|
September
2001 |
| TOPS |
BOTTOMS |
Sept.
30: It was day to not shut off your set if you were a
college football fan. There were myriad fantastic
finishes and wild endings:
--Clemson 47, Georgia Tech 44, 2 OT. Quarterback Woodrow
Dantzler runs in the game-winner for Clemson.
--Northwestern 27, Michigan State 26. The two teams score
22 points in the final 4:22. Michigan State goes up 26-24
with 16 seconds left, Northwestern gets a Hail Mary pass
that sets up a 47-yard field goal to win it.
--Purdue 35, Minnesota 28, OT. Purdue gets a stunning
48-yard FG with 1 second left to force overtime.
--Oklahoma, up 35-14, hangs on to beat Kansas State,
38-37. |
Sept.
30: Joe Paterno of Penn State is one win away from
tying Bear Bryant as college football's winningest coach,
but on Saturday he failed for the third straight time to
pull even as the Nits lost to Iowa, 24-18. One gets the
sense that Joe should hang it up after this season. |
| Sept.
29: Soldier Field in Chicago will remain Soldier
Field. The Bears and city of Chicago decided against
selling naming rights to the stadium, saying it sent the
wrong signal in light of the terrorist attacks. Pillsbury
Doughboy Park doesn't have the same tradition. |
Sept.
29: September baseball can be dramatic, as teams
battle in pennant races. But imagine being a Pittsburgh
Pirates fan, watching you team lose 14-3 and
committing six errors. With a week left in the season the
Pirates are only five shy of losing 100 games. |
Sept.
28: This is one of the those stories that seem corny
until you realize it really meant something to someone in
their time of need. Ken Griffey Jr. of the
Cincinnati Reds hit a home run Tuesday night in
Philadelphia. No big deal, except to Katrina Marino of New
York. Katrina's husband Kenny, 40, was one of the hundreds
of firefighters lost in the collapse of the World Trade
Center towers.
Kenny Marino adored Ken Griffey. So much so that he named
his 1-year-old son Ken, his wife told the Cincinnati
Enquire, after Griffey and not himself. So much so that he
went to Seattle to see Griffey play a few years ago
and met his idol. “He got close enough to see
(Griffey) and give him an NYFD (New York Fire Department)
T-shirt for his son,” Katrina told the paper.
Katrina e-mailed the Reds late last week and said it would
mean a lot to her if Griffey hit a home run. Griffey was
informed of the e-mail prior to Tuesday's game and sent
one out of the park.
``I got an e-mail saying (Griffey) had hit a home run.
I was so excited. I knew Kenny was very happy somewhere,''
Katrina said.
Griffey downplayed his achievement, but when informed of
who exactly Marino was, said: : “Oh my God, I remember
that. I still have the shirt.”
(We were in such a good mood after seeing this story that
we'll lay off a bottom for a day.) |
| Sept.
27: It looks like the National League East will
come down to the wire. With 10 games left, Atlanta has a
game lead over the tenacious Phils. The Mets, four back,
are still in contention but would need everything to fall
their way. |
Sept.
27: Mike Holmgren was a great coach for the Green Bay
Packers, taking them to the Super Bowl. But since getting
all the power in Seattle as coach and general manager,
Holmgren appears in over his head. Now he's in hot water
with Seahawk fans. After a 27-3 loss on Sunday to Philadelphia
that saw new QB Matt Hasselbeck throw for less than 50
yards, the fans started chanted for his backup, Trent
Dilfer. In the locker room after, according to Sports Illustrated,
Holmgren said of the fans: ``F*** them!'' He apologized
Wednesday after the magazine came out. We can imagine many
fans are now saying to Holmgren, ``F*** you!'' |
| Sept.
26: The New York Yankees clinched the AL East title
when Boston lost to Baltimore. The Yankees had an
emotional first home game since the World Trade Center
attacks. They look to be in great position to win their
fourth straight World Series. |
Sept.
26: Michael Jordan announced he was coming back to
play pro basketball, which is certainly his right. So why
don't we care? We may change our minds down the road, but
count us among those thinking this will be ultimately much
ado about nothing. |
| Sept.
25: Hats off to Sen. John McCain for his moving
eulogy at a memorial service this weekend for Mark
Bingham, the gay rugby player crediting with helping
to bring down the hijacked plane in Pennsylvania that
seemed headed for the Capitol. Said McCain: ``"I very well may owe my life to
Mark. "He supported me [in his presidential bid], and his support now ranks
among one of the greatest honors of my life. ... I love my country, but I cannot say I love it more or as well as Mark Bingham or the other heroes on United
Flight 93. I thank him with the only means I possess by being as good of an American as he
was." |
Sept.
