A Disappointing Day at the Races

It has gotten so bad on the IndyCar series, the drivers are apologizing:

Scott Dixon described the IndyCar Series race at Richmond International Raceway as "a bit of a procession, unfortunately," and said the 300-lap event was frustrating because the lack of passing made it more closely resemble a parade.

And he made those comments Saturday night after ending up in Victory Lane.

Teammate and runner-up Dario Franchitti apologized to fans for an "awful, awful race," while Graham Rahal said he only passed two cars all night while finishing third.

One year after a 26-car field produced what Danica Patrick described as a "carnagefest" on the shortest track on the series, with 103 laps of caution and a dozen accidents, the latest visit was quite the opposite. Twenty cars spent the night speeding single file around the D-shaped oval, with none of the drama fans are accustomed to seeing in NASCAR country.

On Tuesday, IndyCar Series officials and those of International Speedway Corp., which owns RIR, will meet to continue discussions about whether the series will return in 2010.

Track president Doug Fritz declined to speculate Sunday on how those talks will go, but did nothing to mask his disappointment with a race that was missing what fans come to see.

"I wish we had seen more passing and more lead changes and more side by side racing," he said in a telephone interview. "We'd love to see better shows and from our perspective as it relates to the fans, we're as disappointed as the fans are and as the drivers are, as well."

Dixon suggested the cars in the series are part of the problem, and he and others spoke all weekend about how having them all engineered so similarly can stymie the competition.

It sounds like they're afraid to race, and who can blame them? It even sounds to me like the drivers are terrified of the press--hence, the need to complain over the phone to a journalist. How bad it has gotten in the IndyCar series, I do not know. Right now, those miniature pickup trucks are looking like a better bet.

The open-wheel style race car isn't designed for confrontational racing. We've tried giving the drivers guns--sorry, it just doesn't work. We've already seen what happens when you let them adorn their axle caps with spikes and medieval weaponry--it just makes for poorly-considered drama. The open-wheel car is a throwback. It's designed for speed racing only, and the reality of auto racing is that the only way to adequately win a race is to hit your opponent in the rear quarterpanel and send him into the wall or into the air. NASCAR understands this--taking an opponent out for a little doorbanging and a little wall scraping and a little paint trading makes the people in the stands jump up and down and howl, creating a bloodthirsty, rabid fanbase that will buy beer and knickknacks. NASCAR has a better business model, by far.

Auto racing held a certain allure for me as a young man, sort of like beer and loose women once did. Were it not for the rules, I probably would have chosen auto racing over football in college, even though Princeton did not subsidize or organize auto racing as a college sport.

I've never understood that--auto racing is entirely an American sport, since we invented the combustion-engine equipped eauto (or did we? I have no idea). Why is there college baseball, college golf, college swimming, college basketball and no college auto racing? It makes no sense. The Ivy League and two of the major conferences--the SEC and the ACC--could have a thriving college auto racing sport right now if they had any sense.

Only Joe Mauer Can Save Baseball

Joe Mauer

It's not like I want to put any pressure on the man, but if Joe Mauer were to take steroids, run over an old lady carrying birthday presents for orphans, or marry Amy Winehouse, it would destroy baseball.

The entire Sports Illustrated article about Mauer is masterfully written, but this chunk is as good as baseball writing gets:

Here's another measure of Mauer's excellence: the checked swing, typically the signal of defeat for a hitter in his one-on-one duel with the pitcher. Hitting is timing, the Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn said, and pitching is disrupting that timing. The checked swing announces the hitter's surrender.

"Maybe five times in four years I've seen him take a checked swing," says bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek, a Twins coach for 29 years. "I've seen it only once this year. He's a freak."

The secret to Mauer's success is his serenity, his minimalist movement and emotion. He is the Ben Hogan of hitters, bringing the sweet spot to the hitting area with no extraneous movement. "I think the biggest thing about my swing is I don't have a lot of stuff going on," he says. "Guys have different triggers for timing, and my timing is very simple." As a boy growing up in wintry St. Paul, Mauer pounded balls into a tarpaulin hung in the family garage. His father, Jake Jr., a salesman for a company that designs trophies, rigged up a contraption that would drop the balls through a coffee-can-and-PVC-pipe device, leaving time only for a quick, short stroke. By the time Mauer was a senior at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul, his swing was so pure that he made contact nearly every time he swung (he, in fact, struck out only once in high school), though with little power at first.

