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The Greatest

I was watching PTI at the gym this afternoon and in the first four stories Wilbon and Kornheiser called something the greatest of all time. First up were the Patriots, who Tony said would go 19-0 and were the best football team of all time. Then came Devin Hester, the greatest kick returner of all time. Finally, after a brief respite during a college football discussion that flirted with calling South Florida the greatest something or other of all time, up came the Colorado Rockies who are on the greatest hot streak of all time.

Cris Collinsworth did the same thing during halftime of last night's Sunday Night football game when he referred to New England as the best team he's ever seen. There's been scuttlebutt here and there that Tom Brady is having the greatest season of any quarterback ever, during last year's NCAA Tournament we heard that Greg Oden was the best Freshman to ever play college basketball. Unless it was Kevin Durant.

Elsewhere there are articles proclaiming Brett Favre, Joe Torre, the USC football program, Roger Federer, San Diego State kicker Parker Douglass, Floyd Mayweather, motocross racer Ricky Carmichael , high school running back Jerandon Bussey and Roger Clemens the Greatest ______ of All Time. Appalachian State's win over Michigan was called the greatest upset of all time until that USC football program was defeated by a Stanford team that ASU would probably handle with ease.

What's all the fuss about the greatest of all time? I think it has more to do with us than with anything these teams or players do in their chosen fields. We're obsessed with thinking that we are witnessing the absolute height of human achievement rather than just admitting that every era has its standouts, that its impossible to truly compare sports performances from one era against another except in the mind's eye. Sure, statisticians can create formulas that put things on an equal playing field but can anyone say with any degree of real certainty what would happen if Clemens took on Babe Ruth or if Tim Duncan's Spurs played the Knicks of Reed and Frazier?

I'd love to see both matchups but until someone harnesses 1.21 gigawatts it's going to remain a fantasy. These mythical titles seem to exist just to start the next debate - If the Patriots are the greatest team of all time and the Colts beat them does that make the Colts the greatest team of all time? - and in that next debate no one is going to be more inclined to temper their remarks.

I'm not saying any and all of these people are being mislabeled, except for the San Diego State kicker thing which is just hyperbole out of control. I'm just saying that our need to feel like we live in interesting and amazing times trumps any and all perspective about the length and variety of history.

They called World War I the "war to end all wars" and as you'll note by the ongoing muck of Iraq that was more than a little premature. The generation that won World War II, the "greatest generation," went on to get us into Vietnam, presided over Jim Crow and helped create divides in this country that are still being fought over. And those are things that actually matter. Wouldn't it be both easier and more accurate to say that huge things and magnificent individuals exist in every era and just celebrate them that way instead of resorting to hyperbole that only serves to make us feel better about ourselves?

The Simpsons Sports Movie

This Friday the long-awaited Simpsons Movie hits theaters. The show has had many sports associations, most notably the Homer at the Bat episode featuring a fistful of major leaguers, and cameos from a varied group that includes Joe Frazier, Chick Hearn, Gerry Cooney and Yao Ming. Hell, they've even referenced Esteban Yan. What they've never had, until now, is a live-action cast for a Simpsons movie made up exclusively of sports figures.

Homer Simpson – Ralph Friedgen. We were having trouble casting this most important of roles as it takes girth, a sense of adventure and a lack of regard/intelligence for the consequences. Friedgen is a big fat guy with little remaining hair but that’s not unique in sports. He got the role because he’s also a bit of a dummy. Take a look this story from today’s Baltimore Sun about a fishing trip Friedgen went on with his brothers after their charter canceled thanks to the weather.

One brother-in-law drove the boat onto an oyster bed. Friedgen was in the back of the boat. The tide was going down quickly. Friedgen realized that if they were going to get off the oyster bed, he had to jump off the boat.  They pushed it off, but Friedgen got stuck about waist-deep in something akin to quicksand.  With a current threatening to take him out to sea, he was able to get back into the boat. However, Friedgen was bleeding from a multitude of cuts.

When Friedgen got caught in quicksand, I imagine he bent down to pull one foot out and then the other one. That’s the kind of dedication to a part we’re looking for here.

Marge Simpson – Brynn Cameron. While Homer goes off on his crazy adventures Marge is forced to stay at home with the kids. Substitute Matt Leinart for Homer and you’ll see why Cameron wins this coveted part.

Bart Simpson – Gary Sheffield. His rebelliousness and unwillingness to follow the party line gets him in hot water with authority figures. Those traits have him perceived by the world at large as not being very bright. Underneath it all though there’s a bit of wisdom in what he says and he’s just doing what he feels because he’s not interested in what society says about him as long as they are paying attention to him.