25: After two weeks into the NFL season it is clear
which is the worst team: the Washington Redskins.
After losing to Green Bay, 37-0, Monday night, the 'Skins
are 0-2 and have been outscored 67-3. They also have the
awful Jeff George at quarterback and the look of a team
that has already quit. |
| Sept. 24: It’s 66 down, five to go for
Barry Bonds. The San Francisco Giants’ star hit two home runs on Sunday to pull within four of tying and five of breaking Mark McGwire’s all-time mark. On the same day, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs hit his 58th home run. In years past, this would have been a huge story, but it has gotten lost in all the Bonds’ hoopla. |
Sept.
24: Many of the ceremonies at sporting events to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have been moving. But
Jon Bon-Jovi singing the National Anthem in a broadcast shown before all NFL games Sunday hit the wrong note. He was lip-synching,
for heavens’ sake! The effect was to make all the rescue personnel around him look like an extras in a bad music video. Really tacky. |
| Sept.
23: John Bunting was a pretty good linebacker and
coach in the NFL. He may be a pretty good college football
coach when all is said and done. Bunting's North
Carolina Tar Heels--previously winless and 17-point
underdogs--whaled the tar out of big, bad Florida
State, 41-9, on Saturday, the 'Noles worst regular season
loss since 1985. |
Sept.
23: This item from AP speaks for itself and is truly
disgusting, especially considering all the foreign
nationals who died in the Sept. 11 attacks:
Fans of the Greek
soccer club AEK Athens tried to burn the American flag
before the team's match against Scotland club Hibernian,
and booed during a moment of silence for the victims of
the terrorist attacks in the United States.
``What went on in Athens disgusted me," Hibernian
coach Alex McLeish said Saturday. "With what happened
last week, innocent people of all nationalities in
America, anyone would show respect.
``What badly disappointed me was that there was no effort
made by anyone, the police included, to do anything about
it." |
| Sept.
22: The game started with cheers for Rudy Giuliani
and ended with applause for Mike Piazza as the New
York Mets played their first home game since the Sept. 11
terrorist bombings. Giuliani, often booed by Mets fans for
wearing a Yankee cap in the past, got a rousing ovation
before the game with the Braves. Piazza capped an
emotional night with a two-run home run in the 8th as New
York beat Atlanta, 3-2. |
Sept.
22: Let's consign Davis Cup tennis to the scrap heap
of sports events. Did anyone even realize they are in the
semis of the event? And that Australia leads Sweden and
the French lead the Dutch? Does anyone outside of as few
tennis devotees care? This event did have meaning at one
time, but that time has long passed. |
| Sept.
21: It's only against Rice, but Nebraska QB Eric
Crouch made an early push for Heisman consideration
Thursday. Crouch threw three touchdown passes and ran for two scores as the
Cornhuskers rolled over the Owls, 48-3. |
Sept.
21: Terrell Davis is hurt again. The Denver Broncos
running back will miss six weeks after undergoing knee
surgery. It's a shame to see such a terrific player
fighting chronic injuries. Davis missed 24 of 33 games in
the 1999 and 2000 seasons. |
| Sept.
20: Roger Clemens just keeps on winning. With his 6-3
decision over the White Sox on Wednesday, the Yankee
pitcher is now 20-1 and has won 16 straight starts to tie
an American League record. |
Sept.
20: Al Groh was a bit of a jerk as coach of the New
York Jets, and he's proving to be no different as coach of
the University of Virginia football team. Groh was forced
to apologize after saying:: "I'm not saying this to
make light of it by any means, but I'm not planning on
having Arabs in the traveling party. So therefore I think
probably that the threat of our being hijacked is pretty
remote." Some people are just clueless. |
| Sept.
19: The NFL made the wise decision by deciding to have
a complete 16-game schedule. The games canceled last
weekend will be made up Jan. 5-7. Had they been eliminated
we would have had San Diego play 16 games, Arizona 14 and
the other 29 teams 15. It would have had an effect on
records and given half the teams one fewer home game. This
is the right call, even if it means cutting the number of
wild card teams. In the 11 years since the
six-teams-per-conference playoff format was adopted no No.