"My coach, Jim O'Neill, took me out for batting practice one time," Mauer says. "He would just throw and pepper certain spots. And that's when we found out that middle in or middle a little up was my spot. I was consistently hitting balls over the fence.

"So after we were done, all he said was, 'Why don't you look in that spot the next couple of games?' I think I hit seven home runs in the next seven games. I took that and ran with it, not just for hitting home runs but hitting good pitches."

Mauer has grown into such a finicky hitter that he has swung at only nine first pitches in 202 plate appearances this year. He stands at the plate taking mental measurements of how the baseball behaves out of a pitcher's hand. "I just try to see how the ball moves, especially my first at bat," he says. "I always like to see a couple of pitches before I offer at one. I think ever since I can remember I've always felt pretty comfortable with two strikes."

With each strike pitchers jackhammer away at a hitter's leverage. It doesn't work as well with Mauer. Through Sunday, the average major league hitter this year had hit .186 in two-strike counts. Mauer had hit .253 in such spots. "When I get two strikes," he says, "I widen [my stance] a little bit and stay shorter to the ball. When things go bad, I joke with my coaches, 'I'm just going to go straight to my two-strike approach' because I'm comfortable with it. I don't like to get in that situation, but if I do get there, I don't panic or anything."

I have nothing to add to that. It's too bad I don't get any of their games, it would be fun to watch.

Wagering on Wimbledon

Really, who would bet on tennis?

Wagering on a Wimbledon match soared after a TV commentator pointed out one of the players is injured, an online bookmaker said Wednesday.

The British bookmaker, Betfair, alerted tennis corruption investigators about the unusual betting patterns for the first-round match Tuesday between 109th-ranked Wayne Odesnik of the United States and 30th-ranked Jurgen Melzer of Austria, but does not suspect any wrongdoing, spokesman Mark Davies said.

Davies said Betfair received more than six times as many wagers as it would normally receive for such a match. Melzer's odds "shortened significantly," Davies said, after a TV announcer noted shortly before the match that Odesnik has a thigh injury. Melzer won 6-1, 6-4, 6-2.

Betfair received about $980,000 in wagers on the match, Davies said; the average for a first-round match at Wimbledon is less than $163,000.

"It's being reported as potential corruption, but I don't see it that way at all," Davies told The Associated Press. "I doubt that there was any wrongdoing."

Still, Betfair has reported the heavy betting to the International Tennis Federation's integrity unit.

Must be a Eurotrash thing. In this country, we have the "injury report" that comes out in the various sports. In Basketball, a player is either injured or he is not and there's very little room for doubt when the team walks out onto the floor and the player in question is wearing a suit and tie. In football, the idea that someone is "day to day" or "questionable" masks the problem of knowing what is really going on, hence the need for football handicappers and for some of the more hardcore betting speculation. In baseball, the stain of gambling has never been erased, so the 15 day disabled list becomes a legally binding document chiseled into marble. In the greatest sport, hockey, injuries are kept secret to deny an opponent an advantage. This is because, in hockey, the players are most vulnerable to exploitation of an existing injury.

Tennis is a game of mental challenges, not just physical challenges. A highly ranked and respected player with all the skill in the world can go to pieces like a diva in a dumptruck if their head is swirling with personal or political issues. Of more concern to a tennis bettor is the mental state of the players--and I suppose this would be true of golf as well. A person like myself, with an iron mind and an unshakeable faith, could not exist in the rarefied air of tennis or golf--the prima donna is queen of everything in those sports. I'd rather watch those sports than play them, actually.

The US Open at Bethpage Black

The Black Course is Not Recommended for Duffers at Bethpage Black (Itinerant Golfer)

I didn't have a chance to follow the US Open from the start, but I have been able to check in and see that the competition this year is amazing:

The only things we've seen coming this week at Bethpage Black have been storm clouds, rain showers and weather delays. Ricky Barnes? No, we definitely did not see him coming.

