Two perfect games have been thrown since I last wrote — one official, one unofficial. Even though Roy Halladay is on the Phillies, I was rooting for him to get that perfect game. I wanted people to realize how fucking awesome he is, and I think that’s finally happened. I think it’s happened with Chase Utley, too. Maybe It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was the tipping point. Or maybe it was the 5 HR in the World Series. Who could possibly guess?

But a player that people don’t yet appreciate AT ALL is Ryan Zimmerman. I thought maybe his fantastic year last season — combined with David Wright’s down year — would bring him into the discussion as the best 3B in the NL. Sure, it has done that among internet denizens, but it seems the general public still doesn’t even know he exists. Hitting .295 with 13 HR while being lauded for top-notch defense apparently isn’t enough to be in the Top 5 in All-Star Game voting. It’s almost infuriating to hear people talk about Stephen Strasburg and say how it’s great that the Nationals “finally have a star.” I’d say that maybe 3B just isn’t that sexy or something, but both Evan Longoria and the aforementioned Wright have had their knobs lathered with sportswriter adulation for a couple of years now. Zimmerman deserves to be given EXACTLY the same amount of attention and praise. I should have left some of this for its own post.

The World Cup, on the other hand, I can cover more than well enough within this post — mostly because I don’t know shit and can think of multiple friends who could write up more interesting thoughts on it. I know America got fucked over, I know England has been hilariously awful, and I know there have been a number of mind-blowing upsets. That’s about as much as I can be bothered to type about soccer.

Two other sports I barely care about finished up in the past month. It’s kinda sad, because I do find hockey pretty damn exciting when I care (like USA-Canada in the Olympics), but I just couldn’t bring myself to watch more than a period of two a game intently. And that wasn’t until the Finals. The NBA just sucks. I hate it. I hate the Lakers. I hate the Celtics. I hate how games turn into foul-shooting contests. I hate how much refs can control games. I hate Phil Jackson’s face.

(I will overcome these feelings if LeBron comes to the Knicks.)

Keeping up with other things that suck, The Sporting News published their “25 Under 25″ list. This would be their rankings of the best young athletes in only the popular North American sports. There is no Michael Phelps. No Lionel Messi (someone alerted me to his greatness). No Rafael Nadal. These are three generational talents, but they don’t play baseball, basketball, (American) football, hockey…or drive a fucking stock car. To be fair, it doesn’t seem like they cover the sports in which those athletes excel, but it’s pathetic anyway. Even Sportscentury, if I remember correctly, made a point to say “North America” whenever referring to its list of greatest athletes of the 20th century.

If you didn’t figure it out, this was a way for me to mention Rafael Nadal taking back his rightful place as the King of Clay at Roland Garros. He now has five French Open titles to go along with his one Wimblebon and one Australian Open. He’s still not even halfway to Roger Federer’s total of 16 Grand Slam title, but he could make it there in the coming weeks at Wimbledon. I think every tennis fan is praying for another Federer-Nadal Grand Slam final. There hasn’t been one since the 2009 Australian Open. None of the finals since then have quite lived up to that one, although the Federer-Roddick 2009 Wimbledon war of attrition came close. I know some people found that serve-dominated match to be boring, but I found Roddick’s determination absolutely enthralling. That’s about as embarrassingly gushy as I’ve ever gotten on this blog, but fuck if I didn’t feel for Roddick after that match. HE JUST CAN’T BEAT FEDERER.

But yeah, a Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final is solely needed; I won’t accept anything less. I said going into 2008 Wimbledon that if Nadal beat Federer, it would signal the beginning of the end. I was wrong then, but I’m going back to that well. Federer is now 29. He didn’t reach the semifinals at the French, ending a streak of 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals. Nadal is not yet 25 — even if his knees might be older than Federer’s. I’ll leave it at that.

