Roy S. Johnson Blog

It's not about LeBron, really. Sure, it is for the Cavs, their fans and for those who believe the Little Franchise That Should put all its hopes for an NBA title in the LeBron Era (however short it may be) on the shoulders of 37-year-old Shaquille O'Neal.

In other words, it's next season or probably not.

But it's not about LeBron.

This trade, the biggest of a major trade season already, is at least as much about legacy. Shaquille O'Neal's legacy.

Should he lead LeBron to the jewelers, should he give Cleveland its first championship in any sport that matters, O'Neal will thrust his Shaqulicious self smack into the debate over the best player of the generation.

And he knows it.

He's been pretty quiet since Kobe won his first ring without him earlier this month. Uncharacteristically so. He was gracious and congratulatory in words, deeds and tweets, even as Kobe was elevated to "best ever" status by some and at least a solid No. 2 by most.

He was also patient, too, though I'm certain he was aware that something was brewing up north, that he was soon going to be paired with the Chosen One, where he'd have the chance to fit his third Young Thing with a ring.

Kobe was the first beneficiary, three times; then Dwyane Wade rode the Big One to the title in '06.

Now, it's LeBron's turn to saddle up.

Or maybe it's the other way around.

Winning rings with Kobe, D-Wade and LeBron would make O'Neal, at minimum, the league's MVT (Most Valued Teammate) of this era.

Certainly the most dominant.

Arguably the best.

That's what it's about. Really.

AP Photo

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I feel cheated. Don Fehr just can't walk out the door like that. Not after a quarter century as the head of the baseball players' union. Not after reigning as one of the most powerful men in sports.

And certainly not before he tells all on the union's role in aiding and abetting what for all time will be known as the Steroid Era.

He can't just leave like that, turning over the union gig to 47-year-old attorney Michael Weiner.

Sure, there are players who feel the union may be in need of a new face (though Weiner isn't that new; he's been with the union for two decades). But if I were a player, especially one who did not play when one could hardly tell the difference between baseballs and Super Balls, I'd stamp "Not Accepted" on Fehr's resignation letter.

Heck, if I was Albert Pujols, I'd grab Fehr by the back the neck as he was running out the door, plant him behind his desk and say, "Not until you tell everyone why."

Why did the union block drug testing until 2004?

Why did the union say nothing as players were sneaking into toilets to stab themselves in the butt just before the national anthem?

Why did the union allow the "culture" of drug use to occur?

Of course, the questions are almost rhetorical. Fehr is credited with overseeing an era in which player salaries soared tenfold. And since the 1994 players' strike, the sport has been without labor strife, a period unmatched by any of the other major pro sports.

But those gains came at a heavy price, one that will cost baseball for decades – maybe not so much financially (fans still continue to spin the turnstiles) but in the imagery of needles and syringes and little clear vials.

Don, How do you feel about a generation of your clients being shunned by baseball's Hall of Fame?

C'mon, is there a fan out there who doesn't wonder about an overpowering hitter or pitcher these days -- no matter the absence of any evidence of their use of PEDs?

I wonder, and I hate that I do.

Don, should YOU be inducted in the Hall?

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig appears to be public (or at least media) enemy No. 1 on the list of those most culpable for baseball's Powerball period. But Fehr has to be No. 2.

He was adamant against testing until it became clear that the use of PEDs was pervasive and, if nothing was done, permanent. Congress was knocking. Former players were twisting in the wind. Former trainers were refusing to stay silent.

Only when it got ugly -- when 104 of 1,198 players tested in 2003 (anonymously . . . ha!) came up positive -- did the union acquiesce and agree to a policy for testing and punishment.

Fehr's stonewalling said early on that the union was hiding something, that it had no real motive or incentive for proving the game was clean as long as no one could prove it wasn't. Then came the so-called Anonymous 104.

Don, were you surprised the number was that high?

I'd like to ask him, before he's out the door.

AP photo

Athletes don't really want to hear about a "window of opportunity."

No matter their reality, no matter how much better their competition, no matter the toll time has taken, they think they can win until someone pries the ball, glove, bat, club, racket or whatever from their cold, dead fingers (in homage to the late Charlton Heston).

