Maddux Sports Blog

If you were well above the average age of competitors in your sport then you should probably just have stayed at home on Sunday.

First, Lance Armstrong had to endure what must have been the most frustrating 20 minutes of his career. He and teammate Alberto Contador were virtually tied in Tour de France overall standings, and there was still some public debate about who would be the team’s leader – the one who the rest of the teammates work for to ensure he can win. There is no question about that anymore. Armstrong and Contador, who don’t seem to like each other much, were wheel to wheel for much of the long ride. The final 10 miles or so of the race were pretty much straight up hill. Again, Lance was climbing with Contador and looked very comfortable and relaxed. Suddenly, Contador made a bold move to break away. Armstrong had the legs to at least give chase and try to chase Contador down, but tradition dictates that you don’t try to chase down a teammate if he makes a break. That left Armstrong to sit there and stew as his shot to win the Tour likely went right out the window. This was almost certainly a team-dictated strategy and not one that Contador pursued on his own, but it still had to kill a competitive guy like Lance. He’s used to winning this race, and he is unlikely to have many  more chances to do so.

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Jason Schmidt hasn’t pitched in the majors for two years, but Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre announced before his game tonight that Schmidt is off the 60 day DL and will rejoin the team on Monday. Given what he has gone through, and because he is 36, I don’t hold out high hopes for him. Still, if he were able to come back and be even moderately useful then it’s a good boost to a rotation that is good but certainly could use some depth going into the stretch charge.

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I like old guys in professional sports who can still get the job done. On the other hand, I get peeved with old guys who don’t know when to hang it up. Of course, “old” is a relative term. Late 30s to 40s is old in most sports, whereas in most other aspects of life people in that age group are still considered young. It all has to do with peak physical performance, which for most happens in their late 20s to mid 30s. There have been some old guys in the new lately. Here they are.

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Of course I predicted that Miguel Angel Jimenez would be leading Tom Watson by one stroke after one round of the British Open. I mean, who didn’t? It was totally obvious. Bizarre. Only a couple of things made sense about the first round. Steve Stricker continued his hot play and is right in the mix. Camilo Villegas regained his lost form and is right there with Stricker. I’ll be annoyed if Villegas wins this thing – he’s been a choice for me in every major for the last couple of years, but I skipped over him this time because he has been so frustratingly ineffective. I think I’ll be safe, though. Oh, and what is it about Ben Curtis and this tournament? Bizarre.

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I can’t wait to see Tim Wakefield pitch in the all-star game. He’s a pleasure to watch, and he deserves to be there for the first time. There isn’t a high profile knuckleballer in the NL right now, so it could be fun to see some of these big guys facing a knuckleballer – perhaps for the first time ever. It’s the little stories like this that have to be relied upon to make the all-star game interesting, because as a whole it’s not a great event in my eyes.

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It was a pretty good day for a pair of friends today.

I had no doubt in my mind before today, but the argument has been made even more compelling – Roger Federer is unquestionably the greatest male tennis player of all time. If you didn’t see the match today then you really missed out. Andy Roddick, to his tremendous credit, played about as well as he could possibly have played. He was aggressive, accurate, and focused – three things that don’t always come in one package for the talented American. No matter what he did, though, Federer was there to match him. Roddick got close to a breakthrough a couple of times in the final marathon set, but whenever he pushed the Swiss star to the brink, Federer would fight his way out. Federer is so ridiculously creative – it’s almost as if he invents shots for particular situations, and as if he adapts his entire game to suit the needs of a particular situation. He wasn’t having an easy time handling Roddick’s blistering serve on Sunday, so he ratcheted his own serve up and, incredibly, almost doubled the number of aces Roddick had. It was a truly epic battle between two warriors, but you couldn’t shake the feeling from he very start that n matter what Roddick tried it wouldn’t quite be enough. Unbelievable.

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James Blake lost at Wimbledon already. I won’t spend anymore time dwelling on the pathetic state of American men’s tennis – you know the drill. Roger Federer won, too, and he made it look easy. I was a little bit concerned at the start because he looked a bit lethargic for the first few points, but then I realized that it was his first grass match of the year and I was less concerned. By the middle of the first set his legs were back under him and he looked very good. He rolled to an easy win, and gave us no reason to doubt his ability to win it all.

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What a strange day of golf that was to watch. Ricky Barnes started out looking like he was totally unbeatable, and looked worse and worse as the day progressed. Mike Weir self-destructed like he is sadly prone to do. Phil Mickelson paired every thoroughly impressive hole with an equally awful one. David Duval looked like he was teetering on the brink the whole time, yet somehow mostly kept it together. Most bizarre, though, was Tiger. It’s not that he played poorly – he is human, so that can happen. It’s how bad his body language was. He was shooting poorly, and he was showing his frustration in increasingly negative and self-destructive ways. I don’t know what was going through his head, but it wasn’t good. There certainly wasn’t that killer instinct that we are so used to seeing from him. He’s played well at times since returning from injury, but this is clear proof that he’s far from alright.

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This US Open may never end. It’s reasonably entertaining, but it is so inconsistent and the weather is such a factor that there will be an asterisk the size of my head beside the name of whoever wins this one. At this rate Monday golf seems like a lock, and Tuesday could even be a possibility if things don’t change. I golfed on Friday with a woman whose boss paid a ridiculous amount of money to golf with Tiger Woods at a charity event. On Tuesday. It would be crushing to miss out of something like that. Of course, Tiger might not be in much of a mood to golf on Tuesday given how he has played so far, so maybe missing out would be a lucky thing.

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I was sad to see yesterday that Dontrelle Willis was held out of his next start. Nobody is saying it, but you have to imagine that it will be very hard for him to find his way back into the rotation. He showed some promise in his early starts, but he’s been getting increasingly ineffective since then. He’s clearly not a major league pitcher at this point. It never fails to amaze me to see a guy totally lose his game like that. It’s like what has happened with Fausto Carmona – a couple of years ago he was the next big thing, and now he’s toiling down in class A.

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