When the powers that be change the rules of the game, are they in fact creating a new game?

Many a pugilistic endeavor at the local pub began from a perceived knowledge o####ame at a certain point in time and the memory (or lack thereof) of participants in that game at that particular point in time establishing marks of achievement. Most home runs, most points, most goals, most touchdowns and the like are quintessential examples of marks of achievement for those games. In the vast universe of knowledge these are some of the easiest things to know.  Just add them up.

But what happens when the rules for that game, those ironclad definitions of what is acceptable and what is not during the competition, change?  Should that close the books on records for that sport, if players from here on out no longer play by the same rules? To be fair to one set of players before, and the next generation of players after a significant rule change, should there not be a clear demarcation of the great divide between the two?

In 1978 a basketball player at Baylor could make 10 shots from the floor and record 20 points. Today that same player could record 30 for the same number of shots. It’s a different game today.  Should there be a different set of records?

Used to be you had to play a position in the field to bat in the major leagues.  Not any more. In the American League there is now a Designated Hitter, someone who does not play except to hit.  When looking at all the records prior to that monumental shift in rules does one not see the galactic inequity of comparing the before’s with the after’s?

What if horse racing allowed cheetahs to run with a gibbon strapped to it’s back?  Provided you could keep the cat from eating the #### on it’s back (pun intended), I dare say we would see fewer and fewer horses and more and more felidae at the track.  Maybe make the field goal in football worth 10 points. Any doubt there would be a scrum over signing English soccer players to the NFL and attempts from 70 yards commonplace? Scoring records? Sky’s the limit.

Of course there is the mewling of those who have not lived under the dramatic shifts in the game as the rules have changed.  But at some point rule changes have had such a dramatic affect on the sport, that it may not actually be the same sport anymore.

So tonight barry bonds hit the "historic" home run many have been waiting for.  Waiting for the record to be set, waiting for the complaints to be over, waiting to continue ignoring MLB.  Tonight we got our wish.

I did not see it, don't care about it, and for the most part will amble on my merry way ignoring the game I used to so love.

Thanks Sammy, Raffy, Marky and Barry. You've returned a generous portion of my life that I would have frivolously spent at the ball park.  Now I'll spend those hours at another sort of park;  the kind that prohibits the likes of you smashing a ball about.

Many may want to speak only of the bonds dilemma. But the fish stinks ffrom the head down.  Start with Selig and work your way all the way down the tight spiral forming at the base of the loo.

 Hasta la vista ####...

As anyone can clearly tell from my avatar, I kinda like the legacy of one George Herman Ruth. Sometimes little tidbits pop up that make me smile and wish for just one afternoon in the sun watching the Babe belt them out. Since that's not possible, I satisfy myself by vicariously living through the eyes of others who got the chance.

Below is an AP report today about the death of Rollie Stiles, RIP Rollie, and I'll let the article do the "talking".

- ST. LOUIS (AP) - Former St. Louis Brown Rollie Stiles, believed to be the oldest former major leaguer, has died. He was 100.

Stiles died in his sleep Sunday morning at Bethesda Southgate nursing home in St. Louis County, a spokesman for the nursing home said Monday. A cause of death was not given.

Born Nov. 17, 1906, in Ratcliff, Ark., Stiles pitched for the Browns in 1930, 1931 and 1933, compiling a 9-14 record with a 5.92 ERA. Babe Ruth was among the hitters he faced.

"I had a great game against him," Stiles recalled in a 2006 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch...

"I held him to three hits." -

You just can't make this stuff up......

With the 136th Open Championship, known in the United States as the “British Open” , ending in a playoff between the three day leader Sergio Garcia and final round challenger Padrig Harrington, it has become apparent to most of the golf world that the comet known as “Woods”, who miraculously streaked across the sky for the better part of 10 years, has dimmed and the era of the random wanderer is coming to fruition.

Certainly Sergio and Padrig played as well as any  casual observer could hope to do, but once again we were witness to a rather severe bout of hack as the curtain came tumbling  down. Padrig took the Claret Jug for his first major victory simply because he puked less than Sergio.

