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Rearview mirror: Fiedler notches his name in post-9/11 lore

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Fiedler's touchdown makes national newsTwo days after Mike Piazza’s inspirational home run, the NFL resumed its games as well. Before the Dolphins played the Raiders, quarterback Jay Fiedler, who I’ve always been partial to – we Jews have to stick together – led the team onto the field while waving an American Flag that had recently been flown in Afghanistan. 

Fiedler was a capable but unflashy quarterback whose best attribute was his toughness. But on that day, he was a true champion, even before what he did on the field.

That said, he performed brilliantly. Fiedler, with no time left, made a gutsy dash up the middle and crashed into the end zone to score the winning touchdown of an 18-15 victory over a team that would play in the Super Bowl that season. Though a solid athlete — in fact, a former decathlete — Fiedler was no speed demon, but like Piazza, he wouldn’t let his team lose that day after such an emotionally charged beginning.

And through his act of sheer athleticism and joyousness, Mr. Fiedler ended up with his first and only Sports Illustrated cover.

I remember the Piazza game more vividly, particularly since I was there, and because it was in New York and had a lot more significance as such. But I remember Fiedler’s mad dash as well, and if that’s the main thing you take from his career, that isn’t such a bad thing to hang his hat on.

Djokovic’s selfless act deserves your support at U.S. Open

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Djokovic makes some new fans at the Open

 

I don’t talk about tennis here much, but as a former high school great – I sound like Al Bundy here – I do follow it.

And I’ve always been impressed by Novak Djokovic’s ability – and his sense of humor, as he has a history of mimicking other players, though that hasn’t always ingratiated him with the stuffy tennis crowds, who apparently have no sense of humor. He also had a well publicized feud with Andy Roddick last year.

Djokovic must go through Roger Federer to win the U.S. Open, something I don’t believe will happen. But hopefully it does, and I have nothing against Federer, who I admire. The thing is, Djokovic has been quietly hosting the children of people who died on 9/11 at his matches.

Djokovic is from war-torn Serbia, so he understands what these kids are going through:

We’re trying to enjoy. We’re young. They’re young. They’re trying to enjoy their life, and they came to tennis. So this is the positive message. We don’t want to, you know, get back in the past. What already happened, happened. It’s life.

This, my friends, is someone to root for. Djokovic, while always making things more interesting for a sport that often isn’t, is a winner regardless of what happens against Federer.

Weekend roundup: Money in the Bank, UFC’s Forest of Fear, Incubus

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It was an eventful weekend for SportsAngle’s Esoteric and Epstein, who headed south down the GSP – not Georges St. Pierre, the Garden State Parkway – for a birthday celebration. (I won’t say how many years, but it’s rounder than I’d like) The highlight of the trip was a visit to Citizens Bank Park on Saturday night for the Phillies-Marlins game with Cole Hamels on the hill.

PHILADELPHIA – Though I’ve long heard its virtues extolled, I didn’t want to like Citizens Bank – mainly because I don’t like the Phillies – but at the end of my first trip to the park, I couldn’t help but admit that it’s a great place to take in a ballgame.

A big reason the park is such a success is that the atmosphere is fantastic. It makes an enormous difference that the Phillies won the World Series last year and look to be a strong contender again this year – fans gravitate to winners. The guest services booth told me the game was a sellout, as most games have been since May, and it creates a special environment when the seats are completely filled.

Mets fans probably won’t like to hear this, but though Citi Field was an attempt to mimic the vibe of Citizens Bank, the Mets’ lack of success and inability to develop stars have left them far behind their neighbors to the south. Even when Reyes, Delgado and Beltran are healthy, they simply don’t generate the trust that Utley, Howard, Rollins, Victorino, Werth and Ibanez do.

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First impressions: Introducing RjE

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Editors’ Note: We’re excited to welcome longtime associate Ron Epstein to the SportsAngle family. Ron has been an Internet writer for quite some time and has a unique take on things. We look forward to his contributions.

My name is Ron Epstein. I love sports. I also love to write.

It took me a long time to write an appropriate opening for this introductory post. Definitely not the way I wanted to make my first impression with you, the reader.

