A Showcase for Sportswomanship

"Sportsmanship, next to the church,

is the greatest teacher of morals."

-Herbert Hoover

Sportmanship can be defined in many intangible ways but this video may be the purest display of it on film. It won a 2008 ESPY Award for Sportsmanship although I dare say that it seems a misnomer to interject the word "man" in the middle of the word sportsmanship if one of its greatest examples does not involve a single man but two teams compromising females.

This sports moment is about teamwork but not in the known sense of the clanish word. It is about two teams suspending competition against each other to come together at a single pivitol moment on a baseball diamond where exalted compassion conquers to blur the lines between winners and losers. Although the play ended a season and a player's career, the thrill of victory got erased by the agony of injury until the opposition decided that the outcome of the game itself mattered secondary.

Without further adieu, I take you to women's collegiete softball where the losing team eliminated itself from the playoffs by carrying out an uncommon act. After Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon hits her first career homerun, she tears a ligament in her right leg rounding first base. She is unable to move on her own accord to finish her requisite homerun trot around the bases. If her teammates come to her aid and merely touch her she will be declared out by umpire rules. If a pinchrunner is used, the scorekeeper records the three-run homer as a two-run single. Members of Central Washington, the opposing team, swiftly decide to carry Sara around the bases touching each bag with the non-injured leg thereby completing the homerun.

While this may not be the fastest two minutes in sports, the timeout here from the mechanistic avarice of sports is so refreshing that it celebrates the human spirit with punch-drunk tears and ovation.

Face-Off: El Wingador vs. Brutus Beefcake

Bill Simmons, aka El Wingador enters the boxing ring.

An estimated one thousand patrons gathered on July 24, 2009, in Aston, Pennsylvania at the Ice Works, which hosted Celebrity Boxing 10, When Worlds Collide. The main event pitted former major league baseball slugger Jose Canseco verses Bill Simmons, the Five Time Wing Bowl Eating Champion called El Wingador. Canseco made it to the pre-fight press conference but he ditched town before his heavyweight fight. So the much-anticipated Juiced verses Sauced titan matchup had to be shelved. Former WWF and WCW wrestler Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake got added as a late substitution to fight 6’5” three hundred pounder El Wingador.

I had the privilege of traveling along with El Wingador’s camp to cover the fight from behind the scenes. Arriving at his house, barefoot El Wingador had just woken up having napped like a baby before the fight. A self-proclaimed street fighter, El Wingador reported that he dropped about a dozen pounds professionally training for weeks inside a boxing ring. He also studied tape of Jose Canseco’s previous fights but there was no way to prepare last minute for his match against Brutus Beefcake. He expressed disappointment about not squaring off against Canseco but accepted his new challenger.

Soon after he confidently shadowboxed in his family room to channel his building adrenaline, Adventure Limousines transported him along with his entourage of family and friends. Riding in the plush limousine, El Wingador conversed freely in the relaxed cabin as a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert played on the big screen TV. The limousine aptly rolled through a tremendous downpour en route to the fight but El Wingador exited the limo all smiles with the skyline beaming a rainbow color burst like a lucky charm backdrop.

Pot of gold for a purse aside, I tried to pump El Wingador up before we parted company. “Tonight you’re eating Beefcakes, hold the chicken.”

He smiled but he needed no pep talk from a wit writ like me. Inside the arena, the converted facilities lacked suitable posh for the circumstance. The paying guests weathered unfriendly sixty-degree indoor building temperatures. Forty-five dollars cold cash got you a ringside seat in the form of a freezing metal folding chair placed on the covered ice. By the end of the night, my toes felt frostbitten. I wondered how the scantily clad ring card girls kept up their manufactured smiles or how the hired help cleaned the spit buckets without wielding an ice pick. The wireless microphone either froze or never recovered from Zaughn Ivins’ powerful rendition of The National Anthem. The sound system caused numerous delays and literally muffled the ring announcer’s every third word on a shuffled line-up card. The boxing matches promoted as an exhibition lost professional starch and gained consideration for a spectacle.

