You can’t say he doesn’t have a flair for the dramatic!

His entire career has been made up of highlight reel after highlight reel. He is Mr. November. I still consider The Play he made against Oakland in Game 3 of the 2001 American League Division Series as being the best play I’ve ever seen, up there with the Eli-to-Tyree catch in Superbowl XLII. He’s won 5 championships, and should have won a 6th in that magical 2001 World Series. Today, he blasted a home run to left field to collect his 3000th hit (in a huge 5-for-5 day), cementing his place in the Hall of Fame. History, with an exclamation mark.

And through it all, he’s done it with grace and humility unparalleled in professional sports. He is the Captain of the New York Yankees, among the most storied franchises in all of sports. Yet he doesn’t act it except where it counts – on the field and in the clubhouse. He could own this town if he wanted to, yet he has always conducted himself with the utmost respect for the uniform that he dons every summer. He is the ultimate team player, always putting the team victory above personal achievements.

I have been amazed at the people calling into the talk shows that have turned on the Captain, complaining about the fact that he actually tried to negotiate for a new contract this past off-season. Obviously fairweather fans, and not true Yankee fans who understand what Jeter means to this team and this city. If anyone has earned the right to call his own shots, it is him. And he still did it the right way (it was Cashman who tried to get public pressure on his side by spilling things to the press), and has maintained a dignified stance ever since. The man has nothing to prove, and I hope that through all the noise from the fringe, he knows it.

To paraphrase the great Joe DiMaggio:

“I want to thank the Good Lord for making Derek Jeter a Yankee”

What a picture. I was a very young kid when India won in 1983, so I have no real memory of that moment when cricket became India’s national game. Ever since then, the dream to see it happen again was revisited every 4 years, and every 4 years there was just heartbreak. So when Dhoni hit that magnificent, timeless six to clinch the trophy, the screams of joy were mixed with an incredible sense of relief. The feeling of catharsis was indescribable. This home video capturing our ecstatic screams of victory will join the video I made when the Giants won the Superbowl as one of my most precious memories.

What’s even more amazing is the way India won the trophy. Dethroning the 3 time (12 years!) champions Australia, emerging victorious against Pakistan in the sub-continental Mahayudha, and then defeating the always dangerous Sri Lanka in a roller-coaster of a match – there can be no doubting this team. It was a complete team effort, with almost everyone having to step up and contribute to the run. On the cricket crazed subcontinent (as evidenced from this incredible collection of photographs), this was the only way to win that would stand up to any doubters.

The win was made all the more significant by the fact that it allowed the greatest cricketer of all time to finally get the championship he craved and so richly deserved. Sachin Tendulkar has carried the hopes and dreams of India cricket on his shoulders for two decades now. And after shattering every record there is, all that was missing was a World Cup title. When player after player on the Indian team said that they played this tournament for Sachin, you sensed just how much Sachin means to Indian cricket, and how much of a motivation winning it for him had become. No one deserves this more, and it was incredibly emotional to see him finally lift that trophy.

On a much more personal note, Tanu pointed out that Arav was with us in her womb when my beloved New York Giants shocked the Pats to win Superbowl XLII. Since then, I’ve seen Manchester United win the Champions League,  the New York Yankees win the World Series, and now India win the World Cup. I have been incredibly lucky to watch every one of my teams rise to the top and win it all, and I am sure I have my lucky charm to thank for that (as if I needed more reasons to love the little bugger). And to have been able to share the joy of victory with friends was just an incredible bonus. What a feeling!

You know World Cup mania is approaching fever-pitch when the requisite Nike ad comes out. And the 2010 WorldCup edition is absolutely brilliant. Not only is the soccer imagery dazzling, it mixes in today’s soccer greats like Rooney and Ronaldo with non-soccer greats like Kobe, Federer and Homer Simpson(!). And the Facebook “like” button makes it in there as well.

Nike Write The Future from Wieden + Kennedy London on Vimeo.

Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.

The Wayne Rooney segment is just hilarious, but given the way our stock markets have been (mis)behaving recently, some of it hits a little too close to home. And it’s obvious that Nike couldn’t predict Ronaldinho not making the Brazilian squad, or they wouldn’t have featured him so prominently. I only wish Messi (the world’s greatest player right now, without doubt) were in the ad too. Oh, and as a Manchester United fan, I miss Ronaldo and I hate Ribery!