Barnes, the 2002 U.S. Amateur champion, fired a 65 in his second round, which he started Friday afternoon and finished Saturday morning. That left him atop the U.S. Open leaderboardwhile the second half of the field — the one that includes Tiger Woods — went out to finish its second round in the afternoon with more bad weather poised to move in.

It was a record-setting performance. Barnes posted a two-round total of 132, eight under par. That broke the 36-hole Open record of 133, which Lucas Glover had tied a few minutes earlier. (Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh shot 133 in the first two rounds at Olympia Fields in 2003.)

So for now, Barnes is your unlikely U.S. Open leader. After knocking around the Nationwide tour for six years, Barnes finally punched his ticket to the PGA Tour this season. It hasn't been a breakthrough season, however. In 12 tour events, Barnes has missed the cut in six and hasn't finished better than 47th, which came last week in Memphis.

The sports industry is trying to hype Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, but the leader boards are owned by the many, not the few. My time spent at the Masters this past spring (technically, it is still spring until Monday, I believe, but oh well) revealed just how incredible the talent in professional golf really is, from the top to the bottom. There are no knuckledraggers anymore. The game refines them out too quickly. Today's players are hitting shots that a duffer can only dream of.

Having never been to Bethpage Black, I checked in with the Itinerant Golfer to see what's what and the information imparted here rivals anything you'll get from someone "blogging" at CBS or Sports Illustrated:

While I was researching this course last year I discovered something that is common knowledge among residents of New York state, but not so common knowledge to non-residents. A resident of New York state is able to book a tee time using the automated phone system 7 days prior to the day they want to play. I wanted to play the Black on 8/3 so on 7/27 at 7PM I was smiling and dialing. At 7:05 I made it into the system and using my a friend Jay’s New York drivers license number I booked a tee time for Sunday 8/3 at 10:36am. So there you have it. I cheated at getting on at Bethpage Black. I did not drink beer and grill out in the numbered spots in the parking lot and I did not sleep in my car. Hell, I didnt even SEE the numbered spots in the parking lot. As far as I was concerned if I was going to spend a 6 hour round waiting to play shots on the Black, I didn’t need to spend the 12 preceding hours waiting in a parking lot to do so. I cheated and I don’t even feel bad about it.

The Black Course at Bethpage State Park is yet another A.W. Tillinghast design and yet another U.S. Open course. There is much debate about how much of the course was designed by Tillinghast and how much was done by Joesph Burbeck, the long time superintendent for the golf facility at Bethpage. I won’t go into the details of the debate here, but if you want to read more just do a Google search on Joseph Burbeck.

When the U.S. Open was held at the Black in 2002 it was the first municipal golf facility to host the event. It was a huge success that year and Tiger Woods won with a score of 3 under par. The U.S. Open will be back at the Black next year in 2009 and it will no doubt be another great championship providing the usual mix of drama and tragedy for the players.

Because the Black Course is owned by the state of New York it is a public access course which means that they run A LOT of golfers through the course each day. Also because the course is SO long, SO difficult and prohibits golf carts, the rounds can be excruciatingly long. We were told to expect a 6 hour round and that is was we were mentally prepared for. Incidentally, if you follow the traditional color coding of tee markers the ladies’ tees (red) here play 6200 yards and the regular men’s tees (white) are 6700. The championship tees (blue) play a whopping 7,468. Yikes!

And yet, we're seeing records being set this year. Tell me that it isn't because of the skills of today's players. It's not the clubs, and it's not the shoes. It's the practice and the dedication, and the unbelievable high level of fitness. There's a reason why John Daly can't compete anymore--he can't do the sit ups.

Here's another masterfully appropriated photo from the Itinerant Golfer's site:

4th Hole Bethpage Black (Itinerant Golfer)

If that doesn't scare you, nothing will. I've played a lot of golf, but fairways like this reveal my limitations. Twenty years ago, I might have been able to cowboy up and get through it, but now? No thank you. Kudos to the golfers and their ability to do so well this year. I sense a further redesign and lengthening coming on with regards to the PGA.

