Remember when your parents used to tell you, ‘do as I say and not as I do’?.

The Chicago Cubs had high expectations and an even higher payroll entering the 2007 season. The lid blew off their pressure cooker of a season when pitcher Carlos Zambrano and Catcher Michael Barrett exchanged words, then punches, in the dugout, then again in the clubhouse. Perhaps ‘exchanged’ is an inaccurate term since Zambrano emerged unscathed while Barrett had cuts on his face and mouth. Incidently, is it me or has Zambrano become sort of a lovable lunatic. I mean, he’s lights out on the mound, hits home runs, punches his teammates in the mouth and threatens to take off his belt during a bench clearing brawl. Central casting should keep him in mind should a ‘Major League IV’ ever be considered.

With the Cubs chances of seeing the post season slipping away, one would think that their Hall-of-Fame caliber Manger would be able to provide the club with discipline, structure and guidance. So what does Lou Piniella do? An on field altercation where Piniella bumped an umpire resulted in a 4 game suspension for the Cubs’ skipper.

Has it ever been a rough few years for the Northsiders. First the whole Bartman fiasco, then the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox ended their World Series droughts of 86 and 88 years respectively. Misery no longer, had company.

The attitude regarding the lovable losers was much more optimpistic entering the current campaign, coming off a summer that saw the Cubs land the jewel of the free agent class, Alfonso Soriano, and the aforementioned Piniella, folks were printing World Series tickets and planning their reverse the goat curse parties.

Now things seem bleaker than ever for Chicago and the one person capable of steering them through this turbulent time seems to be one of their biggest problems. Piniella might have thought that he had been given a new lease on life, escaping baseball purgatory in Tampa, but instead of calling Chicago, sweet home, sweet Lou has struck a sour note in the Windy City.

Gotta Go, ‘Office Space’ is on.

I'm not impressed by ultra competitive dads posting up their 12 year old sons in a 'friendly' father son game of one on one in the driveway. I'm not impressed by Junior High Teachers that make 11 year old girls swoon. And I'm not impressed by Rafael Nadal.

I've grown very weary and tiresome of these one tournament, one surface wonders overshadowing true greatness. Sure Nadal is a phenomenal talent and he may one day break through at another major, but the fact that his dominance at the French, impressive as it may be, overshadows the brilliance of Roger Federer, and inspires criticism of Federer, is down right ludicrous.

Winning at the French, let alone 3-peating at Roland Garros is impressive but it is a tournament with its clay surface, that has notoriously narrowed the gap between a truly great player and a merely good one.

If the NBA, for some insane reason, played its games on a hardwood covered in gravel for a quarter of a season, making muckers like Erick Dampier and Marc Jackson look like MVP’S, would that be a true barometer of who basketball’s best players were?

In the bizzaro world of tennis, Nadal is praised for his dominance in Paris instead of being dissected for being unable to carry his magnificent play over to any of the other majors. On the flipside, Federer spends too much time answering questions about his inability to break through at the French, and not enough time being hailed as the best player of the modern era this side of Pete Sampras.

It seems that such backwards thinking is common place in the sport. The aforementioned Sampras struggled infamously at the very major that currently eludes Federer and it seems that this topic is always touched upon when discussing Sampras’ career, a career that included 14 Grand Slam titles, including a men’s record 7 Wimbledon championships. Another player on the short list for greatest of all time consideration is Ivan Lendl. Lendl has 8 Grand Slam titles to his credit and still holds the record for most weeks ranked number 1 yet Lendl will always be remembered for his failures at the All England Tennis Club.

Nadal, in all likelihood will one day add another major title to his trophy case but in sports there is a hierarchy. The Spaniard will have his day but for now, its time for all to hail King Roger and marvel at his wizardry.

Gotta go, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ is on.

Pop quiz hot shots – who emerged victorious in this years’ Stanley Cup finals? Anybody? Perhaps a better question would be, ‘Does anybody care?’

I don’t want to be harsh when it comes to the NHL, after all I myself do love the sport, but there is a reason why this League’s Championship garners weaker ratings then midget 5 pin bowling on ESPN VI. (That’s actually a pretty cool idea, dibs on the treatment). The reason that hockey has become irrelevant is in a word – Pronger.

As in Chris Pronger and his elbow to the head of Senators’ Dean McAmmond, a hit that in effect, knocked McAmmond out for the remainder of the finals. Pronger, justifiably received a one game suspension but to hear Ducks GM Brian Burke complain the day after about the league failing to discipline Chris Neil for a similar, elbows high hit on Andy McDonald, one would be tempted to offer Burke a nice ripe slice of bris to go with his whine. The thing is that, when reviewing both hits, Burke proved to be absolutely correct.

