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One thing about the U.S. Open is that it reveals the best and the worst of tennis just about every year.
The best is always the actual tennis: Novak Djokovic-Roger Federer was a classic and the Djokovic-Rafael Nadal final was also played at a very high level. Sam Stosur’s upset of Serena Williams in the women’s final was a stunner because Williams had looked unbeatable throughout the tournament. There were also a handful of early round upsets involving young American players that gave some hope to those starving for the next American star.
All that was good. But, as usual, the USTA managed to muck things up with its usual incompetence.
The schedule is—and has been for years—a joke. The night matches go on MUCH too long even without rain delays. The USTA doesn’t care at all about the players—sending Federer out to begin a match at 11:50 at night?—or the fans in attendance. It cares ONLY about keeping the TV people who give them their lunch money (you should see those lunches) happy.
That’s why “Super Saturday,” the most overrated notion in sports, exists. Every other major championship puts together a schedule that gives the two finalists in both singles events a rest day before the final. The thought is that semifinals are often grueling and you want players rested before one of the most important matches of their lives.
The USTA says the heck with that. It stretches the first round across three days—robbing those who pay to see matches those days of a good deal of quality tennis—and then makes the men and the women go back-to-back from semis to final. In the old days, when the Saturday order of play was men’s semi; women’s final; men’s semi, the second men’s semi often ended late at night and the winner then had to come back about 18-20 hours later to play the final.
It also meant that the women’s final was the only major championship final in tennis where the two finalists had no idea what time their match would begin. Since they were second match on, the length of the first men’s match determined when they would begin. Which is ridiculous.
The USTA—god bless ‘em—fixed that about 10 years back when it moved the women’s final to Saturday night. This move was made NOT for the benefit of the players but—surprise—for the benefit of CBS which wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the Williams sisters by moving the final to prime time. Now, instead of getting all three matches for the price of one ticket on Saturday, fans have to buy tickets for the afternoon—men’s semis—and then a separate ticket for the women’s final at night.
Honestly, I think if you put the USTA executive committee in a room and threw a dollar on the floor you would see a repeat of the climactic scene in “Invictus,” in which all the players on the rugby pitch are scrumming desperately to get the ball.
Remember this: When Arthur Ashe Stadium was built it didn’t have to have 23,000 seats. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 would have been far more sensible; would have created a much better atmosphere and far fewer really bad seats and would have made it much easier then—or now—to put a retractable roof on the building. This year that would have meant NOT losing two straight days to bad weather, creating a FOURTH straight Monday men’s final—which, of course bled over into Dolphins-Patriots (thus losing viewers along the way)—and also created the specter of the world’s top players being sent out to play in dangerous conditions on the second rain day because the USTA was getting desperate to get some live play on for ESPN to show—even if it meant a player might do a pratfall trying to skid to a halt on a wet court.
And then there was Serena Williams.
This is, without question, one of the great players in the game’s history. To come back from almost a year away from the game and play the way she did this summer and right through to the final at the Open is extraordinary. Most of the time she makes it look easy.
But anytime things don’t go exactly as she wants them to, she loses her mind and behaves FAR worse than John McEnroe ever did. Jimmy Connors is another story; he’s still the all-timer when it comes to awful on-court behavior.
Two years ago, Williams threatened a line judge for calling a foot-fault on her during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters. Even though she kept issuing completely insincere non-apologies, The Grand Slam Committee of the International Tennis Federation (one thing you can be sure of in sports: the longer the title the less effective the organization) decided to fine her the grand total of $85,000 and put her on ‘probation.’ One might have thought the Grand Slam Committee had hired the NCAA to advise it on how to penalize people. The penalty was, to quote Mary Carillo, “a joke.”
That Carillo was 100 percent correct was proven again yesterday.
Williams did not play well in the final against Stosur, who has been a talented under-achiever in the game for a long while. After Stosur won the first set Williams immediately faced a break point to start the second set. She hit a forehand winner but as the ball was rocketing away from Stosur she screamed, “come on!”