Baseball will never clean up its act under Bud Selig

In what had to be a foregone conclusion, it was recently revealed that Sammy Sosa had tested positive for steroids in 2003. Feigned shock and surprise soon followed.

There's the question of due process, which clearly went by the wayside when the results of the "survey" of players taken in 2003 were initially leaked to the press, then there's my opinion, which triumphs over all other considerations. But first, the details:

A saying exists in baseball that the smartest person in any clubhouse is the guy with either the highest batting average or the most consecutive zeroes on his paycheck.

In other words, the superstars -- smart or dumb; black, white, Latino or Asian; old or young -- run the show. They control clubhouse thought through the intimidation of their talent. Everyone without their ability either falls in line or risks the kind of peer-pressurized alienation most of us escaped moments after graduating from high school.

Keep that in mind as you consider the New York Times report that Sammy Sosa is one of the 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in baseball's 2003 survey testing because the news should not be met with an indifferent yawn, as if Sosa is just another in a long line of Hall of Fame-caliber talent biting the dust: Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and now Sosa, all in the first half of the 2009 season alone. Instead, this news should be greeted with the kind of outrage reserved for the worst breaches of trust because you, Mr. and Mrs. Fan, have been taken for a very special kind of ride.

Nobody has been taken for a ride--steroids in baseball happened because of the fact that baseball has no functioning commissioner. Bud Selig is not the "commissioner" of baseball. He is the corporate enabler. If it benefits the ownership, Selig is for it. If it is something that ensures fairness, stays true to the spirit of the game, makes the fans happy, and only costs the owners another nickel, Selig will likely come down on the side of keeping that nickel in the hands of the owners, and then come up with something to get them another nickel they don't have coming to them. Until the once-adversarial relationship between the commission of baseball and the baseball ownership is restored, there will never be actual governance of the conduct of anyone affiliated with Major League Baseball.

In my world, which is that of a conservative Republican who has made more money than God, Selig is himself a God. A colossus bestride the prostrate body of a ravaged institution. You know that cartoon where the big guy shakes the little guy upside down until all of the coins fly out of the little guy's pockets? That's Bud Selig doing the shaking. You? You with the dirty shirt and the finger in your mouth? You're the little guy.

I am very much a pro-business type individual. There's a part of me that says that hoi polloi can stuff it--since the owners assume the risk, the owners deserve to reap the rewards. I do draw the line through baseball because I am a fan, and I want fairness, and it bothers me a great deal that someone cheated to win without first telling me about it. Due to the fact that I wasn't in on this from the beginning, I feel like an outsider.

Now, being an outsider who has given my money to baseball to watch people cheat through the years makes me cranky, and my expression of this crankiness is to say that baseball had it coming. Baseball deserves bad press right now. And baseball has no functioning commissioner who can address the problems. I'm certain that Selig has a plan to make the owners more money, but I doubt very seriously that Selig has a plan to do what is right. Expect more cheating.

In the case of Sammy Sosa, he's in trouble:

A congressional committee will look into former baseball slugger Sammy Sosa's denial that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs in light of a report that he tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

"The Oversight and Government Reform Committee always takes seriously suggestions that a witness misled the committee while testifying under oath," Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement. "Investigators will begin a review of this matter and, upon learning the results, I will determine appropriate next steps."

In 2005, Sosa told Congress that he had never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Sosa tested positive two years before his appearance at a House hearing.

Greg Bouris, director of communications for the MLBPA, said the union had no comment on the matter.

For years, the discussion about performance-enhancing drugs has existed within a structure that always has benefited the players. In the late 1990s, there was the argument that steroids did not exist in large measure, that players were the victims of a "witch hunt." Then, as high-profile players began to get caught using steroids and a league-administered drug policy was implemented, the new paradigm was that Player X could not be suspected because he had never failed a drug test.

Lying to Congress is really not a big deal. Oil company executives, generals, and politically connected cronies do it with great ease. Ethically, there's nothing wrong with lying to Congress because Congress is the home of the liar, the preserve of the cheat, and the playground of the despoilers of democracy. It isn't about getting to the truth. It's about getting someone in the crosshairs and destroying them with trumped-up evidence when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

The solution is simple. Strike the numbers.

