We'll try a disciplined posting approach and see if it goes quicker and more concisely: four sports leagues, and for each, a beef, a freak, and my personal fave.
National Basketball Association: We'll start with the one currently in the highlights. The San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks are at this moment in a critical game 1--if the Knicks can pull off a win here, at San Antonio, it will give them an edge for the series. I'm rooting for the New York team, though I basically gave up on them after their last Finals run, in 1999 (against the Spurs, also). They haven't won the title since 1973, while the Spurs, rising again after a few brief years of a downturn, have had more than their share.
Beef: Tanking, of course. An unacceptable phenomenon of recent years, where teams not in the running for the playoffs try to lose as many games as possible in order to gain better odds to pick up the best players turning pro. I won't say the Spurs did it, when they got their Freak, a couple years ago, but it has become too obvious, and there are various disincentives being discussed.
Freak: Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs, of course. He is not only ridiculously tall, but very skilled. I wish him success, and above all, good health. Players that tall often have fairly short careers because of recurring injuries to their legs. I hope he can beat that rap.
My guy: Shea Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder. I feel like he does everything right, including all skills on the court (passing, defense, the lost art of the midrange shot, and threes when he wants to) and a wonderful demeanor off it. He faced off with Wemby in Game 7 of the recently-concluded Western Conference Finals, the matchup of the two best teams in the regular season. SGA had the better game, but the Spurs had the better team on the night. This rivalry is just taking off this season and will be one to watch in the coming years.
FIFA World Cup: Soccer/football's biggest event is coming up in a week. The USA is singularly unimpressed and unimpressive as a host nation, so it's good there's two others helping out (Mexico and Canada). There are several teams that could legitimately be considered favorites. France has too many superstars, Spain and England are hungry and full of proven talent, but I like the defending champs, Argentina, with their incomparable captain, Leonel Messi, for the win.
Beef: They expanded the field from 32 to 48 nations (we'll call England a nation for this purpose, another beef to be explored someday), which is OK, I guess, though it would seem it makes it too easy to qualify (Italy somehow didn't). The real beef is that it is now too easy to get through the first round to the knockout stages, which are now up to five rounds. So, for example, France is in the toughest group by far, with tough first-round opponents in Senegal and Norway (see below), but they will get through anyhow because three of the four teams are likely to make it (Iraq is the unfortunate fourth). So the pressure is not really that high for that round, which has a majority of the actual games (96 vs. 31 for the rest of the tourney, by my count).
Freak: Erling Haaland, the super-tall, albino-looking center forward for Manchester City and Norway. His opponents basically have to keep him from ever getting on the ball near the goal, where he hangs out, avoiding the offside calls, because he's next to unstoppable and very accurate when he gets it there. In that regard, he's different from the classic advanced midfielders like Messi or the withdrawn centers like Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Mohammed Salah and Harry Kane, who go back and get it and then do their magic.
My guy: Christian Pulisic, "Captain America" for the USA team (not named the team's captain, though). His career has been up and down, with flashes of brilliance, frequent injuries, and prolonged dry spells. He's another who goes back and gets it and charges toward the goal with fervor (another is Kevin De Bruyne, on Belgium, who's finally slowing down). After a successful run in the German league, Pulisic flamed out on my team, Chelsea a couple years ago, then regained brilliance with A.C. Milan in Italy for awhile, but he lost the flame late this season and the team will probably rebuild without him next year. If he can make some major contributions toward victories in the World Cup it will do a lot for his career and for the prestige of USA soccer, which is lagging a bit.
Major League Baseball: They are coming up on about 40% of the regular season now, and it's clear who are the likely contenders, especially in the National League, the one I follow more closely: the Dodgers, Brewers, Braves, and Padres. My Reds are among the many teams looking to grab one of the two playoff berths available after those four.
Beef: The lack of parity is driven by the astronomical salary load of the Dodgers, and of lesser franchises trying to keep up with them. The modernized game--like the changes, or loathe them, but they have helped broaden fan interest, and the game is more global in its reach than ever--is in peril, with the possibility of a devastating lockout and strike after this season over the owners' proposed salary cap. I take the players' side always in these disputes, but the owners' willingness to restrain themselves in this way is the correct viewpoint.
Freak: That's Shohei Ohtani. His ability to dominate in both hitting and pitching (this year, so far, especially the latter) is without rival in the modern game and brings fair comparisons only to the immortal Babe Ruth--Shohei's surpassing him in some ways (homers and speed combination, longer pitching career), but the clock is ticking and worshippers of the game give too much emphasis on longevity, which he can't match, unless you include his stats in Japan.
My guy: Elly de la Cruz, of my team, the Cincinnati Reds. My fandom of the Reds is a very long story, and I hope Elly is able to have a long, successful career with my team, though as things stand now, he will likely go to a higher bidder in a couple years. Elly can do it all--speed, fielding, power--though he hasn't tried pitching, as far as I know.
Women's Tennis Association: For this post, I will focus on the women's game** Tennis is the major sport in which women's participation is most fully comparable to the men's, in terms of money and talent.* Yes, the men generally hit the ball harder, and they play best-of-five sets to the women's best-of-three, but there is the same high-profile, personality-driven excitement in this sport, which tests the individual like no other.
Beef: This year's French Open, the only one of the four Grand Slams played on clay, the more demanding in terms of stamina (not so easy to serve your way through matches), is close to killing players, due to the heat wave and the five-setters on the men's side. They need to bring in one of the initiatives of the other Slams and give the players a fucking break once in a while. They should also make the fifth set a brief one, like the super tiebreaker they have in doubles (for which longer matches would make much more sense).
Freak: Aryna Sabalenka is a big woman, tall and muscular. Handsome, I'll say, and with an underrated sweet personality. She has a big serve and a ferocious competitive temperament. Though she ran out of gas the other day in her quarterfinal match (see above), she is hard to handle for everyone except the similarly tall, similarly powerful-serving Elena Rybakina. Serena Williams is coming out of retirement at age 44, to take her shot at Sabalenka, I presume: they have quite a bit in common, except the personality.
My guy+: Iga Swiatek was the top player for a couple of years, nearly unbeatable until the rise of the two giants I mention above. Swiatek is a normal-sized woman player who does most everything right, except she strives so much it's scary. I hope her form can rise up again to that level, but I doubt it.
There are others in today's WTA for whom I have similar soft spots: Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, and Elena Svitolina, to name three; they all have their challenges. Coco's is her serve, which comes and goes, Osaka's is her mercurial mental state, and Svitolina's is her personal challenges as a mother, wife to a men's pro, and the stress of being Ukrainian. It's hard for me to choose when they face each other, but I quietly lean toward Iga most often.
P.S. The Knicks win Game 1. Finished this one in less than hour--that's progress.
**I've addressed the men's game often enough in other posts--at this moment, Sinner stands alone (though he also pooped out in the heat), until Alcaraz is back on the court. For this tourney, I'm rooting for Zverev to win; he's worked long and hard and this is his best shot ever at a slam.
*The other might be track and field, and the Olympics generally, which have given women a lot more competitive equality in recent decades, and have dealt pretty successfully with gender ambiguity issues.
+"Guy" in the modern language meaning of person, without gender specified, to keep parallel in form with the other three sports' comments.
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment