The All-Starr Blog : Featured

My Ohio State Nightmare

Mark Starr — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:28:44 GMT

After just one weekend of college football my Ohio State nightmares have begun. I don't believe that the BCS has yet figured out a way to factor in the perennial weakness of the the Big Ten.

That once-mighty conference opened up in typical fashion, beating up the creampuffs and losing against all legitimate challengers. The Big Ten went 7-3 over the opening weekend, led by Ohio State's 43-0 romp over Youngstown State. The other wins came against Coastal Carolina, Akron, Northern Illinois, Maine, Western Kentucky and, in the only victory over a major, Big East doormat Syracuse. The conference went 0-3 against quality football teams with Illinois losing to Missouri, Michigan State losing to Cal and, for the second season in a row, Michigan busting in its home opener--a 25-23 loss to Utah out of the mighty Mountain West.

Compare the Big Ten to the SEC, the conference--with LSU this past January and Florida the previous season--that has embarrassed Ohio State in the last two BCS Championship games. Not only did Florida stomp Hawaii, a BCS bowler last season, and LSU make mincemeat out of Appalachian State, last year's champion of what used to be called 1-AA and the team that stunned Michigan in the 2007 opener, but three modestly regarded SEC squads beat up on other conferences: Alabama stomped ACC pre-season favorite Clemson 34-10; South Carolina, in Steve Spurrier's fourth season, rolled over ACC neighbor N.C. State 34-0; and Kentucky whipped recent Big East power Louisville 27-2. Pretty impressive opening for the SEC--and that's without even mentioning two pre-season Top10ers, Georgia and Auburn, or Tennessee, which lost to UCLA in overtime.

It is difficult to imagine any SEC team navigating its conference schedule unbeaten and even a single-loss conference season would be an impressive feat. On the other hand, it's all too easy to imagine Ohio State going unbeaten in the diminished Big Ten, especially now that Michigan no longer represents a daunting challenge in the season finale. So Ohio State could lose at USC in the season's third week (between those other out-of-conference testers against Ohio U. and Troy) and still wind up back in the BCS Championship with just one loss, as other, stronger conferences like the SEC and the Pac-10 devour their own.

That could assure a third consecutive season in which the BCS Championship proves to be a dud--a game in which an overhyped and undermanned Ohio State squad disappoints against a speedier, more highly skilled opponent that is also far more battle-tested. I can't handle four months of nightmares. Isn't there any way to spare us another BCS Buckeyes debacle?

The Belmont Stakes: I'm Rooting for 'Big Red'

Mark Starr — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:58:44 GMT

In 1973 I fell in love for the first time--with a horse that is. I had never even been to a racetrack when my newspaper sent me to cover the Kentucky Derby. When I watched "Big Red", aka Secretariat, work out for the first time, well it was love at first sight. To this day, I have never seen a horse with more intelligence and character in his face. On Derby Day, I backed my guy to the hilt, which back then meant a $10 play on the nose. I knew this was no place or show kind of animal.

That may seem obvious looking back, but not so that day. Secretariat had stumbled in his prep race, losing the Wood Memorial. And a lot of the smart money was on the great Sham, who would challenge Secretariat all the way to the wire in both the Derby and the Preakness. (Sham's time in the Derby would stand as the second fastest ever for another 28 years.) I confess I was so small-time that I even cashed my winning ticket.

My love affair never abated. When Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by the still take-my-breath away 31 lengths to become the first Triple Crown winner since the great Citation back in 1948, I began weeping with several furlongs to go. A portrait of Secretariat by the wonderful photographer Henry Horenstein hangs in an honored place in my home, far bigger and more prominently displayed than any family picture.