Lisa Simpson – Billie Jean King. Overly concerned with social causes and won’t stop bugging people so that they pay attention to those causes because no one pays attention to her for just being the talented girl that she is. Also, Billie Jean King has an imaginary friend named Rachel Cohen who just got into Brandeis.

Maggie Simpson – Curt Schilling. In a gender-bending role the world finally gets to hear nothing from the mouth of Curt Schilling.

You Dirty Rat

Any of you wondering whether or not Carlo Gervasi flipped during the last episode of The Sopranos and what that might mean for Tony's future on the outside should be happy to know that he didn't. The place he went after disappearing, however, has implications that are far more terrifying.

Arthur J. Nascarella, who played Carlo Gervasi in "The Sopranos." Nascarella told the R-J's Carol Cling that "Yonkers Joe" was his fourth project since "The Sopranos" stopped shooting. In one, "The Bronx Is Burning," he plays Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda in the 1977 Dodgers-Yankees World Series.

Be sure to keep your bottles of eyewash close by for the scene that features Nascarella, a big dish of ziti and three hookers.

The Big Story: The Incredible Disappearing NBA Finals

A daily look at the big story of the day in sports as seen through the eyes of writers and bloggers all across the internet.

In Sunday's New York Times the columnist Harvey Araton wondered why a team as successful as the San Antonio Spurs has been largely ignored by the American masses.

How is it that this team, three victories from its fourth championship in nine years of metronomic excellence going into Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals against the Cavaliers tonight, has not, given all the aforementioned technology, generated more widespread interest and acclaim?

True, Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ best player, generally shuns publicity and is nobody’s idea of the model sneaker pitchman. Their defensive stopper, Bruce Bowen, is occasionally accused of being a dirty player. This spring, Robert Horry stepped out of character to level Phoenix’s Steve Nash, a flagrant foul for which the Spurs wound up being rewarded when key players left the Suns’ bench to respond and were suspended for the next game.

But where is the love for a franchise that thrives on visionary planning, progressive thinking, commitment and continuity? That over the past decade has become the furthest thing from a big-market bully that owes its success to a carnivorous payroll? That has seldom housed me-first braggarts, incorrigible trash talkers, gun toters or pit-bull players?

Those are some very fair questions Araton raises. People wailed and wailed about the Portland "Jail Blazers" because of the way ownership took a small-town team and filled it with undesirable characters. The antics of J.R. Rider, Darius Miles and others turned off the community and turned a point of civic pride into an eyesore that plummeted out of relevance. The New York Yankees are hated across the country because of their large payroll and arrogance, the Knicks are a laughingstock because of the way Isiah Thomas sullied a proud franchise and Peter Angelos and Daniel Snyder are personas non grata on the Beltway because of the way they've built the Orioles and Redskins. Obviously the cities they call home have something to do with why they garner so much attention but if people were really so down on the things they claim to be down on wouldn't a team like the Spurs be America's darlings? Shouldn't they at least be able to sell out their own stadium for Game One of the NBA Finals?

There are parallels to the national response to the Spurs in other places. Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah put on a hellacious boxing display at Madison Square Garden Saturday night but no one noticed. True, it's a summer weekend and there are a plethora of things to do that don't include plunking down hard-earned dough for a boxing match that could be a bust (it's a story for another time but boxing's model just doesn't work) but why then did so many people pay up to watch an over-the-hill Oscar De La Hoya fight a boring opponent in Floyd Mayweather? Many people who watched that fight were disappointed by the lack of slugging and there's been a lot of talk about the current preference for ultimate fighting and its offshoots beacause the action is nonstop. Check out Cotto-Judah and tell me that's not as, if not more, compelling than something involving Chuck Liddell. Similarly, people lauded The Sopranos for years because it changed the playing field for television. It told stories in a different way than the shows that had come before yet when it ended without the pat conclusions those other shows featured people pilloried it. Isn't that what you said you wanted, America?

It's a big country and obviously you are never going to get everyone to agree on anything but aren't we selling ourselves short. People like to bitch and moan about Kobe Bryant but they actually watch him. People like to scream about Barry Bonds but they actually pay their money to go to the stadium to watch him play. People claim to want honesty and transparency in their government and then reelect George Bush. Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears are called everything short of the antichrist yet US magazine flies off the racks. And the Spurs, even though we say we want to have a team worthy of our rooting interest and players our children can look up to, trudge toward their fourth championship in near anonymity. Is it that we don't tell the truth or can't recognize it when we get it?

Guess Who Has A House Account At Satriale's?

Eric Mangini hasn't gone out of his way to make many friends in the sports media. He was never forthcoming with information about the Jets, be it injuries to players or gameplans or his feud with Bill Belichick, nor has he given the expansive interviews or stream of conciousness press conferences that were the specialty of his predeccesor Herman Edwards. That said, he always showed a keen sense of humor about his taciturn approach to the press and he was definitely in on the joke.

