Four years later, Lindsay Whalen gets her due

When I saw that USA Basketball named the first 11 members to this year's women's Olympic basketball team, there was just one name I was looking for.

I knew Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi (still my favorite) were going to be there. There weren't a lot of surprises among the others, although I was happy to see Swin Cash back on the team. Tamika Catchings and Candace Parker were among the other obvious choices, and Maya Moore might be better than all of them someday.

But the name I was looking for was Lindsay Whalen.

I fell hard for Whalen in 2004, when her University of Minnesota team beat Duke in the Mideast Regional final. Beyond being a terrific player, she was just ... fun to watch.



So I was very excited when the Connecticut Sun swung a trade that ultimately ended up with the team drafting Whalen that year, as I went to a few games each year at the Mohegan Sun. I always enjoyed the anticipation of what would happen next as Whalen headed up the court with the ball and the play unfolded ... would she pass, pull up for a shot or head to the basket?

She and Katie Douglas made a great backcourt, and if Whalen hadn't been hurt, they would have won the 2005 WNBA championship.

And then the Sun traded Whalen, not for basketball reasons, but because she wanted to go back home to Minnesota (although at least the trade wasn't an epic hosing that the Douglas trade to her home in Indiana was).

I've maybe watched two Sun games since. I was that mad, and still am..

To my mind, the only point guard in the WNBA who's better than Whalen is Sue Bird, but there's no shame being the second-best point guard in world. Yet when it came time to name to 2008 Olympic team, she wasn't on it.

Kara Lawson was. Lawson is a pretty good player, but she's no Lindsay Whalen. She just isn't. For the past four years, whenever I've seen Lawson on ESPN, I've always thought of her as being the player who's carrying around Lindsay Whalen's Olympic gold medal.

So when I scanned the list and found Whalen's name on it, I was happy. Now she'll get a chance for that gold medal she should have had four years ago.

The volleyball game that showed I'm getting old

My wife, father-in-law and I were walking out of the Ryan Center at the University of Rhode Island Tuesday night at about 9:30 p.m. after watching Connecticut win the NCAA East Regional Final -- by the way, the Ryan Center is a splendid little place to watch a basketball game or three -- when we saw people playing volleyball in a gym.

Seeing college kids playing volleyball reminds me of when I was that age, when my weeks during the summer revolved around volleyball. Every Wednesday night, starting back when I was in high school, we gathered at a friend's house -- Chuck, Dan, Dave, Grayson, Vinnie, Jeremy, Renee, Marnie, plus regulars I probably forgot and whoever else showed up from the neighborhood. We'd play 2-on-2, 3-on-3, 4-on-4, 2-on-everyone else (one of Chuck's and my favorites) or whatever configuration we came up with.

Pretty much all that could stop us was rain or dark, and we fought both of those as hard as we could, especially the dark. We basically only stopped when we literally couldn't see at all. It was just pickup volleyball in a backyard in a small town in upstate New York, but it was important to us, both for the competition and the camaraderie.

Then life happened, and it started to break up. Chuck and Jeremy found another group to play with, and I joined them for a little while. They were nice enough, and the volleyball was pretty good, but it wasn't the same.

Then Chuck died. It was July 2004, not quite two years since he had been an usher in my wedding. After the funeral, we gathered in the backyard of his house, which hosted the volleyball for most of the years we played. I was on a team with Vinnie (Chuck's brother), and I played one game before my wife and I had to leave, since we lived in Massachusetts by that time.

It's kind of ridiculous to say I'm "retired" from recreational backyard volleyball, but I'll be perfectly content if that was the last volleyball game I played.

But back to the kids playing volleyball in the gym at URI. My reaction was a testament to how old I've gotten, and not because I couldn't physically do what they were doing, what I was able to do when I was that age.

After all, that ship has long since sailed. I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't run or jump anywhere near like I used to, and now things hurt when I do anything physical.

No, the realization was that if I was a college student and it was my friends in that gym, I would have been on the other side of that window. If, 10 years ago, I had stumbled across or been invited to a game, I probably would have been there.