I was and remain for "Big Red" forever. And, frankly, I admit I was a little distressed when both Seattle Slew and Affirmed won Triple Crowns so soon after, as if that made it seem too easy and somehow depreciated Secretariat's accomplishment. Of course the next three decades have disabused us of that notion. Since Affirmed in '78, 11 horses have won the first two legs only to come up short in the Belmont. I confess I rooted against some of those lovely horses in the '70s and '80s--Spectacular Bid, Pleasant Colony, Alysheba and Sunday Silence. But by '97, with Silver Charm, I was ready for another horse to pull of the feat and I have rooted fervently for them all--Real Quiet, Charismatic (especially Charismatic, a horse in Secretariat's family tree), War Emblem, Funny Cide and Smarty Jones. Of course, to no avail.

But I draw the line at rooting for Big Brown, who is not only going for the glory in tomorrow's Belmont Stakes, but eliciting--for my taste--far too many comparisons to Secretariat. I knew Secretariat and Big Brown is no "Big Red". His winning time at the Derby would have had him too far back even to eat Secretariat's dust. His opposition has been especially undistinguished. Secretariat not only beat the great Sham, but a fine horse in Our Native; Forego, who would go on to be Horse of the Year three years in a row in the mid-70s, finished fourth in that race.

Big Brown appears to be a fine horse, but every revelation about the horse and his team is a turnoff. I understand that steroids are legal. Still, the revelation that Big Brown ran on steroids in the first two legs is dismaying, given what we have learned about the advantages they provide human runners. His trainer, Rick Dutrow, has a checkered past, with a number of racing violations on his record, and for some reason he feels compelled to show his confidence with the kind of trash-talking that has even gone out of fashion in the NBA. His ownership team, which includes a principal with a background of financial irregularities on Wall Street, has appears so anxious to cash in on a champions that some expect Big Brown may never race again after the Belmont--retiring to stud after only six races without invigorating the sport as only a Triple Crown winner can.

While the Big Brown team has said they intend to race the horse in the Travers at Saratoga and in the Breeders Cup Classic this fall, a cracked heel provides plenty of retirement excuses. One can understand the lure of easy money at stud. Smarty Jones, even after losing the Belmont, commands six-figure fees. for his services. But a rapid retirement for Big Brown would further damage a wounded sport, confirming what many already feel--that the sport has become all about investment rather than racing and the fans. Even if Big Brown wins and goes on to fulfill the commitment with two more races, nobody expects the horse to race past his three-year-old season. Affirmed, by contrast, raced after the Belmont, losing twice to the older Triple Crown winner, Seattle Slew. And in his four-year-old season, Affirmed would win his last seven races, capping his career by defeating the great Spectacular Bid to capture Horse of the Year honors.

As I said, Big Brown is no Secretariat. And he's no Affirmed either. I can wait another year, or even ten, for a Triple Crown. With Secretariat's place in the pantheon secure, I am happy to share the glory. It's just that I prefer the horse and his team to be truly worthy.

Starr Gazing: My Baseball Fantasy

Mark Starr — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:50:09 GMT

It was almost 30 years ago that some very bright, young men gathered at the late, lamented La Rotisserie restaurant in New York City to hammer out the framework for baseball's first fantasy league (or "Rotisserie baseball," as it is still known by the game's first generation of players).

No doubt these folks had some modest ambitions for their little game and themselves. But given that they were journalists and, thus, both perpetual cynics and limited in their intellectual scope, they would never have regarded themselves as visionaries and certainly weren't craving mainstream respectability. But it came anyway, with roto-ball exploding over the next couple of decades into not just a game and guilty pleasure but an industry that would embrace many sports, serve millions of participants with vital (as well as worthless) information and produce billions in annual revenues.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Starr Gazing: Super Bowl Recovery

Mark Starr — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:10:44 GMT

I am a writer of some literary pretensions as well as aspirations and know very well that today's recipe for success is intimate revelations—the more gruesome and salacious the better.

Sadly, my parents were very nice and loving people, and I have lived a life almost totally devoid of salace. For intimacy, I'm afraid you're going to have to make do with a medical update. I am, possibly even as you read this, lying on a slab in a Boston hospital undergoing an invasive procedure that is recommended as a preventive precaution for folks of a certain age.

