Once upon a time, Gov. Krispy Kreme was my CPB – Chief Pretend Boyfriend. I imagined myself under the boardwalk down by the sea-ee-eeee yeah, on a blanket with my baby, swooning in passion as the waves crashed upon our bodies to the beat of The Boss blaring from my Hello Kitty boom box. We were like Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in “From Here to Eternity” – if Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster were two beached whales, that is.
But what with Bridgegate and the capitulation to The Donald, it’s become harder to sustain the fantasy of being with my tubby little Luv Guv. So I banished Gov. Krispy Kreme from my heart, and instead promoted my WPB (Weekend Pretend Boyfriend), Rafael Nadal, to CPB status. ...
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Read MoreThe deathless Deflategate is back as the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has decided not to rehear Tom Brady’s case, having already ruled against him.
Which means Tommy’ll have to stalk Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the rest of the Supremes or face the music of the four-game suspension for his alleged role in deflating footballs in the 2015 AFC Championship. And don’t think he won’t take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Guy’s got an ego the size of Texas.
In other Brady buzz, he won’t be a speaker at the Republican Convention for his good – and equally modest – friend Donald Trump. The lineup for the convention – which begins Monday in Cleveland – is hardly stellar, but one name stood out, Tim Tebow’s. ...
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Read More“It’s a great race, it’s a great race, it’s a great race” I kept screaming at the TV as Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte went 1-2 in the 200 IM finals in the Olympic Trials in Omaha.
“Win or lose, we have a good friendship and that’s why it’s a great rivalry,” Lochte said afterward.
Frankly, I thought Lochte, swimming with a groin injury, had Phelps in the final leg, the free, but hand it to Phelps – he has the longer reach and the champion’s ability to close. That takes nothing away from Lochte, who has never been intimidated, never backed down. That’s what makes it a great rivalry. ...
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Read MoreThere’s a lot of sports stuff we could talk about this week – including Andy Murray reuniting with former coach Ivan Lendl in an attempt to stop Novak Djokovic’s bid for the Grand/Golden Slam. (Nole fan though I am, I’m all for the “It’s the eye of the tiger,; it’s the dream of the fight, rising up to the challenge of a rival” attitude Murray has adopted. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. There’s no point in lying down for an opponent. And no champ worthy of the name would want a competitor to roll over. I think Nole knows the Grand/Golden Slam will mean nothing if he doesn’t earn it.
But there are two ways to think about sports. Like the arts, they can take us outside ourselves. And there are moments when they simply pale in the wake of tragic events. ...
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Read MoreWhat would we do without Nick Kyrgios? After years of aloof politesse (Roger Federer), passive-aggressive classiness (Rafael Nadal), molten anger lying beneath an earthy crust of sportsmanship (Novak Djokovic) and barely contained annoyance (Andy Murray), we have no-holds-barred, heart-on-his-basketball sleeve Nick – railing against the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune.
During his first-round French Open victory against Marco Cecchinato of Italy, Nick was assessed a code violation after barking “Towel” at a ball person who responded with less than alacrity.
“How can you sit there and give me a code for that, but when (Novak) Djokovic pushes an umpire out of the way, that’s all right?” Nick asked chair ump Carlos Ramos. ...
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Read MoreRoger Federer’s out of the French Open with continuing injuries, and already the Mark Antonys are out in force to praise and bury Caesar.
No Fed fan here but, as with Mark Twain, reports of his (tennis) death are greatly exaggerated. Federer will never retire, because being a player on the ATP tour – as opposed to what John McEnroe calls the old fogey’s tour – is at the core of his identity and because Feddy fans, including The New York Times, would have a nervous breakdown. Already the planets are spinning backward with Novak Djokovic’s name being thrown into the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) ring. ...
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Read MoreI saw Jackie Robinson in person once. It was at Yankee Stadium on Old Timers’ Day, and Iike a lot of other wiry kids, I craned my neck to take in as many legends on the field as possible. I thought then that Robinson looked old and sickly for his age. (And indeed he would die of a heart attack, complicated by diabetes, at age 53.) The other thing I remember thinking was that he was a big man, larger than life – which he certainly was.
I was reminded of Robinson – the man who had that special combination of physical and spiritual grace to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947 – because Ken Burns’ miniseries about him is set to debut Monday and Tuesday, April 11 and 12, and because Jay Caspian Kang has written a column for The New York Times Magazine’s April 10 edition in which he suggests that racism is killing baseball. ...
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