Entering the boxing ring to the tune of the Black Eye Peas performing Boom, Boom, Pow, El Wingador displayed pageantry wearing a gorgeous custom tailored robe that had furly blood red chicken wings on the back. When the ring announcer mistakenly introduced Brutus Beefcake as Hulk Hogan’s real life brother, it proved how this longstanding urban legend manages to survive. Aside from putting anyone named after food in front of El Wingador, Brutus Beefcake recklessly accepted this fight having undergone total facial reconstructive surgery following a freak parasailing accident. I do not care how comfortable padded headgear feels to the touch, a fake wrestler’s reconstructed face held together by screws and steel plates should not change professions to eat El Wingador’s authentic sledgehammer fists.

From the opening bell, Brutus Beefcake ate a steady diet of El Wingador’s powerful body shots. El Wingador controlled the fight and he needed to land only one solid right hand punch. The right on right crumbled Brutus Beefcake's knees before he stumbled backwards into the corner. His marble eyes rolled wildly in his shaken noggin and the referee signaled a TKO towards the end of round number one. Beefcake, fighting a bigger side of beef in an icehouse, got knocked out cold in what could have easily turned into a literal bloody face-off.

While El Wingador may consider fighting again, return to competitive eating or whether his next publicity stunt will be going over Niagara Falls in a big barrel, I know one thing about this gentle giant. Be careful stepping into any competitive event with El Wingador. He has the guts to eat you alive.

A Mountain Called Ozark

Danny Ozark with Joe Tornatore

Former Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark’s passing this week at the age of eighty-five was a life that spanned extra innings. His stellar managerial career came within a big inning in a decisive playoff series of ultimately managing a champion. Almost tragically, the Phillies team he built, spoon-fed, and managed from basement dwellers to perennial contenders won the 1980 World Series only a year after his firing. This is how the ball bounces in the fatality of life.

I met Danny Ozark on a gorgeous day for baseball in 1997. By age seventy-three, however, the rawhide of baseball had been woven through his life yet somehow his forty-something inch waist still proudly stuffed into the pinstriped Philadelphia Phillies uniform like a throwback to yesteryear. As I approached the dapper uniformed don in a hideaway restaurant, Danny was hungrily eating his way through a stack of flapjacks perched in his counter seat.

I introduced myself then said, “Danny, I just came from the park. There are no children, no spectators for the charity softball event.”

As he fathomed this scenario, maple syrup seemed to suspend drip from his fork. Showing his genial leadership qualities, Danny Ozark expressed to me in parental tones that the game must be played. Unfulfilled charitable contributions aside, two dozen former major league baseball players did not travel across the country to not pick up their gloves or grab a bat.

During the ballgame, it was an awestruck sight watching the old man bearing red and white pinstripes register putouts from infielders Al Oliver and Bert Campaneris on a lumpy field of weeds and clay. I knew firsthand that Ozark would be taking to the grave his lifelong love for baseball. Like any fallible human being, it would not be without regrets.

With Ozark’s death, I only have my own personal memories of him to hold onto. I can almost hear him smack his floppy first baseman’s mitt on this day, field the sea of criticism he endured for not making a late inning substitute for fielding liability Greg Luzinski after Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, or uttering classic malapropisms during post-game interviews.

If I ever visit his gravesite, I might be tempted to draw chalk lines atop the dirt that buries Danny Ozark because this was a thoroughbred baseball man. Rest(in Peace) assured, Danny Ozark is asking dearly departed Harry Kalas now if half this afterlife is ninety percent transcendental. Life like baseball contains errors, the least of which are syntax.

Danny Ozark 1923-2009

Harry Kalas, Thanks for The Memories

It didn’t sound much like a baseball game when I turned on the radio. It sure didn’t sound like a Philadelphia Phillies broadcast. The crowd sounded subdued but then again the winless Washington Nationals don’t have much of a home field advantage.

