Twilight of the gods – Giants sack Eli Manning

November 30, 2017

After 13 years and 210 games, including two Super Bowl titles in which he was named MVP, Eli Manning will not be starting at quarterback for the New York Giants this Sunday against the Oakland Raiders.

Manning – who has always been gracious to me as editor of WAG magazine in his role as spokesman for Guiding Eyes for the Blind – fought back tears as he told reporters, “I don’t have to make sense of it.”

No, Eli, you don’t, because in a way it doesn’t. It takes a particularly lousy group effort for a team to be 2 and 9. And while a 36-year-old Manning – a healthy 36-year-old Manning – may no longer be the answer, does anyone think successors Geno Smith and David Webb necessarily are? ...

The NFL’s continuing female trouble

October 27, 2016

Well, just when you think gender news couldn’t be any more depressing in this “election cycle” – “Is that what we’re calling it?” one wag asked me – comes word that New York Giants kicker Josh Brown was released from the team Tuesday after new information surfaced that he had assaulted his then-wife, Molly, two dozen times, including at least once when she was pregnant. After a botched initial NFL investigation that in effect blamed Molly Brown for not cooperating – yes, always good to blame the victim – Josh Brown was suspended for a big one game.

“He’s admitted to us that he’s abused his wife in the past,” the Giants co-owner John K. Mara said Thursday (Oct. 20) on WFAN in New York.

“And I think that’s what’s a little unclear, is the extent of that.”

Translation: It was OK for the Giants to resign Brown, because he may have knocked around the missus only a bit some time ago. ...

Novak Djokovic’s Brexit from Wimbledon

July 7, 2016

Novak Djokovic has lost to Sam Querrey, who’s having a helluva Wimbledon. So no Grand Slam, and I can’t pretend that I’m not disappointed even though I’m not entirely surprised. Nole had won 30 Slam matches in a row. Though there’s no Law of Averages, the longer you win the closer you are to losing.

No one wins forever, but the good news is that no one loses forever. “Anyone can be beaten on any given day,” former New York Football Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin said after his “mediocre” Giants beat the “perfect” New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. “It’s not important to be the best, it’s only important to beat the best,” John McEnroe said in his pursuit of Björn Borg. Querrey must’ve been repeating these as mantras – or words to these effects. Whatever he did, he’s come through on a big stage, so congrats to him. ...

The Cavs beat the best

June 21, 2016

Maybe God was compensating Cleveland for having to host the Republican/Trump Convention.

Just kidding.

The Cleveland Cavaliers overcame a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals – the first team to do so – to take the championship from the vaunted Golden State Warriors 93-89. Native son LeBron James was named MVP and will most certainly draw the largest cheers when the team is feted with a parade Wednesday.

As I’ve written in a previous post, the only thing as fascinating as a triumphant underdog is a flawed winner. The Warriors won 73 games in the regular season. Their star, Stephen Curry, was the regular-season MVP. They were a lock, particularly early on in the championship series. ...

Of Stephen Curry and Stephen Hawking: Sports and destiny

May 30, 2016

There are few more intriguing themes in journalism and literature than that of the brilliant loser – the superb racer who for a variety of reasons fails to meet expectations, be it runners Zola Budd and Mary Decker, speed skater Dan Jansen or Thoroughbreds Spectacular Bid, California Chrome and, most recently, Nyquist; the juggernaut so dominant in the regular season and so vulnerable in the playoffs (the Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors battling the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA playoffs); and, most heartbreaking of all, the “perfect” performer who finds that perfection elusive when needed most (Serena Williams against Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the US Open last year; Novak Djokovic against Stan Wawrinka in the finals of the French Open last year; and, my favorite ...

Will Nyquist conquer a soggy Preakness?

May 21, 2016

Well, experts like Joe Drape and aficionados like Thomas DeChiara will be rooting for Exaggerator – the Andy Murray of Thoroughbred racehorses. But I’m sticking with Nyquist for the Preakness Stakes Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland (5 p.m., NBC), where the forecast is for rain.

That shouldn’t bother Nyquist. You gotta love a horse that simply will not let anything or anyone get in front of him for too long, a horse that has the will, the sheer grit, the heart to propel himself to the front of the pack. Some animals – some people – simply must be first. ...

Super Bowl 50 – Defense! Defense!

February 8, 2016

Good pitching, baseball fans always say, stops good hitting. A good defense stops a good offense.

And so the Denver Broncos’ vaunted defense stopped Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers’ electric running game, 24-10 in Super Bowl 50.

It was perhaps the last hurrah for Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning, who at 39 became the oldest quarterback to pilot a Super Bowl team and may join his boss John Elway as the only quarterback to retire after winning a Super Bowl. ...