From vacation to camp

Taking the world's temperature before Houston, Carlisle ...

MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- Today is the first day of the rest of my job. Before I board one of Continental's finest later this morning to start the first part of Training Camp Trip 2002, my Houston-Carlisle-Albany-Greenville-San Antonio-Greeley-River Falls-Berea-Macomb-Orlando-Bethlehem leg, let's pause to review what's happened in the world of sports, and elsewhere, while four weeks of vacation passed:

News item: Tiger Woods is human.

I totally agree with fine (Newark) Star-Ledger columnist Mike Vaccaro, Mike Vaccaro, who last week chided Woods for tap-dancing his way around his unique duty to do something about the exclusionary policies of big-time golf clubs. But Woods is the only golfer ever who could get this non-golf fan in front of the TV at 8 o'clock on a Friday morning to see shot-by-shot coverage of his British Open second round. I laud him here for being man enough after his 81 Saturday to stand up and say he stunk. He was practically playing in tornadic conditions, and he had every reason in the world, after his Grand Slam dream died, to drum up the convenient excuses. He didn't.

News item: Allen Iverson is in trouble.

List of the week My favorite vacation pastimes, 2002 ...   1. Sitting on the deck behind our house, with a Grolsch, with wife Ann, a Rolling Rock in her hand, after coaching our 10-and-under softball team, the Montclair/Sports Illustrated Bears, before sundown one night when it wasn't too hot, just talking about what great kids we were coaching and how much they wanted it, and how rewarding it was to coach girls like that. And thinking what a great co-coach and wife I have.  2. Sitting on the tiny terrace of our Bermuda hotel room over Fourth of July weekend with said co-coach, looking down on the rocky coast and thinking: Other than Bryce Canyon in Utah, this is the prettiest sight I've ever seen.  3. Dining in Bermuda with Ann and the two cherubs and actually conversing, not worrying about what the next event was or who that was calling on the phone.  4. My Baseball Trip 2002, with buddy Ken Fost. Saw Pedro Martinez intimidate and master the Padres in San Diego, then saw L.A. beat my Sox twice at Dodger Stadium. Even saw Nomar in our hotel lobby with a family gathering after the Friday night game. The way he moves in a crowd of friends and family made me think of Bruce Springsteen for some reason. So famous, so great, and yet all he wants to be is a normal guy.  For more items from my vacation List of the Week, click here.

Dan Le Batard made me laugh on ESPN Radio when he talked about how this kind of thing happens all the time in the black community, and what's the big deal and why all the press coverage? Hmmm. Former NBA MVP allegedly packs a gun, bullies his way into an apartment and threatens people repeatedly if they don't tell him where his wife is. That's not acceptable in my society. It's also not acceptable to bring up what a tough time he had growing up. Iverson has used that one a few times too many already.

News item: The Baseball All-Star Game aborted.

Now, who can really be upset after a great baseball game, which this one was for nine innings? I can. Never in my life have I see a nationally televised sports event in a major sport on a very big stage make up the rules as it goes along. Afterward, Joe Torre and Bob Brenly and Bud Selig, time after time, kept saying, in effect: It's not our fault, there's nothing we could have done. Brenly actually had the gall to say he didn't want to risk injuring his 11th-inning pitcher, Vicente Padilla, to the point he wouldn't be able to pitch in the second half of the season. What is more galling is the sudden "rule" that says pitchers can't go more than two innings in the All-Star Game. Why? Peter Gammons made a great point on the radio after the game. He mentioned that Jack McDowell once got the win in an All-Star Game two days after throwing eight innings and 140 pitches for the White Sox on Sunday. When I was a kid, the starters always went three or four innings the All-Star Game. I like baseball a lot, but the pane-of-glass way pitchers are treated makes me sick. The last two guys threw 31 and 25 pitches, respectively, and Torre and Brenly are afraid to make them go another inning, or however long it would take to come to a resolution? Two solutions, in my book: One, play the All-Star Game a week after the World Series every year in a warm-weather city. That way, Brenly could throw Curt Schilling four or five innings, and he'd have his 132 days of rest, and we'd see the best pitcher in the league for more than a cameo. My second option: Add two pitchers and a versatile position player to the roster, and save two pitchers (starters, preferably) and a utility player (e.g., Melvin Mora, who was a shade less deserving than Tony Batista with the Orioles, but just a shade) for the 10th inning, if there is one.

News item: NFL suspends Saints cornerback Dale Carter.

I didn't think it was such a good idea when Saints GM Randy Mueller, in the final days of his reign (though he didn't know it at the time), signed coverman Carter, who has violated the NFL substance-abuse policy at least three times in his career, to a big contract last spring. But I figured Mueller knew what he was doing because he's a smart guy. Turns out Mueller's not that sharp; he trusted a guy who was still drinking, despite knowing that if he tested dirty for drinking alcohol or taking any banned substance he'd be eligible to be suspended for another full season. That, to me, says a guy has a big problem. And for as bright and aggressive as Mueller is, this turns out to be a stupid, stupid signing. Give coach Jim Haslett, who lives on the edge every day, his share of the blame here, too. They were so desperate for help at corner that they risked their future cap, and now they'll pay for their faith in a guy who didn't deserve to be trusted. Well, Mueller won't pay. He was fired by owner Tom Benson a couple of months ago.