5 or 6 seed has ever made the playoffs. |
Sept.
19: The Chicago Cubs were a great story this
spring and early summer, spending much of the season in
first place in the N.L. Central. But by losing Tuesday to
Cincinnati, the Cubs have now dropped six of seven games
and are now 2 1/2 games out of a wild card spot. |
| Sept.
18: It didn't
matter who won or who lost, it was just nice to have
baseball back as the sports world started to play
again, a week after the terrorist attacks. While the hurt
and anger remain and the games were kept in perspective,
it was a sign that life will go on. |
Sept.
18: There were two awful sports tragedies this
weekend. On Saturday, race car driver Alex Zanardi had
both legs amputated after a terrible crash in Germany. On
Sunday, seven members of the University of Wyoming cross
country team were killed when the SUV they were in
collided with a pickup driven by a member of the school's
rodeo team. |
|
This feature was dark Sept.
12-17 because of the terrorist attacks. |
|
Sept. 11: While the
Seattle Mariners have rightly gotten all the attention for
their scorching year, the hottest team in the AL West and
all of baseball since the All-Star break has been the Oakland
Athletics. With their 7-1 win over Texas on Monday,
the A's have won eight straight and have an 11-game lead
in the race for the wild card. We get a sense the M's may
have peaked and that the real threat to the Yankees is a
bit farther south along the West Coast. |
Sept. 11: We love the
NFL but hate the high degree of devastating injuries
that make it the most dangerous of team sports. This was
evident Monday night when Ed McCaffrey, the superb Denver
Bronco receiver broke his leg on a rather routine play. He
is out for six months. After catching 101 balls last year
and becoming a huge fan favorite, his 2001 season was a
non-starter. In no other sport do so many player suffer
such damaging injuries. |
|
Sept. 10: Barry Bonds hit
three home runs Sunday, giving him 63 for the season. With
three weeks left he has a solid shot to beat the all-time
mark of 70 set by Mark McGwire. |
Sept. 10: Was it just
us, or did the U.S. Open grind to a halt over the
weekend? Men's semis: straight sets. Men's finals:
straight sets. Women's semis: Straight sets. Women's
finals: Straight sets. Less-than-thrilling tennis, and a
disappointment after some incredible early-round matches.
Agassi-Sampras was the summit and the rest was downhill. |
|
Sept. 9: Fresno State is
making us believers. With their 32-20 comeback road win at
Wisconsin, the Bulldogs have started the season with wins
against Colorado, Oregon State and Wisconsin. On Saturday,
Fresno took over in the second half, outscoring the Badgers, 22-0. If there was any justice the Bulldogs would
be ranked in the Top 5, since polls should reflect who's
playing the best now. But this is college football, so
expect Fresno to get screwed. |
Sept. 9: Yevgeny Kafelnikov
showed all the heart of porta-potty in his U.S. Open
semifinal wipeout at the hands of Lleyton Hewitt. Not to
take anything away from Hewitt, but Kafelnikov played like
a dog in the most one-sided Open semis ever, 6-1, 6-2,
6-1. ``Believe me," said the 27
year-old Russian, "I tried very hard." Yeah, and
so do the Washington Generals against the Harlem
Globetrotters. |
|
Sept. 8: They
may run some people the wrong way, but there's no denying
the talent of the Williams' sisters. Venus and
Serena each won their U.S. Open semifinals in straight
sets on Friday. It set up the first all-sister final in a
Grand Slam event in 117 years. May the best sibling win. |
Sept.
8: Jorge Posada of the N.Y. Yankees gave umpire Andy
Fletcher a small saliva shower this week during an
argument and it cost him a six-game suspension and $3,500
fine. |
Sept.
7: Our Tops are also our Bottoms for today. We first
turn to a thriller in men's tennis as Lleyton Hewitt
beat 18-year-old wunderkind Andy Roddick in a
five-setter that went more than 3 1/2 hours. It was
exciting tennis between two great competitors. But
Hewitt--on his way to the U.S. Open semis-- is still on
our s***list for his racially insensitive remarks last
week that he tried to weasel out of. Roddick, for his
part, lost a bit of luster when he threw a fit over a call
reversal in the fifth set, calling a line judge an
``asshole'' and ``moron.'' He may be only 18 but he needs
to learn sportsmanship. Grow up, Andy.