“Write the Future” indeed. I cannot wait for the World Cup to begin. Should be amazing.

It’s a bit late due to my trip to California last week, but I can finally recap what a great week I had before I left. My Best Sports Week Ever consisted of my first ever visit to the US Open where I watched Federer stretched to 5 sets, going to the New York Giants home opener where they celebrated their win in Superbowl XLII and taking a tour of Yankee Stadium before it shuts its doors forever at the end of the season. A great combination of rare sports related activities that just happened to converge on the same week of my life. I uploaded the photographs to the ‘Life As We Know It‘ section of my website, along with the photos from our visit to Princeton earlier in the week. Check them out.

Watching coverage of Euro 2008 this month, I have seen this ad over and over again. But I don’t mind, because it is the best ad ever.

I wonder if I can sue Nike for infringement, because it does feel like they literally downloaded the dreams I had growing up (and still have sometimes) onto film, down to the last free kick, foul and kiss (I attribute the minor rewrite of our protagonist getting selected for Arsenal instead of my beloved Red Devils to some stupid ad executive somewhere).

The ad is completely brilliant, and literally transports me back to a time when I didn’t care about technology, career, blogging, 401Ks or family responsibilities, just girls and glory (well, not everything has changed). I’m sure a lot of guys had the same dream growing up (just substitute your choice of sport). But for me, this ad is perfect. I used to be a pretty good soccer player growing up, and maybe if I had been able to buy some magic Nike cleats back then, well, who knows…

I feel like working out nowadays. I’m sure the feeling will pass soon.

The sports stories this weekend reminded us that class is something that a player or organization either has or doesn’t have, and no amount of posturing is going to change that.

Last year, the class of the NFL, LaDainan Tomlinson, called out the New England Patriots for their lack of class in mocking Merriman’s sack dance on the Chargers home field after their victory. And in his anger, he said what everyone seemed to be thinking – “It comes from the top”, a reference to mad genius Bill Belichick.

Well, this weekend we saw some people questioning the class of Belichick and his Patriots once again for running up the score on the hapless Redskins, humiliating HOF manager Joe Gibbs in the process. They were up 38-0 and 45-0 in the 4th quarter when they kept going for it as if the score were 3-0. Some argue that in professional sports, there is no need to put on the brakes.

However, across the country, LaDainan’s San Diego Chargers were doing the exact opposite. A team that was playing to lift up the spirits of an entire community after the wildfire’s of last week, the Chargers pulled back after they led 35-3 at the half. Class again revealed itself when least expected.

At the same time, Alex Rodriguez was showing to the baseball world what really separates him from the Jeter’s, Helton’s and Ortiz’s. It is not stats or rings, but class (or rather, the lack of it). In what is widely being called out as a selfish, egotistical move, he (through mega-agent Boras) announced in the middle of Game 4 of the World Series last night that he is opting out of the remainder of his contract.

On a night when people should have been talking about Jon Lester, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett and (gulp!) the Boston Red Sox, A-Rod tried to make it all about himself. Trying to upstage the World Series shows complete disrespect for the game of baseball, and shows that he will always care only about himself, not his team or about winning. It’s a shame that two of the greatest baseball players our generation has seen (Bonds and A-Rod) will be most remembered as selfish, egotistical players that were only interested in pursuing their individual stats and records.

The Yankees are all about class (though I will be the first to say that they showed an unusual lack of it in their handling of Torre’s departure; Torre for his part showed impeccable class and grace) . I have to admit that I was hoping A-Rod would come back to the Yankees. But after this, I am glad he won’t be around. With Girardi now leading the Yankees as they try to build another dynasty based on young players like Hughes, Cano and the Melk-man, I am glad that A-Rod won’t be the one influencing the thinking and mentality of our future.

I’ve been in New York since 1997. I have never known the Yankees without the Boss, without Jeter, and without Joe Torre. If Jeter is the heart of the Yankees, then Joe is the brain. He was the class of the Yankees.

What kind of a crap passive-aggressive offer did the Yankees make to him? Incentives? Torre is not the kind of person that needs to be motivated to do his best. Saying that the incentives are meant to “motivate” him to take the team to the series is a slap in his face. It implies that management felt that he didn’t succeed in taking the Yankees to the series the last 3 years because he wasn’t motivated enough. Ridiculous!