I am not a stoic about colds or splinters, and so it has not surprised me—or my wife or anybody else to whom I've already kvetched—that this experience has not proved to be an exception. I did try to find some consolation, something beyond the possibility, of course, that it might save my life. About the only comforting notion I could come up with was the certainty that I will not be eating Jell-O again for another five years. After continually asking myself, "How bad can this be?" I concluded that, at least for me, it would pretty much be the equivalent of watching a Super Bowl XLII replay.

Actually, I am more of a stoic about Super Bowl losses, and Sunday's proved no exception. I brooded a little into Monday, but nothing too serious. It wasn't remotely as bad as 1976, when the referee Ben Dreith (I remember!) called a ridiculous roughing the passer penalty on "Sugar Bear" Hamilton against the Oakland Raiders on what would have been a game-ending play, costing the Patriots what I am certain would have been their first Super Bowl crown. My friend had to hold me back from kicking in the TV. (It was his TV, so he was motivated.) It certainly wasn't comparable to the Bucky Dent or Bill Buckner moments of Red Sox infamy, the latter of which cost me my dad's precious watch (and some plastering expenses) after I smashed a hole in the living room wall with my fist. This time there were no real goats, no horrendous gaffes, no egregious calls. Their guys just kicked our guys' butts—and made all the plays—in a fashion reminiscent of the Pats' Super Bowl upset of the Rams six years earlier.

In truth, I've found all the Patriots' Super Bowl losses relatively easy to take—and I've been tested three times now—even when my distress is compounded by a squandered shot at immortality and a champion that goes by the name New York (not to mention a quarterback that goes by the name Manning). Super Bowl defeats are, since we have been talking medical matters here, the equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid—a flash of intense pain and then on with your life. World Series losses, by contrast, can be the equivalent of major surgery, and a bitter end to a seven-game series can scar for life.

Far worse when it comes to football fates is losing in the conference championship game, as the Pats did last year to the Indianapolis Colts. Then you are forced to endure two weeks of ceaseless hype about a bitter rival. After the Super Bowl everybody goes home, win or lose. Sure, New York gets a party, a parade and bragging rights (or, as is the case between our two cities, the reigning insult). But in Boston our heads and hearts are already drifting toward Ft. Myers, where pitchers and catchers report for spring training next week.

Read the Full Column Here

The 10 Biggest Sports Stories of 2007

Mark Starr — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:58:05 GMT

If you live in Boston, as I do, 2007 may rank as the greatest year ever. If you live elsewhere, it was still a memorable 12 months—for good, bad and ugly reasons.

Read the Full Story Here

The "Unstoppable" Eli Manning

Mark Starr — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:16:36 GMT

How much bang for the buck can a watch company get when it uses New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning as the athletic embodiment of how "Unstoppable!" its watch is? Its a Saturday Night Live-worthy laugh line every time I hear it, but even more so when it's airing, as it did last night, during a Giants game. I don't think "stoppable" is quite sufficent as an antithesis to describe how Manning fared against the Washington Redskins Sunday night. If he wasn't stopping himself with weak-armed throws or foolish retreats in the pocket and into enemy arms, as he was much of the first half, then his teammates were lending a hand by dropping his occasionally accurate passes, as they did much of the second half. His final numbers were 18-52 for 168 yards, or about three yards per attempt. Hard to sell a watch, I know, with the catchword "Pathetic!"

You know it's a really bad game when Giants coach Tom Coughlin looks upset on the sidelines. Okay, so he always looks a man whose head is about to implode. But who can blame him? Coughlin has spent four seasons in New York watching Manning and waiting for him to demonstrate that he is an NFL quarterback of the first rank, let alone worthy of the very first pick in the draft. And it doesn't seem to be happening. Frankly, Eli doesn't seem to be improving at all and perhaps not even a quarterback of the second rank. Coughlin surely rues the day that Manning esentially forced himself on the Giants by refusing to play in San Diego. Who in his right mind would want to hand off to Ladainian Tomlinson in the lush climes of San Diego when you can put the ball in the belly of Brandon Jacobs in the windswept Meadowlands? In that ill-fated Giants deal, San Diego not only got quarterback Philip Rivers, who may not have convinced fans either, but appears to be at least Manning's equal, as well as some draft choices, one of which yielded Shawn Merriman, a consensus first-team All-Pro.