Under the rules, that is considered a “hindrance,” the theory being her scream could have distracted Stosur as she chased the ball down. What the umpire probably should have done was either warn Williams not to do it again since it was pretty apparent Stosur wasn’t going to get to the ball or play a let—which the rules allow if the umpire thinks the “hindrance,” was accidental—as in someone’s cap flying off or their racquet slipping from their hands and going across the net.
Clearly Williams’ scream was intentional but it wasn’t meant as a hindrance. The umpire, Eva Asderaki, chose to enforce the letter of the law. Williams HAD screamed during the point. She awarded the point—and, thus the game—to Stosur.
Williams went nuts. Among other things she accused Asderaki of being the chair umpire in the Clijsters match—which she wasn’t.
“Are you the one who screwed me over the last time?” she said. “Yeah, you are. Seriously, you have it out for me. That’s not cool. That’s totally not cool.”
The fact that Williams still believes she was “screwed over,” in the Clijsters match tells you all you need to know about her mindset and about how much her ‘apologies,’ meant.
Williams wasn’t finished: “If you ever see me walking down the hall, look the other way. You’re out of control. You’re a hater and you’re unattractive inside…” And: “Code violation for this? I expressed who I am. We’re in America last time I checked.”
For this behavior The USTA and The Grand Slam Committee decided to really punish Williams. On Monday it announced it had fined her—wait for it--$2,000! Then the USTA wrote her a check for $1.4 million--$900,000 for finishing second in the Open; $500,000 for winning the summer U.S. Open series. Boy, they really showed her, huh? Just like they did last time with their ‘probation.’
The weasely excuse was that, because she didn’t use profanity, she hadn’t committed a “major violation.” It is okay to accuse someone (who didn’t) of “screwing you,”; threaten them; call them a hater and claim they “have it out for you.” That’s no big deal. Translation: They didn’t want to fine her for a major violation while she was still on ‘probation,’ because that might have forced them to actually penalize her in a meaningful way.
Can’t have that.
Even Chris Evert, who never has a bad thing to say about anyone publicly, couldn’t believe the fine was so minimal. Now working (sigh) for ESPN, Evert pointed out that Williams had yet to apologize and had refused to shake Asderaki’s hand at the end of the match. “It’s like dinner for Serena Williams,” Evert said of the fine. “When I saw the comments she made my first impression was just stunned. I was so surprised how disrespectful and rude she was.”
Naturally there were other ESPN analyst/enablers there to run to Williams’ side. Pam Shriver, who has become the classic see-no-evil jock apologist told The New York Times not only that she didn’t think what Williams did was a big deal but that—seriously, she said this—Williams might have felt pressure playing in New York on 9-11!
People ask me all the time why I don’t cover tennis so much anymore. This kind of stuff is why. The matches can still be brilliant. But the people around the matches consistently leave me with an awful taste in my mouth. I guess the good news is the next time anyone will pay serious attention to the sport won’t be until next June.
Showing posts with label Mary Carillo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Carillo. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
US Open trip, seeing Bud Collins and should-be commissioner Mary Carillo; Strasburg returns; Upcoming weekly football column
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I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.
The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).
Fine.
And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.
I wish I could get more excited.
I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.
So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.
Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.
You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.
I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’
I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”
“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”
I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”
All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.
“Is there a problem sir?” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”
“We don’t need one.”
“Apparently you do.”
I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.
I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.
Ryan Sweeting.
For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.
Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.
The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.
Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.
The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”
Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.
If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.
And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.
Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.
******
Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…
I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?
I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.
The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).
Fine.
And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.
I wish I could get more excited.
I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.
So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.
Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.
You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.
I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’
I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”
“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”
I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”
All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.
“Is there a problem sir?” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”
“We don’t need one.”
“Apparently you do.”
I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.
I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.
Ryan Sweeting.
For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.
Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.
The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.
Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.
The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”
Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.
If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.
And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.
Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.
******
Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…
I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Moving on to Notre Dame and Serena Williams, Following a Short Rehash of Yesterday
As I’ve said before, some mornings it is hard to know where to begin.