In a post I wrote in the immediate shadow of another early post-season exit, I wondered if maybe it was time for Torre to go, if the Yankees needed something new, some kind of spark, to get them going again. Since then, I have had a lot of time to think, and I don’t think Torre was the problem. He was saddled with a team that forgot the things that made the Yankees championship winning teams. They were built for the long ball, not for winning championships. If Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” approached changed how baseball management thinks, then Joe changed how baseball managers think. Every team that has won the World Series since then followed the formula established by Joe’s teams from ‘97 to ‘01. Great, gutsy pitching, making the small plays, and playing small ball.

I think the money was fair. He would still have been the highest paid manager in baseball, but the cut would have reflected the abysmal post-season performance of his teams through the last 3 years. But the 1 year contract is the most stupid idea I have ever heard, and virtually guaranteed the rejection it got from Torre. It screams “Prove yourself to us”. Torre has nothing to prove to anyone. And you set him up as a lame duck manager with the proverbial sword hanging over his head. Who wants to deal with that?

The right thing to do, the decent thing to do, would have been to offer him a 2 year contract for the same money. It would have shown that management still had confidence in Joe. And it would have been right for Joe to manage the Yankees in their last year in the current Yankee stadium, and their first year in the new Yankee stadium. After all, in some sense, the new Yankee stadium can be called “the House that Torre built”, because without those 4 World Series titles, 7 AL titles, and 10 AL East titles, that stadium would NOT be being built. This incident showed that Yankee management is a mess and has no class, and showed that Torre is class and dignity personified.

We will miss you Joe. Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for all the championships. And thank you for that magical 2001 season, which in my opinion is still the best the Yankees ever had, even better than those championship winning years.

OK, so I don’t really hate him. But his 6 TD performance against the Browns yesterday single-handedly ruined my fantasy football day. And against my cousin Sid, no less. His team got 59 points for Palmer’s day. which is almost 40% of his total point yardage. Meanwhile Bulger had a decent day yardage-wise, but got only 1 measly TD and got sacked a whopping 6 times, which brought the points I earned down to a mere 16. A 43 point difference at one position is hard to overcome. Looks like Orlando Pace’s season-ending injury is going to be more relevant than I thought.
After two weeks, I am a grand 0-2. Just brilliant. Last year’s fantasy stud MJD is this years bust so far, and I can’t overcome my weak QB woes. Worse, Driver had a good day against my Giants and still didn’t help me win, while it looks like Andre Johnson got hurt. This fantasy year is going south in a hurry for me. Aargh!!!

After Sunday night’s thrashing at the hands of the Cowboys, it is hard to think that the [tag]New York Giants[/tag] are going to have a decent season. Not only did the defense show that they will get shredded by the rest of the NFL, we also saw our most valuable players and leaders on the team get injured – Osi, Jacobs and Eli all went down and couldn’t finish the game (Osi barely started).

Maybe I should follow college football more closely this year to get an idea of who we should get with that high draft pick we will most probably have next year.

[tags]Sports, NFL, Football[/tags]

All everyone is talking about today (in New York, that is) is the [tag]game-winning[/tag], 2-out, [tag]2-strike grand slam[/tag] that [tag]A-Rod[/tag] hit to win the game against the Orioles yesterday. It couldn’t have come at a better time for him, as he had already started the season not delivering in a couple of key situations, and the boos were starting to escalate. Hopefully this will get the fans off his back for a while. The fact is that unless he delivers in the post-season and helps the Yanks win the World Series, he is not going to get let off the hook. The expectations of him are just that high. Sometimes it feels unfair, because someone like Giambi is not being saddled with that kind of pressure. But then again, no one else is the highest paid player in baseball.

Yesterday’s game is also a classic example of why you should never give up in a game. To come back from 4 runs down in the last two innings against a fairly good team is pretty good. And the last strike [tag]game-winning walk-off grand slam[/tag] just cannot be topped.

A-Rod said after the game “Somehow, I knew it was going to come down to me. Even with two outs and nobody on.”

No kidding. A-Rod better be prepared for a long season.

[tags]Sports, New York Yankees[/tags]