James Blake's "window" is creeping downward. He's still the second-ranked American in the world, but that calling card doesn't scare anyone on the other side of the net any more. This year, he's gone 18-11, reaching only one final (this week's grass-court AEGON Championship in London, where he lost in straight sets to rising Brit Andy Murray, the world's No. 3) and losing four times in the first round, including to a qualifier at the French.

He's dropped to 17th in the world, and this year he'll turn 30. In 2006, he reached a career-high No. 4. (After No. 6 Andy Roddick and Blake, there are only two other Americans in the Top 50: 27-year-old Mardy Fish, ranked 26th; and 21-year-old Sam Querrey, 46th.)

And yet, as expected, Blake heads toward Wimbledon with a hefty dose of confidence in his bag.  "I feel great about my chances," he said after losing to Murray.

You expect that from a competitive athlete, and I respect it.

I just don't happen to agree with it.

Grass is a great surface for Blake, a strong baseliner with power and solid skills at the net. But he's never reached a Grand Slam final, and there's no reason to think he will now.

He's reached the quarters three times but has never been able to break through, not through lack of effort but, well, each time the other guy's just been better. It happens.

Blake has been (and remains) a great representative for the U.S. He's a Davis Cup regular. Since making his debut in 2001, he's played every year except 2004 (when he broke his neck during a fall on clay and hit the net post). He's won 21 Davis Cup matches, losing only 10.

He's a guy crowds root for, even when they know his chances aren't "great."

They root for him, in part because he's a bit of an anomaly - a top athlete who does not land in the Hollywood tabloids nor strut the red carpet. He simply plays, and when he found his form in 2006 - two years after the injury that almost cost him his career - he may have been the most popular male on tour not named Federer or Nadal. 

But as Federer cements his legacy as the game's best ever, and Nadal frets over how gimpy knees might impact his own legend, Blake slides along, playing dutifully and ably as his window closes. 

AP photo

So NASCAR has become hockey. Actually, that's not fair to the NHL. At least no one's trying to take away its sticks.

Auto icon General Motors, mired in its own economic hell, announced recently that it would cut funding at all levels of NASCAR, forcing key teams, including Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Nationwide team, to trim their budgets and, like the rest of us, make do with less.

NASCAR was sputtering long before GM's woes made its recent cutback inevitable. Earlier this year, Chrysler, just out of bankruptcy, sliced its funding of Dodge teams, which forced Richard Petty Motorsports to lay off nine employees a few days ago. At the end of last season, more than 1,000 team members were laid off. Ford is spending less on racing as well.

Like the market, what was once the "fastest-growing sport in America" has pretty much lost all its heyday gains. No wonder NASCAR is all in a lather over prospects that open-wheel driver Danica Patrick would be "open" to jumping to stock cars when her three-year contract ends at the close of IndyCar season in October.

Patrick may be the second-biggest star in auto racing. But like No. 1 - Earnhardt - her star status has less to so with her skills behind the wheel than her, uh, other assets. Much has been made of the fact that she has not won a race in the United States, but she stands fifth in IndyCar Series points. Clearly, she can race.

One of the top NASCAR teams should do all it can to sign Patrick and place her in a full-time Sprint Cup car. It's the only way she'll jump to stock after seeing some of her former open-wheel colleagues struggle on NASCAR teams with limited resources.

Patrick would be a spark to NASCAR. She knows it. NASCAR so knows it.

But if the sport thinks the diminutive driver will get it back on track, well, that's wrong-headed. Danica Patrick isn't NASCAR's savior, not even if she drives in a swimsuit.

Her presence in open-wheel racing shed new light on a sport that was pretty much known for one race - the Indy 500 - before she came along. But how many other races can you name? How often have you tuned in to watch Patrick race?

Like the rest of us, NASCAR has to figure out how to save itself. It must solidify its core fan base by recognizing their pain and making races more affordable. After years of chasing Madison Avenue, it must return to Main Street.

Danica Patrick's arrival will be a start, but not enough to reach the checkered flag.

