1. “The speculation—something casual fans are mostly unaware of—has spread from the blogosphere to the mainstream. ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and The Bleacher Report have all acknowledged the accusations in stories within the past year. The website Tennis Now openly suggests a “connection” between Nadal and doping. The anonymous blog Tennis Has a Steroid Problem has a laundry list of “evidence” against the 27-year-old Spaniard. (The post includes this editor’s note: “The opinion of this blog is that Nadal is benefiting cthe use of performance enhancing drugs.”)
“A skit on a French satirical TV show last year depicted Nadal peeing in a car’s gas tank and using a steroid needle as a pen. Former tennis great Yannick Noah wrote an op-ed in November alleging that all Spanish athletes were doping. Retired Belgian player Christophe Rochus questioned Nadal’s ability to dominate the 2012 French Open and still fall to injury two weeks later at Wimbledon.
“Is this a witch hunt? In some ways, yes.”
The Daily Beast brings us this meal for thought: Tennis Has A Doping Problem by Sujay Kumar.
2. “I’ve been to Nowlan Park for some good days and I’ve been there for some very bad days but last Saturday night I was there just to watch. It was brilliant. Some of us are dreamers and when we dream we give out the old ráiméis about the culture of hurling and how we are going to achieve it or revive it. Saturday in Nowlan Park was full of that culture. It was the first half of a weekend that reminded me what hurling is and could be if we grow it the right way.
“I was in the ground 90 minutes before throw-in but so was just about everybody else. There was no warm-up act and there was no premium level for grazing and drinking. Just 24,000 people almost trembling with excitement. It was tribal. First the announcer. There are changes on the team tonight. Gasp. Nothing more. He plays the crowd beautifully. Just the hint that Henry Shefflin is in the building tonight.”
Donal Óg Cusack is a loss to Cork hurling on the field perhaps but his writing and punditry are welcome this summer. His GAA.ie column returned this week.
3. “It’s unfair to write this, but I’m going to do it anyway: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and O. J. Simpson have a lot in common. We don’t normally lump them together, because certain key contrasts are tricky — for example, one man is a Muslim intellectual and the other more or less decapitated his ex-wife. This is more than a significant detail.”
One of my favourite writers these days, Chuck Klosterman, draws parallels between two well-known, former sports stars in the US. Check out this extract from his book on Grantland.
4. “We find ourselves in the 100th Tour, the first since USADA’s investigation of Armstrong exposed the Tour’s previous “renaissance” after the Festina scandal of 1998 as nothing more than a more sophisticated fraud. Back then, the sport was looking for salvation, and a Texan rolled into view with promises of miracles and hope. He would eventually use the Champs-Elysees to admonish people who didn’t believe in miracles when he finally departed in 2005.
“Well, we now hear much of the same. Promises and re-assurances that don’t quite jibe with actions. I read David Walsh’s tweets from within Team Sky over the weekend, where he dismissed similarities between Froome on Saturday and Armstrong in Sestrierre in 1999, by basically arguing that Froome is different from Armstrong because Froome is a nice guy who would not pull a “Lance” and intimidate an outspoken rider the way that Armstrong did with Bassons in 1999.
“I see many others are making similar points – Sky have too much to lose, that they are credible because they have the pressures of UK Sport on their back. They are team of nice guys, just very smart in their preparation, very scientific. Well, I recall that Tyler Hamilton was a nice guy, one of the best in the peloton. Hincapie had the respect of everyone, as have most dopers, before they were caught. USPS was a credible sponsor, with too much to lose, and so was Discovery.”
Sportsscientists.com on why skepticism in sport should be encouraged, not silenced.
5. “When attempting to identify baseball’s least likely success story of the last 25 years, one doesn’t need to look any further than the 1989 Cleveland Indians. Plagued with rumors of tampering from ownership, a practically non-existent budget, and a roster filled with names unfamiliar to most who followed the game, the ‘89 Indians should have turned in one of the worst seasons of all time. Long time owner, Donald Phelps, passed away in December of 1988, leaving the franchise in the hands of his ex-Vegas showgirl wife. Her intentions for the club, which we’ve come to understand years later, involved nothing resembling on-field success. With a pair of 100-loss seasons in the rearview, Rachel Phelps set out to build a team bad enough to finish dead last, in hopes of packing up the team and relocating to Miami.
“Their place in baseball history is undefined. The Indians improbable run to the American League East pennant has never been celebrated as a book, movie, or both. There was no forward thinking ex-player turned general manager rushing to save the Cleveland Indians on the back of a statistical revolution. It wasn’t a case of “the bad guys won,” but perhaps the wrong guys won.
This is the story of 1989 Cleveland Indians, as told by the players and coaches who helped a struggling franchise win its first pennant in over 30 years.”
Get on this. An oral history from our more glamorous Canadian cousins, TheScore.com, about the fictional 1989 Cleveland Indians.
6. “Perhaps the greatest trick Inverdale has pulled is his apparent success in convincing his bosses that the Bartoli business was some form of clumsy aberration, when in fact it is entirely of a piece with the manner in which he has covered the sport since I can remember. Year after year, BBC One viewers and 5 live listeners are gifted his open distaste for the women’s game, which apparently lacks anything to hold his well-remunerated attention. It’s too noisy, it’s boring, no one’s heard of its players: no matter how many times he is called on such positions by John McEnroe – who understands something about making the sport engaging – out they are trotted again the next year.”
It wouldn’t be a Sunday without a link to a Marina Hyde piece. God, we love that woman’s writing. Here, she rips John Inverdale a new one.