On to baseball, where Barry Bonds became only the
fifth player to ever hit 60 home runs in a season. He is
now only 10 behind Mark McGwire's record. Bonds is
wonderfully gifted but during his career has displayed all
the charm of a Serbian undertaker. We may admire what he
is doing, but it doesn't mean we have to stand up and
cheer. |
| Sept.
6: Call it an instant classic. Pete Sampras, expected
to fall as the once-great champion turned struggling, put
on a magnificent show with Andre Agassi in the men's U.S.
Open quarterfinals. Sampras won a thriller 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 7-6
(2), 7-6 (5) in a match that everyone captivated. ``Win the thing,''
a gracious Agassi told Sampras as the match ended at 12:14
a.m. Events like these are the reasons we watch
sports. |
Sept.
6: Larry Bowa has the reputation as a tough-as-nails
manager who will get his players to perform with
intensity. So why aren't the Philadelphia Phillies
responding better? Bowa is irate that the Phillies showing
little passion even though they're still in a pennant race
despite losing four in a row. ``I can understand being down when you are 20 games out by Sept. 1, but it's hard for me to relate when you are in a pennant race,'' Bowa
said, according to AP. ``I can't tell the difference in the clubhouse now or April 1 and there should be a difference.''
Perhaps Bowa is part of the problem. |
| Sept.
5: 19-year-old Andy Roddick became the youngest
man to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open since
Andre Agassi in 1988 with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 drubbing of
Tommy Robredo of Spain. |
Sept.
5: The Boston Red Sox are now unraveling. On
Tuesday, their losing streak extended to nine games, Pedro
Martinez was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, and Pedro
is also in a verbal battle with GM Dan Duquette over
comments Duquette made about Pedro's ability to play. |
Sept.
4: St. Louis Cardinal  Bud
Smith celebrated Labor Day with a no-hitter against
the San Diego Padres - only the 16th time a rookie has
thrown a no-hitter in the modern era. |
Sept.
4: That's it for Ryan  Leaf.
After the Tampa Bay Buccaneers seemed ready to give him a
second chance in the NFL, he was cut today. After
his disastrous stint in San Diego (the Chargers are still
talking about how happy they are that he's gone), Leaf may
need to talk to new San Diego quarterback Doug Flutie
about the CFL. |
| Sept.
3: The WNBA has crowned a champion and it's not the
Houston Comets - for the first time. The Los
Angeles Sparks made it a clean sweep for L.A. as they
followed up the Lakers' NBA Championship with their own,
beating the Charlotte Sting on Friday night, 82-54, for a
2-0 series sweep. |
Sept.
3: The Fresno State Bulldogs are no pushovers this
year in college football. And, with the third
longest home winning streak in the country, they would be
extra tough Sunday night. But, the Oregon State
Beavers, ranked in the Top 15 all around the country,
played like shit in a 44-24 drubbing at the hands of the
Bulldogs. |
| Sept.
2: On the first full Saturday of college football,
several teams staked claims to runs at the National
Championship. The Oklahoma Sooners went to
2-0 with another strong defensive effort as they beat Air
Force, 44-3. The Miami Hurricanes mauled Penn
State, 33-7. And the Oregon Ducks avenged
their loss to Wisconsin last year, beating them, 31-28. |
Sept.
2: They are, after all, the Boston Red Sox.
It is, after all, September. And yes, they are
falling apart. The Bo' Sox lost their seventh game
in a row, and their second to the division-leading New
York Yankees, 2-1, after squandering a 1-0 lead they
carried into the eighth on Saturday. They are now
eight games behind New York in the AL East and seven games
behind Oakland in the Wild Card race. They are 7-16
since sweeping Texas at the beginning of August. |
| Sept.
1: The comeback trail for running back Ben Gay
seems to be alive and well. He got the bulk of the
carries for his Cleveland Browns in their game at Carolina
on Friday, carrying the ball 11 times for 28 yards.
Gay has been called by many the best rusher ever to tough
a football. However, his career since leaving his
J.C. has been cluttered with an unwillingness to focus and
a disastrous appearance in the CFL. Hopefully, he'll
survive the team's cuts this week. |
Sept.
1: What is going on with non-American tennis
players? First Martina Hingis goes off on the
Williams sisters being favored because they're
black. Now, Australian Lleyton Hewitt starts
accusing black line judges of favoring his black opponent
on Friday, American James Blake. When referring to
the black line judge, Hewitt said, "Look at him.
You tell me what the similarity is." He asked
for the line judge to be moved and he was - which may be
the bigger crime here. |