Besides the painful stumbling down the stretch by the eventual winner, this tournament included near misses from an Argentinean named Romero, a resurgent American named Striker, and a still resolute South African named Els. Today the world was treated to yet another exciting but futile stab at the heart of the Nicklaus legacy by the Greek tragedy known as the Royal and Ancient, or with a more full throat, the 18th at Carnustie.

Time and again sports writers wax poetic about the skill and savvy of the current crop of pretenders to the throne as they jump into the limelight for a day, only to evaporate like so much haze in the mid-July sun of whatever stop the PGA tour resides. Thursday’s 65 by most of the tour players is likely to be followed by a 78 on Friday, with very little difference in the conditions of the turf, fairway, rough or green. Certainly today’s field can go low, but when you need to go four in a row, they generally got no.

For most of past 50 years we have been blessed to see men take the game by the “Spauldings” and choke the best out of it. Players like Nelson, Hogan, Snead, Palmer, Player, Trevino, Ballesteros, Watson and Faldo all stood against the wind week after week as they amassed multiple Major victories. The wind they stood against was Jack. Unlike the past, no player has been able to consistently shoot the scores needed to compete with Woods at the championship level.

At Carnustie, as the world’s best player receded into the background, the rest of the golf world applauded the determination of Padrig Harrington and wept for the continued frustration of Sergio Garcia. Sergio may yet have his day, but collapses like today and the effect it surely will have on his psyche will prevent him from ever being the equal to his compatriot Seve Ballesteros.

As for the rest of the PGA tour, we can only hope that there may someday soon be a player with the skill to do today, and tomorrow, and the day after, what he is capable of doing next week and the week after that. Not for a day, or a tournament, but for a career.

Tiger is doing it. Is there someone else?

Don’t bet on it.

I keep reading this lunacy of "short porch" where Babe Ruth is concerned. In every media published, printed or filmed, Ruth is widely heralded as the most powerful hitter to ever play the game.  Yet when presented with facts, those facts are ignored and yet another incredible sentence appears about the "short porch" in Yankee stadium.  This is beginning to look like a mental disorder and not a debate. Maybe it's like Bush Derangement Syndrome, only it has to do with the dimensions of Yankee stadium?  When someone is presented with facts about unrivaled performance and they respond with the dimensions of a single field as the focus of accomplishment, you begin to wonder.

But let's not rely on one fans opinion, from the Baseball Almanac,  http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/art_hr.shtm
l, we get this:

Babe Ruth, it can be said defies rational analysis. Not only did he set distance records in every major league ballpark (including National League stadiums where he played only infrequently), he also set similar standards in hundreds of other fields, where he made exhibition and barnstorming appearances. Amazingly, many of those records remain unequaled, which is to say that Ruth is a true athletic anachronism. In virtually every other field of endeavor in which physical performance can be measured, there are no Ruthian equivalents. In 1921 alone, which was Ruth's best tape measure season, he hit at least one 500 foot home run in all eight American League cities.

There should be no doubt about the authentication of these conclusions. Despite the scarcity of film on Ruth, we can still make definitive evaluations of the approximate landing points of all of his 714 career home runs.

Ruth played during the height of American's newspaper culture, when approximately 10 New York papers gave first hand accounts of each Yankee game. When you consider that the other baseball town’s average about five comparable publications, it is clear that we can draw upon approximately 15 descriptions of most of the hundreds of four-base blows struck during his career. A suitable example can be identified in Ruth's classic Comiskey Park roof topper on August 16, 1927. Fifteen writers from New York, Chicago, and other places emphatically stated that Ruth's fifth-inning drive cleared the 52-foot-wide grandstand roof by a considerable margin.

Although other sluggers occasionally reached the rooftops during Comiskey's long lifetime, the only other left-handed batter known to have flown the right-field roof was Detroit's Kirk Gibson in 1985. That magnitude of Ruth's accomplishment can be understood with the knowledge that, because home plate had been moved, the distance to the grandstand for Gibson was 341 feet, while for Ruth it was 365 feet. Similarly, Comiskey's left-field roof was also visited by many batted balls, but only one is confirmed to have cleared it on the fly. That homeric deed was performed by the powerful Jimmie Foxx on June 16, 1936. As Ruth's talents waned in the early 1930s, Foxx began his ascendancy. In 1932, the muscular "Double X" almost equaled Ruth's season record of 60 home runs. Many of them even rivaled the Babe's for distance.

