The Associated Press recently named Tiger Woods the athlete of the decade, which got me thinking of who would make my Top-5 list. Here it goes. This is counting down to number one.

Usain Bolt—The fastest man on the planet. He went into the 2008 Beijing Olympics holding the world record in the 100m dash at 9.72 seconds. At Beijing Bolt set world records in the 100m (9.69 s) and 200m (19.30 s) dashes and demoralized his competition, making it look easy. It is all the more impressive when one considers he had only been running 100m for a few months before the games. Then at the 2009 Berlin World Championships he destroyed his world records again, running the 100m in 9.58 s and the 200m in 19.11 s. Oh, and the Jamaican relay team on which he runs a leg of the 4×100 won the gold in Beijing and set another world record.
Michael Phelps—Eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, besting Mark Spitz’s previous record of seven in one Olympiad. Add the six other gold and two bronze medals he won at the Athens games, and that brings his total to sixteen medals altogether. Easily the most dominant swimmer of the decade. At Beijing, he set or helped set world records in seven of the eight events he won. At Beijing he blew people away as well as won the 100m butterfly by his fingertips.
Tiger Woods—The best golfer of his generation. His 2000 U.S. Open win at Pebble Beach is the most dominant golfing performance and ranks high on the most dominant sports performances I have seen. Woods was the only player to finish the tournament under par. U.S. Open championships are notoriously difficult, so it is not unheard of for the winner to be the only player under par—Payne Stewart won the previous U.S. Open as the only player under par when he finished -1. In 2000, the next closest person to Woods was three strokes over par. Woods finished the tournament -12, beating the field by fifteen strokes.
Lance Armstrong—Six Tour de France victories in the decade. When we include his first victory in 1999, that brings him to seven in a row. The next best in the sport is Miguel Indurain who holds five Tour de France wins in a row. My favorite moment from Armstrong’s streak comes from the 2001 Tour during the Alpe D’Huez stage. Check out this video for Armstrong’s glare back at his main rival Jan Ullrich (at the 1:40 mark) and then his acceleration to finish the stage. For a race that takes a couple of weeks and leads are won and lost incrementally, “The Look”encapsulated Armstrong’s dominance over his competitors. Oh, yeah, and Armstrong is a cancer survivor.
Roger Federer—Fifteen Grand Slam tennis championships, won on every surface. Three Australian Open titles, one French Open, six Wimbeldon (including five in a row), five US Open (all consecutively). He holds the record for most consecutive Grand Slam finals reached with ten—the next closest is Rod Laver with six. Perhaps even more amazing is that he has reached the semifinals in twenty-two consecutive Grand Slam tournaments—the next closest is Ivan Lendl with ten. Federer beat Pete Sampras’ previous record of fourteen Grand Slam titles and Sampras, as great as he was, never caught a whiff of winning the French Open. Federer spent a record 237 weeks ranked number one in the world. Even though Federer has only won the French Open once, he has made it to the finals every year since 2006. If it were not for Raphael Nadal’s brilliance, we might be talking about Federer as the greatest clay court player ever as well.



It seems that Federer does not receive as much attention as the other athletes on this list. I think that has to do more with his personal style and effortless play. Federer dominates without making it look like he is dominating. He plays smoothly and fluidly, but he tries and makes shots that baffle champions like Bjorn Borg and Sampras. His forehand is the best I’ve ever seen. His running forehand seems to be even better. Federer serves extremely well, but because he is so proficient at nearly every part of his game, he is not known as a great server. He is the best I have seen at both setting up shots three or four strokes ahead and at disguising his shots. Here are some highlights of Federer’s play.

Federer gets the top for a couple of reasons even though I think all these athletes have legitimate arguments. First, he holds the outright record for most major victories in his sport. Woods still does not have the most major victories for golf, though I think he will within the next few years. Second, Federer is truly an athlete of the 2000’s. Both Woods and Armstrong began winning major championships in the 1990’s, whereas Federer, Phelps, and Bolt have had all of their major success in this decade. Third, Federer has dominated for nearly the entire decade, once he began winning major tournaments in 2003. Bolt has come on late and Armstrong retired by the middle of the decade.

Honorable mentions go to Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Albert Pujols, Tom Brady, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldinho.

No one is ever going to confuse me with someone who actually likes the Los Angeles Dodgers, but I will say that one of the perks of living in Southern California is the opportunity to hear Vin Scully’s voice on television—and in the Dodgers Stadium bathrooms. There are some other good play-by-play men in the game, but in my opinion, Scully has been the best. He has announced that he will likely retire from the booth at the end of next season. Here’s to hoping that the Dodgers will honor him with a fantastic farewell tour and a monument befitting the man whose voice, in the words of my wife, “Sounds like baseball.” She said that when she hears Scully’s voice, it feels like summertime.

Here’s a bit of trivia: with over 60 years of experience, Scully called many memorable moments, including a home run in the 1988 World Series that will not receive further mention here—may it long be forgotten. He was not only involved with baseball games, however. He called the 1982 NFC championship game for CBS that resulted in one of the greatest finishes in NFL history when San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Joe Montana rolled right, threw the ball to the back of the end zone, and Dwight Clark made “The Catch” against the Dallas Cowboys. So even if he worked for the hated Dodgers for six decades, Scully can’t be all that bad. Here is the that final drive with Scully’s play-by-play commentary.

