazier, one of two men that Ali fought three times, and he gave him nearly as good a trilogy as Smokin' Joe did, winning the first and then losing two decisions, one a rematch right after this fight, and one in 1976. This is a great fight, often left out of the Champ's bibliography because he lost it, and got beat up, but it's an early exhibit of one of the astonishing traits of Muhammad that is frequently ignored - his ability to withstand immense pain.

The Palestra: Cathedral of Basketball
ESPN Classic, 10 p.m.
An hour doc on the temple of Philly basketball and it's role in the city's epic Big Five rivalries.

British Open Highlights
Golf Channel, 12:30 a.m.
This hour takes you back to the 1989 Open Championship at Troon. Mark Calcavecchia won his sole major in a playoff against Greg Norman and Wayne Grady. The British Open leg of what is known as the Shark Slam - losses in playoffs in all four majors.

(Beating) Bjorn on the Fourth of July

Twenty-six years ago today, John McEnroe ended Bjorn Borg's streak of five consecutive singles titles at Wimbledon by beating the Swede in the men's final and capturing his first of three Wimbledon championships. This was of course just a year after what is probably the most famous match ever played at Wimbledon, the 1980 men's final between Borg and Mac that included the epic 34-point fourth-set tiebreak (for my long-winded exegesis of that classic, click here).

Revenge was indeed sweet for Mac in '81, although there was already ample evidence that the tide had turned in this rivalry. The first match that they played after the '80 final was just two months later in the men's final in Flushing, another five-set classic, but this one won by Mac for his second straight U.S. Open title. They only played once in '81 prior to their Wimbledon showdown, and Mac won that as well, beating Borg in two sets in the final at Milan.

The American clearly was ready to upend his cool rival in 1981, and in retrospect his primary challenge was the war he was waging with himself at the time. The '81 Wimbledon tournament was the venue for some of Mac's most infamous outbursts - "you're the pits of the world," and of course that agonized cry to the gods, "YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!" He was christened "McNasty" and "The Brat" by the British press, he was penalized numerous points, and there was some talk of banishing him from the tournament altogether. This was not American-bashing or jealousy either. Mac's conduct that year was simply despicable - when you go back and watch the tapes it actually boggles the mind. How could someone repeatedly behave like this and still be allowed to compete?

His greatness, however, ultimately outshone his awfulness, and he breezed through to the final where, in seeming respect for Borg and the rivalry between them, he had nary a tantrum. Instead, he was near-clinical in his approach, and serve-and-volleyed the Swede to death, with a precision that clearly deflated even Borg's famously unflappable temperament. After losing the first set 6-4, Mac won the next two in tiebreaks and then took the fourth at 6-4 to get at least one monkey off his monkey-crowded back. Borg and Mac would only play one more major-tournament match against each other, the 1981 U.S. Open final, another four-set victory for Mac, and that one a bit easier than the last. This was the match that led Borg to deduce that it was time for him to get out of the game.

In case you haven't seen it yet, we here at No Mas have commemorated Mac's victory at the 1981 Wimbledon with the most awesome t-shirt pictured over there on the left. It might be the perfect gift for that special someone if you're feeling, oh, I don't know... all patriotic today for that great morning 26 years ago when we finally conquered the evil totalitarian dynasty, Sweden.

No Mas TV Guide - 7/4

Wimbledon
NBC, 10 a.m. (ESPN2 at 1 p.m.)
Big day on Centre Court, a Williams sisters double - Venus is blowing Sharparova off the court right now and Serena is up next against Henin. I'm surprised at how Venus is handling Her Sharpness right now. But Sharpy seems to be raising her game in the second set, so we might have ourselves a legitimate donnybrook on our hands. Meanwhile, five days after the start of the match, Nadal finally finished off Robin Soderling to advance... to the FOURTH ROUND! To win the thing now he has to play two matches a day to Sunday. Meanwhile Moby Fed sits somewhere in a hot tub with a glass of champagne, cackling like Lex Luthor. (Oh look, another rain delay as I write).

Wonderful World of Golf
Golf Channel, 2:30 p.m.
If Wimbledon is another rainout, then you might want to turn over to the Golf Channel and check out this little friendly version of match play from 1995 involving a young Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson.