Five years ago, I probably would have realized that my time for playing had come and gone, but I would have thought what they were doing was pretty awesome.

But last night? The first thought that came to my mind was ...  "9:30 at night is awful late to be playing volleyball."

Derek Jeter: now and in history

I former co-worker of mine, who relishes a good sports discussion about as much as I do, sent me some messages on Facebook today:

Is Jeter still a good fielder? (Not WAS but IS even at 37)

When I replied that I'm sure he is what he has always been, namely a guy who catches everything he can reach and doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but not great range, he sent me the following:

I just read an article that made this big long argument that he had bad range last year. My reaction was to question why they bothered writing it. He was 36. I can understand arguing about 27-year old Jeter. That's one of the timeless baseball arguments. But at this age, I don't know who you're arguing against. (By the way, given some of the discussions we've had about Jeter over the years, this is about as close to a ringing endorsement of Jeter's defense as it gets. And if he just read that comment, I hope it brought a smile to his face.)

Also read a second article that made the pretty convincing statement: "Jeter=best overall career at shortstop all time"

I asked him to send me the links. This is the FanGraphs one about the fielding. And regarding the point about "who you're arguing against," it's a good point. As this Bleacher Report post shows, the cohort of 37-year-old shortstops is a very small one.

I will readily admit that I'm not really into most advanced stats, especially the defensive ones. I don't have a clue about how most of them are determined, and I have the bias that for at least the first several years after they became prominent, their only purposed seemed to be to say ... Derek Jeter can't field.

Watching him play for his whole career, I would say while his range has never been spectacular, like I said before, he catches what he reaches and doesn't make a lot of errors, which does have value. Maybe he doesn't take away a lot of hits, but he's also not giving teams four outs, either.

This tidbit from FanGraphs, however, really caught my attention.

“To the second base side — the side where more grounders are hit — the average shortstop fielded 65 percent over that area. Interestingly, Ryan and Jeter — the best and worst defensive shortstops in the league — had essentially the same percentage. Ryan was league average, at 65, and Jeter was at 64.
“Why did Jeter finish last at his position? Let’s look to other side of the line and break it down [by segments]. On balls hit to the third base-shortstop hole, MLB shortstops averaged 82 percent on balls hit to that [nearest] 7-foot slice. Ryan was at 86 and Jeter was at 73. You go another 7 feet to the right and the average is 61, with Ryan at 78 and Jeter at 40. Go another 7 feet and the average is 34 with Ryan at 56 and Jeter at 16. Go even deeper in the hole, where the average is just 8 percent, Ryan is at 13 and Jeter is at 0. He can’t make that play at all. Essentially, the whole difference between the best and worst shortstops was on balls hit to their right.”

I would have bet just about anything that statistics which determined Derek Jeter is a poor shortstop would base it on an inability to go to his left, but this says the exact opposite. Is this the reason why people think his range is all to his right?


As for the greatest of all time argument, my buddy couldn't find the original link, but found another article from Rob Neyer basically saying that if you squint hard enough, maybe a person could make the argument for Jeter, but his pick would be Honus Wagner.

But he also points out that using the statistics he used, most of the greatest players of all time were from decades ago, and makes the 1972 Miami Dolphins argument I hate so much, even though he still puts Wagner on top.

Baseball players today are generally a great deal more talented than their ancient forebears. I don't believe that Honus Wagner could win a job in the majors leagues (sic) today. I'm not sure he could play in the Texas League.
But if we head down that rabbit hole, Babe Ruth's not a major leaguer. Ted Williams might not be. And our discussion becomes a lot less interesting, I think, if we're restricted to players from the 1960s or '70s and later.
So Honus Wagner gets to stay. And I will argue that his numbers are so much better than any other shortstop's that he remains atop the class, even if he compiled those numbers roughly a century ago.

Meanwhile, Rick Weiner has the exact opposite historical bias in his Bleacher Report post, so much so that even I, as someone who puts more faith in traditional stats than most, can see where he's wrong.