Strike the victories of Roger Clemens, strike the batting statistics of the batters like Sosa and Rodriguez, and strike the record held by Barry Bonds, should he be convicted. The process should be very simple--once someone is found to have cheated, their numbers disappear. If Alabama can be compelled to vacate victories for cheating, then baseball must find a way to use the nuclear option of severing the players from their essential statistics.

If you subtract five or six years worth of numbers from some of these players, they will still be eligible for the Hall of Fame, except for the fact that by virtue of being deducted statistics, they rendered themselves ineligible for life.

Trust me, none of this will ever happen. It will cost the owners that nickel. It will cost them bobblehead day promotions and the extra money from TV revenue from running the cheesy half hour pieces on this pay-cable networks that do a lousy job of spotlighting past players and their glory.

You should always bet on the owners with Selig at the helm.

Sports Rounded Up

Tremendous upset? Tremendous choke?

No, it's hockey, and these things happen. If Sidney Crosby wins the Stanley Cup five more times, this year will not seem like a fluke.

I have to get back into the habit now of paying attention to baseball. We used to get the satellite dish packages and baseball would be on constantly when I lived in New Hampshire. I would watch baseball all afternoon, pick a marquee game for 7PM, then stay up and catch West Coast baseball and be up well past midnight. Every day. For over five months or so. I don't pay attention early in the year. This year? This year I'm not watching at all.

This made me howl:



Interference should have been called. In my mind, a bird is the same as a fan. And a fan couldn't go sit in center field and muck things up, correct?

I used to catch the Dan Patrick show virtually every day. I'm glad he's still on:

Michael Wilbon joined the show to discuss the NBA finals. Here are some Wilbon's takes ...

-- Wilbon said the NBA finals was over when Dwight Howard missed those two free throws in the final minute. He called it a huge "choke job." Wilbon said the Magic should have wrapped it up at the end. Now Wilbon thinks the Lakers will wrap it up in five.

"If you're not going to protect a five-point lead at home, what's a bigger choke job than that?" Wilbon said.

Wilbon was more upset with Hedo Turkoglu's missed free throws than Howard's. Because at least Howard works hard on improving from the charity stripe.

-- Dan asked Wilbon today's topic, would you rather be Derek Fisher or Reggie Miller? Wilbon wants to the star even without a ring.

"I'd rather be a guy who carried my team deep into the NBA playoffs," Wilbon said. "Barkley and Reggie and Ewing ... those guys are superstars whether or not they are wearing a ring."

-- Dan also asked Wilbon if Phil Jackson was a great coach or if he had great players. "I don't care what anyone says, he's the best coach," Wilbon said.

-- Wilbon can't understand why LeBron James would go to the Knicks. Wilbon says LeBron should go to the Clippers. Once the Clips get Blake Griffin, they'll have more talent than the Knicks. "If you're going to be a star, why not go to L.A.?"

The Clippers? No, I'm sorry. LeBron James needs to join one team, and one team only if he wants to win a title. And that team is:

The San Antonio Spurs.

If you gathered LeBron and Shaquille O'Neal, and got Chauncey Billups to come along for the ride, combining those three with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker would give you a championship team. Shaq would have to defer a bit, but I don't think he would mind.

NASCAR and the Fate of General Motors

The picture above is of a man named Cotton Owens, working on a car, circa 1964. There was a time when a man with a haircut like that kept calm in our society and kept our economy running at full throttle, as it were. Now? Now a man like that is mocked and told to register with AARP, whatever that is.

With that in mind, I think it is absolutely crucial that General Motors remain in cahoots with NASCAR:

General Motors has told NASCAR teams it is cutting back on its support in all of the sanctioning body's professional series.

Among the teams already notified that they will lose funding are JR Motorsports, owned by Sprint Cup star Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kevin Harvick Inc., co-owned by Cup star Harvick and his wife, DeLana. JRM races in the second-tier Nationwide Series, while KHI has entries in Nationwide and the third-tier Camping World Truck Series.

Cuts are also expected in the top-tier Sprint Cup series.

Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan said Friday that GM, reorganizing through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said cuts would be made soon.

"Our discussions are indeed NASCAR-wide," he said.

