Michael Sam’s out (of the NFL) – for now

September 1, 2014

So in the end after all the hoopla, Michael Sam – the first openly gay player in the NFL (almost) – didn’t make the cut with the St. Louis Rams.

There are just so many ways to look at this. How convenient for the those who can sigh with relief and say, “Hey, we tried but he just wasn’t good enough.” How vindicating for the skeptics, who will say, “He was such a lightweight to begin with. The only reason he got a shot was because he’s gay.”

But how sad for those of us who’d like to see the Sams and the Tim Tebows of the world find their places in the NFL sun regardless of the imperfections of their (still considerable) skills and their sexual or religious persuasions.

Some day, we won’t have to judge people by anything but those skills and what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the content of their character” – which in Sam’s case seems to be class all the way, and which is more than you can say for the Ray Rices of the game. ...

The summer queen: Diana, Princess of Wales

August 31, 2014

She was born July 1, 1961 amid summer’s flowering and died Aug. 31, 1997 as it withered. And like summer itself, her season was too brief.

Everyone living at the time remembers where he was when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But many of us remember, too, where we were when Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident in a Paris tunnel.

I was in my aunt’s room watching TV when a news bulletin came on saying she had broken her arm in the accident. I went to bed and woke up early the next morning – a Sunday, just as Aug. 31 falls on a Sunday this year – knowing without knowing why I knew that she was already dead. Then came the phone call that every journalist simultaneously dreads and lives for, an editor’s voice saying, “Do you have the TV on?” I spent that day, my mother’s birthday, and the rest of the week watching and covering the extraordinary events that unfolded, transforming the Princess of Wales from ex-wife, mother and celebrity into a secular martyr, saint and goddess.

As her death had a transcendent trajectory, so, too, did her life – a far more interesting one. The woman once known as “Shy Di” came of age in a post-feminist era. ...

The vagaries of fame: For NFL commish, teen tennis star

August 30, 2014

In the Gee, Ya Think? Department, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has decided that perhaps he was a tad too lenient in the recent Ray Rice domestic abuse case.

Now those who commit assault of any kind, battery or an act of domestic violence will be suspended for six games without pay. A second offense will result in at least a year suspension.

Clearly, Goodell has seen the handwriting on the wall, and no, I don’t mean the evil of Baltimore Raven Ray Rice dragging his fiancée (now wife) Janay Palmer unconscious out of an Atlantic City elevator after beating her or the blame-the-victim farce of the Ravens’ press conference, in which Palmer also apologized for her role in the incident.

No, the penmanship Goodell has seen in his mind is on all those credit card receipts for season tickets. With fans up in arms over the assault, Goodell can’t afford a defection, no matter how popular football is. So let’s not hand the NFL any humanitarian awards just yet. ...

‘Antigone’ in Ferguson

August 29, 2014

Seeing the front-page photo in The New York Times of Michael Brown’s body lying in the street – like so much road-kill – after he was shot to death by police officer Darren Wilson filled me with revulsion and anguish.

In a previous post, I wrote about the desecration of the dead from the Malaysian airline flight that was gunned down and the need to observe the proper rites for the them, not just for the departed but for ourselves as civilized human beings. I also wrote about “Antigone” – a tragedy by Sophocles that’s been reinterpreted by many, including playwright Jean Anouilh – which hinges on the moral consequences of failing to honor the dead.

So I was heartened to see this Aug. 27 letter to The Times’ editor by Jean P. Moore of Greenwich, Conn. ...

For Anna Wintour, everything new is old again… when selecting a TB (tennis boyfriend)

August 27, 2014

Each August, I breathlessly await the arrival of the gazillion-page September Vogue, not for the fashion, silly, but to answer the question that flits among my neurons all summer: Who will editrix Anna Wintour anoint as her new TB (tennis boyfriend)?

For as I said in a post on this site last winter about Maureen Dowd, RGIII and Jane Austen, an accomplished woman of good fortune must be in want of a PB (pretend boyfriend).

Or, in Anna’s case, a PTB or just TB. As we all know, Anna – who has featured many, mostly male tennis stars in the pages of Vogue – has been pretend-dating Roger Federer – aka Feddy Bear – for years, sending racks and racks of clothes over to his hotel suite when he’s in town for the US Open, presumably while Mrs. Fed looks the other sartorial way.

Then in 2011, Anna’s journalistic instincts got the better of her and she decided to play the hot hand...

Seems like old times: For Phelps, Fed – and Caro

August 25, 2014

There’s so much going on in swimming and tennis right now that my head is spinning. So let’s plunge right in, shall we?

Down Under, Michael Phelps was back in a big way at the Pan Pacific Championships, winning gold in the 100 butterly, 4 X200 and medley relays and silvers in the 200 IM and the 4X100 relay.

It’s a measure of just how talented the 29-year-old is that he can take a year and a half off and already come back this far. You have to credit part of that to luck, fate, Providence, whatever, particularly when you consider that Missy Franklin, the darling of the last Olympics and worlds, missed Pan Pacific with a sore back – at age 19. Indeed, the pictures of Phelps smiling on the medal stand, looking at his gold medal for the 100 fly, in which Ryan Lochte finished second (seems like old times) said it all.

This has been a good moment for “old timers.” Federinas, along with the press, have practically anointed a resilient Roger Federer winner of this year’s US Open, which gets underway in earnest Monday, Aug. 25.

Rafanole interruptus

August 21, 2014

There will be no Rafanole this year at the US Open, which gets underway Saturday with “Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day” at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, Queens, N.Y.

The big news is that defending champ Rafael Nadal has pulled out due to the wrist injury that kept him out of the early portion of the hard-court season. There appears to be a pattern here: Rafa plays lights out to ace the clay-court season, peaks at the French Open, cries when they hand him the umpteenth trophy at Roland Garros in Paris, flames out at Wimbledon, gets injured, takes some time off and starts the whole cycle again.

This would seem to favor Novak Djokovic, but wait. After a trifecta of Ws (Wimby championship, world No. 1 ranking and wedding to longtime love Jelena Ristic), Nole burned out of tournaments at Toronto and Cincinnati. The New York Times, which seems to have no enthusiasm for Nole, noted that he’s been “fending off charges” that he hasn’t been practicing much since the wedding. Fending off charges? Really? Is he a criminal? What’s next, blame the wife?