The Hardball Times Annual 2010

This is a bit obvious, but this book is only for hardcore baseball fans. Half of the book is writing, but the other half is STATS STATS STATS — mostly stats that you can get online. So really, the only part worth talking about is the writing, and what’s there is pretty great. But once again, I enjoyed the “Analysis” section the most and I can only see that appealing to major eggheads. Championship Leverage Index, Hit Tracker, PitchFX — I can’t see the typical fan in the stands to be interested in this stuff, but I absolutely eat it up. This is why I read Fangraphs and bought The Book and create Excel spreadsheets with WAR data.

Fahrenheit 451

Such a quick read that it’s practically a novella. Ray Bradbury is just a brisk read, going by this book and The Martian Chronicles, and I appreciate that. Fahrenheit 451 is a very straight-forward story, one whose themes have been prevalent in plenty of books and movies and TV shows and whatever since, but it still manages to be pretty interesting. The theme of people just wanting to be happy and watching TV all around them on their parlor walls sort of reminds me of Idiocracy, but I’d say 451 is a few notches above that ridiculously bad movie on the quality ladder. I have to say that the reason WHY books are all being burned in that dystopian future was the most surprising and thought-provoking aspect, when compared to other dystopian novels like 1984 and Brave New World that seem to think the ultimate destruction of society will come from the top-down. It’s a classic for a reason — just read it.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

Probably the most fun I’ve had reading in a long, long time. Now I understand why people were flipping out when news of David Foster Wallace’s suicide came out. The guy is a fucking genius and an absolute joy to read. He writes about tennis, television, a state fair, Lost Highway (an essay I admittedly decided not to read until I watch Lost Highway), and a Caribbean cruise all with the same enthusiasm and emotional sincerity, all with the same amazingly fun prose and insight. Even all his footnotes are immensely entertaining — and he likes footnotes.

This tennis essay is part of this essay collection, and it’s the best piece of sportswriting I’ve ever read. The original title was “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness.” I guess that was too long for the Esquire website. I’m just going to post some passages:

There are very few paying customers on the grounds on Saturday, but there are close to a hundred world-class players: big spidery French guys with gelled hair, American kids with peeling noses and Pac-10 sweats, lugubrious Germans, bored-looking Italians. There are blank-eyed Swedes and pockmarked Colombians and cyberpunkish Brits. Malevolent Slavs with scary haircuts. Mexican players who spend their spare time playing two-on-two soccer in the gravel outside the players’ tent. With few exceptions, all the players have similar builds — big muscular legs, shallow chests, skinny necks, and one normal-size arm and one monstrously huge and hypertrophic arm. Many of these players in the qualies, or qualifying rounds, have girlfriends in tow, sloppily beautiful European girls with sandals and patched jeans and leather backpacks, girlfriends who set up cloth lawn courts.

Whether or not he ends up in the top ten and a name anybody will know, Michael Joyce will remain a paradox. The restrictions on his life have been, in my opinion, grotesque; and in certain ways Joyce himself is a grotesque. But the radical compression of his attention and sense of himself have allowed him to become a transcendent practitioner of an art — something few of us get to be. They’ve allowed him to visit and test parts of his psychic reserves most of us do not even know for sure we have (courage, playing with violent nausea, not choking, et cetera).

Joyce is, in other words, a complete man, though in a grotesquely limited way. But he wants more. He wants to be the best, to have his name known, to hold professional trophies over his head as he patiently turns in all four directions for the media. He wants this and will pay to have it — to pursue it, let it define him — and will pay up with the regretless cheer of a man for whom issues of choice became irrelevant a long time ago. Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well.

I know the essay is long, but just read it. Print it out if you have to. Or just buy the essay collection. It’s less than 10 bucks. Two-thirds the price of Avatar in 3D and about 100 times better.

This is what I get for betraying Rafael Nadal. I want Nadal to start making you cry again next year, please. I guess you only use your tear ducts when you get beaten by a Spaniard, since Del Potro didn’t make you bring on the waterworks. I can’t believe this shit. I specifically remember last night writing “I have little doubt that Fed will go on to win the U.S. Open tomorrow,” but then I changed it to “no doubt,” because how could there be any doubt when Federer’s the best at anything ever? You Swiss bastard.

