Happy Wednesday everyone, here's my Top 5 for June 22, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
- NFL players and owners are resuming negotiations today in Boston.
- NBA prospects of avoiding a lockout in eight days look grim.
- Another formful day at Wimbledon. Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick all won in straight sets. Serena Williams won her first-round match in three sets.
- Last year, John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut 70 games to 68 in the fifth set of a record-setting 3 day match. By sheer dumb luck they met in the first round again yesterday. This one must have felt like a warmup session as Isner won in straight sets.
- The Mets star shortstop Jose Reyes is playing hardball. He has told the Mets he will not talk contract until after the season.
- Despite losing in the NBA finals, Miami Heat President Pat Riley says he will not return to coaching. Eric Spoelstra is his man.
2. Helmet Head
I love David Tyree. I love his back story. He's the guy who made that unbelievable "helmet catch" to help the Giants win Super Bowl XLII. He was a special teams player who was never thought of as a wide receiver. The warm fuzzy story of a kid coming from nowhere to become hero should have ended there. But in the heated New York debate over same sex marriage, he has come out against it. He has really come out. He says he'd trade in his Super Bowl championship to stop it. He says same-sex marriage would send the country into anarchy. Oh, really? I would say he's taken one too many hits, but the truth is, he never made another catch in the NFL after that Super Bowl reception. I sort of wish he hadn't made any pitches either.
3. A Half Century Later
The Yankees are playing the Reds this week. It takes me back 50 years. When these two teams met in the 1961 World Series, as I've mentioned before, we just hopped on the subway to Yankee Stadium, bought a bleachers ticket and watched game 2. No fuss, and not a lot of cash. The ticket cost $2.10. Of course when those teams met that was two stadiums ago for Cincinnati, and one stadium and one refurbishment ago for the Yankees. When the Yankees appeared in the 2009 World Series, a bleacher ticket cost $50. Simple inflation? Well according to the inflation calculator, $2.10 in 1961 was worth $14.89 in 2009. As for a $50 ticket, that's sports inflation, baby!
4. Moneyball
OK movie fans, do you buy Brad Pitt as a baseball general manager? He plays Oakland As GM Billy Beane in the upcoming movie, Moneyball. I have to admit my reaction was the same as when I heard that Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman were going to star as Woodward and Bernstein in All the President's Men, the Watergate movie. Isn't that a little too Hollywood? But the story won me over, and judging from the trailer to Moneyball, it'll happen again. Beane changes the "old boy" way of doing things. Scouts would sign players because they "looked like baseball players," but Beane brought the As into the computer age and valued stuff like actually getting on base. While watching the trailer I even forgot for a moment that Pitt is married to Angelina Jolie. I think Moneyball may be a winner when it's released in September, even if the 2011 last place Oakland As aren't.
5. Memory Lane
Remember the classic Tiger Woods footage with Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show when Tiger was only two? Well here comes then-10-year-old Rory McIlroy who had just been crowned the under-10 world champion. It earned him a guest appearance on TV in Ulster, Northern Ireland...
Very cool! He was ready for stardom, even wearing a Nike Logo. Thanks to Top 5 subscriber Kenn F. for passing it along.
Happy Birthday: NBA hall of famer Clyde "The Glide" Drexler. 49.
Bonus Birthday: The great Meryl Streep. 62.
Today in Sports: Joe Louis knocked out German Max Schmeling in the first round at Yankee Stadium. 1938.
Bonus Event: Hey, we can send you to war, you might as well be able to vote for the people who send you there. The voting age is lowered in 18. 1970.
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