Most NFL insiders and Giants fans were surprised when Coughlin wasn't dumped after the team's late-season fold last year so there's certainly no guarantee that making the playoffs this season will mean he's back for 2008. But even at 9-5 in the medicore NFC, the Giants are no lock for the playoffs right now. With a winter's trip to Buffalo next week and then the Patriots due in town for the final weekend of the season, the Giants could have a classic Coughlin swoon and find themselves, at 9-7, in a maze of tiebreakers with the Vikings, Saints and Redskins that, quite frankly, this correspondent is unable to decipher.

The way the Giants competed last night, one has to consider the possibility that the team simply panicked at the prospect of doing too well, say 11-5, and keeping Coughlin around to scream at them for another whole year. However it turns out they finish, if the Giants do reach the playoffs, bet the ranch that it will be one game and out. Followed very shortly by their combustible coach.

The Patriots 'Sinatra' Plan

Mark Starr — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:07:15 GMT

The New England Patriots' rematch with the New York Jets is being billed as "The Revenge Game", which makes it hard to distinguish it from every other game the Patriots have played this season. Most NFL writers are convinced that Belichick, having been embarrassed by Jets coach Eric Mangini in the opening game's now infamous "Videogate", has embraced a scorched-earth approach to the season---taking aim on a historic 19-0 season.

Belichick never acknowledges such considerations, making light--or what passes for light for somber Bill--of any motives other than winning. When the Steelers' backup safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a victory over the Pats before last week's game, the Patriot coach and players barely acknowledged the boast--except to say they don't do that kind of thing. So it must have been just a coincidence that all four Brady TD passes appeared to be at Smith's expense--on one, the flea-flicker, Brady seemed almost to wait for Smith to just not catch up to the receiver--and Brady could be seen at one point barking in Smith's face. After the game, Belichick couldn't resist one pointed dig for a postscript: "We've played better safeties than that."

Belichick chooses once again to maintain that there is nothing special at stake this Sunday. But if Smith, an unknown backup, can provoke the Pats that way, it's hard to believe that a coach that Belichick regards as a quisling--one who embarrassed him not to mention cost him $500,000 and a first draft choice--will not be targeted for some humiliation in what has been an already humiliating season for the sophomore coach. While Randy Moss can't leave Mangini in his dust on a post pattern, the Patriots can, at the very least, be expected to show even less mercy to the Jets than they have other teams. And that's in a season in which they have shown their opponents absolutely none.

Still, the most fascinating thing about the Pats' potentially historic run--and that last word is truly ironic--is that Belichick is doing it in unprecedented fashion, one that defies the bedrock beliefs about football that coaches, analysts and fans have all come to accept. "You can't win without establishing a running game," "You;ve got to run to pass," etc.--Belichick has ignored all that and virtually thrown the run out of the Patriots attack. If you don't count Tom Brady's one scramble and Laurence Maroney's two clock-killing carries at game's end, the Pats ran the ball just six times against the Steelers on Sunday. At one point, the Patriots threw the ball on 33 consecutive plays. Of the 11 other likely playoff teams, only one, Dallas which was playing catchup the whole day against Detroit, ran the ball less than 20 times, and the other ten teams averaged about 30 rushes apiece.

Is it possible that Belichick is not only taking aim in history, but is intent on going 19-0 while pulling an absolute Sinatra--"I Did It My Way!" ?

