Sunday in Philadelphia, I watched the French Open men’s final with my Polish friend Agnieszka, who doesn’t follow the sport (any sport). So she needed an introduction to the players. I told her first about Alcaraz, then about Zverev, noting that he was German but ethnically Russian.
“That’s a bad combination,” she said.
It’s raining for the second straight day in Paris, which means that all but two of the courts at the French Open are covered. The temperature is in the low 60s, an improvement over the other night, when it was 10 degrees cooler and Daniil Medvedev appeared for his match in leggings. Cool and damp is fine for Welsh rugby; not so much for tennis. Especially when the moisture makes the courts unplayable. The announcers all express sympathy for the players, made to start and stop, and then wait indefinitely. And I think: Yes, yes, it must be tough for them – but what about the tourists? The people who saved for years to visit the City of Light – at the end of May! In the era of global warming! – and now find themselves huddling in doorways or sipping hot chocolate in bright cafes. Luckily, they’re in a city with decent museums.
Bally Sports, the Marlins network, is not showing their games right now because of bankruptcy proceedings. Even though the Marlins have one of the worst records in baseball this year, it annoys me that I can’t watch them on TV. It's like the old Catskills joke: “The food here is terrible," a woman complains. "And the portions are so small.”
Last week we drove to Holiday Park to check out the new restaurant, The Federal, that overlooks the Florida Panthers practice rink. We got there a little before noon and were delighted (at least I was) to see the players slapping shots on the rink. Just seeing a large oval of ice in the middle of Fort Lauderdale was impressive enough. I know people at the nearby tennis center were opposed to the complex when it was approved, but I think the resulting building is an excellent addition to downtown. A major sports team practicing in its heart gives Fort Lauderdale a big city feel. Now, instead of driving all the way out to Sunrise, residents can pull off Federal Highway, park under a tree, and enter for free a building in which some of the world’s greatest hockey players are honing their skills. This, along with another Stanley Cup run, will surely win the team new fans.
(We didn’t stay to eat, but I’m planning to go back one evening to watch a game, where the atmosphere, I imagine, will be as close to that at the arena as one can get.)
At lunch the other day I asked my friend Dave, who is knowledgeable about the game of basketball, what he thought of Caitlin Clark. He had his criticisms: she doesn’t like to shoot once she gets inside the 3-point line, and she doesn’t play defense. But he was impressed by her passing, and the way she filled arenas that had previously been practically empty. Jordan, he said, couldn’t even take credit for that, as people watched the NBA before his arrival on the scene.
And Dave had asked himself if anyone else in sport had ever done that, and he thought of one person: Mia Hamm. And she did it in a sport that was so unpopular in America that no one paid much attention when it was played by men.
Now, I didn’t hear or read all the commentary about the phenomenon of Clark, yet what I did hear and read didn’t include any mention of Hamm. The human tendency is to believe that one’s age is exceptional – it’s why athletes are continually given the label GOAT – and the conviction is infinitely aided by an ignorance of history. Today, when we are bombarded with so much news and information, it’s easier than ever to lose sight of the past, and think that our times are unprecedented. When in fact they’re simply self-absorbed.
Part of the madness of March is rooting for teams you never gave a thought to before. Last night I became a big Oakland University fan – they were playing perennial powerhouse Kentucky, and I never do brackets – all the while believing the school was in located somewhere in the Bay area. (Googling just now, I saw that the school is in Michigan.) The number of three-point shots that went in, for both teams, was incredible in the second half, but the Golden Grizzlies (love that name) hung on to win 80-76. And, sitting at home, conforming to the psychological tenor of the month, I felt enormous joy for a school I thought was somewhere else.