I focused my attention on the Phillies who were at bat. Centerfielder Shane Victorino was at the plate. Scott Franzke was doing play by play. It sounded like he cleared his throat anticipating the next moment to come:

2-2 count to Shane Victorino. Swing and a loooong drive. Deep right field…Yes, folks, it’s outta here.

The verbage was the same on this homerun call as countless calls before it but the melodramatic cadence was so subdued that you might have thought an opponent just scored. The homerun call was devoid of that hometown pep, grandeur and emotion that we have grown used to with … Announcer Scott Franzke’s pipes sound choked up now. I hike the volume on my radio. Franzke lets the listening audience know Shane Victorino pointed up to the booth after rounding the bases.

It took me a couple of swallows before I understood the relevance of what Shane Victorino had underscored, what had just surreally happened. I realized that should have been Harry Kalas’ trademark call. Phillies iconic announcer Harry Kalas was dead at age 73 having collapsed in the press box before today's game. That's when I lost my voice.

Phillies Parade

-Joseph Tornatore enjoying the Philadelphia Phillies parade festivities.

USA vs. Russia Bubble Hockey

Sicne I don't have much time to write these days, I might as well share a sampling of what I have been doing. I painted and decaled these Super Chexx ice hockey players for a customer. These are miniature plastic molds that stand only 3 inches high. Two teams consisting of twelve players takes me about 16 hours on average to complete.

Winning One for The Whimper

By raising me and giving me his last name, my stepfather earned the name of father. After he pitched Southern High School to the city championship in 1948, Connie Mack signed my father, Gregory Tornatore, to play for the Philadlephia Phillies. Like his tested life, injuries debilitated his playing career. He remained a diehard Phillies fan though and his zest for the game of baseball undoubtedly rubbed off on my brothers and I.

I have always wondered the more life-changing event for my father, devoting his life to athletics as a vocation then not being able to play baseball anymore or walking into a hospital for back surgery then leaving paralyzed from the waist down slumped in a wheelchair. As my father’s life sunk into clinical depression from his immobility and cardiac problems over the years, I hoped he would live long enough to see one more championship by a major professional sports team in the city he grew up in. This was not to be. Teary eyed, I placed a baseball with loose laces in his coffin after he died of congestive heart failure in 2001.

This same fallible organ remembers who taught me the game of baseball when the Philadelphia Phillies won the National League pennant earning a spot to play in the 2008 World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays. I trust that there are more important things to do in the hereafter than checking out your favorite team back on earth but this mortal son of his devoted this World Series to him rooting and ranting for the Philadelphia Phillies to win.

During the early innings of game three of the World Series, my younger brother Anthony suffered a significant heart attack. The crushing news and following commotion shot me back like a cannonball to the same hospital my father died in. The shot returned me emotionally to the relationship with my infirmed father. Staring at my brother’s prone unconscious body in an intensive care unit during the past couple of days, I could not help to think that the suspended play in the deciding game five of the World Series mirrored both my brother’s induced coma and a life put on hold.

While every story in roller coaster life cannot hold a fairy tale ending, from God’s ear to the strings of my heart I hope to soon say to my recuperating brother what inevitability denied me from saying to my father….The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series and that we finally won one for the whimper.

Let's Get Ready to Bubble, The Sequel

I guess I am hanging around movie sets too much. Here I tried to take movie making to another level with this You Tube video showcasing my other side business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXKRFYOUd_o

This little number took about 20 hours to compile and edit. It is the sequel to my first movie with the same title. The previous version was online only 5 months but it had over 1,200 views and ranked fifth in the world under a You Tube search for its subject matter. I pulled it in favor of the sequel simply because I knew I could make a better movie about a better product. Starting over is always a gamble but by keeping the day job risk taking is that much easier.