I guess you got a new trophy today, though. You never got that runner-up U.S. Open trophy. That’s a positive, right? Another piece of silverware to add to the massive collection. I hope you get used to it, old man. Nadal and Del Potro are going to be on your ass next year. Del Potro possibly even moreso, considering the 6’6′ Argentinian isn’t even 21 years old yet. He’s going to smash that forehand down your throat. He dismantled two of the greatest tennis players ever in back-to-back days with that booming shot. On the other hand, one was hurt and the other played like shit. I’ll try not to get too excited, like I stupidly did when Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open last year.

The best thing to come out of the final tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NfLZGZ-ULg

But I don’t make this post to talk about this crap, I make this post to embed this YouTube video, which includes a shot that will be played a million times over the course of human civilization.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVQhIEPbM0g

Federer made that shot on the next-to-last point of the game. It would have been too perfect for him to end a straight-set victory with such an insane shot. We’ve all seen the between-the-legs shot made before, but not with the ball 6 inches off the ground, with the ball making it 6 inches over the net, and the shot landing 6 inches from the corner. Holy fuck.

Hey, notice how I ignored Nadal getting totally dismantled the other day? Yeah. That sucked.

Like everyone else, I thought Roddick had no shot going into the final. Unlike almost everyone else, I’ve always been a pretty big fan of Roddick. Yes, most Americans were probably fans back before the Reign of Federer, but once he started falling off, losing to Federer in straight-sets every match, his bandwagon got fairly thin. I’ll admit that I’ve been a bigger Nadal fan in recent years, but how could I not be? If you love watching tennis, you had to choose a side in the Nadal-Federer battle and I chose Nadal. Unfortunately, Nadal’s knees have already (or finally, depending on how you look at it) started to go, stopping him at the French and keeping him out of Wimbledon. This left an opening in the bracket — and in my rooting interests — for Andy Roddick, the forgotten man.

This meant waking up at 9 am on a Sunday — not that it matters when I can sleep in late on the weekdays — to in all likelihood watch an American getting destroyed the day after the Fourth of July. What I got to watch almost made up for all the matches I saw where Federer totally dismantled Roddick. Almost.

I watched a 5-set nailbiter that showcased one of the greatest serving performances you’ll ever see, and the man behind that performance lost, because his opponent was able to serve with pinpoint accuracy even longer. It wasn’t a Nadal-Federer final, filled with obscenely long rallies; it was a final filled with absurdly easy service games, making every break point seem like it meant the match. Somehow Roddick went 37 service games without Federer converting any of those break points. He seemed to pull out a 135 mph serve down the middle whenever he needed it — except for that second set tiebreak. It’ll be a tiebreak he will no doubt go over in his mind for years. Up 6-2, with two opportunities to blast an unreturnable serve to end the set and go up 2-0, he ended up faulting on both of the chances, giving Federer the opportunity to capitalize on his comparatively weak second serve. Naturally, Federer did.

That was where the match ended. Roddick kept on fighting — even after losing another tiebreak in the 3rd set — and managed to get to a fifth set. I fooled myself into thinking this was an advantage for Roddick, considering he still hadn’t gotten broken. But the match was already over. Federer still wasn’t sweating. After winning the final set 16-14 as Roddick mishit a ball into the stands, he still wasn’t. He was hitting aces with Federbot precision, and only decided to attack Roddick’s serve when it suited him. Roddick had the unenviable position of serving second, but he managed to hold 10 times while the match was on the line. I’d say it was a performance he will never match, but he had already won a fifth set in the 2003 Australian Open 21-19. On the other hand, that wasn’t against Roger Federer, now the greatest Grand Slam champion of all-time.