Neil’s hit was an elbow to the head and he seemingly skated half way across the rink to deliver the blow. The difference is that McDonald skated away unphased whereas McAmmond was helped off after spending several minutes sprawled out on the ice trying to remember name rank and serial number.

And that is why no one can take the NHL seriously. It’s not there are violent, suspension worthy offences in the NHL, every sport deals with these issues. It’s the wishy washy, nonsensical and spineless disciplinary process that continues to lock hockey into a niche sport status. There is no consistency, no reference to precedent and too many factors to consider. Was it an elbow or was it a stick? Is he or is he not a superstar? Does he have a history or doesn’t he? Is it the regular season or play offs? Is the player assaulted injured or fine?

The entire process begins to resemble a high school Algebra problem; Player A skates to the corner and hits Player B from behind into the boards. Player B seemed to have turned his back to the hit at the last instant. Player A is a superstar whereas Player B is an average performer. Player A has been suspended 6 times in his 8 year career, although none of those instances were hitting from behind scenarios. Player B was not seriously injured. How long of a suspension does player A deserve. Huh?

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s history will always link the NHL to the NBA, a league that sets the standard for holding players accountable for their actions. The fact that Pronger received a 1 game suspension 2 weeks after receiving a 1 game suspension for plastering Red Wings Forward Tomas Holmstrom’s head into the glass, is laughable. Not only is it laughable but it is disgraceful and it is the reason why the NHL is a light years away from gaining the respect and recognition that it so desperately craves.

Gotta Go, ‘Good Times’ is on.

Sometimes the contradictory attitudes that exist within the sports world become very annoying. Is it ‘winning is the only thing’, or is it fair play that should be held above all else. In football, a player is praised for his intensity and toughness when he plays, ‘through the whistle, not to the whistle’ but the NHL awards a Lady Byng trophy to the player who exhibits excellence in play tempered with sportsmanship. Are we as sports fans to pick and choose which one of these ideologies apply to which scenario and to which player?

Yankees up 7-5. High pop up to 3rd base. Recent call up Howie Clark camps under it. As Alex Rodriguez is rounding the bases behind Clark, he lets out a scream which Clark mistakes as shortstop John McDonald calling for the ball. So he lets up. The ball drops in. All hands are safe and the Yanks go on to score 3 more runs in securing a 10-5 victory.

The desire to win or breaking the baseball code? You make the call.

Tom Hanks’ classic line in the movie, A League Of Their Own, ‘there’s no crying in baseball’ obviously did not apply to the Blue Jays and their reaction to the incident. McDonald and Toronto manager John Gibbons were furious. Blue Jays colour man Pat Tabler called the move ‘Bush League’.

Give me a break!

The fact of the matter is that Rodriguez did not do anything contrary to the rules of the game. It’s unfortunate that the youngster Clark had to learn such a lesson in such a harsh manner but AROD didn’t cheat Clark and the Jays, he outsmarted them, plain and simple.

Rodriguez’ high octive yelp wasn’t an attempt to make Clark think that he was being called off. If that were his intentions, he would have called out ‘mine’ the universal baseball call that indicates that another player is in a better position to make the play. On field microphones picked up the squeal 3 times – once to Clark, once at 3rd base, and once while Rodriguez was jogging into the dugout at the end of the inning. The second and third screams were, in all likelihood, AROD’s answer to inquiries from 3rd base coach Larry Bowa and from his Yankee teammates as to what exactly he yelled. In all 3 scenarios it was a nonsensical, albeit girlishly high pitched squeal. Rodriguez made a playful effort to distract Clark, an effort that succeeded.

Gibbons and company can complain all they want but it’s the ‘game within the game’ aspect of sports that been present forever. Games cannot be played in silence or in a bubble. How is this incident any different from a hockey player on the backcheck, rapidly slapping his stick on the ice in the hopes that the player he is chasing will mistakenly assume it to be a teammate and drop pass? Or a basketball player inbounding the ball off the back of an opponent, then catching it himself for an easy layup? Or even baseball itself with its hidden ball trick? Not to mention the myriad of gadget plays in football.

One can’t help but wonder whether such a firestorm of criticism would swirl around a player committing this act of baseball sin if his name was not Alex Rodriguez. Let’s not hold a pity party for AROD just yet. After all, a quarter of a billion dollars and a medically enhanced blonde bombshell in every city is good for a lot that ails you. When it comes to situations like this however, it seems that heavy is the head of he who wears the crown as best ballplayer of his generation.