Starr Gazing: A Long Fall From Grace

Mark Starr — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:02:32 GMT

's fall from grace has been perhaps the most surprising and disturbing "" story of the year. There have been athletes whose falls have been almost as precipitous. But seldom has there been one as pointless, unsympathetic and dispiriting--an athlete who, at the pinnacle of his game, tossed away his life for a debased and dehumanizing pursuit like dogfighting....read more

Starr Gazing: Will the Yankees Whiff on Santana?

Mark Starr — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:16:46 GMT

This was supposed to be the year when, with age and health forcing George Steinbrenner's retreat, New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was finally going to have free rein to run the ballclub without ownership meddling. Instead, the 77-year-old Boss turned those reins over to his son, Hank. And Hank appears to be a meddlesome chip off the old block, with less smarts than his old man. Heck, he may even have less class.

read the full column

Formerly the Best Team in NFL History

Mark Starr — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:08:46 GMT

My favorite journalistic feature is the Conventional Wisdom column created by my Newsweek colleagues. What makes it so brilliant is that while it takes its shots at the major characters on the world stage, it is, above all, self-mocking. Our dearly-held opinions are, in fact, ephemeral and what's up one week can be down the next--without anything much changing except public perceptions.

The New England Patriots are a perfect embodiment of the up-to-down arrow phenomenon. Was it just Thanksgiving when the football talk at the table was how the Pats were making their scorched earth way toward a historic and seemingly inevitable Super Bowl triumph, arguably the best team in NFL history. Now, after eking out a come-from-behind victory over the Eagles and lucking out a come-from-behind win over the Ravens, the Pats are overrated, ripe for the picking, destined for a fall and clearly the former best team in the history of the NFL.

I thought it was kind of ridiculous how the football cognoscenti kept insisting there was a blueprint for upsetting the Pats in last week's performance by the Eagles. It had something to do with knocking Tom Brady around, which seems like a pretty good blueprint for beating almost any team. For my part, I just thought the Eagles, particularly backup quarterback A.J. Feeley, played particularly well and that was confirmed for me by his stumbling performance against Seattle this weekend.

However, there was definitely a blueprint in the Ravens game plan. On offense, they challenged the Pats' front seven with Willis McGahee, exposing the weaknesses in the slightly too old and slightly too slow Teddy Bruschi and Junior Seau tandem. It reminded me of how, for all Peyton Manning's brilliance, the Colts' running game was the key to victory over the Patriots in last season's AFC Championship. On defense, they took a cue from the 2001 Patriots as well as a couple former champions in other sports, the Philadelphia Flyers' "Broad Street Bullies" and the Detroit Pistons' "Bad Boys".

They hit, tackled, held and tugged on the Pats' receivers all night long, the theory being that the refs won't call all of them, won't even call most of them. It was reminiscent of the way the Pats smacked around the Rams receivers in their first Super Bowl win and Indy receivers in the 2003 AFC Championship. Though rule changes were supposed to curb that approach, it worked beautifully for the Ravens for almost 60 minutes until the refs finally blew the whistle on the tactics. Certainly the Steelers, who come into Foxboro this Sunday with the added boost of the Pats playing on short rest, would seem capable of employing exactly the same run-up-the-gut offense, smashmouth defense, only with a far better quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger than the Ravens' Kyle Boller.

Perhaps nobody should be surprised when an underachieving team--the Ravens were 13-3 last year--with a Monday Night Football national showcase almost pulls off a major upset. And bad weather or a bad field can prove a great leveler, which is how Pittsburgh went down to the final seconds before beating the hapless Dolphins 3-0 on Monday night a week earlier. The weather factor may haunt the Patriots again later in the season. At 12-0, they have essentially clinched home-field advantage for the playoffs. That has proved to be a huge boost in past seasons when Antowain Smith or Corey Dillon provided the Patriots with some running muscle that made frigid temperatures and an icy field the home team's friend. But Laurence Maroney is a different kind of runner, much more of a dancer, and he hasn't yet demonstrated any "get on my back" capabilities that would make anyone think he can consistently lug the ball down the field.