The biggest story in sports continues to be ‘Tiger-gate.’ Yesterday, to no one’s surprise, he announced he was pulling out of his own tournament—it is really an exhibition since every player collects a big check—because of the injuries he suffered last Friday morning. What’s interesting about that is that his spin-doctors rushed out with a statement on Friday claiming his injuries were, “minor.” Now, four days later he’s too badly hurt to get on a private plane to, at the very least put in an appearance on behalf of the tournament sponsor who is putting up $5.5 million in prize money alone.
Methinks he’s not ready to let anyone see him public.
Let me pause a moment here to go back to yesterday and some of the comments that were posted here. I’m always very curious to see what readers write, especially because they frequently raise questions or issues I hadn’t thought about. Since I started the blog five months ago very few of those who have posted or sent e-mails have been especially negative or angry. In fact, one of the things that has made me happy is the thoughtfulness and, well, smartness of so many of the posts. It isn’t like reading some other blog posting areas where people scream cyber-profanities at one another and toss anonymous cheap shots around.
Yesterday, a lot of the posts were pretty much the norm: smart people agreeing to perhaps disagree on a complicated topic which very much involves how much privacy a public figure is entitled to have. But there were also some that were angry—angry with me for suggesting that Woods owes the public some kind of an explanation because there are so many un-answered questions about what happened last Friday. I also wrote that it would be best for HIM to give some kind of explanation and I think the fact that he had to pull out of his own tournament is more evidence of that. At the moment he is, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in his own home.
What I realized reading the posts is something I hadn’t thought about in the past. I’ve always known that fans of a TEAM don’t care at all about the off-field behavior of their stars as long as they perform. Right now fans of the Yankees could care less about Alex Rodriguez’s steroids admissions last spring. All they know is he (finally) performed in postseason and the Yankees won The World Series. Fans of college football and basketball teams could care less about whether their players graduate: they want them to perform, win games, make them feel good. If you graduate, that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter. No coach—repeat NO coach—has ever been fired because he had a low graduation rate.
Woods is such a transcendent figure that many fans look at him as THEIR golfer. As a number of posts said, “as long as he entertains me with spectacular golf, I don’t care what he does off the course.” (At least one poster spelled it coarse, but that’s okay). A couple of others went the kind of tired route that those of us who report on athletes transgressions are essentially ambulance chasers and we should leave the guy alone, mind our own business, yata-yata-yata. My suggestion to them is that they not waste their time with this blog because what I write here for the most part is about people I know and have known in sports, the good and the bad. If you are looking for happy talk, go to TigerWoods.com.
Here’s the larger point: In the end most fans just want athletes to perform, to make them feel happy by winning and, in Tiger’s case, often winning spectacularly. I get all that, I have a better understanding of that today than I did yesterday because I hadn’t thought of it in those terms for an athlete in an individual sport.
I will say this: Golf Channel had a crisis-management expert on the air yesterday, a guy who clearly has no vested interest in this at all. He basically said what I had said: the longer Tiger stonewalls, the worse it gets for him—because there are LOTS of people who see a carefully cultivated image and wonder now if it’s real. That’s not going away regardless of what I say, write or think. I would add one more thing for those of you who care only about what Tiger does on the golf course: He’s not ON the golf course entertaining you this week. It may be because he’s more beat up than his people let on last Friday or it may be because he’s hiding out. Either way, it’s really too damn bad for everyone—including Tiger.
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On to happier topics: Charlie Weis got fired yesterday. That wasn’t even a little bit of a surprise to anyone but it always amuses me how guys in suits think they can spin things just by claiming they’re true. Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, who does look good in a suit, talked about how difficult the decision was because Weis is really such a good guy. “I have never met anyone for whom there was a larger gulf between perception and reality than Charlie Weis,” he claimed and then went into all the hoo-ha about how much Weis loves Notre Dame—as if that qualifies ANYONE to coach. I love the New York Islanders. That doesn’t mean I should coach them.