It probably took me too long to truly appreciate Federer’s greatness, but this past year really has put him in a new light. I used to say I never saw him fight, but how can I say that after a match like this? How can I say it after his fights against Nadal in last year’s Wimbledon and this year’s Australian Open? He still makes it look way too easy, and he still hasn’t proven to have an answer for Nadal, but hey, at least his style of play hasn’t led his knees to disintegrate by the age of 23. I really hope Nadal comes back strong, though. Andy Murray doesn’t seem to be quite there yet, and Novak Djokovic is a massive vagina. So I’m going ahead and predicting a Federer-Roddick final for the U.S. Open. Perhaps Roddick can turn the tide on home soil. I don’t want to see this again.

Pic courtesy of Deadspin.

So I guess this is Federer’s chance to win, right? I can’t imagine the waterworks if Andy Murray continues his dominance over Fed and beats him in the final. Federer would drown in a pool of his own tears and clay. What would be even more incredible would be if Andy RODDICK beat Federer in the quarterfinals. Hahah, that was a good one. No really, if that happened I’d think a hole had ripped in the space-time continuum.

I still can’t believe that just happened, but it only serves to illuminate the amazingness of Federer the last 5 years. The guy makes the semifinals every. single. time. And usually the finals.

For all intents and purposes, it started on Saturday night for me. I stayed up to watch the entire Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal Australian Open final. Yes, I was awake at 8:30 AM to watch Federer bawl his Swiss eyes out. I knew I had time to sleep before the American part of the day, and I’m glad I was able to watch Federer turn into a massive vagina on live television.

Up until the 5th set, this may have been the best match I’ve seen between the two, even better than the Wimbledon final last year. There were so many rallies that totally blew my mind, and most of them were won by Nadal. But then the fifth set was a massive letdown, with Federer totally pussying out. The 22-year-old Spaniard just wanted the title more. Nadal had played a 5+ hour match two nights before — while Federer had a extra day of rest — and after playing 4 and a half hours, Nadal was the one who looked like he could play another 5 sets. Federer, after getting broken in the that final set, just gave up. And then in the aftermath, he cried, making Nadal feel he needed to apologize again for being the better player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euc2Zve69qg

After this match, I feel safe in saying this: I have never been so enthralled watching tennis as I am when I watch Rafael Nadal play. I’ve never seen a player so absolutely relentless, so mentally tough. As incredible as it is to watch Federer totally embarrass and dismantle his opponents, he just always makes it look too easy. Obviously he cares, and has immense passion for the sport, but Nadal just leaves his heart out on the court every. single. match. Every single point, even. He’s a goddamn madman who plays with total abandon and with no regard for his knees, which may explode at any moment. What happened to Federer in that fifth set would never happen to Nadal, and that’s why he has a shot at winning the Grand Slam this year. He has conquered every court now, and he owns the one man who could possibly stand in his way.

Now on to the biggest unofficial American holiday. I feel pretty un-American that I was more excited for the AO final than the Super Bowl, but come on, the Cardinals? And actually, I probably can’t type any more about the Super Bowl than I just did for the AO final. I missed the first quarter due to getting lost in an epic fashion, then missed the first 8 minutes of the third quarter due to the halftime Rock Band sesh going on too long. And even when i did watch, I was only half paying attention. Except for the 4th quarter, of course.

Why did it take Kurt Warner so long to start throwing to Larry Fitzgerald? The dude is an absolute beast. I feel like Arnold needs to kill him at some point. Predator was the MVP of the game, easily — it’s just a shame that Roethlisberger survived slamming his head through that windshield to come back and manufacture that winning drive. On a final note, that 100-yard INT return by Harrison was hilarious shit. There was no way that should’ve happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDeboVmambo

That’s clay court shit right there. Two crazy Spaniards running and spinning around, blasting the ball at every corner of the court, ending with Rafael Nadal winning. Fernando Verdasco, as relentless as he was the entire match, as brutal as his forehand blasts were, Nadal was his usual unbreakable (not in a service game kind of way) self.