AP Photo

Labels can stick forever, if you wait too long to shed them.

Last year, Anthony Kim rid himself of the "Not Serious" label he earned as a rookie when he treated the PGA Tour as if it were a travelling frat party. He started choosing a bucket of balls over beer and actually going to the gym.

As a result, he began living up to another label - "The Next Tiger Woods" -  with two victories, eight Top 10 finishes and a rousing contribution to the U.S. triumph in the Ryder Cup. He won $4,656,266 in earnings, good enough for sixth overall. (Until then, the only things he had in common with the world's best golfer were an Asian genealogy and the ability to hit the ball a ton.)

Now, though, Kim is trying to avoid another potential label - "Underachiever."

Nagging injuries are partly to blame for an '09 now mired in a slump. Kim has finished in the Top 10 only once in 11 events and in so doing gained another label - "Conundrum."

He's third among all players in birdies per round (4.41) but 146th in scoring average (71.54). He's hit exactly half of fairways (184th) and less that two-thirds of greens in regulation (145th).

What does it all say? He's scrambling like a banshee, making something out of nothing, it seems. Just not enough to get back in contention.

Which is why Kim has not discarded one label: "Cocky."

"It's coming along," he told the Patriot-News last week. "I know my game is getting better."

Bethpage Black, site of the U.S. Open this week, will test that belief, though it is also the kind of venue that fuels the likes of Kim, who may be the face of a generation on tour that was weened on Tiger but haven't yet had their brains beaten out by him. They admired and emulated him, some adopting his habits and some his strut.

They see him more as an ideal than a nightmare. They seem to relish the thought of  facing him on a Sunday in a major, and don't hear soft-cleat footsteps when he's charging.

"I want it all," he told Sports Illustrated last year. "I'm a man of the people. I want to help kids. want to be Number 1, to win majors, and I want to be the baddest person on the planet."

Right now, at least on the PGA Tour, that label is taken.

Just not permanently,  Kim hopes.

The End is rarely pretty for professional athletes. On occasion, the athlete, mindful that his/her skills have declined to the degree that they are no longer elite, will let us know it is The End, announcing that a particular season will be their last.

Some amble away quietly, like the Good Guy in the old cowboy movies. Their departures often goes unnoticed until some ask, "Whatever happened to [fill in the blank]?"

Most often, The End is sad. Men, some barely past the peak of their youth, are cut or ignored. Or both. Not on their terms, as it's often said. Their heart and mind still says I can play, but the body can't follow through.

Less than a week after the 43-year-old, 305-game winning certain HOFer was unceremoniously cut by the Atlanta Braves (where he won a World Series ring in 1995). Glavine is reportedly pondering a grievance against the team for firing him for "business" reasons rather than for his ability to pitch.

Coming off shoulder and elbow surgery, Glavine said he was ready to pitch. He wanted to have the ball in his hand at least one more time.

The timing of the move (the day before he would have been activated for a Sunday start) was, at best, squirrelly, at worst, cruel. It allowed the Braves to avoid paying him $1 million bonus due when he was placed on the active roster.

"By not paying me, I think that freed up some money for them to do that," Glavine said. "So I think it was much more of a business and financial situation than it was a performance situation."

He's probably right. Of course it was a business decision. Baseball's collective bargaining agreement says players cannot be released for soley financial reasons (wink) but it happens all the time in sports. Not always involving a legend, but it happens nonetheless.

That said, the cut was cold. Glavine's status as an icon in Atlanta, his value to the franchise as a tie to the team's most recent glories exceeds $1 million.

Even the Braves admit they bungled it.  “I, as the president of the club, could have taken more time to explain not only the circumstances around the decision, although we made that decision in unanimous fashion, but to explain to Tommy our high regard for him,” said John Schuerholz. “But I don’t feel like I really expressed myself as completely and as fully and to the level that somebody like Tommy deserves,” Schuerholz said.

Here's the irony. The Braves bungle is allowing Glavine to go out on his own terms.

If he thinks about it, if he allows his anger and personal embarrassment to subside, I bet he'll see that wading through a protracted grievance process isn't the way he'd like to go out.