We don’t have cable or satellite, so we had to get one of those converter boxes. The switch to the digital television signal has proven beneficial for this sports fan. I’m slowly falling in love with Universal Sports, a network of NBC that shows year-round the sports they usually only air during the Olympic Games. Normally, I have to wait four years to watch water polo on television, and even then, it’s usually aired for just a half an hour on a Saturday afternoon. Today I got to watch two whole matches from the World League on the Universal Sports network. Too bad the US lost in the bronze medal game. Still. Water polo! On a non-Olympic year! Huzzah! 5 meters and backhands and exclusions and drives galore!

Stumbling across perhaps the greatest ruling from an NFL penalty. It came from referee Ben Dreith in a 1986 game between the Jets and Bills. I don’t remember ever seeing it before. Enjoy the creativity and eloquence.

Michael Silver, writer for Yahoo! Sports has a nice column on the San Francisco 49ers new starting quarterback, J.T. O’Sullivan. Even though it’s been a while since I’ve given much attention to the NFL, the Niners are my team and what school did O’Sullivan play his college ball? UC Davis. Ah yeah, an Aggie leading the 49ers to victory. It doesn’t get much better than that for this sports fan. (Except for five Super Bowls in 15 years.)

61 years ago today, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. We’ve still got a long way to go, but thanks must go to Robinson and Dodgers president Branch Rickey for having the courage to move us forward.

Now that the Mitchell Report is out and available to read (you can view a PDF here and a fair summary of who gets named can be viewed here), we baseball fans have some serious thinking to do. My love of the game grew up and matured during an era when two of the greatest players of their generation—Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens—appear to have taken performance-enhancing drugs. I’m disgusted. I’m outraged.

Senator Mitchell is right, I believe, to lay blame across the board on players, owners, clubhouse officials, management, the union, the commissioner’s office, etc. The thing that makes me most upset, however, is that the people who may actually lose their jobs are those least in the spotlight. Yes, Clemens and Bonds may never sign new contracts—both are free agents—and their careers will end in ignominy. The memories of the careers of the former players named will be tainted. These are reasonable outcomes. Current players, however, with productive years left, such as Miguel Tejada (who won the AL MVP whilst playing on my team, the Oakland A’s in 2002) will continue playing and continue making mounds of cash even if their public image is marred. The management in the teams will likely stay the same, as will the leaders in the Players Association and the commissioner’s office. Some heads might roll, but these will be lower-level folks, like the clubhouse management.

Players cheated and management turned a blind eye. How in the world Bud Selig can be held partly responsible for this disgusting era and maintain his job as commissioner of baseball is far beyond me. Well, it’s not that beyond me mentally, but it is beyond me ethically. The revenues of baseball have expanded greatly under Selig’s watch, and that’s what matters to the business folks in the sport. Also, the commissioner is picked by the owners and Selig comes from the ranks of the owners. They’re not going to throw one of their own out to the wolves. Selig should resign. The owners need to choose a new commissioner who is not an owner of any team and whose interest is in the integrity and total well-being of the game, not primarily in the financial health alone. We need a Bartlett Giamatti. The leadership of the Players Association also needs to leave. Their charge is to represent and protect the players, but they sacrificed the good of the game in shielding their players from reasonable demands of accountability such as drug testing and consequences for failed tests.

I agree with Senator Mitchell that MLB needs better testing and stricter consequences. The most recent policy, while better than what existed before, is still horribly toothless. MLB ought to adopt the policy found in most international sports: a first positive test leads to a year-long suspension, and the second positive test leads to a lifetime suspension. Despite Selig’s claims yesterday, I doubt that until there is a change in leadership among both the owners and the players, that any major transformations in MLB’s drug policy will occur.

This controversy is worse than the pettiness of the strike of 1994. As of now, I will likely boycott MLB next season, which saddens me because I love the game. Living in Southern California has afforded me the first time in my life when I can see games in person at a reasonable cost and I try to go to several games each summer even though I despise both home teams here. My boycott will likely extend until I see significant changes in how MLB handles itself and the integrity of the game. I want to see a competitive, honest game, not professional wrestling run by greed.

Today, ESPN Radio is going to air Senator George Mitchell’s press conference on steroids in Major League Baseball live (2pm EST) and hours of commentary on the Mitchell Report afterwards. I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth for years, but have held off on my indignation until they disclosed the Report’s findings. Shame on the players who cheated, the Players Association for defending the cheaters while they mocked the game, and the owners and Commissioner’s Office for allowing this crap to happen.

I’m reminded of the following interaction in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:

“Who is he anyhow—an actor?”

“No.”

“A dentist?”

“Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”

“Fixed the World’s Series?” I repeated.

The idea staggered me. I remembered of course that the World’s Series had been fixed in 1919 but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people—with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.

“How did he happen to do that?” I asked after a minute.

“He just saw the opportunity.”

Can we now agree that the Bowl Championship Series is just utterly ridiculous?

In case you were wondering, UC Davis beat Sacramento State in football last weekend 31-26. That makes eight straight Causeway Classics the Aggies have won. Go Ags!