Greased Lightning
ESPN Classic, 3 p.m.
No, this is not a film-length version of the John Travolta car-fantasy sequence from Grease - this is a bio-pic of Wendell Scott, the first black stock car champion in the States. It's not exactly Heart Like a Wheel, but it's passable, and it's got Richard Pryor in the starring role with Pam Grier as his woman.

Art of the Athlete
FITTV, 3 p.m.
I see ads for this series all the time and never take the bait, but this one has stoked my curiosity, because the subject is cyclist George Hincapie, better known to the world as Lance Armstrong's biatch.

Tony Stewart SportsCentury
ESPN Classic, 5 p.m.
An hour on NASCAR's bad boy genius and resident radio host.

Mexico v. Chile
Univision, 6:30 p.m.
La Copa America, muchachos.

Lamon Brewster v. Quinn Navarre
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Get yourself lubed for Klitschko/Brewster II by watching Lamon lay the hammer down on this overmatched pug in 1999.

Willis Reed this wasn't

"These hallowed lawns have seen many courageous performances," Dick Enberg said after Serena Williams disposed of Daniela Hantuchova today in three sets, "and this deserves a place among them."

Oh come on. She had a bloody muscle cramp for Christ's sake. I've had a million of them - so have you. Yes, they hurt like hell, but then you straighten them out, have a banana and a couple of salt pills, and off you go about your business. No autopsy, no foul, etc.

Not Serena, though. The diva routine was in full force, complete with screaming and writhing and near-weeping before she somehow managed her "courageous" comeback.

Look, I'm a Serena fan, and no one loves a good "playing with pain" story as much as I do, but as far as I'm concerned, the old girl laid it on a bit thick out there today. Whatever - I've come to expect it of her. She is Tennis Diva, hear her roar. But why do the announcers feel so compelled to take the bait? Mac, Mary Carillo - these are former pro athletes of the highest order. They've had their share of cramps in their day, and they both seem to pride themselves on telling it like it is, on giving us the straight dope. How I would have loved someone on the air today to have the audacity to suggest that "you know, I think she might be over-selling the swindle a little... it is just a muscle cramp after all." Instead we got the "courageous performance for the ages" routine, which I must confess had me rooting for the Slovakian.

K.O.W. - Drugged or Drubbed?

With the Wladimir Klitschko/Lamon Brewster rematch set for this Saturday in Germany, this edition of the No Mas Knockout of the Week is a layup. Brewster, the former WBO heavyweight champ, won that vacant title by stopping Wlad in the 5th round of their bout in April, 2004. The fight has been shrouded in controversy ever since, an early entrant in what has become a familiar genre - the "I was drugged" excuse. This bone, however, does seem to have some meat on it - check out this piece on Boxing Insider and I'm sure you will at least raise an eyebrow. The most compelling clue is the sudden drop in odds from 11-1 to 7-2 right before the fight. Throughout the history of the sweet science, a huge pre-bout influx of money on an underdog has always been a sign of some hanky-panky.

Wlad dominated the first four rounds and then got leg-weary in the fifth, leaving him open to the two leaping, Joe Frazierian left hooks that put him half a mile down queer street. He tries to battle through the remainder of the round after a standing-eight count, but he's out on his feet, and collapses on his face at the sound of the bell. His rubbery condition is definitely bizarre given his showing in the earlier rounds - then again, Wlad was known then as a fighter who tired early, and was only a year removed from his second-round destruction by Corrie Sanders. Myself, I tend to think that Klitschko will easily avenge his loss this Saturday, but it won't be because he was drugged the first time around. He's just a much better fighter now.

No Mas TV Guide - 7/2

Wimbledon
NBC, 10 a.m. (ESPN2 takes over coverage at 1)
Rain is really getting up Wimbledon's ass this year, and yet the gods have once again favored Lord Fed on that score - with a walkover from Tommy Haas, he's through to the quarters while much of the draw is still trying to make its way to the fourth round. On the women's side, the match of the day already has come and gone, as Venus navigated a tightrope three-setter over Akiko Morigami. Sharapova awaits her in the fourth round, and I'm afriad that won't go too smoothly for our Venus. Her Sharpness is looking extra sharp over there in Blighty.

Hoop Dreams
Sundance, 11:30 a.m. & 10:30 p.m.
Recently I reviewed a horse-racing movie in which the producers announced to us in a post-film Q&A that they had set out to make "Hoop Dreams at the racetrack." Basically, ever since its release, Hoop Dreams has been the shadow in which almost every sports documentary is cast.