It was heresy to suggest that Ruth's accomplishments could be surpassed, but for a few seasons it appeared that Foxx might do just that. One of the greatest quirks in baseball history is that Jimmie Foxx, following immediately in the footsteps of Babe Ruth, was to establish the second-greatest distance legacy in the annals of the game. Foxx never quite measured up to Ruth, but it is remarkable that no once since Foxx has measured up to him. The other great distance hitters of that period were Lou Gehrig and Hank Greenberg, but their optimum drives fell about 50 feet short of those struck by Ruth and Foxx.

But what do those guys at the Baseball Almanac know.  Yankee Stadium had a short porch so Ruth was a pipsqueak hitter, right?

This from the Scranton/Wilkes Barr newspaper.

It's one thing to prefer another player or condone drug use or like to eat cheese dogs.  But to just keep refusing the delivery of facts and continue to write inanities, well, some people will NEVER know right from wrong.

For those who are capable of learning, and some obviously are not, I strongly suggest Bill Jenkinson's "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs". It's a rather starry eyed look at Ruth, but the documentation is absolute, complete with photos of the titanic shots he hit,  footnoted to death and an overall great read. The conclusions are factual and any suggestions that he was seriously aided by the "short porch" are dispelled. Every player sneaks one over the fence sometime. But for Babe Ruth that was the exception to the Sultan of Swat’s rule: GO DEEP!

Just about everyone has heard the admonishment from his or her parents at one time or another that “you should know right from wrong”. The terse tone normally accompanying the phrase frequently indicated that the listener was about to be given an abject lesson on the difference. Things like it’s right to help the old lady across the street, but wrong to kick her walker out from underneath her and take her purse. Similarly it’s right to wait for the verdict before we put you in the electric chair and pull the switch. Conversely it’s wrong to put you in the chair and pull the switch before the verdict, even though some would like that prescription sometimes.

How does this relate to sports? Simple. In the wonderful world of sports debates it’s becoming more and more the case where ardent supporters of a player or team ignore the cold hard facts surrounding the topic and instead cling feverishly to arguments that sound right, but are in reality utterly and completely wrong. Those desperados of the cause, intentionally blind to the light, will take pillory and post rather than accept facts contrary to their “belief”.

Take the Barry Bonds dramady for example. A significant number of people are devout in their fanaticism that Bonds has not been proven to take steroids. On the surface this sounds right, and in fact is right; Bonds has not been proven or admitted “knowingly” taking steroids. But the fact is he did take them. The whole sordid affair has been leaked from grand jury testimony that he took the “cream” and the “clear”, both being steroid products from the BALCO labs. The leak was illegal, but that doesn’t change the facts as admitted to by Bonds himself. What is it that makes some people willfully ignore what is right and proselytize what is wrong?

In conjunction with the Barry blemish is the incessant need to tarnish others to lessen the impact of Bonds’ maladroit behavior. Both Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth have been subject to fanciful screeds that sound right, but again, are staggering in their actual wrongness. We read how Ruth faced wimpy arms that pitched full games, yet there is silence about the arms like Koufax, Gibson, Mclain, Drysdale and others that 30 years ago were Hall of Fame bound for pitching complete games. One Bonds acolyte has even gone so far as to claim Ruth hit most of his home runs over a short fence at Yankee stadium, confidently ignoring reams of firsthand newspaper and eyewitness accounts of each and every home run ever hit by Ruth, stating the exact opposite.

Hank Aaron has now been branded a drug user for his offhand remark that he took a “greenie” once. Once. It is perfectly right to say that Aaron took amphetamines. Once. Foolishly wrong to infer he took them any length of time. And yet that unpretentious comment has now evolved into the clarion call to smear Aaron for all his work ethic and professional accomplishments throughout his career.

Quite simply put, some people never learn how to tell right from wrong.