Rhadigan would not say if one series would be affected more than others, nor would he say the size of the cuts or how much GM spends on NASCAR. The automaker, through its Chevrolet brand, provides cash and other support to teams, including engines and parts.

Rhadigan, however, said GM has no plans to withdraw Chevrolet from the stock car sport.

"Racing is still in Chevrolet's DNA, and I don't think that's going to change," he said.

Auto racing is truly the American sport of innovation. If you want to build a world where there is no auto racing, brother, do not expect me to live in that world. I am here to talk smack against stopping such a thing from happening. Is is a liberal, urban, coastal mentality that ignores the importance of auto racing in America? This is not something that can be dismissed or ignored. Auto racing is everywhere in America.

Here's what Rick Hendrick had to say:

Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports and chairman of Hendrick Automotive Group, Monday responded to the announcement by General Motors that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“The products General Motors offers are the highest quality and most fuel efficient in its history, and I have an unwavering faith in the company’s leadership team and our government’s commitment to support this reorganization. After all of the efforts of the past several months, it’s unfortunate that bankruptcy has become the only option, but we at Hendrick Automotive Group and Hendrick Motorsports are certain that GM will emerge from this stronger and better equipped to compete than ever before.

Hendrick Automotive Group can say with confidence that the customers of our 27 General Motors franchises can expect the same high level of care and service that our dealerships have always provided, and that the full range of warranties and parts will be available. From a racing perspective, our heritage is with General Motors. In 25 years together, Hendrick Motorsports has won eight Sprint Cup Series titles with Chevrolet, which has more NASCAR championships and wins than any other auto manufacturer.

Let's hope General Motors can make it. If some government Poindexter decides to sever the relationship between GM and auto racing, America will truly be a poorer nation.

NASCAR and the Fate of General Motors

The picture above is of a man named Cotton Owens, working on a car, circa 1964. There was a time when a man with a haircut like that kept calm in our society and kept our economy running at full throttle, as it were. Now? Now a man like that is mocked and told to register with AARP, whatever that is.

With that in mind, I think it is absolutely crucial that General Motors remain in cahoots with NASCAR:

General Motors has told NASCAR teams it is cutting back on its support in all of the sanctioning body's professional series.

Among the teams already notified that they will lose funding are JR Motorsports, owned by Sprint Cup star Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kevin Harvick Inc., co-owned by Cup star Harvick and his wife, DeLana. JRM races in the second-tier Nationwide Series, while KHI has entries in Nationwide and the third-tier Camping World Truck Series.

Cuts are also expected in the top-tier Sprint Cup series.

Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan said Friday that GM, reorganizing through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, said cuts would be made soon.

"Our discussions are indeed NASCAR-wide," he said.

Rhadigan would not say if one series would be affected more than others, nor would he say the size of the cuts or how much GM spends on NASCAR. The automaker, through its Chevrolet brand, provides cash and other support to teams, including engines and parts.

Rhadigan, however, said GM has no plans to withdraw Chevrolet from the stock car sport.

"Racing is still in Chevrolet's DNA, and I don't think that's going to change," he said.

Auto racing is truly the American sport of innovation. If you want to build a world where there is no auto racing, brother, do not expect me to live in that world. I am here to talk smack against stopping such a thing from happening. Is is a liberal, urban, coastal mentality that ignores the importance of auto racing in America? This is not something that can be dismissed or ignored. Auto racing is everywhere in America.

Here's what Rick Hendrick had to say:

Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports and chairman of Hendrick Automotive Group, Monday responded to the announcement by General Motors that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“The products General Motors offers are the highest quality and most fuel efficient in its history, and I have an unwavering faith in the company’s leadership team and our government’s commitment to support this reorganization. After all of the efforts of the past several months, it’s unfortunate that bankruptcy has become the only option, but we at Hendrick Automotive Group and Hendrick Motorsports are certain that GM will emerge from this stronger and better equipped to compete than ever before.

Hendrick Automotive Group can say with confidence that the customers of our 27 General Motors franchises can expect the same high level of care and service that our dealerships have always provided, and that the full range of warranties and parts will be available. From a racing perspective, our heritage is with General Motors. In 25 years together, Hendrick Motorsports has won eight Sprint Cup Series titles with Chevrolet, which has more NASCAR championships and wins than any other auto manufacturer.

