Spring Loaded

Can everybody please shut up and let Brett Favre play football?

Can you kill the criticism?

Can you stifle the derision?

Can you put a lid on the sarcasm?

Nobody is asking you to root for Favre or put him on your fantasy team. Just judge him the way he has always been judged, the way he has always asked to be judged, by what he does on the football field.

You’ll finally get your chance. He’ll be on the field Sunday, starting the Minnesota Vikings opener against the Cleveland Browns.

If he looks like the Favre of old, he’ll deserve your grudging praise. If he looks like the sore-armed old man he was in the second half of last season for the New York Jets, he’ll deserve your scorn.

What Favre doesn’t deserve is the ridiculous ridicule hurled his way in the weeks since he joined the Vikings.

He didn’t murder any dogs, didn’t kill anybody while driving intoxicated.

His crime?

He came out of retirement. Twice.

If he was a boxer, nobody would have even paid attention.

Yes, they were teary-eyed retirements. Yes, he showed a lot of passion.

Yet many, without knowing what is in his mind, or his heart, quickly labeled him a phony. One talk-show host made fun of a conversation Favre said he had with his ten-year-old daughter about retirement.

Many of these same critics spoke glowingly of the passion Favre showed when he was in his prime. They described in hushed tones his return to the field a day after his father died for a Monday Night Football game in which he threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns.

And yet when he now wishes to return to the field once again, he has somehow become a selfish, ego-driven player who deliberately delayed his return to avoid training camp. A sign, surely, of a poor work ethic.

Ego-driven? Guilty as charged. It takes a sizable ego – some might more politely call it confidence – to survive in the NFL for 19 seasons and produce league-record numbers in touchdown passes (464) passing attempts (9,280), completions (5,720) and yards (65,127).

And, a record number of interceptions (310) as well.

But poor work ethic? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Sunday’s start will be his 270th in a row, tying the all-time NFL record held, ironically, by another Minnesota Viking, defensive lineman Jim Marshall.

Favre’s mindset was on display earlier in the preseason when he threw a crack-back block on Houston Texan defensive back Eugene Wilson, resulting in a $10,000 fine for Favre.

Here’s a player nearing 40, playing with sore ribs, going after a defender in an exhibition game. Yeah, poor work ethic.

The facts are, Favre retired after the 2007 season because he honestly believed it was time, only to discover, as last season approached, that his juices still flowed.

He retired again following last season after a torn biceps tendon had caused him to self-destruct over his final five games with the Jets, games in which he threw nine interceptions, but only two touchdown passes as the Jets lost four of the five.

Favre underwent surgery to repair the injury with the idea of coming back, only to learn he also has a torn rotator cuff.

That convinced him he had too much to overcome. But, after learning the rotator-cuff was an old injury he had played with for some time, Favre reconsidered, even though training camp had already begun.

Should he come back? Why not?

Can he come back? We’ll soon know, starting on Sunday.

So just sit back, be quiet and watch.

No one will ever accuse me of being a great athlete.

Or even an athlete, for that matter.

But the one thing I do pretty well is play ping-pong. Okay, not exactly a sport in the minds of some, but those are small minds. Hey, there’s a ball. What more do you need to qualify?

Anyway, back in my days as a Laker beat writer, I got into a battle of the paddles with Bob McAdoo in a rec room at the Cleveland hotel where we were staying.

McAdoo may have been a three-time NBA scoring champion and the league’s MVP in 1975, but on the ping-pong table he was mine.

I beat him, giving me bragging rights that certainly impressed my friends.

McAdoo didn’t mention our game again for year. Then, we found ourselves back in the same Cleveland hotel.

McAdoo casually asked if I wanted to play again, I obliged, looking for the back-to-back. Instead, McAdoo solidly whipped me.

When we were done, he admitted that he had gone out and bought a ping-pong table after losing to me, He spent a year honing his game, waiting for the return trip to Cleveland.

Imagine that, an NBA player on the Showtime Lakers in the midst of their championship years obsessing about losing a ping-pong match.

McAdoo validated the old cliché about athletes being so competitive that they hate to lose at anything, even if its tiddlywinks.

Nice cliché, but not always true. Many athletes, lugging around those big egos, won’t play another sport if they don’t think they can win.

I bring that up because of the new ABC sports/reality show, "Shaq Vs." Each week, Shaquille O’Neal takes on a star athlete in the sport that athlete excels.

Okay, “takes on” might be stretching it a bit.

In the first episode, he squared off against the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger in a battle of quarterbacks.

Sort of.

Each of them got three possessions in a seven-on-seven format with no kicking allowed. Either get the ball in the end zone or get a big, fat zero on the scoreboard. There was no rushing allowed by the



defense and Shaq started from the opponents’ 20-yard line while Roethlisberger began from the 40.

Given enough time to run out a 24-second clock, Shaq was eventually going to find an open receiver. Especially if the defenders had read the script.

Still, he showed a good arm, throwing one bomb for a TD, and hung in there until losing on the last possession.

In the coming weeks, Shaq will take on champions in everything from beach volleyball to boxing.

Sure, it’s just entertainment. Yes, the rules will be bent and the opponents will flow with the story line. But, as Roethlisberger demonstrated at the end, he wasn’t about to lose at his own sport, entertainment or no entertainment.

When they had the old Superstars competition, all the athletes competed in sports other than their own. But none of them were competing in their own sport.

Shaq has put his ego aside, no small feat, and allowed himself to enter arenas where he can’t possibly win in order to bask in the glow of his own show.

He even allowed footage of his loss to Roethlisberger in a game of HORSE to be shown.

What’s the big deal, you say. It’s only dancing with the stars in cleats. Who cares?

Many athletes would care, would not want to be seen losing to anybody in anything.

But Shaq, the man who has long referred to himself as the best basketball player on the planet, the man who resorted to bitter rips at Kobe Bryant after leaving the Lakers, seems to be genuinely enjoying his new status as an elder statesman of his sport, anxious to leave the bitter image behind and dispel the idea that he’s not a good sport.

For the sequel, I’d love to see Shaq Vs. Mac as in McAdoo.

