Curing big-time blues
with baseballs bombers
Hockaday
Two minutes
for cross
checking
Welcome to the bot
tom of the barrel.
If you’re a sports
fan, you’ve hit the
low point of the year. Wimble
don is over. The U.S. Open of
golf is over. The NBA and NHL
playoffs are
ancient his
tory.
NFL trades
are looking
pretty inter
esting, even
if they in
clude guys
named
Michael
Bates. The
Tour de
France actu
ally stays on
the televi
sion for a
while, be
cause no
body wants to risk changing the
channel. There might be Atlanta
baseball on TBS.
Stock-car racing is the top sto
ry on Sportscenter.
Yes, sports fans, you are at
ground zero. There is nowhere
to go but up.
And yet... I can hear some
thing in the distance. A faint
“crack” sound.
It’s nothing. That must be the
sound of Aaron Sele breaking a
bat over the head of American
League All-Star manager Joe
Torre, because Torre chose
Andy Pettite over Sele to go to
the game.
But there it is again, a little
louder this time.
“Crack!”
Come on. I’m hallucinating
here, right? That’s just the sound
of a Jackie Stiles three-pointer
sizzling through the Rose Gar
den net in a WNBA matchup be
tween the Portland Fire and the
Los Angeles Sparks, right?
“CRACK.”
A little bit louder now. A little
bit louder now. C’mon and shout
with me now! It’s the sound of a
Home Run Derby baseball being
cracked — I mean jacked — out
of Seattle’s Safeco Field by Sam
mv Sosa!
“CRACK!”
There’s a shot by Barry Bonds.
My oh my, that ball hit the Space
Needle!
Luis Gonzalez steps up to the
plate ... he strokes it... and that
ball... will... fly ... away! Gon
zalez will ... win ... the ... con
test!
Just when you thought the
summer sports blues had set in,
Major League Baseball went and
picked you up, literally, from
your seat.
There goes a shot by Alex Ro
driguez ... oh, it falls just short
of the wall. Well, with the wind
from all those Seattle fans boo
ing their former star, I’m sur
prised it got that far. Actually, A
Rod flopped in the contest after
his first warm reception at Safe
co Field all year. He must have
been caught by surprise.
Ahhh, the Home Run Derby.
It’s the contest all Little League
players dream of. Heck, even
Mark McGwire dreams of it.
“Crack!”
There’s a shot from Bret
Boone, and that ball has a lot of
... hold on, Bret Boone? This
year’s wild card, hometown fa
vorite and little-red-engine
that-could all wrapped up into
one, Boonie didn’t make a very
big impression on the Home
Run Derby, hitting only three
bombs. Hey, Luis, can you say
63-24? Bret Boone and the
Mariners can.
Oh, and Boonie also beat A
Rod by one home run. Small vic
tories are important, too, Luis.
On another note, it’s too bad
first-round homers don’t hold
up for later rounds, because Ja
son Giambi would have beaten
the pants off his competition af
ter 14 homers in the first round.
“Crack, crack, crack, crack, etc.!”
That’s what Giambi’s first
round sounded like. The man
hit six home runs in a row at one
point. Eventual winner Gonza
lez hit six home runs in the third
round and never even thought
about 14.
But hey, good for Gonzo. The
Diamondbacks’ star has been
flailing in Barry Bonds’ home
run shadow all season. Way to
go Gonzo! The Home Run Derby
means ... absolutely ... nothing.
That, of course, is the beauty
of the Home Run Derby. It means
nothing, just like the All-Star
Game itself. But it provides
something for journalists to
gripe about, just like the All-Star
voting.
Plus, the “cracks” of those bats
are enough to cure those mid
summer blues. They should be
just enough to hold you over un
til preseason NFL starts, anyway.
Peter Hockaday is the sports editor for the
Emerald. He can be reached at phocka
day@yahoo.com.
M
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Canada honors Duck coach
■ Bev Smith adds an honor and
a pair of assistant coaches to her
growing Oregon list
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Bev Smith seems to be doing
everything alone these days.
The former Oregon basketball
star recently took over as the head
women’s basketball coach at her
alma mater, a very lonely position
in itself.
Then, last week, Smith was
named as the only 2001 inductee
into the Canadian Basketball Hall
of Fame, announced by Canada
Basketball and the Naismith Foun
dation. The honor came after Smith
led the Canadian national team for
three years before taking over as the
Oregon coach.
“It’s a very prestigious honor,”
Smith said in a release.
Smith, Oregon’s career leader in
rebounds, assists and steals, also
helped Canadian national basket
ball as a player. The Salmon Arm,
British Columbia, native was called
Canada’s “Larry Bird” by former
Canadian national coach Don Mc
Crae.