Here’s some Weis reality: he swaggered into Notre Dame telling people he was going to out-scheme other coaches and bullying the media, using his opening press conference to “lay down the law,” on what would and wouldn’t be allowed and threatening reporters with banishment if they failed to follow all his rules.
More reality: he never once took responsibility for his failures. It was always the players who failed to run a route right, didn’t make a block or a tackle. The old, “I coached good, they played bad,” routine. When Notre Dame won it was because of some brilliant offensive scheme he came up with. (See last year’s Hawaii Bowl).
A bit more reality: Weis ducked the media after the Stanford game last Saturday, wasn’t man enough to stand there and accept that he had failed. Actually, it may be a good thing: no doubt he would have blamed the players for his failures. Then he went out and started leaking about all the NFL teams that were interested in him.
THAT’s the reality of Charlie Weis.
What was almost as amusing was to hear the two morning guys on ESPN apologizing for him today. Of course one has two sons recruited by Weis and is an apologist for all things Notre Dame. The other is simply an apologist for anyone who has ever appeared on-air so it really isn’t surprising.
Weis got what he deserved—except for the fact that Notre Dame still has to pay him $18 million. That part is just sad.
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One last note for the day: In a major non-surprise the folks who run the tennis Grand Slams yesterday fined Serena Williams $82,500 for her outburst at a lineswoman during the U.S. Open and gave her a stern talking to: as in, ‘do this again and you could be suspended.’
Yeah, right.
Let me allow my pal Mary Carillo, who is more worthy to comment on this than I am (or anyone else) explain exactly what happened. This is what she wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke:
“Serena Williams physically threatened and verbally assaulted an official during one of the most watched tennis matches of 2009 and after three months of considered cogitation the Grand Slam Committee came up with ‘Grand Slam Probation and a ‘suspended ban?’ And half of what was deemed to be her fine? Boy, that ought to show everyone.”
Carillo’s summation: “It was a cockamamie decision.”
Mary grew up in Queens with John McEnroe. She knows a “you can NOT be serious,” situation when she sees one. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Mary should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than every person with authority in the game—smarter than all of them combined.
The biggest story in sports continues to be ‘Tiger-gate.’ Yesterday, to no one’s surprise, he announced he was pulling out of his own tournament—it is really an exhibition since every player collects a big check—because of the injuries he suffered last Friday morning. What’s interesting about that is that his spin-doctors rushed out with a statement on Friday claiming his injuries were, “minor.” Now, four days later he’s too badly hurt to get on a private plane to, at the very least put in an appearance on behalf of the tournament sponsor who is putting up $5.5 million in prize money alone.
Methinks he’s not ready to let anyone see him public.
Let me pause a moment here to go back to yesterday and some of the comments that were posted here. I’m always very curious to see what readers write, especially because they frequently raise questions or issues I hadn’t thought about. Since I started the blog five months ago very few of those who have posted or sent e-mails have been especially negative or angry. In fact, one of the things that has made me happy is the thoughtfulness and, well, smartness of so many of the posts. It isn’t like reading some other blog posting areas where people scream cyber-profanities at one another and toss anonymous cheap shots around.
Yesterday, a lot of the posts were pretty much the norm: smart people agreeing to perhaps disagree on a complicated topic which very much involves how much privacy a public figure is entitled to have. But there were also some that were angry—angry with me for suggesting that Woods owes the public some kind of an explanation because there are so many un-answered questions about what happened last Friday. I also wrote that it would be best for HIM to give some kind of explanation and I think the fact that he had to pull out of his own tournament is more evidence of that. At the moment he is, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in his own home.
What I realized reading the posts is something I hadn’t thought about in the past. I’ve always known that fans of a TEAM don’t care at all about the off-field behavior of their stars as long as they perform. Right now fans of the Yankees could care less about Alex Rodriguez’s steroids admissions last spring. All they know is he (finally) performed in postseason and the Yankees won The World Series. Fans of college football and basketball teams could care less about whether their players graduate: they want them to perform, win games, make them feel good. If you graduate, that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter. No coach—repeat NO coach—has ever been fired because he had a low graduation rate.