Or, how about Shaq Vs. Kobe?

Think that might get some good numbers?

Magic Johnson is turning 50.

Amazing.

I didn’t know if he’d see 33.

Has it really been nearly 18 years since I walked out of a Forum press conference seeing something I had never seen before, or since: Cynical, sarcastic, know-it-all reporters shedding tears.

Has it really been nearly 18 years since we sat around talking about how hard it was going to be to watch this guy with the broad smile and the bubbly personality die in public?

When Magic stood up in front of the gathered media and a worldwide audience to announce that he was retiring from the Lakers because he had the HIV virus, I thought it was a death sentence.

Back in those days when knowledge of the disease was relatively meager although it had been around for nearly a decade, I thought HIV and AIDS were the same thing. Interchangeable terms.

So too, Magic later admitted, did he.

When he said he was going to beat the disease, we thought he was living in a fantasy world. This wasn’t an opponent like the Boston Celtics or the Chicago Bulls, a foe with weaknesses to probe and strengths to overcome. This was a deadly virus that wasn’t going to be faked out by no-look passes.

But we knew Magic well enough to understand that he wasn’t going to fade away, to spend his final days in some remote hospice.

He gravitated to the spotlight like a moth, in good times and bad. So he was going to fight the good fight in our faces as long as he was physically able.

As it turned out, of course, the odds against him weren’t as long as they first seemed. If this wasn’t a winnable fight – there is still no cure – it was at least a battle Magic could take into overtime after overtime after overtime.

With a positive outlook, a vigorous work ethic, a healthy diet and, most importantly, cutting-edge medication, Magic has kept the virus under control.

Eighteen years later, it’s still there, but, according to doctors, barely detectable in his blood.

The public’s attitude has changed dramatically since those dark days in 1991. Back then, both Karl Malone, then of the Utah Jazz, and Phoenix Suns executive Jerry Colangelo, publicly questioned whether Magic should dare to step on a basketball court.

The wife of one player told Magic he could score whenever he wanted to. All he had to do, she said, was to slash his wrist and drive down the court. Nobody would dare touch him.

And indeed, when Magic did suffer a cut on his arm on the court in his first attempt to return, a hush came over the crowd and some in the arena looked at him as if they were Superman and he was a big, glowing mass of kryptonite.

I have to admit, I had my moment of hesitation. I’ve known Magic for a long time. His rookie year in the NBA was my rookie year as a Laker beat writer.

Whenever I see him, he opens his arms for a big hug. But the first time we came face-to-face after his jaw-dropping announcement, and those arms opened up, I paused.

Just for an instant.

But, I paused.

Then common sense took over and I opened my arms as well.

There is no way to gauge how many similar sufferers from the HIV virus have been bolstered in their own struggles by the shining example of Magic. No way to chart how many have remained active and visible in society because he did.

Ask him if he’s a hero and he’ll laugh. No way, he’ll say, just living life as I told you guys I would.

And to think we doubted him.

Happy birthday, Magic. And here’s to 50 more.

The hopes and dreams of the college football season are about to end for some unlucky teams.

About to end? The season hasn’t even started yet.

True, but before it does, the preseason polls will be released, the AP poll of media members and the coaches’ poll. And those results may prove the death knell for some teams harboring hopes of winning a national championship.

How?

In any initial top 25 poll, some teams have to fill the bottom slots. And those teams will spend an entire season trying, usually fruitlessly, to climb back into consideration for top bowl bids.

That’s fair enough when teams land at the bottom because of a poor record or a big loss, even an opening-game loss.

But in the preseason polls, teams are placed on the bottom, or out of the poll altogether before they have given up a point, before they have even played a down.

Before they have even decided on their final roster, in some cases.

So why is there a preseason poll?

Because everybody wants to know how the season shapes up. Because the NCAA in general and colleges in particular love the national publicity.

At least those colleges ranked at or near the top.

What is the poll based on?

Speculation. Pure speculation.

It’s a combination of last season’s record, the number of returning starters, the strength of the schedule, injuries in the preseason and, possibly, the arrival of a new coach.

In other words, it’s literally how these teams look on paper. Or on a computer screen.

But, don’t they still have to play the game?

How would baseball teams like it if Bud Selig announced tomorrow he was stopping the regular season and that managers, coaches and the media would vote on who should play in the World Series. Just do away with the dog days of summer and move right on to the Fall Classic.

How do you think that would that go over?

CBSSports.com has already come out with its preseason poll. Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and USC have to be happy. They are the top four teams in that order.

The poll is not so good for Cal (16th), Florida State (18th), Kansas (20th) or Pittsburgh (22nd).

It’s worse for Arizona, Michigan State, Nebraska and Notre Dame. They didn’t even make the cut.

In a sport where the total number of games played before the bowl season barely gets into double figures, many top teams wind up with the same record, suffering one or two losses, or perhaps none at all.

You might have two 10-1 teams, one ranked fourth, the other seventh. The lower-rated team, despite having the same record, is at a huge disadvantage.

Why? Not because of anything it has or hasn’t done on the field, but because of a lower ranking it received before the players ever took the field at the beginning of the season, a ranking they were never able to overcome.

Exhibit A: The Auburn Tigers of 2004. Coming off an 8-5 season, they were ranked 17th by the AP and 18th by the coaches in the preseason polls. It was like moving a horse two furlongs behind the starting gate before beginning a race.

The Tigers climbed steadily as they put together an undefeated season, going 13-0. They wound up second in both major polls, but were left at the door as Oklahoma and USC played for the national championship.

Auburn’s weak nonconference schedule hurt its chances as well, but being in the mix at the top of the rankings from the beginning might have made a huge difference. Instead, a 13-0 team was penalized for being 8-5 the season before.

No inspirational last-to-first comeback stories in college football.

Yes, there are preseason polls in college basketball as well, but their influence isn’t the same. A team need only be in the top 65 to prove itself in the postseason tournament.

Preseason polls ought to be labeled for what they are: Pure fantasy. Voters should tear them up and start over again once teams have actually played a game.