While some may consider Wagner to be a better offensive player then Jeter, there is no disputing that Jeter's defense is superior to Wagner's—Wagner was an atrocious defensive shortstop. While his .931 fielding percentage through 1911 was considered to be excellent at the time, Wagner committed more than 50 errors in five different seasons, and  49 errors in three more, numbers that certainly don't show that solid defense is being played.

Simply put, strip out the differences for eras, the size and speed of athletes and the way the game is played, and the great ones would have been great within the context of the era no matter what. Honus Wagner would be great today, and Derek Jeter would have been great 80 or 90 years ago.

Who's the greatest? I don't know, but I'll put it this way. If we're picking teams, and I have the fifth pick among the shortstops Neyer says are the five best -- Jeter, Wagner, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith or Arky Vaughan -- I'm not going to cry over getting any of them.

Syracuse and Wisconsin cause some domestic anxiety

Of course Jordan Taylor's three-pointer was going to go in.

It didn't matter that between Syracuse's tight defense and Wisconsin being the latest team to completely foul up its late-game offense, the shot was an off-balance 25-footer, it was always going to go in.

After all, the Badgers were raining threes, including one I'm pretty sure was tossed up from my back yard 15 miles away from the TD Garden (an impressive feat, given the trees in the yard). And because it's Syracuse, for whom shooting free throws late in games is a decades-long adventure, Kris Joseph missed the front end of a one-and-one that would have given the Orange a three-point lead if he hit both.

I just knew it was going to slip away.

But Taylor's shot didn't go in, and neither did Mike Bruesewitz's follow. Somehow, Syracuse won.

And when it was over, my wife and I, in stereo, sagged from the edge of our seats to the back of the couch where we had sat on opposite sides all game ... me out of relief, her out of disappointment.

I'm a lifelong Syracuse fan, and my wife has a master's degree from Wisconsin, so we were on opposite sides, which is unusual unless Syracuse is playing her other team, Connecticut. Otherwise, we root for each other's teams, as I would have done going forward if Wisconsin pulled it out. (Fortunately, I didn't marry a Georgetown fan, and she didn't marry a Michigan State supporter.)

There wasn't any trash talk, other than me joking on the way to dinner that I wanted to go someplace that served badger, and her replying that she wanted to smash an orange. A friend of mine said he would have liked to have watched us watching the game, but I pooh-poohed it. After all, we watch the UConn-Syracuse games every year; we're used to it!

And then Wisconsin cut what had been a 10-point Syracuse lead just before halftime to six, and then they couldn't miss three-pointers. Still no trash talk, but excitement for her when another Wisconsin three went in, then for me when Syracuse scored to either take back the lead or extend it just a little bit.

It was like this the entire second half, as something started to set in:

This was a hell of a game, and one of our teams was going to lose it.

I didn't want it to be my team any more than she wanted it to be hers. This was different than all the other games we've watched together. Someone's team was going to move on, and someone's was going to be done.

This time, my team came out on top. I was thrilled they won, but more thrilled that it was over. Bring on someone neither of us can stand!

Yes, fans have gotten that bad

On the Guardian's website, I came across this blog post by Marina Hyde about soccer fans' reaction to Fabrice Muamba's heart attack, namely her disdain for people saluting themselves over how they reacted.

A 23-year-old father of one suffers a massive heart attack on the pitch in front of a football crowd, and ever since it has been difficult to avoid those fostering collective pride at the reaction. It has "brought out the best in football"; it has allowed fans to show that there are things "bigger than football"; it has made all manner of people "proud of football".

... When the alternative action is so monstrous as to be clinically diagnosable as psychopathic, then I can't really go along with those who reckon not succumbing to it is some form of personal and collective triumph.

(Two quick side notes ... for those who don't know much about Muamba, like me, this is a fascinating article about his upbringing as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo ... and it astounds me to read a doctor saying that Muamba was, in effect, dead.)

As I was reading Hyde's post, I started to think that she should have figured out why it was such a big deal, but then I saw that she pretty much had.

So instead of congratulating itself on its eminently civilised reaction to poor Muamba's suffering, the football family might instead care to wonder to what a pretty pass things have come for a basically humane reaction to be deemed so remarkable.