Woods is such a transcendent figure that many fans look at him as THEIR golfer. As a number of posts said, “as long as he entertains me with spectacular golf, I don’t care what he does off the course.” (At least one poster spelled it coarse, but that’s okay). A couple of others went the kind of tired route that those of us who report on athletes transgressions are essentially ambulance chasers and we should leave the guy alone, mind our own business, yata-yata-yata. My suggestion to them is that they not waste their time with this blog because what I write here for the most part is about people I know and have known in sports, the good and the bad. If you are looking for happy talk, go to TigerWoods.com.
Here’s the larger point: In the end most fans just want athletes to perform, to make them feel happy by winning and, in Tiger’s case, often winning spectacularly. I get all that, I have a better understanding of that today than I did yesterday because I hadn’t thought of it in those terms for an athlete in an individual sport.
I will say this: Golf Channel had a crisis-management expert on the air yesterday, a guy who clearly has no vested interest in this at all. He basically said what I had said: the longer Tiger stonewalls, the worse it gets for him—because there are LOTS of people who see a carefully cultivated image and wonder now if it’s real. That’s not going away regardless of what I say, write or think. I would add one more thing for those of you who care only about what Tiger does on the golf course: He’s not ON the golf course entertaining you this week. It may be because he’s more beat up than his people let on last Friday or it may be because he’s hiding out. Either way, it’s really too damn bad for everyone—including Tiger.
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On to happier topics: Charlie Weis got fired yesterday. That wasn’t even a little bit of a surprise to anyone but it always amuses me how guys in suits think they can spin things just by claiming they’re true. Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, who does look good in a suit, talked about how difficult the decision was because Weis is really such a good guy. “I have never met anyone for whom there was a larger gulf between perception and reality than Charlie Weis,” he claimed and then went into all the hoo-ha about how much Weis loves Notre Dame—as if that qualifies ANYONE to coach. I love the New York Islanders. That doesn’t mean I should coach them.
Here’s some Weis reality: he swaggered into Notre Dame telling people he was going to out-scheme other coaches and bullying the media, using his opening press conference to “lay down the law,” on what would and wouldn’t be allowed and threatening reporters with banishment if they failed to follow all his rules.
More reality: he never once took responsibility for his failures. It was always the players who failed to run a route right, didn’t make a block or a tackle. The old, “I coached good, they played bad,” routine. When Notre Dame won it was because of some brilliant offensive scheme he came up with. (See last year’s Hawaii Bowl).
A bit more reality: Weis ducked the media after the Stanford game last Saturday, wasn’t man enough to stand there and accept that he had failed. Actually, it may be a good thing: no doubt he would have blamed the players for his failures. Then he went out and started leaking about all the NFL teams that were interested in him.
THAT’s the reality of Charlie Weis.
What was almost as amusing was to hear the two morning guys on ESPN apologizing for him today. Of course one has two sons recruited by Weis and is an apologist for all things Notre Dame. The other is simply an apologist for anyone who has ever appeared on-air so it really isn’t surprising.
Weis got what he deserved—except for the fact that Notre Dame still has to pay him $18 million. That part is just sad.
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One last note for the day: In a major non-surprise the folks who run the tennis Grand Slams yesterday fined Serena Williams $82,500 for her outburst at a lineswoman during the U.S. Open and gave her a stern talking to: as in, ‘do this again and you could be suspended.’
Yeah, right.
Let me allow my pal Mary Carillo, who is more worthy to comment on this than I am (or anyone else) explain exactly what happened. This is what she wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke:
“Serena Williams physically threatened and verbally assaulted an official during one of the most watched tennis matches of 2009 and after three months of considered cogitation the Grand Slam Committee came up with ‘Grand Slam Probation and a ‘suspended ban?’ And half of what was deemed to be her fine? Boy, that ought to show everyone.”
Carillo’s summation: “It was a cockamamie decision.”
Mary grew up in Queens with John McEnroe. She knows a “you can NOT be serious,” situation when she sees one. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Mary should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than every person with authority in the game—smarter than all of them combined.
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