Teams should be judged on this season, not last year. Forget what the voters think. Pay attention to what the players do.

There wasn’t even a hint of doubt in the voice on the other end of the line.

“It’s a little late for this season,” said the NFL executive, “but there is no question you’ll have a team by next season. No question.”

It was June of 1995. I was sitting in an Oakland hotel room doing a story on the return of the Raiders after 13 seasons in Los Angeles.

The second shoe had dropped. Earlier that year, the Rams had deserted Orange County for St. Louis.

The reaction of fans to the loss of two teams? A collective shrug of the shoulders. We’re L.A. The NFL needs us more than we need it.

Fourteen years later, with yet another NFL season looming, I am still waiting to see if that is true.

It’s been 14 years of false starts, bad rumors, proposed stadium sites, planned environmental reports, empty promises and broken dreams.

There was even an attempt by the Seattle Seahawks to force the issue by simply packing up moving vans with equipment and heading on down to Southern California.

Once the NFL got involved, however, those vans headed right back up the road where they came from.

The barrier to an NFL return to L.A. is double-barreled: Who will play and where they will play?

All the teams who have threatened to move in recent seasons seemed to have stopped thinking the grass is greener in Hollywood. And there are no expansion plans being drawn up.

Nor are there any stadium blueprints ready for serious consideration. From Irwindale to the City of Commerce to Carson to Dodger Stadium to Inglewood, proposals have been floated, bloated and busted.

Inglewood was the most viable. Raider owner Al Davis had a solid offer from the NFL for a stadium adjacent to Hollywood Park racetrack, but Davis turned his back on it and headed north.

The NFL still refuses to consider the Coliseum even though the USC Trojans pack it on Saturdays without a problem.

And so, as we head into the 2009 season, I’m sending this status report to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“Dear Roger,

We’ve got the Lakers and the Dodgers, the Trojans and the Bruins, the Angels and the Ducks. And yes, even the Clippers and the Kings. We’ve got Kobe and Manny. We’ve got the sun and the sand, the mountains and the ocean.

And we’ve got every NFL game we want beamed into our homes. We’ve got our fantasy leagues and our Super Bowl parties.

You want to enrich our sports experience even further, Roger, you know where to find us. But as you well know, we don’t pay the freight. We don’t pay for expansion teams. We don’t pay for new stadiums.

That was true back in the days when we actually had public funds to disburse. It’s even more so now that our state is bankrupt and our city’s unemployment lines are long.

Your organization has the billionaires. You’re the ones with the TV money and the gate receipts and enough merchandise to fill Jerry Jones’ new billion-plus stadium.

When Staples Center was going up, an attempt was made to subsidize part of the cost with public funds.

The Staples folks pleading poverty? Ple-e-e-ase.

We weren’t moved.

They built it anyway and, somehow, some way, with the Lakers and the Clippers and the Kings and the concerts and the awards shows and the political convention, they have eked out a living.

We think you could probably do the same, Roger. So give us a call if you’re interested, but we don’t expect it to happen. With the No. 1 sport in the country, you are doing just fine without us, and with the No. 1 sports market in the country, we are doing just fine without you.

You know what they say: "You can’t beat L.A.”

What Mark Buehrle did on Thursday afternoon was truly amazing.

He pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the 18th perfecto in major-league history. Yes, that was amazing.

But what was really amazing was that he threw 116 pitches without his arm falling off.

How is that possible? I thought baseballs carried a warning label: Exceeding 100 pitches may be hazardous to health. I thought that each pitch beyond 100 could take innings off your life.

Nonsense.

Once upon a time when pitchers were athletes and their managers weren’t nannies, pitchers routinely racked up pitch counts well past 100. On rare occasions – horrifying as it might seem to today’s five-inning warriors – the pitch count topped 200.

And that was at a time when four-man, not five-man, rotations were the rule. That meant pitchers went on only three days rest.

Startling.

Back then, a pitcher took great pride in throwing a complete game. If a manager went to the mound to yank his pitcher, he knew he was often going to have an argument on his hands.

Three examples demonstrate the standards set by the men on the mound in earlier eras:

-- Pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Don Newcombe once went nine innings in the first game of a doubleheader and then came back to start the second game and go seven innings.

-- San Francisco and Milwaukee once played a 16-inning won by the Giants 1-0 on a Willie Mays home run. Both starting pitchers, Warren Spahn of the Braves and Juan Marichal of the Giants, went the distance. Spahn was 42 at the time.

-- In his last two seasons with Dodgers, Sandy Koufax went 26-8 and 27-9. In each of those seasons, he had 27 complete games.

Despite such heavy workloads, pitchers lasted as long or longer than their counterparts of today. Koufax was the rare exception, suffering an elbow injury that forced him to retire at 30. Spahn pitched 21 years, appearing in 750 games, Marichal 16 years and 471 games.

And pitchers back then didn’t have the advantage of modern surgical procedures. There were no Tommy John operations, no routine rotator-cuff repairs.

But, somehow, those guys shrugged off the normal aches and pains, sucked it up and went out on the mound with the intention of staying there until the game was over.

There was no short relief and long relief. No setup man and closer. The starter had every intention of being his own closer.

When Dodger closer Todd Worrell was struggling, then manager Bill Russell was asked who would replace him.

Russell said it was going to take some time to figure that out. Not just anyone, he said, could pitch the ninth inning.

Why not? These guys get millions to pitch in the major leagues and they can’t pitch in the ninth inning? Are there hitters who can’t bat in the ninth inning?

Maybe managers should get the scoreboard operator to tamper with the numbers so the ninth inning appears as the eighth inning. That might set the closer’s mind at ease.

The most ridiculous safeguard thrown on today’s pitchers is the 100-pitch limit. Who came up with that? No one seems to know.

Why not a 97-pitch limit? Or a 103-pitch barrier?

Can you imagine a manager going out to the mound to tell a Don Drysdale or a Bob Gibson he had reached his 100-pitch limit. The manager could expect a torrent of four-letter words along with a demand for the manager to slink back to the dugout because that pitcher still had plenty of throws in his arm.

