A Grip on Sports: We are once again banging a drum for the best that ever has been in the world of tennis
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Want to read an incredibly well-written sports book that isn’t really about sports? Then pick up “Bang the Drum Slowly.” No, don’t watch the movie. Read the book. It’s worth the time. Anyhow, we bang the drum today concerning a couple items we’re passionate about. And, yes, we know the last few sentences have been quite a reach.
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• When it comes to banging the drum, we hope our incessant beat concerning the greatness of Rod Laver will inspire someone else to pick up the beat and never let it stop. We are trying our darnedest not to let present-ism overcome actuality.
See, it is easy to look at the men’s tennis world these days and conclude one thing: Novak Djokovic is the greatest player of all time. Well, if Rafael Nadal isn’t. Or Roger Federer. The big three, who have dominated men’s tennis since 2003, probably top everyone’s list of the best the sport has had to offer. Except ours.
Oh, they are good all right. All deserve spots on the Mt. Rushmore of the sport. But it is Laver who towers above them all.
We’ve pounded on this percussion instrument before, that’s for sure. Just about every time Djokovic or Federer or Nadal wins another Grand Slam title – Djokovic picked up his 19th Sunday, winning a five-setter for his second French Open crown. And the reason is simple. We are right, no matter what anyone else thinks.
Laver was a marvel. Dominating on grass, hard courts and clay. He won the Grand Slam (no, not the career Grand Slam but the calendar year Grand Slam) in 1962, giving him six of those coveted titles. Then he turned pro and was blackballed from playing for history.
Five years. That’s how long he played for money and fought the powers that be for inclusion. He was so good, in fact, the Grand Slams relented and allowed professionals, if only to legitimize their events. After all, in the mid-1960s, if Rod Laver wasn’t in the tournament, it wasn’t a true major.
Guess what happened in 1969, the first year in which all four Grand Slam tournaments allowed professionals to compete? You guessed it. Laver won them all again.
No one has done it since. No one else ever won all four twice in a calendar year. Only Laver.
His 11 Grand Slam titles trail a handful of guys, including the Big Three. Pete Sampras won a then-record 14 between 1990 and 2002, though none of those were in Paris. And then there is Roy Emerson, like Laver an Australian with multiple Grand Slams (12) to his credit.
Twelve is a lot. The record until Sampras came around. But Emerson won just two while competing against Laver and 10 others while his fellow countryman was playing professionally. After Laver returned in 1968? None.
Who is to say how many Grand Slam titles Laver would have won in his five-year exile. Maybe two a year? Ten would have given him 21, a record none of the Big Three have reached yet. Maybe he would have won them all. There is no way of knowing.
But we do know one thing. He’s the best that ever played the game. And we will bang on that drum until it breaks.
• We love college baseball. West Coast college baseball in particular. It’s the best. The Pac-12 has won 18 NCAA World Series titles, the Western Athletic Conference seven and others from this side of the country another 11. That’s 36 national titles. The rest of the nation has won 37.
And yet it seems every year the tournament is set up in such a way as to keep West Coast teams from multiple bids in the World Series. Money issues is usually the reason given – it’s expensive to send a bunch of teams west to play regionals and super regionals – and it may be true. But it just seems a bit odd to give Stanford a ninth seed and Texas Tech and eight, when the Big 12 was not all that good this season.
Thankfully, it didn’t matter this season. Stanford pounded the Red Raiders’ pitching and earned a bid to Omaha with two easy wins. And Arizona, the Pac-12 champion, routed Mississippi yesterday to also earn a spot.
Neither may win the national title. Money talks loudly in college sports and SEC and ACC schools have access to a lot more of it these days than their Pac-12 counterparts. But of the last eight titles, the Pac-12 has won three – and by three different schools, Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State. The SEC has also won three (Vanderbilt twice and Florida).
With two from each conference already assured a spot in Omaha (Mississippi State hosts Notre Dame today so the SEC could have three spots but so could the ACC if the Irish and Virginia win) this could be another year when the big-money conferences assert themselves again.
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WSU: What do others think of the Cougars’ football chances this fall? We have a story from Utah to pass along. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college sports, we also have more on the super regionals and the upcoming world series. … We mentioned Arizona’s 16-3 blowout of Mississippi above, but we have more. … Oregon State thinks this baseball season is a foundation-building one. … In basketball, Colorado hopes to get more out of one player next season.
Gonzaga: Mark Few’s testimony before the Senate committee concerning NIL is still sending vibrations through college athletics.
Indians: It is probable Helcris Olivarez is happy he may not have to face the Vancouver Canadians again. He had his third rough outing of the season against them Sunday as Spokane fell 12-6 in the final game of the six-game series. Dave Nichols has more in this game story.
Chiefs: Eli Zummack won the WHL’s award for being the most sportsmanlike player. That news leads off our weekly local briefs column.
Mariners: Logan Gilbert threw well. Jake Fraley hit another home run. And Mitch Haniger hurt himself with a foul ball. That’s the story of the M’s 6-2 win over Cleveland on Sunday. … It took Dillon Thomas a decade to get to the big leagues. … We linked this piece before when it was on Art Thiel’s website. We link it again now that it is on the S-R’s.
Storm: Brenna Stewart asserted herself as did the Storm in an easy 89-66 win over the Sun in Connecticut.
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• We have no problem leaning into the wind about Laver. We never saw him play (or if we did, we were too disinterested to remember) but the facts are the facts. He was the best. Though Djokovic still has time to pass him. If he were to win 24 or 25 majors, it would be impossible not to rate him as No. 1. By the way, we are a little sunburned today. We spent much of the day working in the yard. It is near-perfect. Now we can relax for a couple days as it grows and the weeds mount a counterattack. Until later …