Below is the house of a Hollywood insider John Travolta. A few jumbo jets and about 50,000 square feet. Along with Al Gore, they sure do love to practice what they preach. Or is it, do as I say, not as I do?

Also, an update for the remaining brain-dead dolts that insist that Iraq is just a ploy by the Bush Administration to steal the oil for themselves; this just in from CNN, not an administration ally:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq's new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein's government.

The following is taken from the website of Thornhill Country Club in Canada, the site of Byron Nelson's 11th PGA Tour win in a row.  It makes for a good read and highlights once again the skill the man displayed.  Notice the fact that in 1945 the players played TWO rounds on Saturday!  Imagine the caterwauling that would go on if the prima donnas of today had to endure that.

Byron Nelson

It was August 1945, Byron Nelson had just won his 10th straight PGA tournament, the Tam O’Shanter in Chicago, with a score of 19 under. Nelson and a field of the best tour professionals of the time prepared to move on to compete in the Canadian Open a week later. Along with Nelson were such US legends as Sam Snead, previous winner of the Canadian Open in 1938, 1940 and 1941, Tony Penna, Claude Harmon, Kye Laffoon and Harold “Jug” McSpadden who came to town with a 59 to his credit. The Canadian contingent included Stan Leonard, Toronto Maple Leaf hockey star Bill Ezinicki, Thornhill’s own Ernie Nerlich and Pat Fletcher who would later become the last Canadian to win the Canadian Open (1954). Our club’s first professional, Arthur Hulbert and his successor, the legendary Joe Noble also competed. Today two of our holes are named after them, the 7th for Hulburt and the 2nd for Noble. As the best in the world made their way to the Toronto area little did they know that a “Sleeping Giant” awaited them in a small Police Village north of the City known as Thornhill and that Byron Nelson and the little Village were soon to become a part of golf history.

The “Sleeping Giant” was created by RCGA officials from our club who felt that the Thornhill course was not long or tough enough and feared that scores in the 60’s would prevail. After approval from the RCGA, the officials were allowed to make some changes to the Thornhill course. The 2nd tee was moved back to the middle of the 18th fairway adding 40 yards to the hole. The 4th tee was set next to the 3rd and the 4th hole on the Valley course became the 4th green. This not only added 50 yards to the 4th but it also meant that the players had to cross the river four times en route to the 4th green. The length of the 7th hole (our present 12th) was extended to 215 yards, to where the stone plaque commemorating the event is today. The old par four 17th was changed to a brutal 259 yard par three. The officials could never have realized that their changes were to transform Thornhill into one of the toughest par 70’s that the pros would ever face, changes that would bring the greatest pros of the day to their knees.

As in most PGA tournaments wonderful anecdotes emerge, the following were but a few from the 1945 Canadian Open.

The entire four days of the tournament were played in hot steamy weather which took its toll on players and spectators. The popular phrase heard each day was “Thornhill is worse that the Sahara Desert”. Nelson showed up for his final round very tired, sporting a few blisters on his hands. After paring the first hole he proceeded to the 2nd hole not prepared for the unthinkable that was about to happen. Nelson topped his tee shot into the river below the present day tee. After taking a drop, he hit his third shot into the river again around the 135 yard mark. As Byron walked up to the fairway he was probably thinking ahead to another penalty drop, a fifth shot to the green and a possible triple bogey. When he got to the river the ball was visible since the extreme hot weather had dried up much of the river bed. He was able to hit his fourth shot to the green about ten feet from the pin and made a fantastic bogey five. Nelson’s Canadian caddy later became a golf pro in the US and when interviewed in 1995 on the fiftieth anniversary of Nelson’s amazing records in 1945, remarked that in all his fifty years as a golf professional Nelson’s five on the 2nd hole at Thornhill was the greatest bogey that he had ever seen.

During the third round Nelson, Tony Penna and Claude Harmon were playing together, the players debated what to hit off the 4th hole into a head wind. Harmon chose a driver and was queried by the others since they had to clear the third crossing of the river. Harmon replied that he would hit his ball in front of the wide maintenance bridge at the river so if he was short his ball would run over the bridge. To the amazement of Nelson and Penna, Harmon did exactly what he said he would do. Later in the same round, Nelson had to borrow a new ball from Penna, definitely a “no no” by today’s rules, however during the war years golf balls were scarce and borrowing was allowed.