Along with the pitch count came another ridiculous standard, the quality start, which is six innings of work with no more than three runs allowed.

And then along comes a game like Buehrle’s on Wednesday. No manager would dare remove a pitcher throwing a perfect game. So manager Ozzie Guillen left Buehrle in there and, incredibly, he was just as strong at the end as he had been all afternoon even though his pitch count had soared above 100.

Nine innings, all 27 men retired. Now that’s a quality start.

Vacations are supposed to clear your head and sharpen your focus, ultimately giving you all the answers you were looking for. For me, the time away from sports has just left me with more questions, such as:

-- Did the Lakers really trade Scottie Pippen for Dennis Rodman?

If Trevor Ariza grows as much in the next few seasons – and we’re not talking height here – as he did this past season, he has a chance to become a Pippen-like player. Remember, Ariza is only 24, leaving plenty of time for development.

Ron Artest, on the other hand, could just as easily regress. Every time you think he has put the ugly days behind him, doused the trigger fuse that exploded so memorably in the seats at Auburn Hills, he snaps again and gets himself ejected at a crucial moment in a crucial game as he did against the Lakers in this year’s playoffs.

-- How long until word leaks out of a Laker practice that Artest got back into Kobe’s face?

-- Will I be furiously trying to de-Google this blog a year from now when Artest is standing arm in arm with Kobe atop the lead bus in next year’s victory parade.

Much higher rollers than I have gone broke betting against Jerry Buss, with or without a full house in their hands. The guy is only working on his third dynasty, three more than 99 percent of sports owners ever see. He was criticized almost 30 years ago for giving a two-year veteran named Magic Johnson a 25-year, $25-million contract, unheard of at the time, questioned for getting rid of his center, Vlade Divac, before he had secured the desired replacement, Shaquille O’Neal, and then blasted for trading Shaq for a trio that included Lamar Odom, best known then for his disappearing act.

-- Now that we’ve seen the Staples Center hardwood floor on the Coliseum grass surrounded by 80,000 to 90,000 fans, how long until the Lakers stage a game there?

-- Can we all chill out on the LeBron James criticism?

So the guy didn’t shake hands with Orlando Magic or face the media after losing in the conference finals? Big deal. He’s competitive.

Maybe he ought to get a prescription for a female fertility drug. That might bring back the cheers.

-- How long before Shaq balks at playing second fiddle to LeBron? And you thought the Shaq-Kobe feud was nasty.

-- Has Blake Griffin asked to be traded yet?

-- Has T.O. asked to be traded yet?

-- Aren’t we overdue for an Al Davis threat to leave town?

-- Could we do away with the baseball All-Star Game and just stage the Home Run Derby?

-- Could we do away with the NFL Pro Bowl?

You think a lot of players asked out when the game was in Hawaii. Wait until you see how many come up with pulled hamstrings now that it has been moved back to the mainland.

-- Are you allowed to buy a ticket to an MMA event without showing your tattoo?

-- What turns the paying customers off more, a boxing match without Manny Pacquiao or a golf tournament without Tiger?

-- Oscar, care to reconsider your retirement decision?

-- Isn’t it sad that people got more excited over Mike Tyson’s punch in The Hangover than any punch thrown by a heavyweight in recent years?

-- Is Tiger golf’s best ever? He may keep pace with good friend Roger Federer by winning his 15th grand slam event, but until he matches Jack Nicklaus’ 18, Tiger is only No. 2 on the links.

-- Anybody notice that David Beckham has returned to these shores? Will anybody care when he leaves again?

-- Is it a bad sign for the Minnesota Vikings if Brett Favre uses his left hand to sign a contract with them?

Questions, questions, questions.

The banners are being hung, the spotlight is being focused and the seats are being polished.

Mannywood is about to be reopened.

The way the Dodgers are welcoming Manny Ramirez back, you’d think he was returning from the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Or a life-threatening injury.

Instead, it’s from a 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball. Ramirez was punished for possessing a prescription for HCG, a female fertility drug, coupled with a drug test that, according to the Los Angeles Times, showed an elevated synthetic testosterone level, leading to the conclusion that Ramirez may have taken steroids.

Ramirez didn’t appeal that conclusion, telling the media, “I didn’t kill nobody. I didn’t rape nobody, so that’s it.”

That’s it, indeed.

While the news that Alex Rodriguez had used performance-enhancing drugs was greeted with mostly anger and scorn around the country, and even some embarrassment in New York, Ramirez is being ushered back in with all the enthusiasm that greeted him when he first arrived last summer.

He had sailed in followed by a wake of horror stories about his final days in Boston, stories about bad behavior and a bad attitude that had even caused some teammates to happily escort him to the door.

That was ignored in Los Angeles from the moment Manny first squared up bat and ball. He responded by putting his teammates on his back and carrying them into the playoffs and all the way to the National League Championship Series, invigorating a struggling, feuding franchise.

As for his past sins, that, said his new best friends, was just Manny being Manny.

Even a sometimes ugly off-season and preseason in which Manny dug his cleats in and held out for a long-term contract were dismissed as, again, Manny being Manny.

All was again forgiven when he finally signed with the Dodgers, just as all is being forgiven now upon his return.

So dust off the dreadlocks, break out the jerseys and let the partying begin.

But what if Manny can no longer be Manny?

Whatever he may have been taking, he was doing so for a purpose. If he was on something, was that the reason his production remained so spectacular? If he is no longer on anything, could that cause a dramatic decline in his numbers?

We have all witnessed players balloon physically during the height of the steroid era only to just as noticeably shrink as baseball’s microscope focused in on the problem.

In his recent absence, Manny celebrated his 37th birthday. Even in his prime, he didn’t exactly look like a bodybuilder.

Don’t be surprised if Manny comes back looking like only a shell of his former self. Be forewarned that, if there were performance-enhancing drugs involved, his performance could be seriously affected without them.

And then what?

Manny is supposed to return to left field, replacing Juan Pierre, who, in Manny’s absence, had one of the hottest bats in the league for a while.

What if Manny can’t match those numbers?