Tennis in Middle Age

Trying to play tennis every weekend in the great outdoors isn't what it used to be. As a decent singles player in more formidable years, I cannot cover the entire court now. I used to be a fierce competitor but now look forward to playing recreational doubles where I can share the fault with a partner.

The group of guys that I play with are not getting any younger either. We are former athletes who have traded in our physiques for baldness pot-bellies, and the huff and puff from lacing shoelaces before a match. We complain of injuries and laud the glory days of tracking down an across court shot and delivering a two-handed backhand winner down the alley. I can only plod after a ball and stick out my racquet now in what seems like self-defense. We don't get as many players to come out on the courts. I think it may be too humbling of a venture, easier to go out to a sit-down waitress served breakfast for a Western omelette, a double order of bacon and buttered toast. I am trying not to give in to the progression of life so I posted this solicitation on Craig's list today:

Dwindling group of middle aged men of commonly average skills seeking tennis partners. Group meets on outdoor hardcourts 10am every Sunday at Sterling High School in Somerdale, New Jersey. The cost is free and the gatherings are weather permitting from April-October. Contact joetornatore@comcast.net to be added to group email invitations then come and join us.

Here's to staying healthy and emptying diners across South Jersey.

Talent Bubbling Over

I clawed my way through the South Jersey bubble hockey league to qualify for a briar patch low seed in the playoffs. I am the old man on the far table sweating profusely through his red sweater playing against a lightning rod player nicknamed Reckless A Dan-don. The playoff rounds were triple elimination and I managed to stay alive until the third hour. The competition was fierce. In fact, the first and second place winners in our SJ league finished second and third in a national invitational tournament held last weekend.

OCD on the Bubble

Maybe my obsessive qualities finally got the best of my practical nature. Over the last year, I have slowly become obsessed with movie making software. I just dipped deep into my empty pockets and bought a new state-of-the art computer whose quad core processor can adequately handle my mutli-faceted media driven needs. Now I am overlaying musical tracks to home movie clips and creating sentimental treasures like there is no tomorrow. I am forever directing movies in my mind. While it takes me painstaking hours to create professional quality movie footage, these memories will last a lifetime, possibly longer. I realize that this newfound hobby is an extension of my interest in acting but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Here is a link to one of my movie shorts, Let's Get Ready to Bubble, that I uploaded to You Tube. I could only get my second rate beta copy of this movie to upload to You Tube so it has two kinks that will be ironed out in time. Ever the entrepreneur, it advertises my attention to detail on 3 inch miniature hobby work that turns occasional coin. After all, I must pay for this new computer somehow. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz8dMcJallc

On the Bubble

Samples of my custom painting on 3" miniatures.

The almighty power of the Internet can open up unseen worlds. A couple of months ago, a custom painting service that I offer on Ebay attracted some positive attention. An unsolicited email from the president of the South Jersey Bubble hockey league, invited me to do a meet and greet with the players.

At their next meeting, I brought color brochures, references of past customers, and samples of my finished product. The league meets on a weekly basis at a swank residence up in Burlington, NJ, where the owner powers three ICE Super Chexx bubble hockey tables. Upon arrival, my preconceived notion that this league would be a collection of sedentary overweight guys taking out their failures at on-field sports in a tabletop game was quickly dismantled. These members were athletes who fielded softball teams, played tennis, took skiing trips, athletes who collected trophies as if it were a national pastime.

To be expected, New Jersey had a scatter-plot representation but players came across the bridge from Pennsylvania. I learned that a guy traveled down from Connecticut to make the opening face-off. Arrivals got greeted with handshakes, many addressed by nicknames they had earned by reputation.

The league showcases some of the best collection of talent in a single league across the country. Four of their members currently boast official rankings in the top twelve in the country. The walls were decorated with pictures from national tournaments, there were stories of peril and prowess on the ice, and Excel spreadsheets kept their league statistics beyond dispute.