It would make an ugly exit even uglier, a The End not befitting Glavine.

Right now, the ball's in his hand again. Right where he wanted it all along.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images/File/Mike Zarrilli

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) is outraged. He's fired up. So much so that he's whipped off letters and talked up a storm of indignation.

The object of his ire is the NBA's age minimum, requiring aspiring ballers to be at least 19 (and a year out of high school) before entering the league's draft.

Not the implosion of the American economy, nor the war in Afghanistan. Not the President's speech on the Middle East. Nor the growing number of Tennesseans who've lost their job, or might be losing their home to foreclosure, or who can't afford health insurance.

None of the above, but a rule that affects fewer than a dozen young men every year.

Why? Or even better: Why now does he stand before the near-empty Congressional chambers (and a TV audience, of course) to rage against a rule that was put in place two years ago? Didn't hear a peep out of him then. Didn't hear a word of outrage out of him when Derrick Rose, a mega-talented freshman, led Memphis, which is in his district, to the national championship game in 2008.

Why now is because Rose is presumably at the center of an allegation that a Memphis player cheated on an SAT test, an allegation that has already stained the Tiger program and threatens to lead to NCAA sanctions.

Now, Cohen (pictured) is outraged.

I don't mind politicians sticking their cattle prods into sports when needed. Often, it is. (See: BCS championships and bowls) But when they are motivated by a clear personal agenda that dismisses any thoughtful discussion, they really just need to shut up.

Especially when they sink to the depths of banality, as did Cohen.

For starters, he said the young men who have to wait a year to be eligible for the NBA draft are "forced to go to school when they have no desire or interest in going to school."

Uh, don't a lot of kids do that every day?!

So there's something wrong with a young man spending a year or two on a college campus? It hasn't hurt myriad young men, from Magic Johnson to Kevin Durant. And their schools or programs did not seem to be hurt by their drive-through.

Moreover, there are now other options for young players, such as Europe, where most notably Brandon Jennings has spent the past year, waiting to become eligible for the NBA draft.

Cohen's remarks were just silly. This is outrageous, insulting and just dumb. Cohen compared the rule to "slavery," saying it's "a restraint on a person's freedom's and liberties."

Jeez, my ancestors never quite described slavery in those terms. Nor have the thousands of women being held as sex slaves in too many places around the world.

Congressman, have you written any letters against that? 

Posturing such as this is so transparent and insipid it diminishes any real discussion about the argument for or against the target of the politician's scorn.

And that's too bad.

But I'm sure it will pass once the next great recruit signs a letter of intent to attend Memphis -  forced to do so like a slave.

Photo courtesy Rep. Steve Cohen

Too bad chicks don't dig the squibbler, the seeing-eye single or even the laser up the middle. If they did, baseball might not still be trying to extricate itself from the morass known as PEDs.

If they did, Ichiro Suzuki might be dominating sports pages (paper and digital). During his first at-bat Tuesday night in Seattle, Ichiro sent a pitch into the hole on the left side of the infield forcing Baltimore shortstop Roberto Andino to backhand the ball, which meant the still-speedy Ichiro would be credited with a single, extending his Mariners-record hitting streak to 26 games.

Yeah, that's not even halfway toward Joe DiMaggio's historic 56-game run (a.k.a. The Mark That Will Never Be Broken). But it's the best in two seasons; since 2002, there have been only three longer streaks, led by Johnny Damon's 29-gamer in 2005.

Ichiro, the veteran Seattle outfielder, is the game's best hitter. Period.

No, he doesn't possess the highest average (though his .353 clip ain't shabby), nor does he have the most hits (71, tied for fourth with L.A.'s Orlando Hudson). And he certainly doesn't make a pitcher's knees shake like Albert Pujols does.

In fact, he's more surgeon than slugger, more of a scientist at the plate.

And lately, he's not only been on a tear but he's shown a new twist - pulling the ball.

Ichiro, a left-hand hitter, typically slaps and slices balls over and around helpless shortstops and third basemen. But lately he's been turning on the ball. Last week in Anaheim, he hit a homer and a double to right.

