Out of My Mind (44 page)

The worst idea the producers of televised football games have had is putting good-looking young women on the sidelines to ask inane questions of coaches and players.

The crashes that race car drivers survive, usually without serious injury, are amazing. They are poured into that cockpit and fit so tight that they can't rattle around if they flip. They can't move much of anything. What happens if they get an itch?

Lance Armstrong, the Grand Prix bicyclist, is one of the greatest athletes alive. Armstrong rides with something called the U.S. Postal Service Team. I've never seen one of our mailmen on a bicycle.

August is too hot to play football. It's too hot to watch football. That doesn't stop the NFL from trying to make money on football in August.

Pete Sampras wasn't famous for very long. For a few years they were saying he was the greatest tennis player who ever lived, but he never was. They have said that about every great player during his time at the top. They said it about Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Fred Perry, Don Budge, Don McNeill, Jack Kramer, Frank Sedgman, Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. There were all great—and so was Sampras.

It's wrong to try to pick the all-time best in any sport. There's no way to compare Red Grange with Jimmy Brown, Babe Ruth with Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb with Derek Jeter or Walter Johnson with Roger Clemens. No way to compare Jack Dempsey with Joe Louis or Lennox Lewis.

Swimming is a sport only followed by people who used to swim on their school team. I look with amazement at the winning times. Women are now swimming 100 meters, about 109 yards, ten seconds faster than I ever swam 100 yards. In a I00-yard dash, the men would lap me.

Golf is an interesting game but it isn't much exercise for the players since they started using those little carts to take themselves from hole to hole.

For two years I thought that the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, had ruined women's tennis because they were too good, but they didn't last long. No one does in sports.

There are golf and tennis players in every country. Soccer is an international sport but has never been big in the United States. Basketball is the only American sport that is becoming international. Several South American countries play baseball, but the Japanese are a surprise. They seem to really like the game.

It is a mystery to me why anyone who has ever watched one of our football games could still think that what we call “soccer” is a good game. It doesn't compare with football in any way. The only thing I concede is it has more right to be called “football” than our game does. I don't know what our game should be called.

The NFL has tried to push football in Europe, but no other country except Canada plays much football. They don't know what they're missing.