I have never met a cluster of more competitive hobbyists anywhere. They showed such a rare blend of stout competitiveness and good sportsmanship that their camaraderie was infectious. They welcomed me in their lair by putting me on the playing schedule the night I attended. They took turns offering me encouraging words while they rattled the pipes of my goalie and kept the scoreboard blinking all night. With no instant replay, I sometimes had to ask how goals got scored on me. Explanations often carried awe-inspiring mystique.

“My winger kicked the puck ahead with my right foot over to my hockey stick. I saw your goalie covering the short side so I deflected the puck off of your left defensemen into the net.” Moving his lighning quick hands like a concert pianist from rod to rod, my opponent scored again before he could finish the play by play of the goal that I questioned.

Now I am no slouch when it comes to playing bubble hockey. My resume includes making it to the second round of the only doubles tournament I had the gumption to enter. But from the moment the opening face-off dropped, I watched one nationally ranked player pepper 31 shots on goal in a puck-controlled blitzkrieg offense. While my knees buckled at the level of competition before me, my competitive juices flowed and my obsessive-compulsive nature kicked in. My mind began taking pictures of the plays run against me, formations on the ice, the ingenious mode the players tethered passes and carom the puck. I was so far out of their league, the strangest thing happened. I joined their league.

The Line on Lindros

Joe Tornatore with Eric Lindros.

I heralded Eric Lindros’ multi-player trade to the home team Philadelphia Flyers. I followed his hockey career of infinite potential from his inaugural rookie year to expectations of him drinking from Stanley Cups stationed in Philadelphia. I honored him by painting his likeness on my bubble hockey game as the starting center on my all-time greatest Flyers team. I collected Eric Lindros hockey cards and hung his sports memorabilia in my house. I sent him birthday cards and well-wishes. I will always remember the day that I got my picture with him although the meaning has certainly changed. Once upon a time, I proudly wore his #88 hockey jersey on my back.

Although his productivity was definitively marred by debilitating concussions, Eric Lindros never lived up to his extraordinary ability on any one of the four teams he played. He was paid handsomely as a very good player who never reached superstar status. Respectfully, he scored 372 goals in the National Hockey league and was named the league Most Valuable Player in 1995. Despite my rooting interests, Eric Lindros made it to the Stanley Cup playoff round only once and his team never won a single game.

Over the years, I began to question his grit even as team captain. I thought that Eric Lindros should have been more of a rally-waving leader of championship teams. There were off-ice rumors that effected my changing opinion of him. I started to hate myself for thinking this way. In the end, I loathed Eric Lindros. It still hurts me to privately admit it let alone here in a public forum.

For no particular reason the other day other than sheer irony, I wore Lindros’ tattered paint-splattered NHL jersey almost like a smock through a Home Depot store.

A passerby whispered, “May God have rest on Eric Lindros.”

Confused, I turned to this hockey fan not knowing the reason for the finality.

The man added, “Eric Lindros just announced his retirement from hockey.”

A hundred Eric Lindros memories slap shot through my brain none of which included ticker tape parades. My mind settled on an awkward off-ice moment. Not satisfied with one autograph he gave to me after a hockey practice, I returned to the snaking long autograph line wearing different clothes. The problem withstanding, Eric Lindros had memorized my face.

His reply, “The first autograph wasn’t enough so you jumped into a disguise?”

Flush red painted my face and I replied out of embarrassment. “It is that much of an honor, sir.”

“Beat it.” Lindros dismissed.

Please allow for a moment of revisionist history. Eric Lindros and I were both in disguise but he was the only one smart enough to realize it then. Shame on me.

The Heistman's Trophy

Guilty by only a jury of public opinion, I too have always believed that OJ Simpson bludgeoned to death ex-wife Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994. Neither the former pro football star turned actor's actual glove size nor the not guilty courtroom verdict has swayed my personal belief.