Now let me get this out of the way. I like you. I like you a lot. With all the garbage clogging up the Internet, I am thankful that you’ve trusted me enough to spend your valuable time reading my ramblings instead of those of countless others you’ve never met across the Internet sports scene.

Because you’ve put so much faith in me, I want you to know that I won’t let you down. I want to make you laugh. I want to make you cry. I want us to grow old together. On our magical journey together, we will learn many things about each other. favrejobasplit480

You will learn that I am extremely opinionated and not always well thought out.  I will learn that you don’t mind that so much. In fact, you may even encourage it.

You will learn that I believe that the American sports machine is seriously broken. Something is wrong in our sports culture when SportsCenter, ESPN’s flagship “news” offering, constantly runs a decidedly uninformative crawl that reads, “Brett Favre still undecided on whether to return to football.”

I’ve also learned that sports talk radio is even worse. The hosts are extremely unprepared, and their callers are generally a bunch of crybabies who can’t get over the fact that Joba Chamberlain is never going to return to the bullpen.

And I’ve even learned that many people spend more time on their fantasy football team than they do on their personal grooming habits. Regardless, I still like you, and I’m glad we’ve been able to make this introduction. Stop by often.

The world is a much better place now that SportsAngle is back.

RjE

In teammate, Armstrong finds new way to challenge himself

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It’s no secret that Lance Armstrong is an extremely competitive person,  not that that’s a bad thing. That is exactly why it’s hardly a stunner that Armstrong hasn’t been content after all to stand aside and support Astana teammate Alberto Contador during the Tour de France.Black, white and yellow

Does someone like Armstrong, who won seven Tours in a row, re-emerge from "retirement" to be anything other than The Man? Of course not, that’s not how it goes.

When Jordan came back to the Wizards, was he satisfied playing second fiddle to the younger players on the team to help them learn how to lead, maybe even coming off the bench if it was to help the team’s progress? Get real. Though Jordan’s body no longer allowed him to duplicate his former physical splendor, his mentality had not changed, and he conducted himself as such — at the expense of the team.

The difference with Armstrong is that he’s not much weaker than he was before, if at all. He’s still a virtuoso capable of controlling the action; Lance in the Alps is akin to Federer at Centre Court. And he knows it.

But then there’s the matter of Contador. When Lance returned to Astana, he was coming back to a team that featured the Tour winner from just two years ago. Contador was not initially pleased, intending to join another team, but he was contractually obligated to Astana. However, Armstrong said the right things. This is from their first press conference back in December:

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Rebirth

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So after about three years, SportsAngle is back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5.

Why now? Why not? We were ahead of the curve back then, and now you see sports blogs sprouting up all over the place with Deadspin and all that. But SportsAngle had a certain edge to it, a spark – talking about stuff most people just don’t mess with: MMA (before it blew up), boxing, big-time high school basketball. (How big? SportsAngle was courtside at two of LeBron James’ high school games) We interviewed Tank Abbott, Chris Paul, a player from the ’05 NCAA 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson hoops team. We talked a lot on college hoops, a good amount on the NBA, some NFL, and a pinch of horror movies. Lately, the baseball knowledge quotient around here has gone up considerably.G.O.A.T.

The good part of blogging – also the bad part in certain ways – no editors. You write what you want, when you want. In that respect, SportsAngle was, and is, kind of like Bill Simmons on ESPN.com, just without the unchecked pretentiousness. And we found an audience; at our peak, we had several thousand people coming to read weekly; we were a fully-formed sports site, not just a blog.

The original incarnation was started by a genius Webmaster teaming with a youngster with big ideas — who suffered a near-total burnout and was last seen wandering somewhere in the Las Vegas desert, wearing a White Sox Michael Jordan jersey and these sneakers, and alternating between muttering lyrics from Liquid Swords and lines from the movie Death Proof.

In 2009, the site is powered by Truth, a computer wizard and savvy sports enthusiast, and a furious sports mind named Esoteric – not this guy, though I am a fan – whose tastes and sensibilities stylistically resemble what was going on during the first version of SportsAngle. We’ll probably have another couple of people we like doing some stuff on here with their own niche.

So if you remember what we were doing before and liked it, there’s more of the same to come. If you’re new to these parts, you might like what you see. It’s great to be back, and we intend to be here for quite some time.

— Eso