... By doing so they presumably seek to turn a young man's shocking and life-threatening misfortune into something of which we can all be proud. That is questionable enough – and by implication casts football as a place where humane norms disappeared long ago.

But to be fair, it's not just football, either the kind she's writing about or the one played here in the United States. Or baseball. Or basketball. Or most other sports. We'll pretty much cheer any player's misfortune until the stretchers and ambulances come out.

And even though Hyde seems to think fans should be above such a thing, clearly not all of them are.

If it's Saturday, we must be in Pittsburgh, or is it Portland?

There are very few things I dislike about the NCAA basketball tournaments. (Yes, that's supposed to be plural. I watch the men and women.)

I detest the pods, and not just because it lets the tournament committee put Duke and North Carolina is a home-state subregional every year ... although I also hate that, even if it didn't help Duke much last night. The regions should be regional, and the pods place convenience over competition. Seth Davis basically admitted as such after the men's tournament brakcets were released.

@sethdavishoops If you look at the seed list and the bracket you realize the S curve doesn't really exist. It's all about geography.

They should just call the men's First Four games what they are -- play-in games, and dispense with the "round of 64" and "second-round" nonsense. It's not fooling anybody. I also rather the First Four games be all at-large teams, but it beats expanding the tournament to 96, 128 or everybody.

But as I'm watching the women's tournament, where it's pretty clear where each game is, I'm reminded that I hate that men's games are played on generic courts. Other than the fact that one is a seminal moment in tournament history and the other was just another first-round game ... oops, round of 64 ... looking at the difference between these two clips, it's hard to believe they're in the same building, The Pit in Albuquerque.



Combine that with the names of some of the arenas -- just in case you were wondering, the Consol Energy Center is in Pittsburgh, the Nationwide Arena is in Columbus, the Bridgestone Arena is in Nashville and CenturyLink Center is in Omaha -- all the games could be in Anywhere, USA. It's sterile, and sucks some of the flavor out of the event.

Wishing Carmelo wasn't the bad guy

I wouldn't say they're cursed, but over the years, things just have a way of not working out for the Syracuse men's basketball team.

There was Richmond in 1991 and Vermont in 2005. (Apparently, Taylor Coppenrath, whose name I spelled wrong on Twitter earlier today ... sorry, oops ... is spending his time in Spain these days.) And you'll never convince me that the selection committee didn't just forget them one year. There have been others.

Oh yeah, and Keith Smart.



This year, the Orange departed from their usual routine by getting screwed up before the NCAA tournament, when it's their guy who washes out for eligibility reasons a few days prior to the first game.

Big Orange is not happy that Fab Melo is out of the tournament.

But 2003 was different. There were no upsets, no slip-ups, as a freshman named Carmelo Anthony led my team to the title. Oh happy day!

(Side note No. 1. My wife and I were in Atlanta for the women's Final Four, and when Roy Williams dropped the s-bomb heard around New Orleans, she said, "He's going to North Carolina." Of course, he did.)



(Side note No. 2. My wife slept through the semifinal, but made it to the end of the final. I'd like to think it was because she wanted to celebrate with her husband, but I know it was because she wanted to see "One Shining Moment," of which she considers herself an connoisseur. But it never came on. I believe what happened is that the local CBS affiliate had the window for the game ending at midnight, and when the clock struck 12, they were gone. As I recall, there were many complaints.)



Even thought I don't follow the Knicks -- I started watching the NBA again after I moved to the Boston area, so I picked up the Celtics -- I'll always have love for Carmelo because of that championship. But he has made it hard for me lately.

First of all, there was his passive-aggressive treatment of Denver, where he spent the whole season saying he wanted out, but that he "would never go about it the way LeBron did it." I'm still not sure why talking your way out of town isn't as bad as finishing your contract and finding a new employer, but anyway ...

Now, he has apparently screwed up the Knicks to the point where Mike D'Antoni is no longer the coach.

I don't want Carmelo to be that guy ... the selfish coach-killer. I want him to be that college freshman who I got to see lead Syracuse to the top.