Our own John Parkinson was a Marshall at the Open, and relates this story about Sam Snead on the 7th hole (our present 12th). Snead hit his tee shot on to the 6th fairway, hit the next shot over the trees to the green and made the putt for his par three. He left the green commenting furiously about the hole being too tough. Slamming Sam finished 14 over par for the tournament. When questioned at a later tournament about his poor showing at Thornhill, he commented that in his opinion, the first seven holes at Thornhill were the toughest on the tour at that time. Members, next time you have a bad round and want to slit your wrists, remember the words of Sam Snead and his score of 14 over par.

Ever wonder why our 11th hole is called “Nelson’s Folly”? In 1945 the pros played one round on Thursday, one on Friday and two rounds on the Saturday to allow them more time to travel to the next tournament. During his second round on Saturday Nelson was leading the tournament by 4 shots but was not under par. He felt the pressure to break par since he had never shot par in any of his tournament wins, so he attempted to drive the 11th, ended up in trouble and made a double bogey six, however he was able to hang on to finish with a score of 280, the only tournament he won at even par in his entire career. Nelson chalked up his 11th straight victory that day at Thornhill and went on to the next PGA Tournament in Memphis, Tennessee, anticipating winning his 12th straight, however it was not to be. In Tennessee his string was broken by a young amateur named Freddie Haas Jr. Nelson went on to win the next PGA Tournament in Knoxville with a score of 12 under. Even though his string was broken he was able to add another five wins during the year for a record setting 18 and $51,500 in winnings.

Byron Nelson still holds three other records set in 1945. They are, 113 consecutive times finishing in the money, 19 consecutive rounds under 70 and the lowest annual scoring average of 68.33. Nelson went on to win a further six PGA tournaments in 1946 and then announced his retirement at the end of the year, he was only 34 years of age. Byron Nelson always said that he played golf in order to make enough money to someday purchase his dream, a Texas ranch. His dream came true in 1947 when he purchased a 750 acre ranch between Dallas and Fort Worth, where he lives today with his wife Peggy.

Sometime during the tournament the famed Seagram Cup, emblematic of the Canadian Open, disappeared and had the officials running around in a panic to locate it. They received a call from a local youngster who told them that he saw two boys take the cup but he knew where they lived in Willowdale. The cup was retrieved by the Police without incident or charges, and presented to Nelson on time.

All of us, as members of Thornhill, should take pride in knowing that our golf course provided the setting for one of the greatest accomplishments in the world of sport, one that will live in the record books of golf forever, a record that is considered by most as unbreakable, Byron “Lord” Nelson’s 11th straight PGA tournament victory, the 1945 Canadian Open at Thornhill Country Club.

Over the years much as been said about Athletes being role models.  It seems most times the journalistic concentration is on how the athletes behave on and off the playing surface. I might suggest a study of the egocentric manifestations by the lemmings determined to mimic their sports idols. Where did it all begin? Why? 

My recollection of overt player celebration began with the first true, albeit justified poser, Reggie Jackson.  His historic 3 consecutive first pitch home runs off three different Los Angeles Dodger pitchers in the deciding game six of the1977 World Series has been matched by only one other player.  Can you guess whom?  That’s right, Babe Ruth is the only other person to hit three homers in a Series game. (The Babe did it twice and not even he did it on just three pitches.) Who doesn’t remember Jackson's dramatic pause at the plate as his third shot cleared the fence?  No matter how you slice it, Jackson’s feat is one most everyone would allow some measure of preening over. 

And there lay the rub. At what point did the celebration of genuine accomplishment give way to the histrionics seen on even the most mundane plays in today’s games? You can’t single out just baseball; it’s a tattered thread weaved through practically every sport.  Whether it’s a dinger, a dunk, a sack or a sandy, there’s an arm pump or dance or gyration that comes along.  Each event in their respective sport is certainly considered a “good” play.  But are they ones deserving of the “fish out of water” flopping around? I dare say no. 

