1. It was a weird affair from the start, with the first two Orioles batters knocking out solo home runs in the top of the first inning, even while the bleacher choir was going through its introductory chants. Derek’s double off the left-field wall helped the Yanks tie it up in the bottom half, and we were free over the next hour or more to watch his naked, intelligent face in riveting closeups, while he fought and almost lost the battle with his emotions. Between pitches out at short, or while on the bench, he flicked his pale gaze this way and that, taking in the heart-rending familiar, and he pressed his lips together, or dropped his head, or looked elsewhere in birdlike twitches. Once we saw him retreat to the tunnel.
Leave it to Roger Angell in The New Yorker to wrap Derek Jeter’s retirement in the most perfect prose.
2. At the police station, Ferguson was put in a cell. Fortunately, some “bluenose” police officers, hearing of their striker’s predicament, got involved and handed him jugs of water through the latch while a doctor was called. According to Ferguson, he was only 15 milligrams over the limit, though this surprised him. “I don’t know how that happened – I had drunk five bottles of red wine!”
Ferguson then asked why a doctor was needed. “Because you only blew 15 milligrams over the limit. We are going to do a blood test,” he was told. “I am thinking to myself: ‘Dearie me, take my blood?’” says Ferguson. “I was on the lash on Saturday, on Friday, on Thursday. Don’t take my blood, whatever you do.”
They let him go at six in the morning. “I am sure some of you have been there, like. They gave me my shoes back, I put my laces back in. And I am thinking: ‘I have a derby game tomorrow night, dearie me.’”
An excerpt from Alan Pattullo’s book ‘In Search of Duncan Ferguson’ details how the Scottish striker prepared for his very first Merseyside derby.
3. Simmons is, in my opinion, ESPN’s franchise player but by no stretch a leading journalist. On his 45th birthday Thursday, my gift to him was recounting my favorite quote from basketball coach Butch van Breda Kolff: “Everyone’s strength is their weakness.” He said he liked it.
In Simmons’ case, it has to do with his driving energy and creativity, which can morph into tunnel vision and self-absorption. What makes him always think that something’s right just because he thinks it is? Or that his sometimes loopy declarations are easy to interpret? Another provocative transcription from that podcast (since pulled by ESPN):
“I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I’m in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell,” Simmons said. “Because if one person says that to me, I’m going public. You leave me alone. The commissioner’s a liar, and I get to talk about that on my podcast. Thank you. … Please, call me and say I’m in trouble. I dare you.”
It sounded a little like Gary Hart’s nutty 1987 dare to the media to catch him in the act of adultery. That challenge eventually denied Hart a presidential bid. In Simmons’ case, the “dare” was widely interpreted as a challenge to ESPN President John Skipper, who just happens to be Simmons’ most important booster at the company. When asked, Simmons refused to comment on whether it was directed at Skipper.
But Skipper certainly thought it was, and that insubordination was one of the main two reasons for the severity of the suspension. Particularly on podcasts, Skipper said, Simmons has a tendency to slip back into his “bad boy, let’s-go-to-Vegas” persona. Simmons, Skipper believes, is transitioning into an important influence and mentor at Grantland and needs to leave his well-worn punkishness behind.
Robert Lipsyte is the ESPN Ombudsman and offers his take on Bill Simmons’ suspension from the organisation this week for his comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. There is a bigger point here: big names need to be produced, edited and held to the highest standards.
4. Suggest that female coaches are naturally more nurturing, empathetic and sympathetic than male coaches and you are straying into dangerous territory. Some female coaches play down the stereotypes, lest they suggest female coaches are too soft by design. After all, Sir Alex Ferguson won nothing by being soft.
“Some people think athletes are robots, that we don’t have feelings. But you’ve got to be happy off the pitch to perform well on it. I still go to Giselle with any problems or issues, she just makes me feel a lot better.”
In addition, a recent study contended that something called “empathetic accuracy”- how accurately a coach can understand a male athlete on an emotional level – is higher among females.
“I’ve been told I’m like a second mother,” says Margot Wells, who has worked with England’s Mike Brown and Danny Cipriani, among many others. “There are men who are good listeners but women tend to be more sympathetic.
“Rugby players don’t want to be seen as weak in that macho environment so often they’ll keep schtum about their problems. But I can tell when there’s something wrong with a guy so I can press a button and it normally comes rolling out. They feel comfortable telling me things.”
BBC Sport’s Ben Dirs investigates why men are still suspicious of women’s involvement in coaching.