So he probably gets how special an honor it is that he was asked to guest star on the penultimate episode of the greatest television show we've ever had the pleasure of watching. With Tony Soprano's world crashing down around him he still found time to go over to pay his respects to the Mangenius while enjoying a nosh at Nuovo Vesuvio with Carmela last night. And it actually made sense in the context of the scene. Why wouldn't Mangini, an Italian who clearly enjoys a good plate of ziti with gravy on a Sunday night, sample the offerings of talented Artie Bucco? Of the many, many things The Sopranos did better than other television programs was the celebrity cameo. Christopher decking Lauren Bacall and stalking Ben Kingsley, Nancy Sinatra serenading Phil Leonardo/Leotardo and Marty Scorsese entering a party in Manhattan all pale in comparison to the king of New Jersey paying his respects to the Jets coach, though.

He had a better week than most of the other fat guys on the show as well but we're willing to bet he still tucked himself in with a machine gun. After all, you never know when Kevan Barlow might be coming around to get some revenge.

(Thanks to Deadspin for the picture)

Baseball Side Dishes, Able-Bodied Olympians And John Kruk's Testicles

Now that we know A-Rod is into muscular, she-male types for his extracurricular boinking, who are the ideal mistresses for the rest of baseball's stars? Hint: The gal above is one of them, which justifies her being on this page. (Babes Love Baseball)

This just in: Olympic athletes must have two legs constructed of flesh and blood. (Lion In Oil)

Welcome to the Fukudome! (Armchair GM)

What does Charlie Sheen think about what A-Rod did? Not the stripper, that should be self-evident, but the yelling at the fielder thing. (MSNBC)

The coaches of the confederacy do not dig the Wolverines. (Mgoblog and Sunday Morning Quarterback)

Mark Lemke probably wasn't on steroids. (Just Call Me Juice)

All those tubes on the internet probably make it too easy to create Heisman campaigns for college football players. (The Wizard Of Odds)

Now you know why all those cyclists use steroids. It's tricky business. (The Postmen)

If you're making fun of John Kruk, stick to his weight, his performance on ESPN or his incessant flatulence. Just don't go after his balls. Or ball, actually. (SportsbyBrooks)

Charles Barkley won't have Steve Kerr to kick around at the next TNT weenie roast. (True Hoop)

D-O-U-C-H-E-B-A-G

The growth of the National Spelling Bee from quirky little activity to topic of hit documentary to prime time television extravaganza is one of the rare examples of brains triumphing in the history of our fair nation. It's about the only time the media will celebrate people who are neither fabulously good-looking nor athletically gifted and that's kinda nice. It also gives us, as viewers, a chance to see an eighth grader make Stuart Scott look like a fool.

Scott interviewed spelling bee champ Evan O'Dorney after he nailed serrefine to take the prize. Scott could have used some small forceps to remove him from the conversation after O'Dorney exposed his questions as nonsensical blather, something no athlete has been able to do. It probably helped that O'Dorney had no idea who this one-eyed black man in a lime green shirt was, just a guess but ESPN probably isn't in heavy rotation for a home schooled math whiz who practices his spelling while juggling. Double S was asking O'Dorney about his preference for math and music over spelling.

Scott: Would you like to, maybe, reassess your likability of the National Spelling Bee?

O'Dorney stares blankly, no doubt trying not to look at the eye, while trying to figure out what Scott's question might mean in English.

Scott: How do you feel about it now?

O'Dorney: Are you saying I'm supposed to like it more?

It really was a fantastic television moment.

The Best Show On TV

There's been a lot of hoopla about the impending end of The Sopranos. HBO's signature show has just five hours left before Tony, Paulie, A.J. and Vito Spadafore Jr. shuffle off to typecasting, reality shows, the Puerto Rican Day Parade and a nasty infection of the foot, respectively. Executives at the network are probably wondering how they will fill their schedule in the future but anyone who has kept watching the channel on Sundays after the mob drama ends knows they have the answer already in hand.

I'm not talking about Entourage. If it wasn't for people's unwillingness to change the channel immediately after The Sopranos ends no one would watch that horrendous show in the first place. But if you can make it past the homoeroticism and midgets to 10:30 you'll find the family that should replace Tony and Carmela's as the people you have Sunday dinner with. The Mayweathers are ready for prime time and after the show covering the run-up to Saturday's fight comes to a close, tonight at 9:30, the suits should figure out a way to keep the family on the air for as long as possible.