All of the Pats' likely playoff opponents in Foxboro--Jacksonville, San Diego, Pittsburgh and Indy--boast better running attacks. New England has become a high-flying dome team and dome teams have not fared well in Foxboro come January.

The 'BS' at the Heart of the 'BCS'

Mark Starr — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:18:02 GMT

The Bowl Championship Series got lucky this weekend when its #1- and #2-ranked teams were beaten, sparing the nation a Missouri-West Virginia national championship game that only a computer could love. And now the BCS has skirted major controversy by giving fans an attractive title showdown, matching two storied football programs, Ohio State and LSU. from two historically powerful football conferences, the SEC and the Big Ten. And it doesn't hurt that there is currently a rare consensus, that these two teams sit 1-2 atop all the polls.

Of course, an attractive title showdown shouldn't be confused with a game between the two best college teams in the nation. With memories of last season's Florida romp over Ohio State still vivid, LSU has been established as a six-point favorite. And I suspect that Oklahoma and USC, two hot teams which are headed to the Fiesta and Rose bowls respectively, would be favored over the Buckeyes too. After all, USC was quickly established as a 14-point favorite over the University of Illinois, the team that marred Ohio State's perfect season with an upset in Columbus.

I have already stated my case that Ohio State is rewarded by the BCS year after year for dominating what has arguably become, as talent continues to gravitate away from the snow belt, the weakest of major conferences. This season not a single Big Ten team defeated another major conference team with a winning record. And because the Big Ten doesn't have a title game, Ohio State didn't have to earn its way into the BCS mix, as LSU, Oklahoma and Virginia Tech all did, by winning one additional game against a tough, conference opponent at a neutral site.

But one could just as easily ask why LSU? Going into the final weekend, Virginia Tech was rated #6 on the BCS maze, one spot ahead of LSU. Virginia Tech proceeded to beat 11th-ranked Boston College by two touchdowns in the ACC Championship while LSU slipped by 14th-ranked Tennessee in the SEC Championship. In the new rankings B.C. is still above Tennessee (#14 to #16). Yet somehow LSU leapfrogged Virginia Tech. We may all agree that LSU is the better team, but that doesn't mean such computer machinations make sense. Maybe the computers factor in New Orleans mojo; LSU may be the only team capable of sustaining a party there for the entire five-week run-up until the Jan. 7th kickoff.

There are plenty of other gaping holes in the BCS system. Georgia and Kansas got rewarded with BCS bids for not reaching their conference championships while Missouri got punished--odd team out along with Arizona State--for actually beating Kansas on its way to getting pummeled in the Big 12 championship. But beyond the obvious--that the BCS system is inherently flawed, even ridiculous--I have no complaints. In fact, I kind of relish the chaos emanating out of this season of parity.

LSU or Ohio State will be crowned with the BCS championship trophy. But USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and even Hawaii could muster legitimate claims to the number-one ranking with impressive showings in their respective bowl games. And then the national championship can be settled where it once was an always should be--in the nation's bars where fans convene and debate such things. You know the places: the ones where folks are still arguing Notre Dame-Michigan State 1966.

Will Pats Set Gambling Mark?

Mark Starr — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:44:50 GMT

After the Patriots surprisingly narrow 31-28 victory over the Eagles last Sunday night, the NFL smart guys kept talking about how the Eagles drew a blueprint for an upset of the Pats by a future opponent. What didn't make sense to me ws how they kept dwelling on the Eagles' defensive plan which, despite shutting down Randy Moss and pressuring Tom Brady, still gave up 31 points and 410 yards to the Pats; if there was any lesson to be learned, it seemed to me that it was on the offensive side of the ball where Philly moved up and down the field with relative ease, throwing over the middle and underneath against soft Patriots coverage.