Following the trial of the century, OJ Simpson is now charged with multiple felonies for stealing his own sports memorabilia. Could this be the act of an arrogant man looking in the mirror too long at a picture of himself? Mirrors do not lie, people do. Never concerned with restoring his own reputation or changing public persona, OJ Simpson felt convicted attempting to get back missing pieces of himself by taking a crack at what he believed he was entitled to. Stealing back your own hand signed memorabilia in an armed robbery is so oxymoronic priceless that it would be criminal not to earn Freudian Slips spotlight.

The fall of this celebrity is one for the ages. I am at a loss trying to explain how OJ Simpson can go from the adulation of collegiate Heisman trophy winner to the scorn of an amateurish getaway with autographed footballs stuffed in pillowcases. To any diehard remaining fans out there in the world, well that Hertz.

I do not know what OJ Simpson was thinking in orchestrating this botched hotel heist. With the raid caught on audio tape, it makes the Watergate burglary look like the perfect crime. Even Richard Nixon did not squeeze his own orange juice. Like a bucking white Ford Bronco, OJ Simpson brought this on himself. It just goes to show that some guys think they can get away with murder.

The Biggest Dumbbell

To officially kick-off the NFL football season, allow me to digress to a situation dating back to last year. It is one that I should have passed on.

A ruggedly handsome muscular man noticed my Philadelphia Eagles jersey bleeding green from the moment I entered the Bally’s free weight room. His eyes bulged from the weights he pushed skyward but he quickly made conversation between honest sets. The smell of the Eagles current playoff run seemed like it lingered in the air.

“Are you a big Eagles fan?” he asked.

“One of the biggest fans around. When the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl, the Courier Post newspaper did a multi-page story on me. They hailed me as “Super Fan” in the article.”

“Then I am talking to the right person.” he promoted. “What do you think the Eagles chances are this weekend in the playoffs?”

If there was a pulpit, I would have stood on it for what I was about to say. “The team really responds to back-up quarterback Jeff Garcia taking over for Donovan McNabb. Garcia is an incredible field general and I welcome his leadership.”

“So you prefer Garcia over McNabb as our quarterback?”

I am mindful when speaking to strangers especially when it comes to their passion for football. So I opted to de-escalate the quarterback controversy.

I answered, “I am no frontrunner jumping on the bandwagon of Jeff Garcia’s recent success and there is no racial issue intended. I like McNabb, admire his immense talent, even wear his jersey on my back. However, I think McNabb has a kink in his armour that Garcia is exposing in his absence.”

“In your mind, what is the kink in McNabb’s armour?”

“I am going t be honest with you. Donovan McNabb seems to lack leadership. McNabb doesn’t rally his troops on the sideline. I bet McNabb doesn’t say anything to his teammates in the huddle. I bet McNabb doesn’t…”

“He does with me…” defended the man.

“What?” I scoffed.

Never before was the height difference between two men on the same issue at a greater divide. My neck cocked back to take in this man’s grandeur and his wingspan alone was enough to rival that of an eagle. My waiting for an explanation had me feeling microscopically insignificant, even as a media annoited "Super Fan."

He explained, “When I am on the sidelines or in the huddle with Donovan McNabb he shows leadership. He has absolute control of the team.”

I had done so much talking that I felt ashamed to ask my first question. “Who are you?”

“Adrien Clarke, offensive lineman, a member of the Eagles 2005 Super Bowl squad.”

Adrien Clarke worked out with nothing but dumbbells that day and I was the biggest dumbbell in the weight room. Adrien and I have since become friendly but not without a less than McNabbimous start. Look for #61 6’5” 330 lb. Adrien Clarke on the field for the New York Jets this season.

Cry Foul

May 1, 2004 Citizens Bank Park Section 138

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A father speaks takes his non-sports minded daughter at a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game.

Inside the ballpark, I conjure nostalgic field of dream memories amidst twilight’s postcard sky. “You know, all of my years coming to the ball park, I have never caught a foul ball. Not one. Not even close. It remains a dream that dates back to my childhood.”