Let's hope General Motors can make it. If some government Poindexter decides to sever the relationship between GM and auto racing, America will truly be a poorer nation.

The Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau

Some worthwhile reading for you:

At the end of the 19th century, Bérenger Saunière, the poor parish priest of Rennes-le-Château, all of a sudden started spending a lot more money then he could ever have earned performing his normal duties. He had been assigned to this tiny village in the south of France at the age of 33 and had spent his first few years there in piety and poverty. According to his meticulously kept accounting books, in February 1892 he had a debt of 105 francs and 80,65 francs in his ‘fonds secrets’ (savings). That all changed in the 1890s. From that time on, his surviving papers and accounts record a total expenditure of some 660.000 francs, equivalent to EUR 2.500.000 today. He would spend up to 50.000 francs in one month in some periods. His salary as a priest was 900 francs per annum. Towards the end of his life he seems to have had some difficulty paying his bills but weeks before his death he appears to have been making plans once again. Saunière’s financial difficulties coincide largely with the World War I, an indication he couldn’t reach his funds abroad?

Abbe Berenger Sauniere's Grave in Rennes le Chateau grave yard

It’s often said Saunière got his fortune by mass trafficking: receiving money for masses he never said. There’s clear evidence that he was guilty of this practice, like so many of his colleagues at the time. However, the amounts of money he spent are in no relation to his illegal income from this practice. Detailed analysis of his records has taught he received 110.000 requests to say mass, which is a lot more than he ever could have said when you think a priest could say 3 masses in one day (and didn’t hold sermons every day of course). The going rate for a mass was 1 franc around 1880, increasing up to 1,5 francs at the time of his death. From this he could have earned no more than some 150.000 francs which only accounts for less than a quarter of his recorded spenditure (which was only part of what he really spent).

And it goes on from there.

At this wonderful site, you can read the collected works of the people who have been researching this mystery and find everything you will need to become well-informed about the subject. This is an excellent example of what can happen when people come together and blog about a specific subject. I don't do that here because, well, hello? It's just me, and I'm not that well-rounded. Plus, I'm hell to get along with.

Twitter isn't changing sports because only the losers are Twittering

 

It sounds like there's a coach out there who is waiting for a reason to explode with anger and throw a keyboard-equipped cellular phone across the room:

Stewart Cink is a nice golfer -- ranked 25th in the world, a member of the 2008 Ryder Cup-winning U.S. team -- and one of the most affable, accessible guys on the PGA Tour. But the 17th flagstick at Sawgrass has more star power than the laid-back Atlantan. So why does a digital version of Arnie's Army, 200,000 strong and surging, follow Cink's musings on Twitter? Perhaps they are riveted by the revelations that he recently forgot the departure time of a flight, got lost driving around Jacksonville Beach and -- brace yourself -- refilled his allergy medication. Even Cink is bemused. "I'm honored," he said of the size of his audience. "I respect and am grateful to everybody choosing to listen to the b.s. that I've put on Twitter."

Such b.s. is booming. From Serena Williams (recent tweet: "Don't forget I love The Little Mermaid") to Shawn Johnson ("Just finished up setting the record for the World's Largest Bed Jump hahaha"), Bruce Bowen ("Just met TD Jakes, I read many of his books") to Barry Zito ("I can't think of one good reason why the Denver airport's in friggin West Kansas"), jocks are atwitter about Twitter.

In fact, the entire sports world is obsessed with the microblogging tool, through which users update their web audience with frequent messages of 140 characters or less. For example college coaches, who can showcase their programs to web-savvy prospects and their parents, are copycatting each other onto Twitter. Pete Carroll, John Calipari, and Charlie Weis -- screen name "NDHFC" -- are among the big names with Twitter pages (somehow, it's hard to imagine Weis' former boss, Bill Belichick, huddled in his hoodie, tweeting away secrets from the film-room).