And it goes further than just the manic celebrations.  It seeps into the way the general public now plays the games.  The worst of it can be found in golf. I cannot express in civil words the frustration professional golfers have foisted on the public by way of their incessant, and mostly unnecessary, hyper-examination of every shot and putt. 

Every public links golfer has experienced the torment of being behind a 28-handicap hacker taking 10 minutes to examine a 240-yard shot from the fairway. He’s tossing grass in the air and making gestures to others in the group, just like the pros do.  Then when all is said and done, he chili-dips the ball 4 yards.  Making matters worse, the same hacker will circle the green a dozen times attempting to “read” the putt and then blow it five feet past the cup, requiring another dose of "green reading".

The NFL is attempting to bring a modicum of decorum back to the game by limiting celebrations in the end zone.  As for the effect professionals have on the amateur sport playing public, I can only ask the them to get serious, because the dim-wits imitating them out here plague the rest of us on a daily basis. 

To the dismay of legions of Tiger Woods fans, Greg Norman recently made some public assertions about the game that many not so enamored of Woods have been saying privately for some time. The courses have changed, the player’s attitudes have changed and most importantly, the equipment has changed.  In short, golf is not what it used to be and is in danger of its impending irrelevance. Forget Norman's bloviating about if Tiger is good for the game or not.  That's just silly.

Professional sports like baseball and football have their HGH and steroids to enhance individual performance.  Golf has its equipment. 

Those that actually play the game understand the dramatic changes technology has brought. In the not to distant past, the Persimmon wood was the most fearsome club in the bag. Most are familiar with the term “hitting it on the screws”. According to The Golf Dictionary by Michael Corcoran: "In the days when woods were actually constructed of wood, they had a plastic insert in the center of the face, the purpose of which was to prevent the wood from deteriorating from constant impact. Some inserts, particularly those in persimmon woods, were held in with several small screws.... When a player would hit a solid drive that felt good, he'd say, 'I hit it on the screws.'"

Screws are a thing of the past with the new composite metal drivers and fairway clubs. Golf clubs made from metal with names straight from the Periodic Table of Elements dominate every pro shop. The result? John Daly used to be the long hitter on the tour followed by the imposing Tiger Woods.  Now they’re numbers 5 and 6 respectively on the list behind the likes of Bubba Watson, the leader with a 318-yard average.  In 1980, Jack Nicklaus averaged a then impressive 269 yards off the tee: distance players now routinely attempt from the fairway on most par 5’s.  That 50-yard advantage on a 430-yard par 4 allows an approach shot with a wedge instead of an 8 iron.  You can guess which is more accurate.

Golfers today are not bigger and stronger than the Golden Bear, Seve Ballesteros or Jim Dent in their prime. The point that equipment has made the game easier for the amateurs and simple for the pros is moot. The question is what can be done to preserve the nature of the game in the face of equipment that makes average players pros? Make the courses ridiculously long? Grow the rough to 12 inches?

Regarding the advent of the Über clubs, the old adage goes: “you spend so much time wondering if you could, rather than if you should”

Norman made some good points regarding the use of such technological marvels.  Let the amateurs have at it, but make the pros abide a strict standard of equipment performance.  The USGA attempts that to some degree now.  The results have not been all that helpful.

Much is being written about the sheer stupidity and outright lunacy of Albert Haynesworth's unprovoked attack on Andre Gurode. From this writers perspective the goon should be bounced from the league post haste. At what point anywhere, in any environment in society, is it considered okay to take a foot, wrapped in cleats, and stomp on the face of a man who's lying flat on his back on the ground? For no apparent reason. Maybe it is in that parallel universe known as professional sports, but not in mine.

Worse yet, and something no one has mentioned. Where were his teammates?

I can’t imagine the type of bench clearing brawl that would ensue if that happened in a baseball game. How many ambulances, or better yet hearses, would they need to call if it happened in a hockey game? Would anyone reading this let it happen to a friend at a local bar without getting in at least one good shot at the assailant? But here we have the Dallas Cowboys: Sissies in tight pants.

