TOBY PETZOLD

Don Haskins, the man who led the Miners of Texas Western College over the Kentucky Wildcats for the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship in 1966, has passed away. Both my parents knew this man in their many associations with that school. My father’s admiration for Haskins and what he accomplished was especially great. They were friends and colleagues at TWC (which soon after the championship year became the University of Texas at El Paso) and my father spoke glowingly of Haskins for the rest of his life. I myself recall sitting on the ruins of an unfinished temple on the island of Naxos in 1995 while reading a long newspaper article on Haskins and the injustice of his then-absence from one of the basketball halls of fame. It was a strange but beautiful experience to be so far away from home, yet reading about someone who had been a household name to me since before my memory.

Whenever the history of the civil rights movement in America is written, it should include somewhere in its pages some reference to what Don Haskins accomplished in an America still struggling to desegregate itself not so long ago.

Thank you, Bear, for enriching my family’s life and making Texas proud.

What an amazing Wimbledon final! Thanks to both of you guys for such a great match and for being such gentlemen.

I am surprised at the big number of big names I know from George Mitchell’s report. Quite a few of the detestable Yankees, I’m pleased to note, including Roger Clemens, our local hero.

I think Mitchell’s right, though: call the culprits out on it and then move on. Because this isn’t like kicking Shoeless Joe Jackson out of the majors. Jackson was one of the men who did commit the ultimate crime in baseball: throwing the World Series. But what Clemens and the others did was long-term and systemic. Everybody’s known about steroid abuse in the MLB since McGwire and Sosa’s first passionate, get-a-room quality embrace during their record-breaking season of 1998.

As regards substance abuse in professional athletics, I remarked to a female relative earlier today that the only revelation more damaging than what these have been today would have been to learn that Lance Armstrong was, as the French have long insisted, doping during his magnificent run of championships. Such news would, quite frankly, devastate this town. That’s no joke, either. It would break a lot of hearts and I hope it is never found to be true.

Wow. Arthur Blank really went to town with Tony Kornheiser’s “retail” metaphor.

Let’s not not pay retail so much, gentlemen. Jeeze.

That’s what they call a living legend, baby.

Another reason I don’t like soccer is its lack of episodicity. Just look at American football with all of the planning and executing that simply doesn’t exist in a sport where one’s progress cannot really be built upon and where what you gain is unratcheted and fenceless. In American football, physical brutality gets you territory —but so does extreme grace and athleticism. Does soccer? Sorta, but they’re always giving it up. They seem to be constantly losing the ball and squandering their progress and having nothing to show for their work. But are all scores equal? Of course not. Some points are scored cheaply. And not all fouls are the same. American football is more complex and compelling. It is more heroic.

Am I losing my damned mind over here or am I the only person who can hear this weird, looping noise on all of Fox’s baseball broadcasts? Seriously. From beginning to end, there’s been this low tone in the back channel of their audio that is a mix of London police car siren and the chattering probes that Darth Vader sent to Hoth.

It’s really noticeable tonight.

Oh, and nice use of the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man” at the ad break.

As much as I love watching and even sometimes following high-level championship tennis, I really dislike doubles matches. I find them tedious and slightly lame.

Singles matches, on the other hand, are all about dueling it out. Man against man. Hot Russian chick against hot Russian chick.

Did it happen in your market, too?

I’m watching Nadal and Djokovic just then in the second semi-final match at Wimbledon —and here comes six or seven seconds of some sort of Babar the Elephant animation.

Not exactly Heidi busting in on the Jets and Raiders, but what the hell?

I didn’t like Ben Harper’s interpretation of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of tonight’s basketball game in Cleveland. It sounded almost untalented, although I understand how that might just be me expecting to hear Jimi Hendrix’s version of it from the morning of Monday, 18 August 1969.

Dang! It sure gets quiet when the Spurs score a basket!