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Like a little kid who just won his first event, Novak Djokovic can’t contain his pride and joy in holding Olympic gold at last.

NBC, the Olympics and American exceptionalism

August 6, 2024

The Olympics were just getting underway July 27 when the American swim team was reminded of how Australian swimmer Cate Campbell reveled in her country having had more gold medals than the United States (13 to seven) at the 2023 World Swimming Championships.

There has long been an intense rivalry between the swim teams that has spilled over into trash talk, but Campbell really went off on the cowbells in the stands that support Americans in the pool and even the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If nothing succeeds like success, nothing irks like it either.

While the National Anthem comment seems petty, Campbell may have a point when you consider NBC’s cheerleading coverage of the Paris Games as we roll through the second week of competition….

Andy Murray surving at the 2015 Australian Open. *Photograph by Brendan Dennis.*

Mitch McConnell, Andy Murray and the art of letting go

March 2, 2024

News that tennis star Andy Murray plans to retire this summer after the Paris Olympics and that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to become a backbencher has brought me back to a very bad summer day two years ago and thoughts of what it really means to let go of a a career — and your ego.

Andrey Rublev at the 2023 Monte Carlo Masters. After losing to Carlos Alcaraz at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, recently, he reacted by hitting himself in the knee to the point of drawing blood. *Photograph by* ***si.robi***.

Tennis, Congress and anger (mis)management

November 19, 2023

From the courts of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, to the halls of the United States Congress, these have not been the best of times for men and anger management.

Novak Djokovic holding the US Open men’s singles championship trophy aloft on Sunday, Sept. 10, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens. It was his 24th Grand Slam singles title, tying Australia’s Margaret Court. *Photograph by Mike Lawrence for the United States Tennis Association (USTA).*

Last man standing -- the liberation of Novak Djokovic

September 14, 2023

Often in life what appears to be improbable is ultimately inevitable. It’s only later, though, that we understand that what seems to make no sense at first is in the end what was meant to be all along.

For much of the early part of his career, Novak Djokovic — the Celiac-ridden guy from an economically straitened family in war-torn Serbia — was a reliable, color-coordinated number three to the elegant, aloof Roger Federer and his intense, visceral rival, Rafael Nadal. But in becoming the oldest man to win the singles title at the US Open Sunday, Sept. 10, the 36-year-old Djokovic has eclipsed them —tying Australia’s Margaret Court for most Grand Slam singles titles (24); returning to the number one ranking for a record 390th week (altogether that would be seven and a half years, folks); setting a new record for most times winning three Slams in a year (four, in 2011, ’15, ’21 and ’23), having the most ATP Masters 1000 titles (39) — the list goes on.

Caption: Novak Djokovic broke many records on his way to his 24th Grand Slam win at the US Open Sunday, Sept. 10. *Photograph by Pete Staples for the United States Tennis Association (USTA).*

A record US Open concludes

September 11, 2023

It was a US Open in which youth and age were served as 19-year-old Coco Gauff became the first American teenager since Serena Williams in 1999 to win the women’s singles title, while Novak Djokovic became the oldest singles champion.

The remains of the day: J. Robert Oppenheimer and Gen. Leslie Groves returned to the Trinity test site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for news crews in September 1945, two months after the July 16 detonation of the first atom bomb. *Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.*

Blind ambition: The antiheroism of Robert Oppenheimer

July 20, 2023

Friday, July 21, marks the opening of two highly anticipated movies that have nothing to do with each other but have already been paired in the public consciousness, perhaps because they both ask us to consider what it means to be human in a world where people constantly grapple for power.

The two films — “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” — have already been conflated as “Barbenheimer” (is that like “Frankenstein”?), with movie buffs planning a five-hour double feature of “Oppenheimer’s” main course and “Barbie’s” dessert. (Well, why not? After all, Barbie and J. Robert Oppenheimer were both physicists.)

I’ll have more on Barbie,“Barbie” and the male gaze in a subsequent post. But for now I’d like to consider Oppenheimer (1904-67), the scientist who spearheaded the creation of the atom bomb and whose life, lived at the nexus of ambition and conscience, would be eclipsed by his failure to understand the power dynamic.

Domingo Germán, seen here in 2019, pitched a perfect game for the New York Yankees on June 28. *Photograph by* *Keith Allison.*

The Supreme Court, Domingo Germán and the perfect imperfection of life

July 1, 2023

The Supreme Court made what critics would describe as some imperfect decisions in the week that New York Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán pitched a perfect game. While the two would seem unrelated, they both tell us a great deal about the unfairness and seeming randomness of life.

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