He comes back to the team with the best record in baseball, a team that hasn’t exactly suffered in his absence. What if it suffers upon his return?

If Manny is not Manny on the field, will they still love him in Mannywood? Or in the front office? Will it be enough just to have not killed or raped anybody?

Everybody seems willing to look the other way as long as the hits keep coming.

But if those hits no longer fall, watch out. The foreclosure notices will go up in Mannywood and the dreadlock caps will go in the trash.

Remember how reliever Eric Gagne was the toast of L.A.? Remember how quickly he was forgotten after he was named on the Mitchell report about performance-enhancing drugs?

Manny being Manny? Priceless.

Manny no longer able to be Manny? Useless.

Phil Mickelson choked.

Again.

You could certainly say there were extenuating circumstances contributing to his failure to finish on top Monday in the closing round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Bethpage Black golf course in Farmingdale, New York.

People who wouldn’t know tea time from tee time have heard the tragic news that his wife, Amy, is facing surgery for breast cancer. That has to play with a man’s mind as he stands over a putt in a sport where there is sometimes too much time to think.

Except we’ve seen this disappearing act all too many times before.

Mickelson’s roller-coaster final round was hardly the first time he has followed the peaks-and-valleys course.

There was Phil getting a birdie on the 12th hole.

There was Phil eagling the 13th.

There was Phil charging back into contention like Mine That Bird coming down the stretch at the Kentucky Derby.

But then, there was Phil blowing a three-foot putt on the 15th hole.

There was Phil blowing a five-footer on the 17th.

There was Phil fading from contention.

There was Phil finishing second in the U.S. Open for a record fifth time, the same Phil who blew a two-stroke lead with three holes to play at the 2006 U.S. Open.

Phil is Steve Sax, who could handle hot ground balls at second, but couldn’t make the simple throw to first.

Phil is Wilt Chamberlain or Shaquille O’Neal, who could slam home shots with defenders climbing on their back, but couldn’t convert an unencumbered free-throw shot.

Put Phil in rough thick enough to cover him past his knees or place him 40 feet from the flag on a multi-level green better suited for miniature golf and watch him pull off a highlight-reel shot.

But put the same guy three to six feet from the cup, faced with a shot that is often considered a gimme in social games, what should be a tap-in for a pro golfer, and watch Phil sweat and think and adjust and, all too often, miss.

Yogi Berra used to say that baseball was 90 percent mental and the other half physical.

Using the same logic, golf is 99 percent mental with whatever Yogi feels is left over being the physical part.

Talk all you want about golfers looking over their shoulder when Tiger makes a charge, as was the case with Jack and Arnie in earlier eras, but the fact of the matter is, it ultimately comes down to the golfer and the course. There is no defender in his face, nobody trying to tackle him, nobody buzzing a fastball at his head.

Not even cheering is permitted.

Just the man and the course.

I once interviewed Mike Piazza after he had hit a mammoth home run.

Do you play golf, I asked.

Yes, he said.

How far can you hit a golf ball, I wondered.

I’ve hit it over 300 yards, he said, but I have trouble hitting it straight.

So explain something to me, I said. Somebody throws a ball at you, sometimes at close to 100 miles an hour, and, as a talented big-league batter, you can not only hit the ball, but usually direct it to left, center or right. A golf ball just lays in the grass and you can’t control its direction. How come?

Maybe, he said with a grin, I’d do better if somebody picked up that golf ball and threw it at me at 100 mph.

Maybe Phil ought to try that.

He obviously needs to do something to bring his mental game up to the level of his tremendous physical skills.

Instead, what happened Monday only figures to further erode Phil’s confidence next time he stands over a crucial putt.

Until he finds the answer within himself, he will continue to hear those two dreaded words: Phil choked.

Let’s start with a basic fact.

Michael Jordan is not the greatest basketball player of all time. Never was. Never will be.

ESPN’s choice of him for Athlete of the Century back in 2000 was a joke. There were only three possibilities for that designation: Babe Ruth, who opened the door to sports for the general public like nobody else in the first half of the 20th century, Jackie Robinson, who opened the floodgates for African-Americans and, indeed, all minorities in the middle of the century, and Muhammad Ali, who put sports on the world stage like nobody else in the latter half of the century.

Michael Jordan? He didn’t win his first NBA title until 1991. And he ruled all ten decades? I don’t think so.

Which brings us to Kobe Bryant, who will soon be fitted for his fourth championship ring, an accomplishment being touted as another rung on his climb to catch or surpass Jordan.

After all, say those making the comparison, Jordan had six NBA titles, Bryant four, as if they alone exist in the basketball pantheon.

At age 30, with the best supporting cast in the game, Bryant certainly figures to move further up the ladder of greatness, but Jordan is hardly the only rung above him.

For starters, how about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? He also had six NBA titles. But he also won three championships in college at UCLA, while Jordan won only one NCAA title in his three seasons at North Carolina.

Kareem had such a big impact on the college game that the dunk was briefly outlawed during his reign because he was such a dominant force.

I know, I know, we’re supposed to be discussing NBA greats. But we’re also discussing basketball greats and the collegiate years should figure in that equation as well.

And finally, Kareem is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, another distinction that should put him higher on the ladder than Jordan.

But ultimately, there are two other giants who will settle this argument, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.

If it’s statistics you want, the argument ends with Chamberlain.

There has never been a force in the game like the 7-1, 275-pounder. He had 100 points in a single game, 55 rebounds in one game and a single-season scoring average of 50.4 points, records that will be probably never be broken.

But the standard for greatness in sports usually comes down to championships. And in that department, Russell dwarfs Chamberlain and everyone else who ever dribbled a ball.

Russell won 11 titles in 13 seasons, including eight in a row.

An eight-peat.

End of discussion.

While the roster of the Boston Celtics changed over that period, Russell was the constant. He changed the game by elevating defense to the same level of excellence as the offenses of his day.

And, he won his last two championships as player/coach, a status none of his rivals for greatest player ever attempted.

But, the argument goes, there were only eight teams in the NBA for the early part of Russell’s era.