I am stunned that not a single Cowboy took offense to one of theirs being stomped on by an opposing player. Not one Cowboy player could muster the gonads to even wag a finger in the face of the buffoon. If there’s video of a confrontation of any sort, I haven’t seen it.

I don’t condone fighting in any sport. But I do expect my teammates to at least watch my back. If I were Andre Gurode, I would think twice about returning to a team that didn’t give a hoot about me when I was at my most vulnerable.

If you've ever been stuck in traffic behind a diesel bus, choking on it's noxious exhaust, you know how refreshing it is to finally pass the polluting behemoth and gasp that first breath of fresh air. In today's sports world, awash in the nauseating fumes of so many stars du jour, Byron Nelson was that breath of fresh air.

In 1944, he won 13 of the 23 tournaments he played. The following year he won a record 18 times in 31 starts (31 victories in just 54 starts), including 11 in a row - also a record. Nelson finished second seven times in 1945, was never out of the top 10 and at one point played 19 consecutive rounds under 70. His stroke average of 68.33 for the season is still the record - based on rounds played.

This week the world lost more than a mere man, a great golfer and mentor to so many for so long.  Society as a whole lost an example of what it means do be a decent man. Long removed from the spectacle of his records and the adulation on the golf course, Byron Nelson lived his life and comported himself with a civility and dignity that is quickly evaporating from our midst.  The heat of the spotlight and the ego of the fleeting star have reduced sports to a 24-hour ESPN cycle of "me". 

"I don't know very much," Byron Nelson said in a 1997 interview with The Associated Press. "I know a little bit about golf. I know how to make a stew. And I know how to be a decent man." Sadly, the generosity of that generation, the generation of our fathers and mothers, is ending.

It's cliché to say "they broke the mold when they made Byron Nelson". Maybe, just maybe, the example set by this fine gentleman will be the new mold for many more fine gentlemen, in all sports, in the future.  We can only hope.

God bless Byron Nelson and his family.

What have the Washington Redskins learned in week one? With any luck they learned that for an offensive coordinator to come to town with a 700-page playbook requires as much folly as it does ingenuity. Football’s great thinkers are doing entirely too much of it; namely thinking.

Like lawyers, football coaches have found job security in creating confusion that those outside the profession can’t decipher. They have gone from good old X’s and O’s to some sort of Zen reality where they attempt to marshal the forces of good and evil on third and six. As usual, owners are hesitant to demand simplicity for fear of being made fun of by those privy to the inside joke.  After all, who is going to question the guy who needs a rickshaw to drag around his countless offensive schemes? 

For the knowledgeable football fan there are three basic plays: run, pass and kick. For Al Saunders, new Assistant Head Coach for Offense of the Washington Redskins, devising a way to generate 700 pages of variations of those basic elements is absurdity on a mythic scale. Exactly what are these offensive geniuses thinking? Who do they think is trying to remember all this stuff? Stephen Hawking? Let’s be real here. Any playbook with 700 pages must have an awful lot of pictures in it. 

All preseason the Washington faithful were told they were seeing only 2 percent of the aggregate wisdom contained in the Sacred Documents. The other 98 percent they were assured would bring world peace, close the hole in the ozone layer and result in prolific scoring not seen since the glory days of the Fun Bunch and the Smurfs. If Monday night’s play calling against the Minnesota Vikings is any indication, I’ll be having tea with Osama before Mark Brunell completes a touchdown pass. 

With 700 pages of trickery, why did the Redskins call the wide receiver screen to Santana Moss three times? Did the magic playbook call for one time catching the ball with his left hand, the next with his right and the third an intentional drop to confuse the defenders? When you have first and ten at the 12-yard line and four world-class wide receivers, for the love of Mike, at least try one pass into the end zone before relapsing to the futile rush up the middle and customary field goal. 

Tom Cruise, roller coasters and the awe inspiring 700 pages might bamboozle owner Dan Snyder, but not the Redskins fans. Washington needs to get back to thinking about hard-nosed football instead of patting themselves on the back for creating a chimera playbook no one can grasp and isn’t any more clever than the old “student body right” on third and three.