I woke up this morning around 6:00 AM, and the semifinal match in which this absurd point took place had been going on for over two hours already. When I arrived at work at 9:00 AM, the match was still going. Luckily for my productivity, only a few minutes later, Verdasco double-faulted in the 10th game of the 5th set to end the match. That was after 5 hours of some of the most high-octane tennis ever played. It was more anti-climactic than the ending to No Country for Old Men.

Roger Federer ate dinner and no doubt slept while the match was going on, comfortable knowing that whoever he faced would have one less day of rest. If there’s anyone that can come back from such an epic match in less than two days, it’s Nadal. But I doubt it.

Anyway, the real story was Roger Federer dismantling the field and shutting everyone the hell up in the process — including myself. I still think that the total, absolute dominance he displayed for quite a few years is over, but I guess he still has it in him to shatter Sampras’ Grand Slam record. Maybe the effects of mono have been lingering the entire season up til now. Maybe the fast surface of the U.S. Open is actually better for him at this point than Wimbledon, which has apparently slowed down in recent years. Either way, he looked like himself this tournament.

I just felt like I needed to make this post, since I’ve been posting about most of his disappointments this year. You can sleep well tonight, Roger. Your victory is now documented in my blog.

And I’m not even sure if that’s hyperbole. The Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal was that absolutely insane. It even achieved the feat of turning John McEnroe into a pathetic fanboy. I feel obligated to write this post — even though it’s so late — since my post about LAST YEAR’S Wimbledon final is getting a shitload of hits. But the match deserves a massive post, anyway. It took up my entire Sunday, so the least I can do is write a bunch of words only a few people will read.

I woke up a little later than I wanted to — 10 am — but the match started a bit late, so I only missed 3 games. Amazingly, Nadal had already broken Federer. So I plopped myself in my computer chair, in front of my laptop and SDTV, and threw up a post about that fact on the GAF Wimbledon thread. Little did I know I’d be sitting there for the next SIX AND A HALF HOURS.

I was posting in the GAF thread and talking in IRC the entire match. It was the closest I could get to watching the match with other people. Every great rally or incredible shot was greeted with a chorus of “HOLY SHIT!”s and “HOW THE FUCK?”s. It didn’t really get crazy until the second set, though. Due to both Federer playing one of his almost-signature subpar first sets and Americans slowly waking up.

As the second set started, Federer activated Federbot mode, and he quickly broke Nadal. I was pretty worried that Nadal was in trouble, but then the unimaginable happened. Federer blew a 4-1 set lead by getting broken TWICE. In the same set. At Wimbledon. He only had his serve broken twice in the REST OF THE TOURNAMENT. With a two-set lead in his capri pants pocket, it looked like Nadal was on his way to another straight-set final win over Federer, a la the French Open. It looked so over that this NYT writer that was covering the match went and watched Hancock instead. That guy shouldn’t be allowed to write another sports article ever again. Go review shitty Will Smith blockbusters, asshole. But my growing hate of sportswriters, commentators, and announcers is best left for another post. I wasn’t paid to watch the match, yet I continued sitting here because I knew I was watching history: Federer losing his bid to win his 6th straight Wimbledon, and the balance of power in tennis shifting in one momentous occasion.

But Federer didn’t roll over like at the French Open. This was his tournament — he wasn’t going to let some Spanish kid running around the court like a dog playing fetch take his crown. So he decided to make it rain in the middle of the third set. Yes, I’m fairly certain Federer can control the weather. When they came back to play the rest of the set, Federer seemed refreshed. The hour delay had no doubt neutralized Nadal’s momentum, and I was pissed. As the third set went to a tiebreak, I knew there was no way Nadal could win it, and he unsurprisingly gave it up easily. We had a championship match on our hands.

By this time, my stomach was already a wreck, and it only got worse until the match ended 3 hours later. I haven’t pulled for a player like I do with Nadal since Pete Sampras was still playing. I wanted to see Nadal beat Federer on the brink of history, like seeing the Giants ruin the Patriots’ perfect season on the very last drive of the Super Bowl.