But whatever flaws were exposed, the fans sure didn't jump off the New England bandwagon. The Patriots remain 20-point favorites over the Baltimore Ravens on Monday night, a line that hasn't budged. It's hard to keep up with all the offensive records the Patriots might set this season. The Boston Herald noted another one--that 20 different Patriots have already scored touchdowns this season, one shy of the NFL mark. Brady to a just activated Troy Brown anyone?) But there is likely another record in the offing, a gambling mark that nobody in NFL officialdom will note let alone commemorate. If the Pats get by Baltimore this week and Pittsburgh at home next week, they will almost certainly set the record for the biggest point spread in league history the following week and possibly again the next week.

Considering that the Pats gave more than three touchdowns to a decent Philly team, it's hard to imagine how high the line might go when the Pats hosts hapless division opponents, the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins, on Dec.16th and 23nd respectively. And that's without taking into consideration any grudge Bill Belichick might bear against his former assistant, Jets head coach Eric Mangini, for fingering him in the "Videogate" affair, or against ex-Dolphins coach Don Shula for suggesting that any Patriots' record this season would warrant an asterisk.

Gambling records are not easily tracked, but the current record for a point spread appears to be 24. The defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers set it in 1976 against the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that would go 0-14 that season. That spread may (or may not) have been replicated in 1993 when the San Francisco 49ers hosted the Cincinnati Bengals. History offers no betting lessons here: the Steelers easily covered, winning 42-0, while San Francisco managed only a 21-8 victory.

Where Have You Gone, John McEnroe?

Mark Starr — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:52:28 GMT

It is another measure of how far the sport of tennis has fallen, at least in America, that the Davis Cup Finals will be contested in this country, starting tomorrow in Portland, Or., with all the secrecy of nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea. I have no doubt that Portland is excited and will fill the 12,000-seat arena with flag-waving fans and that the hard core will find their way to cable's Versus where it will be televised live. But the typical sports fan, even the sports fanatics I hang with, don't seem remotely aware that the United States and Russia are about to duel for a 107-year-old Cup, the climax of the biggest annual international team sports competition.

I confirmed that with an informal poll of my family--top tennis players all in their youth (and some continue to play a decent game today). I posed a simple question: What major sports championship is being contested this weekend? Among the answers I got were some that were correct--the ACC football championship, the Big 12 football championship--and other wild guesses--NASCAR, men's college soccer, figure skating--that were totally off base. "Not a clue," conceded my cousin Al, even misguessing after I gave a pretty good hint--"tennis". "Wasn't the Master's final held already?" he asked.

Tennis has undergone a long steady descent here into newspaper agate type and the cable hinterlands. The U.S. Open remains the one glorious exception, having been marketed shrewdly as a New York City festival and celebrity happening. Pretty much everything else has conspired against the game. The lack of an American men's champion of the first rank--Andy Roddick has not proved to be a worthy heir to the Connnors, McEnroe, Sampras, Agassi legacy--is a blow to a sport that has always been boosted by national chauvinism. And the on-again, off-again careers of our top women stars--now I'm a tennis player, now I'm a clothes designer, now I'm an actress--has, despite the success of the Williams sisters (or possibly because of it) made the sport seem almost dilletantish. And this year the sport has been dogged by widespread gambling rumors related to match-fixing. That the top Russian player, Nikolai Davydenko, is a focus of these investigations, doesn't add luster to the weekend's festivities.

The Davis Cup is already a complex, extended and diffuse competition with the locale of its matches determined by a confusing formula. Why Russia, which defeated Argentina in Moscow for the Cup last year, should not get to defend at home eludes me. But the home-court advantage--which is, above all, a choice of surfaces--would certainly seem to be a break for the Yanks (although the home team and the visitors have split the last 10 finals). The Davis Cup, like the Ryder Cup and the America's Cup and Olympic basketball and baseball, is a competition that the United States once dominated--it has won 31 times, more than any other nation--but has struggled with of late. Over the past decade, the U.S. team made it to two finals and lost both, on the road in Sweden in 1997 and again in Spain in 2004.

The USA last hoisted the Cup in 1995, with Pete Sampras providing most of the heroics in Moscow to best the Russians. There is no Pete Sampras equivalent on this American squad. Its doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan, however, is tops in the world and should guarantee the U.S. team one point. But questions remain as to whether Roddick and James Blake can rise to the occasion, as they have failed to do in critical Davis Cup encounters previously. And, of course, if they do, will anybody know about it?