The Junction Boys
ESPN Classic, 1 p.m.
A movie about what in any other country would have qualified as a severe violation of the Geneva convention, but here in America just passes for some good ole boys playing ball. Tom Berenger stars as Bear Bryant torturing his Texas A&M; squad in Junction, Texas.

Demetrius Hopkins v. Michael Warrick
ESPN Classic, 8 p.m.
Classic reruns this 2006 bout in which Bernard's nephew, Demetrius Hopkins (a.k.a. The Gladiator... get it?) KO'ed Michael Warrick. It's his most impressive and high-profile victory so far in his ballyhooed career. Lot of buzz around Demetrius, mostly because of his royal connection of course. Myself, I am unconvinced that he is the rilly-dilly, which is saying a lot, because you know I want my Philly boys to rise. If you've never seen him, check him out tonight and tell me what you think.

Monday Night Raw
USA, 9 p.m.
Featuring outings from John Cena, Bobby Lashley, and Candice Michelle (I presume the latter of this trio is a chick... if not, I don't want to know...)

No-no... and no dice

An infamously useless no-hitter in baseball history was hurled on this day in 1990, as Andy Hawkins pitched a no-no for the Yankees and yet lost the game to the White Sox 4-0. Hawkins was of course one of George's disastrous free-agent signings in his no-luck run of the late 80's and early 90's. With only one really dominant season under his belt, and that season four years behind him, Hawkins nevertheless earned himself a ridiculous payday from Big Stein that made him, if not quite as glaring a target as the great Ed Whitsun, still a noted symbol in the Big Apple of ill-advised Steinbrennerian excess.

Certainly, Hawkins must have felt cursed in the Bronx, saddled with attention and expectations that his prior performance did not warrant in any way. And undoubtedly, that cursed feeling reached a catharsis seventeen years ago today, when he took a no-hitter into the eighth of a 0-0 tie at Comiskey Park. He retired the first two batters of the inning and then all hell broke loose. Sammy Sosa (in his second season) reached first on a throwing error by Yanks' third-bagger Mike Blowers. Hawkins walked the next two hitters, and then Robin Ventura hit a high fly to left, where Jim Leyritz, a rookie 3rd baseman at the time playing out of position, fumbled the catch. The bases were cleared. Ivan Calderon was up next for the Sox, and he hit a fly to left, which Jesse Barfield lost in the sun, allowing Ventura to trot home. Sox 4, Yanks 0.

The Bombers failed to get on the board in the top of the 9th and that was all she wrote. A no-hitter and a notch in the loss column for Hawkins. Ironically, the very next year Fay Vincent's rules commission enacted a new statistical statue whereby a no-hitter only qualified as such if it involved a complete nine innings of no-hit ball. Thus Hawkins officially lost his ignominious claim on history. I can't imagine he gave a rat's ass.

*As a final note - the losing effort no-no is a rarity, but it does happen. Depending on what set of rules you apply to what constitutes a no-hitter, there have been over 300 in the history of the game, and by my count only 12 of them have been in a losing effort, including Hawkins'. The other 11 are listed below, including the most legendary of the genre, Harvey Haddix's 13-inning Alamo in 1959:

1992
Cleveland 2, Boston 1
Matt Young

1991
L.A. 1, Montreal 0
Jeff Fassero, Mark Gardner (combined, broken up in the 10th)

1965
NYM 1, Cincinnati 0
Jim Maloney (broken up in the 11th)

1964
Cincinnati 1, Houston 0
Ken Johnson

1959
Milwaukee 1, Pittsburgh 0
Harvey Haddix (broken up in the 13th)

1956
Cincinnati 2, Milwaukee 1
Johnny Klippstein, Hersh Freeman, Joe Black (combined, broken up in the 10th)

1934
Boston 2, St. Louis 1
Bobo Newsom (broken up in the 10th)



1917
Cincinnati 1, Chicago 0
Hippo Vaughn (broken up in the 10th)

1910
Cleveland 5, NYY 0
Tom Hughes (broken up in the 10th)

1909
Brooklyn 3, NY 0
Red Ames (broken up in the 10th)

1901
Chicago 4, Cleveland 2
Earl Moore (broken up in the 10th)