I’m not even going to bother trying to explain or describe most of the fourth set, since I really don’t remember much. I just know there were no breaks, and they went to another tiebreaker. I figured Federer had it wrapped up once again, but Nadal jumped out to a big 5-2 lead with the opportunity to serve the match out — but then he double-faulted. Next thing he knew, Federer was up 6-5. Nadal soon managed to have two match points, though — but both times Federer countered with obscene shots. In between, Nadal had one of his own. Like I mentioned, there’s no point to trying to describe it in words. I just remember wanting to puke. Especially when the tiebreak ended with Federer winning yet again.

The crowd, the momentum, and history were all on Federer’s side. Nadal had blown two championship points. It was getting harder and harder to imagine the 22-year-old Spainard pulling off the impossible. It was looking like instead of the Super Bowl upset, it would end up with me wanting to bite my tongue off in anger, like when I watched the ending to Heat.

During the fifth set, it rained again. It looked like the match would spill over into the next day, since the British apparently don’t know how to build ROOFS OR LIGHTS. I was flipping out, imagining the possibility of not being able to watch the end of possibly the greatest tennis match ever live. But after only a half-hour, they were back on the court, even if it was getting dark. This time, the rain delay helped Nadal. It took until the 15th game of the set, but Nadal finally broke Federer to go up 8-7, to have the opportunity to serve out the match. In case you didn’t know, there is no tiebreak in the 5th set at Wimbledon. At this point, both players said they could barely see. Federer looked exhausted. He was done. Nadal served it out, ending the match after 4 hours and 48 minutes. Pete Sampras was masturbating furiously at home.

6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7

Wimbledon Champion: Rafael Nadal

The first time Federer had lost on grass since 2002. His 65-match grass court streak ended. His 40-match winning streak at Wimbledon over, one short of Bjorn Borg’s record, and left forever tied with Borg with five straight Wimbledon titles. And Nadal becoming the first man since Borg in 1980 to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.

Now, as the tournament started, I posted this:

Wimbledon 2008. If Federer wins: He’s still got it, greatest player ever, Sampras am fucked. If Federer loses: His reign at the top is over, he might never break Sampras’ record, Nadal owns his soul. I’m going with the latter.

I am awesome. And I stand by it. Federer still has more than a good chance to break Sampras’ record, but it doesn’t seem to be the foregone conclusion it was before this year. Breaking Sampras’ record of seven Wimbledon titles also looks a lot less likely. He’s going to be 27 in less than a month. His prime is over, the era of the Swiss android winning 3 out of 4 Grand Slams every year is past. And Nadal quite obviously owns his soul. Federer was despondent after the match, on the verge of tears when talking to John McEnroe in the post-match interview — prompting McEnroe to hug him. A hilarious moment, albeit not for Federer. Nadal has totally broken him in the past two Grand Slams. First, by embarrassing him at the French, and now by taking away the championship that he cares about most.

Now, Federer and Nadal are both still head-and-shoulders above the rest of tennis, but Novak Djokovic can cement his status to be mentioned in the same breath as them if he manages to win the U.S. Open. This has to be the most important U.S. Open in years. People are going to expect Nadal to win, even though he hasn’t quite mastered hard courts yet. And Federer has to prove that he’s still the best, as his perch on top of the ATP rankings is teetering. Meanwhile, Djokovic is the guy who actually won the last hard court Grand Slam at the Australian Open. But that almost deserves an asterisk, as Federer had mono at the time. I hear mono can have lingering effects; maybe Federer still isn’t 100%, who knows. I just know I’m looking forward to the U.S. Open more than any other sporting event right now (especially since both the Mets and Yankees don’t look like they’re going to make the playoffs).

Thank you Rafael Nadal, for making tennis exciting again. The entire nation of Spain must be partying 24/7 between you and Euro 08. If you’re a tennis enthusiast, you might also want to explore a Padel Tennis Court for a different, exciting experience on the court.