News item: Wall Street collapses.

Glad I'm 45. I'm divesting myself of nothing. Look at history, folks.

News item: U.S. plays well in the World Cup.

I love watching a game that is so unfair, yet so dramatic. You cannot turn away for fear of missing a play that could well send your country home for four years. The problem that I see with the World Cup is that everything is so dramatic. A Korean scores a goal against Italy and gets booted off his Italian pro team. Coaches get fired for losing one game. I don't like when a game turns into a crusade, but too many countries treat this event as such.

News item: Jets put their money where their mouth is.

Jets owner Robert Wood Johnson IV is doing something that will inconvenience his team slightly. But to me, it's such a great community thing to do. Instead of staying in a North Jersey hotel the night before home games this year, the Jets will bunk at the Marriott Financial Center in lower Manhattan, not far from the site of the World Trade Center. Good for Johnson. That's a big-league move.

When Tiger Woods was growing up, he was never watched by a babysitter.

1. I think I'm really looking forward to this season. So many good stories. So many interesting teams. I'm thrilled this week to be watching Michael Vick throw. Is he accurate enough? He'll be a great one if he is. He'll be Cade McNown if he isn't. (And, by the way, I still think a bunch of teams are making a McMistake on Cade. Go back and look at the 2000 opener in Minnesota. The kid's a gamer. OK arm, great legs, a good enough player to play and win in today's game. I bet 100 bucks Steve Mariucci makes something out of him.) I can't wait to see how Baltimore's doing with all that upheaval. And the Patriots. They're no fluke. Can you imagine if they get Darnay Scott, a really dumb cut by the Bengals? Troy Brown, Donald Hayes, David Patten and Scott, with Daniel Graham pressing Christian Fauria for playing time at tight end. This offense could be significantly improved. It's fun to be talking about this stuff again, and it's really fun to see these stories develop from scratch in Westminster, Md., and Smithfield, R.I.

2. I think the next time I ask for a Carvel cone, slap me. "Throw-up in a cone," daughter Mary Beth calls it. Are any of the ingredients in that ice cream actually edible? I'd rather have soft-serve Crisco than a Carvel vanilla cone.

3. I think the overhyping of pretty good things makes me sick. On all-news WINS radio in New York yesterday morning at 7:30, the third news headline of the day was about Sex and the City kicking off its season on HBO. Right. That Wall Street freefall thing, that's nothing.

4. I think Drew Bledsoe will be reborn in Buffalo. You know how much fun it'll be for him to launch the deep ball to Peerless Price and Eric Moulds? He didn't have that in New England after Terry Glenn imploded.

5. I think, speaking of Glenn, he catches 83 passes for 1,488 yards and 13 TDs, plays in the Pro Bowl, and delivers a second-round pick to the Patriots next year. Can you imagine if Brett Favre and Glenn really develop a chemistry? Ron Wolf told me recently that he already thinks this is the best talent a Packers team has had in recent history, including all the rosters he molded.

6. I think putting Michael Westbrook and his selfish, divisive personality in Cincinnati is like giving me a bed in the Ben and Jerry's factory in Vermont. Bad idea. It would lead to ruin for them and me.

7. I think the best addition to any team this year will be Jon Gruden. The Bucs needed to be taken by the throat and reconfigured.

8. I think the most overrated job in the NFL is capologist. While I admire several of them, working the cap is common sense. Deifying these guys is silly. The best kind of cap person is a Joe Banner, who pushes his people in Philadelphia to place a value on players (inside and outside the organization) and never wavers too far from that value. If that means his team loses a player, so be it. Rightfully, I could criticize the Eagles for falling short on players they really need. But who wouldn't like to have $9 million in cap room, the most in the league, and still field one of the top five teams in the league in terms of talent? That's what Banner has engineered. Too many teams brag about their cap people, then you look at their salary sheet and say: They'll be screwed in 2003 when all this prorated signing bonus money comes to roost on old players.

9. I think the Dolphins' trade with Carolina for Jay Williams, an above-average defensive end, was a good one. Getting Williams for a fourth-round pick and putting him into a good rotation on the defensive line is another feather in the cap of a vastly underrated personnel man, Rick Spielman, and a coach, Dave Wannstedt, who isn't afraid to make a gutsy move like cutting a good player -- but an injury risk -- in Darryl Gardener a week before camp and inserting Williams.

10. I think, if you have a good memory, you'll remember back on June 4 that daughter No. 2, Mary Beth, the softball pitcher, got nailed at bat with a fastball and broke her right forearm. Well, if all goes well, she gets the cast off this afternoon; if the ortho visit does not go well, she'll have a couple more weeks of the cast. I won't be there to see the dis-casting. "I am sooo excited," Mary Beth reported. "I wish we made a morning appointment so it'd come off sooner. I can't wait to take a shower. Uggggh! It's so gross. It's disgusting. In fact, I'm repulsed." Mary Beth gets her license in December. We must add a vehicle. She's dying for a Wrangler. "Yellow, with a soft top and a CD player," she said. "Can't you write about that in your column? And a Jeep dealer would see it and he'd donate a nice Jeep to your perfect little daughter. And don't forget the stick-shift part. I definitely want a stick shift." Uh, Mary Beth, we pay for things in this life.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space -- no kidding -- on Monday mornings.

 

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