Rachel and I hit the concession stand. Because there were no ketchup packets available at the new multi-million dollar ballpark, a condiment station returned the favor by pumping ketchup at the rate of one quart a second into my corrugated cardboard tray full of exorbitantly priced greasy fast food. Rachel and I sit down in our assigned seats. We grace our laps with dueling cardboard food trays screaming of calories. All is right with the world.

Alex Cintron of the Arizona Diamondbacks settles into the batter’s box. The light hitting infielder swings awkwardly at a high pitch. The ball sails foul down the left field line. I crook my neck and find the spinning ball hurdling towards our section. It draws closer, earning my standing ovation. I remember the food in my lap but I cannot help myself. Cheese steak and French fries fly from their cardboard holding tank.

Settled into the seat next to me, my daughter never moved, winced, or broke stride from eating her finger-licking-good chicken fingers. Meanwhile, I jump over the empty seats in front of me. The ball takes a wicked first hop in the aisle before I bare hand it. I am overjoyed and celebrate in the revelry.

My daughter takes one good look at me and patently rolls her eyes like any other unimpressed teenager. My clothes are covered in ketchup splatter. My shirt has a small rip. Off of the sweaty concrete, I peel my cheese steak sandwich that looks as though it has been rolled in a batter of grime. I realize that the plastic faceplate of my cell phone is crumpled broken. My daughter senses the collateral damage and smirks.

Her sarcasm precedes only the next bite into her chicken fingers. “All those years, now was it really worth it, Dad?”

An Engendered Species

While flipping channels on the television, I heard a male boxing announcer refer to a woman boxer as “a complete lady.” My ears did a double take at what my eyes were seeing live in action. Two female gladiators stood manicured toe to toe. The topic of conversation, however, was a woman I would not like to find down a dark alley. She delivered repeated blows to another not so lucky lady if you will, who sported a flowing cut, cauliflower ears, and a clobbered nose.

Since women have entered professional boxing ranks, I wish announcers would refrain from referring to sweating and bleeding female pugilists as ladies while they are inside the ring. It is sad commentary. I don’t care if a purse is on the line.

Fly Like an Eagle...Fan

Following a 27-24 crushing playoff defeat to the insurgent New Orleans Saints, another Philaldephia Eagles season comes to an abrupt end. No need to worry about this fan. I'll be okay.

Million Dollar Baby

While channel surfing with the remote control, my ears recorded what my eyes did not initially see. This sports fanatic stopped on the heels of a professional boxing match in progress. I noticed the excitement of the crowd and the fervor in the male announcer’s voice as two million dollar babies went at it.

“She has it all. She is the complete package.” The announcer passionately described. “A vicious right hook to the temple. Look at her go. This is some lady. ”

The description made no sense with the brutal visual images before me. I realized that the only thing missing from this sporting event was testosterone. This was not a hair pulling catfight over the high school baseball team’s right fielder’s affection. I watched a simply glovely woman boxer pummeling another broad in the corner of a ring. A left jab precipitated a body shot into the pillows of her opponent’s erogenous zone. Teeth clenched, the two pug-faced red eye combatants traded blows like rabid pit bulls fighting to the death.

I watched the bout until I could not take it any longer. As a hot-blooded man, who espouses the beauty and virtue of women, I cannot visualize anything less feminine and desirable than a woman boxer. If savagery constitutes a lady, what lousy adjectives are left to inject a tramp?

The High Andre Waters Mark

A hard-nosed defensive back, Andre Waters played for the Philadelphia Eagles with reckless abandon. Often fined for his bone-crushing hard hits in his twelve-year career, Andre Waters played the game of football the only way he knew how…downhill on a collision course. He earned the tenacious reputation as one of the most ferocious tacklers in the National Football League. I remember shuttering at the violent way he hurled his body like a projectile across the field. I lauded his kamikaze style and caliber of performance because he played with no regard for human life…his or anyone else he came into contact with.

Tragically, Andre Waters took his own life today with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. He always played for keeps.