Exactly. All the more reason to praise him. With the best talent concentrated on only eight teams, that made each of those squads tougher than many of the watered-down teams in existence today.

Fortunately, the NBA has finally recognized Russell’s greatness, 40 years after he left the game, by naming it’s NBA Finals MVP trophy after him.

Jordan may have been the greatest shoe salesman the game has ever known, but greatest player? I don’t think so.

For Bryant, the target is much higher.

Bill Russell was the greatest of all time.

Case closed.

He’s too intense.

He’s too serious.

He’s too arrogant.

He doesn’t show his opponents enough respect.

He’s taking all the joy out of winning.

Is that about it for Kobe Bryant or can we find something else to complain about?

Good thing he didn’t snub the media and opponents a la LeBron James. In Kobe’s case, that might have raised calls for his banishment.

All the nitpicking is about as damaging as throwing paper airplanes at a tank. Kobe just rolls over it the way he has rolled over the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals.

He’s less than a week away from solidifying his place as the best basketball player on the planet and among a handful considered the best of all time. In the last year, Kobe has won an MVP award, an Olympic gold medal and will add his fourth NBA title this week, his first without Shaquille O’Neal.

“I want it so bad,” Kobe said after Game 1, as if he had to explain his intensity.

He’ll even make his critics happy next week after his mission is accomplished and the pressure is off. He’ll crack a huge smile when he raises the championship trophy over his head, embrace Dwight Howard, hug his own wife and kids and even joke with the media.

To be sure, Kobe was deserving of criticism in the past.

He was immature when he first turned pro, a teen-ager firing up those ill-advised airballs against Utah in the postseason of his rookie year.

But he was 17 when he was drafted and never had the benefit of college. Andrew Bynum has gotten more understanding about his immaturity and he’s in his fourth season.

Kobe got criticized for his share of the Kobe-Shaq feud.

Both men should have put the best interests of the team ahead of their own egos, but what did Kobe ever really demand of Shaq? That he stay in shape. Wow, what a radical idea.

Kobe was criticized for his give-me-the-ball-and-get-out-of-my-way or you-take-the-ball-and-leave-me-alone attitude and those detractors were justified.

Kobe seemed to struggle for a long time with the intricacies of integrating himself into the offense Feeling he could score any time he had the ball in his hands, he figured, why not?

Kobe, when he was on one of those tears, never threw a premeditated pass.

When he bowed to pressure and tried to share the ball with teammates, his method was to give it to them and get out of the way.

And certainly he received criticism when he was charged with sexual assault in Colorado. But, as we all know, those charges were dropped.

So now, what’s the beef?

Kobe has matured. He has become the consummate teammate, both on and off the court, sharing the ball and his advice, serving as Phil Jackson’s surrogate when necessary, equal parts cheerleader, disciplinarian, strategist and intermediary with the guys in the striped shirts. It is Kobe who makes sure the ball is evenly distributed and the scoring column as well when possible.

And when a sure-handed touch is needed in the scoring department, when the clock is running down, when the closer is needed out of the bullpen, Kobe is there as well, scoring at a pace and in a variety of ways that matches anyone who has ever stepped on the hardwood.

Even at the international level, it was Kobe who set the tone for the defensive mode that smoothed the path for the U.S. to Olympic gold in Beijing.

Last year, it was Chris Paul who was supposedly challenging Kobe’s place as the game’s best player. This season, it was LeBron. Next year, it’ll be another hot gunslinger.

Kobe is 30. He’s not going anywhere. The only people he should be compared with are Kareem, MJ, Wilt and Bill Russell.

To say that Michael Jordan is automatically the best who ever played is ludicrous. Russell had far more championships (11 in 13 seasons, including eight in a row). Kareem had six, the same number as Jordan, and is the league’s all-time leading scorer. You like numbers? Wilt was the greatest offensive force the game has ever known.

And now, Kobe has entered the conversation, clenched teeth and all.

David Stern,

NBA Commissioner

New York, New York

Dear David:

I know you’d never admit it in public, but this is clearly not the NBA Finals you dreamed of.

It’s not Lakers vs. Celtics once again.

It’s not Kobe vs. LeBron for the first time.

But that doesn’t mean the Lakers and Magic can’t put on a show that grips the basketball nation and keeps the ratings respectable if not record-shattering.

It’s still Kobe in search of redemption, in search of bragging rights to a title procured without Shaq, in search of another rung on his life-long quest to top MJ.

It’s still the power of Dwight Howard against the finesse of Pau Gasol. Oh yeah, and Andrew Bynum might show up too, but don’t bet on it. (Sorry about that, David. I know you don’t even like to see your name in the same sentence as the word bet.)

It’s still an historic franchise looking to add to a near-record number of banners against one with no championship banners and little history worth remembering.

It’s East against West, Disneyland against Disney World, the team of Magic Johnson against a team with plenty of magic of its own.

It could be a great series. But you control that, David. You really do.

So do us all a favor and blow the whistle on your refs. Tell them to let these guys play. Remind them again that nobody -- but relatives, and we’re not even sure about them -- pays to see them run their zebra-striped bodies up and down the court.

Net-swishing three-pointers by Kobe? Yes.

Rim-rattling dunks by Howard? Yes.

Gravity-defying steals by Trevor Ariza? Yes.

Mind-numbing trips to the foul line? No.

An enthusiasm-smothering clampdown on trash talking? Please no.

A bewildering series of technicals, flagrant fouls, ejections and suspensions? Enough already.

You have a great game, David. Why throw a blanket over it? If you were in charge of the Kentucky Derby, would you tie plows behind all the horses?

That’s the equivalent of what you’ve done here by creating ridiculous guidelines for your officials. Fouls are called that are sometimes imperceptible on replays. Floppers get rewarded for going into a swan dive every time an opposing player breathes on them.

Trash talking is a technical. That’s right, trash talking.

And hard fouls all seem to be flagrant fouls. There are flagrant 1s and flagrant 2s.

Is a torture category next?

It’s ruining the game, David. Kobe gets in Shane Battier’s face after scoring and Kobe gets a technical. J. R. Smith celebrates. Another technical. Ron Artest shoves Gasol to prevent a sure basket and Artest gets a flagrant 2.