“She was able to do all things on
the court,” McCrae said. “If there
were extended statistics kept, Bev
would have been in the top three in
all categories.”
As a player, Smith led Canada to
a fourth-place finish at the
Olympics in 1984. As a coach,
Smith led the team to a lOth-place
showing at the Olympics in 2000,
as well as a silver medal at the Pan
Am Games in 1999.
Smith has also had coaching and
playing stints in Italy and British
Columbia. Her longest job so far has
been with the Canadian national
team.
“It feels like I’ve been selected to
another team,” Smith said. “There
are a lot of important and historic
people in the Hall of Fame who
have made a big difference in Cana
da basketball.”
Among the notable feats which
led to her election, Smith is second
all-time in Oregon scoring and the
only Duck female athlete to be
named a first-team All-American.
She was the Northwest Basketball
League player of the year three
times and still holds eight Oregon
records.
The cherry on top
After she shut the door on Cana
dian basketball with her induction
to the Hall of Fame, Smith finished
her preparations for the start of her
Oregon coaching career by naming
her final two assistants.
Smith appointed Allison and
Mike McNeill, a husband and wife
team, to her remaining coaching
vacancies. The McNeills will join
Dan Muscatell, an assistant under
former coach Jody Runge, on the
bench with Smith.
Both McNeills come from the
same background as Smith. Alli
son, also a Salmon Arm native,
was an Oregon player at the same
time as Smith, and a coach at Si
mon Fraser University in British
Columbia.
The McNeills bring 36 years of
coaching experience to the Oregon
bench.
Wild card Ivanisevic wins Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON, England — Dur
ing the final game, Goran Ivanisevic
began to cry, his fragile psyche
frayed by three hours of tense ten
nis and a decade of heart-wrench
ing frustration at Wimbledon.
He kissed the ball. He crossed
himself. He violently shook his
left arm, trying to relax. But twice
he double-faulted one point from
victory, too nervous to put his
serve in play.
As Ivanisevic’s duel with Pat
Rafter reached its climax, each
point brought yet another deafen
ing roar from the most boisterous
crowd to attend a Wimbledon fi
nal. Finally, on the fourth cham
pionship point, Ivanisevic
slapped a service winner and the
title was his.
The popular Croat fell in a heap
in disbelief and rolled over, his face
buried in the Centre Court lawn
that had bedeviled him for so long.
In a match likely to rank with the
most memorable in Grand Slam
history, three-time runner-up Ivani
sevic finally won Wimbledon on
Monday, outlasting Rafter 6-3, 3-6,
6-3, 2-6, 9-7.
"I think I'm dreaming," said
Ivanisevic, 29. "Somebody is going
to wake me up and tell me, 'Man,
Mad
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With seven-time champion Pete
Sampras sidelined by a fourth
round upset, Ivanisevic emerged
as an improbable successor. The
tournament was his 48th major
event, the most ever for a first
time Grand Slam champion, and
he became the first wild card to
win a major men’s title.
"This is what I was waiting all
my life," he said.
Ivanisevic speaks in amusingly
mangled English, his head-spin
ning self-analysis and rich baritone
enhancing the comedic effect. But
there was nothing funny about his
defeats in the 1992,1994 and 1998
finals.
Hampered by a sore shoulder
that will require surgery at the end
of the year, he came to this year's
tournament with his career in an
18-month freefall. He needed a
wild-card invitation because his
ranking had tumbled to 125th.
But his big serve blossoms on
grass, his favorite surface. He won
Wimbledon on his 14th try, and he
did it before a crowd of 13,370 that
rocked the cathedral of tennis.
Because rain washed out most of
Saturday's schedule, the men's final
began on a Monday for the first
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Finals are typically sold out in
advance, but 10,000 tickets went on
sale 2 1/2 hours before the match.
As the result, the stands were
filled with a younger, noisier crowd
than usual, with many fans likely
attending Wimbledon for the first
time. They sang, chanted, cheered
double-faults and turned Centre
Court into a kaleidoscope of flags,
inflated kangaroos, face paint and
clown hats.
For once, the only suits were in
the royal box.
"I don't know if Wimbledon has
seen anything like it," Rafter said. "I
don't know if they will again. It was
electric."
"So many Australian fans and
Croatians, like a football match,"
Ivanisevic said. "The crowd was
just too good."
The atmosphere was similar
when rain forced Wimbledon to
play on the middle Sunday in 1991
and 1997, but the staid tournament
had never staged a final like this.
Support for the two players was
even, just like the match. They
played the longest fifth set of any fi
nal, dating back to 1877.
The Associated Press
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