Well, say what you want and, of course, in the blogosphere, the public has already said plenty. American Pharoah isn’t Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner. The field the Pharoah ran against in the Belmont Stakes Saturday, D-Day, was weak. Blah, blah, blah.

But you know what? You play the hand you’re dealt. American Pharoah led wire-to-wire, as did the last horse to win the Triple Crown before him, my beloved Affirmed, in 1978. AP ran the Belmont faster than Affirmed and Seattle Slew, who won the Triple Crown in 1977. He did whatever was asked of him, poor baby, running with his spongy earplugs, because the crowd noise rattles him. In doing so, he gave us a moment in history. That’s what great athletes do. They give us a moment in time in which we can say “I was there when” or “I remember when,” a moment that unites us with those we’ll never know. ...