All that being said, Clark, regardless of his inexperience, still should have known better. Much like the fake pick off at 1st then throw to 3rd, these efforts work every once in a long, long, long while. And it’s situations like this that in a nutshell, explain why the Yankees, slow start notwithstanding, are who they are, and teams like the Blue Jays are who they are.

Gotta go, ‘This Week In Baseball’ is on.

I’ve said it before but it bares repeating – this is why we watch sports. Perseverance chipping away at adversity, resulting in triumph. Michael Jordan finally getting past Detroit’s bad boys on the way to the first of his 6 NBA Championships. John Elway leaping towards the goal line as if he were leaping away from every iota of criticism hurled his way throughout his hall of fame career. Phil Mickelson morphing from choker to champion in a single, glorious Augusta weekend. And now, all hail the King.

Forgive me for being redundant, but redundancy is necessary in this situation fore, Lebron James’ Game 6 performance was so spectacular that the tale needs to be told over, and over, and over, if for no other reason then to continuously reassure ourselves that such a display actually occurred.

In the biggest game of his, and his franchise’s existence, in enemy territory, vs the Conference’s most dominant team over the past half decade, 48 points, 51 minutes played, in a 109-107 double overtime victory, scoring 29 of his club’s final 30 points. No Cavalier other than James scored from the field in the game’s final 18 minutes. The King’s performance was, in a word, majestic.

Yet somehow, the playstation numbers don’t do the performance justice. In an ironic role reversal, down the stretch the 22 year old James looked like a man amongst boys. King James provided his loyal subjects with ferocious dunk after dunk, regal fadeaway jumpers over multiple defenders, a 3 pointer that clearly indicated that on this night, James had no peer, and a game winning lay up that might as well have acted as a curtain call.
The performance signified, not so much a passing of the torch, with the East dripping with parity /mediocrity the door is open for a different Conference champion over the next several years, as it signified a metamorphasis. The entire world watch as, over an 18 minute span, James went from superstar to superstar with the ability and desire to strap his team to his back and drag them to the pinnacle of success.

The number 23 James sports, rarely visible nowadays, it’s sight constantly obstructed by the franchise and city that he is carrying, is iconic in basketball lore for obvious reasons. And that other 23 graced basketball fans with a eerily similar performance many years ago. Nothing should be taken away from his Airness’ legendary Game 6, flu-ridden masterpiece in Utah. That performance has secured its place as one of the greatest of the modern sports era. Let us also not forget, however, that MJ was an 11 year veteran with 5 Championship rings under his belt and a Hall of Fame sidekick to lean on. James on the other hand is a 22 year old phenom on the verge of authoring history and, as obsurd as it seems, has shown indications that there is much more to come.

In the meantime, we wait with baited breath, for we are all witnesses.

Gotta Go, ‘Come Fly With Me’ is on.

I’m not a particularly intelligent man, in fact, only when the ‘misspelled word’ indicator appeared on my screen, did I notice that I misspelled the word, ‘intelligent’ prompting me to go back and make a correction. That being said, it boggles my mind that I seem to be one of the few that sees what is going on when it comes to Kobe Bryant.

Let’s go back to March. Bryant, dispite putting up his usual superstar numbers, was nonetheless having a fairly undistinguished campaign, overshadowed by the MVP duel between Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash and Gilbert Arenas nightly, game winning heroics. Then boom! Bryant went on a scoring rampage, the likes of which were rarely, if ever seen before in NBA history. Two 60 point games, two 50 point games. A 56 points per game average in what must be haled as the greatest fortnight by an individual ever.

Skip ahead to the present day. Is it just coincidence that Kobe’s ‘should I stay or should I go’ theatrics roughly coincide with Lebron James’ masterful performances in Games 3 and 4 vs the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Final?

No, and this is why:

Nobody is doubting Bryant’s abilities. At 29 he may already be on the shortlist when discussing the greatest basketball players of all time. Bryant, however, is an insatiable ego maniac. It was his ego in large part, that was to blame for dismantling what may have become the greatest dynasty in sports history in the Lakers of the early millenium. Like a child acting out when they crave attention, Bryant’s 4 game binge, though spectacular, was an attempt to re-focus the eyes of the NBA back upon him. Then sensing that James might be preparing to further his legacy by single handedly carrying his team past the perennial Eastern Conference favourite Pistons, and into the finals, a rarified air that Bryant himself has failed to reach in the post Shaq era, Kobe once again manages to steal the headlines.

While James is looking ready to provide NBA fans with some of the greatest basketball theatre in recent memory, Bryant continues to add to his reputation as a selfish, ‘me first’ athlete who with his actions is, ironically, driving more fans King James’ way.

Gotta go, ‘Melrose Place’ is on.