That was lowered to a flagrant 1 after the league office had a day to reconsider.

That’s another silly trend. We must now wait 24 hours for league disciplinarian Stu Jackson to hand down a ruling, like an appeals court, before we can be sure what the final verdict is on any call.

I guess you don’t trust the refs on the floor, David. But if they’re so incompetent, why not do away with them altogether and just have Jackson call the game from his office?

It’s been four seasons since Artest jumped into the stands in Detroit to fight with fans, but it seems like the fear still lingers that every game is one hard foul away from a riot.

If your current clampdown had been in effect in the 1984 Finals, Kevin McHale’s clothesline tackle of Kurt Rambis would have at least earned McHale a lifetime suspension, if not prison time.

And Larry Bird and Michael Cooper, two of the great trash talkers of their era, would have been stuck on the bench talking to themselves.

The league was entertaining and fun back then, two words you seem determined to expunge from the NBA vocabulary.

Talk to old-timers. They just shake their heads at the newer, stricter NBA.

It shouldn’t be this difficult. If you go for the ball, contact should be no worse than a foul. If you go for the head, that’s flagrant. If you want to trash talk or pound your chest or throw chalk in the air, that’s entertainment.

You’ve got a great product to sell, David. Take the wrapping off and put it on the shelf as is.

Believe me, the customers will be standing in line.

Enough already about Brett Favre.

And Michael Vick.

Enough with the critics.

Enough with the mockery and the moralizing.

Let them play if they want. Let them both play.

Okay, so Favre should learn to keep his mouth shut while his options are still open.

And yes, Vick was guilty of despicable behavior.

But if Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, wants to go through the pain of shoulder surgery, if necessary, and the inevitable pain resulting from a grueling training camp at age 39, why begrudge him the chance to continue doing what he has long done better than all but a few who have ever played the game?

There’s no question Favre has been guilty of premature press conferences and embarrassing tears. He tends to react emotionally in winter, declaring his career over, only to melt in spring and summer, the siren of training camp proving too difficult to shut off.

And if he had reached the point of embarrassment – see Johnny Unitas with the San Diego Chargers, Joe Namath with the L.A. Rams – I’d be first in a picket line to protest his return.

As a kid, I loved Unitas. Loved what he did as a Baltimore Colt. Loved how he won the greatest game ever played and turned a nation on to pro football.

But I hated his fleeting snaps as a Charger, seeing him throw three touchdown passes and seven interceptions in five games with San Diego at the age of 40. Namath was similarly pitiful in four games with the Rams, (three touchdown passes overshadowed by five interceptions) before calling it a career.

If I was just judging Favre on his last five games with the New York Jets last season, I’d feel the same way. After all, the team went 1-4, Favre throwing nine interceptions counterbalanced by only two touchdown passes.

But, it turned out, Favre had a torn biceps tendon that severely hampered his throwing arm. Before then, he had gotten the Jets off to an 8-3 start.

Was it age or was it injury that caused him to break down?

If the Minnesota Vikings or some other team is willing to sign him to find out, why rob ourselves of the opportunity to watch this daredevil stage more of his trademark performances, scrambling and fighting his way through defenders, sometimes throwing his patented bombs downfield, other times ad-libbing with an off-balance, stumbling shovel pass.

Win or lose, he’s never boring.

Yet to read or hear Favre’s detractors, you would think he has forfeited his right to compete because he had the audacity to announce his retirement.

Alright, so he did it twice, this being the second offseason in a row.

Some day, he’ll mean it, but why hurry that day along?

Get off his back and leave it to the defenders to pile on.

Vick, of course, is a far different story. His best days on the field might still be ahead, but should he be allowed to find out?

Vick has been released from prison after 19 months of incarceration for financing a vicious dog-fighting ring. He still has several months of home confinement ahead in Virginia, but, after that, he’ll have paid his debt to society.

No one can condone what he did, but he has certainly been punished, his crime costing him his job, his fortune and his reputation.

Vick won’t be back with the Atlanta Falcons, who have found an able replacement in Matt Ryan.

If NFL commissioner Roger Goodell lifts Vick’s indefinite suspension and another team signs him, be assured the protesters from animal rights groups will be out in force.

Should Vick, at 29, be denied a chance to return to the NFL? Precedent would argue against that. St. Louis Ram defensive end Leonard Little was allowed back after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in 1998. Little, while legally drunk, caused an auto accident that killed a woman.

That’s a man who should have been suspended for life instead of half a season as he was.

But should all those convicted of a felony be barred for eternity from the NFL?

In Vick’s case, he will undoubtedly miss this upcoming season as well, meaning he will have been suspended for three years. The judicial system has also exacted its punishment. He has done his time.

Let him play.

Let them both play.

Pete Rose says baseball’s Hall of Fame has a mess on its hands.

Who better to know that than Rose when it comes to all things Cooperstown?

It doesn’t seem likely, at this point, that Rose will ever see his likeness on a plaque within those hallowed walls because of his gambling addiction, which threatened the integrity of the game.

But if Rose will forever find a “Do Not Enter” sign in his face, what about Barry Bonds?

Or Mark McGwire?

A-Rod?

Rafael Palmeiro?

Sammy Sosa?

Roger Clemens?

Or the newest member of the S Class, Manny Ramirez?

All of the above are either known to have used steroids, or some derivative thereof, or are suspected of having done so.

And what about all of their contemporaries? Anybody who flexed his muscles over the last decade to send a baseball into the seats or fired a pitch that jacked a speed gun up to the high 90s is suspect.

Call it guilt by association, call it unfair, but it’s reality.

If what Rose did damaged the integrity of the game, what about all of this bashing of the home-run record, once the most honored and respected standard in all of sports.

When then-teammate Jeff Kent, defending Bonds, asked how we know Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig weren’t on steroids, we all laughed.

They didn’t have steroids back then. But they did have pine tar, they did have spitballs and they did steal signs.