To An Athlete Dying Young

Mark Starr — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:07:09 GMT

To an Athlete Dying Young

Sean Taylor's death is a small piece of a larger tragic pattern. Can it be changed?

By Mark Starr | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Nov 27, 2007 | Updated: 4:29 p.m. ET Nov 27, 2007

here's the link to my latest column

http://www.newsweek.com/id/72524

A Judgment on Barry Bonds

Mark Starr — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:45:30 GMT

In the 15 years I have been covering sports for Newsweek and the seven years I have been writing my "Starr Gazing" column, I have probably written the name "Barry Bonds" more than that of any other athlete. As a genuine fan of the game of baseball, that has not given me much pleasure. Several years ago, when I suggested that Bonds was most likely a cheater and a liar, I took more heat and abuse from readers than I ever have on any subject.

Who was I, they asked, to pass judgment on Bonds without more proof? At the time I wrote back, explaining that folks had apparently confused me with a court of law, I had the proof of my eyes and my brain and was not required to consider concepts like "beyond a reasonable doubt." Still, I was reasonably familiar with performance-enhancing drugs, courtesy of a lot of experience covering Olympics, and everything I knew-—indeed all reason-—convinced me that Bonds was intimately familiar with those things too. Now there will no longer be any confusion about the difference between a columnist and a court of law and Bonds clearly has far more to fear from the judgment of the latter than he did from anything I or any other sportswriter ever wrote.

It is rather strange how his indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice—almost four years after he testified before a federal grand jury investigating the distribution of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs at a lab called BALCO—mirrors Bonds' pursuit of Henry Aaron to become baseball's all-time home run king. As with that record set by Bonds this past summer, the indictment was a long time coming, but it always had a certain inevitability about it. One can't help but suspect that, with reporters saying only an indictment could stop Bonds from catching Aaron, federal prosecutors may have waited so that their motives were not clouded by baseball concerns.

Bonds' lawyer, Mike Rains, saw it coming several years ago, telling Newsweek and others that the government was setting a "perjury trap" for his client. It was not a concept I totally grasped. How can anybody fall for a perjury trap, I wondered aloud, if they didn't perjure themselves? Now Mike Rains, has upped the rhetorical and metaphorical ante, wondering how a Justice Department that can't recognize waterboarding as torture can be trusted to distinguish prosecution from persecution. Before this case is over, federal prosecutors will have to demonstrate that they can hit a curve ball out of the park almost as well as Bonds did.

Perjury cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, especially when words like "knowingly" are sprinkled through the grand jury testimony. In grand jury testimony leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bonds even admitted using two substances identified as undetecatable BALCO steroids called "the clear" and "the cream", but insisted he believed that they were flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm. However, according to the federal indictment, prosecutors claim to be in possession of drug tests indicating that Bonds took steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. ESPN.com reports that these results came from BALCO's own work-ups on Bonds' urine and blood samples. And prosecutors, armed with records from BALCO, have already won six cases stemming from that investigation. Just last month Olympic star Marion Jones, who for years had denied drug use as vehemently as Bonds has, pled guilty to two counts of lying to federal investigators—and later surrendered the five Olympic medals she won in Sydney.

At the very least, Bonds who has managed for years to maintain a high degree of bluster in the face of these accusations, now has something very serious—he faces up to 30 years in prison—to worry about. Far more serious than whether he will participate in Hall of Fame ceremonies if the Hall displays his record-setting ball branded with an asterisk. Now he must wonder whether he will ever make it to Cooperstown and, even if he does, what a Barry Bonds Hall of Fame plaque might say. Here's guessing that if Bonds makes it there, regardless of what his plaque says, fans will see the name Barry Bonds and read, as baseball blogger Bill Chuck has long written it, B*arry B*onds.