The show has already had more twists and turns, profanity and intrigue than The Sopranos and that's with one less episode in the bank. You've got Floyd Mayweather Jr., the greatest boxer in the world, who trains and lives in Las Vegas where he can pursue his three true loves in life - boxing, counting the money he makes from boxing and betting the money he makes from boxing. There hasn't been a more mezmirizing moment on all of television this year than the one where Floyd dances in a ring, throwing money at a camera while chanting "My name is Floyd, My name is Floyd, My name is Money, Mayweather."

If there has been a more enjoyable moment it's anytime Floyd Mayweather Sr. opens his mouth. The dreadlocked father of Floyd and former trainer of his opponent Oscar De La Hoya isn't afraid to let you know what he thinks about his son or his brother, Roger, who trains Floyd Jr. Actually, come to think of it, the most enjoyable moment may have been when Roger called into a press call with De La Hoya's trainer Freddie Roach. Slurring his words, as always, Roger asked for some inside tips about how De La Hoya would approach the fight and Roach told him to call back and speak English.

Both of the brothers have done time in jail and each one was a boxer in days past and there's some real animosity in Mayweather camp while Roger works with the son and pops stands in the shadows. Floyd Sr. is only going to the fight because he got a ticket from Oscar's camp. "He can go home in a rocking chair, I don't give a fuck," is the son's opinion on his father when dad expressed displeasure with what Uncle Rog said about him on the HBO show.

Floyd Jr. has never been shot by his father or his uncle, unlike Tony who caught a slug from Junior, but he has watched his father get shot in front of him. Like Tony, though, he's a villainous character that you can't help but love. De La Hoya is the real villain. He's a civilized, white collar fighter training in a tropical mansion and playing the trash talk with little of his heart in it. All of his head's in it though. Oscar knows that the animosity, even if he could care less, sells tickets but Mayweather is all raw emotion. He hates Oscar for the same reason everyone hates the guy who made it big on the back of things other than talent and that, plus the insane asylum atmosphere he obviously grew up in, makes him a somewhat sympathetic character.

Throw in Floyd Jr.'s own kids and their eventual, unavoidable trip toward their family profession and you have a show that's a mash-up of The Sopranos and Six Feet Under with it's criminal element, violence and focus on a family business you'd rather not get into but find yourself drawn to all the same. If you haven't seen it yet check out tonight's final episode and realize that as viewers we need a show like this to be on for reasons that have nothing to do with hyping the big fight. Based on the reports from yesterday's press conference, it's not going to be a disappointing episode in the least. How many times have you said that about the Sopranos this season?

Nothing Says I Love You Like A Chalupa

It's hard to think of anything more romantic than a squatting A.J. Pierzynski waiting to retrieve a pitch while a member of the Minnesota Twins digs into the batter's box. When you throw in an umpire spitting out a bit of tobacco juice and a shirtless guy behind home plate talking on his cell phone and gesticulating wildly to his cronies at Fitzpatrick's you have a direct route to any woman's heart. Taco Bell, well known plucker of heart strings themself, has figured that out and is offering one lucky baseball fan a chance to propose to their intended via the digital advertising screens behind homeplate during FOX's telecast of a game on July 7th.

Sports is all about the big moment, celebrating the love of the game and sharing some great food between friends. Now, to launch the all-new 7-Layer Crunchwrap®, Taco Bell will bring all three to life by giving one lucky sports fan the opportunity to pop the big question during a Major League Baseball game nationally televised on FOX on the luckiest day of the century: 7/7/07.

I stand corrected. There is something more romantic than the above scene. It still involves A.J. Pierzynski, though now he is the shirtless one, reclining on a dugout bench with a 7-Layer Crunchwrap dribbling down his chin. That Taco Bell chihuahua is licking the dribblings up as they pool at the top of his chest and he turns to the camera and says "Yo Quiero marry Hank, y tu?"

Prior Restrained By Injury Yet Again

Mark Prior probably should buy any green bananas. Hindsight is 20/20 and all but taking Joe Mauer when Prior was the chalk pick has to go down as the opposite of Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. (3 Man Lift)

How did the 2006 NBA Draft class shake out? My All-Rookie team would be Andrea Bargnani, Brandon Roy, Renaldo Balkman, Paul Millsap and Rudy Gay, with Roy as Rookie of the Year. I would have loved to see a full season from Andrea Bargnani, though, and look forward to doing so next year. Randy Foye and Tarance Kinsey were tough omissions. (Empty The Bench)

Dave Stewart looks at the early cellar dwellers and throws Buddy Bell a really backhanded compliment. (Throwin Heat)

A couple of great new ESPN commercials starring Jorge Posada. (Awful Announcing)

Breaking down the race for the last two playoff spots in the West. (True Hoop)