The New York Giants have been accused of stealing the sign that tipped Bobby Thomson off about what was coming out of the hand of Brooklyn Dodger righthander Ralph Branca in 1951, allowing Thomson to hit “the shot heard round the world,” the pennant-winning blow into the left-field stands at the Polo Grounds.

No one denies that cheating has been a part of the game since Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright or whoever it was who invented the game first put bat to ball.

But few have suggested those cheaters be kept out of Cooperstown.

Not unless they wagered, like the Black Sox, like Rose. That was crossing the line. That was bringing in the gamblers and the possibility of the fix.

Now, we have a generation of players who have brought in the chemists and the syringes and the bionic sluggers.

There’s no keeping them out now. Enact stringent drug testing and some devious medical mind will find a way to mask those devilish substances.

Look at the advances made in performance-enhancing drugs in just the last decade and imagine what it will be like a decade from now. Home run titles are going to be won by players who look like The Incredible Hulk. Cy Youngs will be awarded to guys whose grip will resemble that of Wolverine.

Forget about trying to stand in the way of drug development. It would be like offering anger management to the Hulk.

What about all the dire warnings about what steroids and other body enhancers do to the athlete, about his future prospects for health and longevity?

There’s an apocryphal tale told about Hack Wilson, who still holds the major-league, single-season RBI record with 191, a mark seemingly so far out of reach that it can’t be touched with a ten-foot needle.

Wilson, alleged to have been a serious alcoholic, was supposedly confronted in his clubhouse by two tubs, one containing water, the other alcohol.

Into those tubs, live worms were poured. The worms in the tub of water swam around merrily while the worms in the tub of alcohol soon died.

What does that tell you, Wilson was asked.

That I’ll never die of worms, he replied.

Athletes imagine themselves to be bullet-proof. They are young, they are strong, they are breaking records and making millions of dollars. What could possibly go wrong?

So should baseball simply disqualify a generation of ballplayers, just shut the doors to Cooperstown?

Hardly.

What they should do is shut the door on the old era and label everybody who enters from the mid 90s on part of the S for steroids era.

That would not be unprecedented.

Before juice was added to the ball and Babe Ruth to the New York Yankee lineup, baseball was played in what became later known as the dead-ball era. Frank Baker was the home-run king with 12. Cy Young won 511 games.

That will never happen again, but nobody tried to bar the door to anybody who played after 1920. It was understood that conditions had changed and comparisons to the pre 1920s were silly.

So it should be now. Let Hank Aaron and Roger Maris and Ruth forever be the long-ball kings of the 75 years that began in 1920.

Let the bloated hitters of the steroid era be compared to their peers.

Then, the only ones left out in the cold will be Rose and the Black Sox. For their sins, there will never be salvation.

The weekend in the rear view mirror:

The only thing missing from Sunday’s demolition of the L.A. Lakers by the Houston Rockets was Yao Ming pulling a Willis Reed, limping onto the court and taking a few shots to inspire his teammates…

Turns out, the Rockets didn’t need added inspiration. And it certainly helped that the Lakers didn’t have any of their own…

Maybe Yao is saving his Reed impersonation for a possible Game 7…

Imagine where this series would stand if both Yao and Tracy McGrady were at full strength and on the court…

Think Houston coach Rick Adelman sees purple and gold in his nightmares? He has previously been knocked out of the playoffs five times by the Lakers, twice with the Portland Trail Blazers and three times with the Sacramento Kings. Two of those five eliminations were sweeps. But the most traumatic series for him had to be in 2002 when his Kings fell short in the overtime of Game 7. That was the series which produced two games guaranteed to keep any coach awake for months: Robert Horry’s game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer in Game 4 and the suspicious cloud over the officiating in Game 6. Now Adelman is again looking at purple and gold with his top two players, Yao and McGrady, missing from the lineup. The Houston coach must have at least slept well Sunday night…

More than just this season’s title hopes are on the line for Kobe Bryant. There were the Jerry West-Elgin Baylor-Wilt Chamberlain Lakers, the Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lakers and the Shaquille O’Neal-Bryant Lakers. But, if Bryant wants to be up there with MJ, his role model, he needs to create a Kobe dynasty of his own. If not now, when?..

Enough already with flagrant fouls, both 1 and 2. Let’s make it real simple. If a defender is going for the ball, it’s a hard foul. Period. If he’s going for the player, it’s a flagrant foul. What Derek Fisher did to Luis Scola was a flagrant foul. What Ron Artest did to Pau Gasol was not…

Does the NBA really need to clamp down so much on hard fouls in general? The classic was the flying headlock by Kevin McHale on Kurt Rambis in the 1984 NBA Finals between the Lakers and Boston Celtics. It didn’t result in a riot or a brawl or even a fight between Rambis and McHale. Both understood it was a rough moment in a tough series and that was the end of it. David Stern, what are you afraid of? Let the players play…

Speaking of Rambis-McHale, where’s the consistency by the league? On the one hand, the NBA frowned on the Trail Blazers, in the moments leading up to a game against the Lakers in The Rose Garden, showing a hard foul by Trevor Ariza from a previous game. Yet league officials ignored the Celtics replaying the McHale-Rambis incident ad nauseam before each Celtic home game against the Lakers in last season’s NBA Finals…

Saturday’s Denver Nuggets-Dallas Mavericks playoff game may have been the first time in NBA history that a team stalked off the court in furious anger because it didn’t get a foul called against it…

Why didn’t someone stick a mike in Mark Cuban’s face after the game. Afraid of FCC ramifications?..

So Dodger owner Frank McCourt wants Manny Ramirez to apologize to his teammates. Why would they believe anything he had to say since he has already betrayed them…

McCourt also wants Manny to address the media. Maybe Manny can borrow A-Rod’s script which sounded good at the time. Of course, according to a new book by Selena Roberts, A-Rod wasn’t exactly telling the truth, hard as that might be to believe…

Manny or no Manny, the Dodgers will live or die with their pitching…

Why is it athletes look into the camera and mouth the words “Hi, Mom” on Mother’s Day but never seem to respond with the same sentiment on Father’s Day? Too much of a threat to their macho image?