I don't see any "winners" on that list, do you? Bellichick, Weis, Calipari, Carroll, Zito, et al, haven't exactly been lighting it up over the last couple of years, have they? Do you really think Charlie Weis should be on Twitter, given that his Norte Dame teams have stunk it up pretty bad ever since he arrived there? Even the most famous of Twitterers, Shaquille O'Neal, is sitting on his rump right now, isn't he? Don't you think his Twitters had something to do with the dismal run that his Phoenix Suns put up this past season? It certainly stands to reason--social networking and athletic achievement seem like complete and utter oxymorons to me.

Coach, lose the Twitter, put in the I-formation, and run the ball up the gut. If you don't establish the running game, you're not going to win. And so on, and so forth.

That being said, I view Twitter as a loss leader. Twitter takes up more of my time than it delivers back to me in the form of hits, views, fans, or honeyshots. Oh, it's fine if you're criminally insane and want to harass celebrities, but it's not really useful if you're actually building a world empire.

Tom Glavine Released by the Atlanta Braves

There's no sentimentality in baseball, and that's why I like it:

Cooperstown-bound left-hander Tom Glavine was released by the Braves today, SI.com has confirmed.

The Braves didn't think he had good enough stuff to get out major league hitters, according to sources. However, Glavine's velocity was improving in his rehab starts, and he was reportedly throwing in the mid 80s. The 43-year-old Glavine, who was coming back from shoulder and elbow surgery, threw six scoreless innings for Class-A Rome on Tuesday night and proclaimed himself ready to pitch in the majors again.

Glavine was to receive a $1 million bonus for pitching in the majors this year, but he didn't pitch one inning for the Braves.

It is immediately unclear whether there are new suitors for Glavine, but his longtime agent Gregg Clifton said the Atlanta resident is willing to consider pitching for someone else. Glavine had minor elbow and shoulder surgery in the winter with the hope of returning to pitch for the Braves.

It just wasn't meant to be, I guess. I have rather enjoyed watching Glavine pitch throughout the years, and I always enjoyed watching Greg Maddux pitch as well. If you remember the 1990s, and I know I do, there was nothing better in those days than to watch Braves games and see Glavine pitch one night and Maddux pitch on another night and compare their ability to fool pitchers and out-think their opponents.

Oh, and there used to be a thing called class in baseball. Glavine had class.

This idiot? This idiot has no class:

Five days after receiving a six-game suspension for "violent and inappropriate" conduct, Carlos Zambrano found himself in hot water again on Tuesday. But this time Zambrano is in trouble with Cubs management and his teammates rather than Major League Baseball because he blew off the team flight to Atlanta on Monday without permission. It was not known what his reason was for missing the departure. Zambrano arrived at the ballpark Tuesday afternoon and was summoned into manager Lou Piniella's office before the game for a meeting that lasted about five minutes. He wasn't in the clubhouse after the game as he is serving his six-game suspension. This isn't the first time Zambrano has ignored team rules, but the Cubs appear to be wearying of his act. He's expected to be fined for this latest incident and may be asked to apologize to his teammates.

Compare and contrast the two. It certainly is true that Glavine could get fired up, but hurt his team? Embarrass himself? Not like Zambrano. Not by a long shot.

Those were the days, as they say. Sadly, it looks like we are done watching Glavine pitch. I hope he is a Republican, because he would make an excellent US Senator or even a fine governor. But first, it is on to Cooperstown.

Evgeni Malkin is keeping the Penguins alive

I'm flitting back and forth between hockey and whatever else. There's never enough time in the day and I'm functioning with little or no sleep these days. Too much to do. Hockey used to relax me. Now? Now it just gets me in a lather.

Evgeni Malkin has two assists tonight, and he's keeping the Penguins alive. Sidney Crosby? Nothing. No goals, no assists, and I'm not sure what's going to happen. Pittsburgh is at home. They have to win tonight to stay in it. If they don't, it would take a Detroit collapse to open the door for Crosby's first cup.

Is the National Basketball Association still playing? LeBron who?

UPDATE FOR YOU: Yes, the Penguins won 3-2 ( I do NOT accept or count "empty net" goals. They should be asterisked and not counted as long as it doesn't affect the outcome of the game).

Sidney Crosby got an assist. Things might be turning around.