The Score

The Michael Phelps story drew record numbers of viewers worldwide to the Beijing Games last August.  For the first time in many an Olympiad, there was a larger-than-life name, face, and body to follow. By the time the swimmers first stepped onto the deck of the Water Cube, the swimming venue that housed all the pool races over the first half of the Games, we the fans were well immersed in the Phelps mystique...

Let's start with Michael Vick. Vick is coming to the end of his prison term at Leavenworth. He may leave his Kansas cell and be granted strict house arrest for his last two months of confinement. He may wind up in an NFL uniform again. But his heinously cruel crimes against innocent animals have cost him dearly---not only two years of his young athlete's life, but also the lion's share of the multiple millions he made with the Atlanta Falcons...

The first World Baseball Classic, three years ago, was a big hit. Even though the U.S. didn't win the tournament, fans filled the stands and the television ratings were robust. So here we are again. The second installment of the international classic started today in Japan, but the buzz isn't so peppy this time around. A largely negative vibe has enshrouded the Classic, with criticism that it's really nothing more significant than spring training exhibition and, as a matter of fact, gets in the way of spring training..

My first reaction to Lance Armstrong announcing his comeback several months ago was a big negative. After his seven historic Tour de France victories, I wasn’t the only one who firmly believed he could continue to treat the Alps like little bumps in the road, if he continued at that time, and win ten straight. Make it an even dozen, which would have made him older than he is today. But to take three years off, despite training for marathon runs, seemed along time away from the elite level of his sport. Well, now that he’s ridden an Australian event and last week’s Tour of California, I’ve changed my tune...

The range of opinions following the Alex Rodriguez press conference in Florida yesterday runs the gamut. Some call him A-Fraud. They don’t believe a word he says. How could he have felt so much pressure in Texas that he was compelled to turn to injections of some supposedly unknown substance, obtained by a cousin over the counter in the Dominican Republic, and then evidently never felt much pressure at all when he came to the New York Yankees so he evidently didn’t need his cousin’s booster drugs any longer?...

Baseball’s Commissioner Bud Selig, in the face of Yankee Alex Rodriguez now admitting to using performance enhancing drugs over a two-year period, says he will consider suspending A-Rod. Selig also states that he will ponder taking away Barry Bonds’ all-time home run record and reinstating that revered top dog position to Hank Aaron, should Bonds be found guilty of using performance drugs in his early March trial...

It was only two years ago that European soccer super star David Beckham arrived here in Los Angeles on an apparent magic carpet. The fanfare, Becks and his glam wife Posh Spice splashy poolside in their new multi-millionaire L.A. digs, couldn't have been more Hollywood. Becks in his sexy underwear commercials. Becks in the fashion mags. Becks courtside at the Lakers. Those of us removed from the world soccer scene couldn't fathom the reach of this guy's fame across the pond. One London art museum featured a video of Becks taking a nap. It's true. Fans would stand and reverently watch the chap's chest gently rise and fall as he slept soundly in a hotel room before a match...

Another major sports title will be played along with the Super Bowl on Feb 1 and that’s the final of tennis’s first Grand Slam of the year, The Australian Open. But the Super Bowl comes at the denouement of a long, grueling grind while The Aussie Open is one of the very first tournaments of the tennis season. And that makes no sense...

There’s one particular NFL elite whom we’ll probably see a lot of this week-end. That’s Larry Fitzgerald, wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals. We tend to see a lot of Fitzgerald because he tends to wind up in the end zone quite a bit. And he’s memorable when he does wind up in the end zone, not just because he...

The heart of the NFL playoffs kicks off this weekend. Four great games, eight talented and tough teams, terrific story lines running throughout. Now this is the way a sports league should be run. The New York Times has called the NFL "socialized football," referring to the system of orchestrating a weak team's season to do well by making their schedule as soft as possible, while stretching a tough team through a rigorous line-up of opponents. "Socialized" in this case is a synonym for "parity..."