Such is a move of a confident hitter, but Ichiro's confidence isn't new. He may be more relaxed, however, relative to last season when some teammates whispered that the Snoop-loving guy was somehow "selfish," putting himself and his single-minded focus on base hits ahead of the team.

Nonsense, of course. But one could easily draw a correlation between his hot star this season and the new presence of Ken Griffey Jr. The Mariners icon has contributed to a more relaxed air in Seattle, which is hovering just under .500 and hopes to make a run at a postseason berth. But he's taking a particular liking to Ichiro.

He apparently knows Ichioro's most vulnerable "spots." He tickles his teammate mercilessly, and awhile back he had T-shirts made with the No. 51 on the front and "Ichi Balls" written on the back in Japanese.

Ichiro, likely to be the first Japanese player from the majors to be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame, reminds me of the school where the confrontation between pitcher and batter was as much about chess than brute strength, when the batter picked his way through an at-bat rather than crashed it. The only performance enhancer needed is a keen mind and fast hands.

One of his aims this season is to reach 200 hits for the ninth consecutive season, a major league record and one that should be acknowledged with the kind of awe and hosannas usually reserved for ball bashers.

If only the chicks loved the single.

AP photo

Sunday was a good day for starting pitchers. Ten of them ended the day with a W. In 15 games, that's an impressive ratio.

However, none of them put in a full, impressive day's work.

The closest was Detroit right-hander Edwin Jackson, who threw eight shutout innings against Baltimore before yielding the mound to Fernando Rodney, the Tigers's bearded and imposing closer.

That's not unusual. The complete game an endangered species. Pitchers like Zack Greinke, the Kansas phenom (above) who's pitched five complete games in 2009 is an anomaly. The next best is a six-way tie with two complete games.

But even guys like Jackson, workhorses who often take their teams deep into a game, are fading thanks to conservative pitch counts and complex bullpen strategies. He's averaged 6.6 innings in his last 10 starts, five of them wins. Four pitchers - Greinke, Roy Halladay, Kevin Millwood and CC Sabathia - are averaging at least 7.0 innings per start this season.

Most top-end starters are averaging at least six innings per outing, a good two-thirds days' work. And that's the minimum a starter should have to perform before being able to earn a W.

Unfortunately, baseball barely requires a half-day's labor - five innings - from starters for a W. That's just not enough.

On Sunday Milwaukee's Yovani Gallardo lasted into the sixth but managed just one out before being lifted, having allowed two runs. Yet because the Brewers scored five in the first three innings he was credited with the W. It was the fourth time in 10 starts that Gallardo failed to pitch six innings, and he earned victories in two of those outings.

Sorry. Not enough.

If I could take some white-out to the rule book, I'd require starters to go seven before getting the W. That's man-ball. In 1978, baseball's 10 winningest pitchers (plus any 20-game winners - remember them?) averaged 7.4 innings per outing. (As a side note: Mike Caldwell pitched 23 complete games that season.)

A decade later, the number was only negligibly less - 7.3 innings per outing.

By 1998, with the development of bullpen specialists, the starter's day had shortened to 6.7 innings among those same 10 winningst pitchers. And the number didn't change during the 2008 season.

My seven-inning rule would undoubtedly rile some human-rights activists, claiming it's physically and mentally cruel and unusual, or somesuch. Wimps. I'd settle for six innings at this juncture, reluctantly.

The five-inning rule coincides with the rule that if a game is called after five innings, it goes in the books as a completed game. Frankly, that rule should be changed, too. Five innings is like a date that ends at the appetizer. Or a book you stop reading halfway through.

It was fun but hardly fulfilling.

Changing the rule would not throw the stat book into a tizzy. As noted above, Gallardo would have been the only "winner" stripped of a W because he did not complete six innings.

It also would not have a dramatically adverse effect on any individual pitcher's pursuit of history. Very few are winning 20 games any more, and after Randy Johnson reaches the 300 milestone (it could happen Wednesday), our grandkids might be in the majors before another 300-gamer comes along - even if they shortened the requirement to three innings.

Raise the bar now and let's see pitchers earn their Ws.

AP photo