Pitarresi: Sports are a cold-hearted business

Michael Curry got fired by his former teammate.

 

That’s pretty bad.

 

Tony George got fired by his mother.

 

And you can’t top that.

 

Curry was fired Tuesday as coach of the Detroit Pistons by Joe Dumars, the former Pistons star who is the team’s president for basketball operations. The guys played together, but that only went so far. Curry went 39-43 this season and didn’t make the playoffs. Fair enough, but Joe Dumars – a guy I always liked as a player, and one who has done well as a front office guy – has to do some soul-searching. He lost Larry Brown after the vagabond coach left winning an NBA title, he fired Rick Carlisle after the team reached the conference finals, and he fired Flip Saunders after three straight appearances in the conference finals. Maybe Joe should have hung on to one of those three guys.

 

Tony George? Gosh, he’s out as president and CEO of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and head of the Indy Racing League, both of which have had a bumpy ride lately. He will remain as an owner in the IRL. So, okay, maybe a change needed to be made, but getting axed by your own mother? Mari Hulman George is chairman of the board of the speedway, and, wow, talk about not letting sentiment get in the way.

 

“We are pleased that he will continue to be a part of the Indy Racing League as a team owner and as a member of our Board of Directors, and we wish him every success,” Mari George said in a press release.

 

How cold is that? I’m glad my mom never wanted to be a corporate big wheel and was content with being a registered nurse.

Pitarresi: Lucas deserved to win, Rivera irreplaceable

 

I’ve been out of touch, having spent eight days in Wyoming.

 

Wyoming is a long way from a lot of places, but it is beautiful, and believe it or not, they have newspapers and television sets there. So, I was able to keep up with the national sports scene when I wasn’t fishing, trying to find a place to fish, sightseeing, dining lavishly at my sister’s house, or trying to make a fortune in the casinos.

 

 I watched the final round of the U.S. Open and felt good for Lucas Glover. He was able to hold it together – the way poor Ricky Barnes didn’t – and deserved to win. Seems like a good guy, and that’s a plus.

 

I felt bad for Barnes, who fell apart, but his talent showed. We might hear more from him soon. The hat killed me, though. Was that really a painter’s cap?

 

It would have been nice if Phil Mickelson had won, but I’m almost glad he didn’t. I think his wife’s  battle with breast cancer might have been turned into a maudlin soap opera, more of a story device than anything else.  

 

The guy I was pulling for was David Duval. He has been nowhere for years, but he just keeps plugging. If he never is a top player again, he proved he has some guts.

 

I did not see Mariano Rivera earn his 500th save. Quite a landmark. It seems strange to say that a relief pitcher could be at team’s most important player over 15 years, but, really, where would the Yankees have been without Rivera since 1995?

Pitarresi: Flynn moving up

 

Jonny Flynn is moving up.

 

Sports Illustrated has the former Syracuse University point guard projected to go fourth in  Thursday's NBA draft. Flynn was regarded as a low first-round choice when Orange season ended, and a few weeks ago was talked about as being a mid-first-rounder. Now fourth. That's quite a jump. Apparently it's due to impressive workouts with several teams.

 

I'm don't know if Flynn is worth the fourth pick in the draft, and I don't think the scouts really know, either. The kid is a great athlete, very strong, plays with passion. He has holes in his game, some of them that have to do with maturity, but he just turned 20 Feb. 6, so he has plenty of room  to grow.

 

Flynn's size could be a factor. SI lists him as 6-foot-1, but that certainly is not true. Having stood face to face with him many times, I'm sure the 5-11¼ I saw on one scouting report is much more like it. But plenty of guys that size and shorter have made it in the NBA, although not many lately. Well, Flynn is not likely to grow taller, but he can improve his shooting, and he will have to, especially from long range. He was a capable shooter in college, sometimes terrific, but rather streaky. That has to get better. And I can't see him attacking the basket consistently in the NBA. He often did in college, where I thought he often got the better of calls when initiating contact with big guys, but I don't think that will pay off at the next level.

 

Flynn has the athletically ability to play in the NBA. He is fast and powerful and gets off the floor like a rocket. If he can make up for his lack of size, improve his shooting – that's a skill that responds more to hard work than almost any in any sport – and continue to increase his basketball IQ, he has a good chance of being a success.

 

 

 

 

Pitarresi: Have you ever watched the Stanley Cup playoffs?

When people tell me they don’t like hockey, or I read that sentiment someplace, or the national radio talk show guys do everything they can to ignore the game – and most of those smug know-it-alls do ignore it with an vengeance – I want to shout at them:

Have you ever watched the Stanley Cup playoffs?

And I’m shouting it again now after last night’s 2-1 Pittsburgh Penguin victory over the defending champion Detroit Red Wings in the seventh and terrifically entertaining deciding game of the finals.

You don’t like speed, body contact, aggressive and creative play? You don’t like seeing guys give up their heart’s blood to win? You don’t’ like a dramatic save to preserve the victory a couple of heartbeats before the final horn sounds? What is not to like? You don’t even have to understand the game to any great depth to like all of that.

I also love the Stanley Cup itself, which is more and more hyped each year but doesn’t need any help in terms of value. It is 116 years old, and it’s the most treasured trophy in sports. I think it’s great that everyone on the winning team from the general manager to the stick boy gets to lift the Cup.

I don’t think any sport celebrates its championship as monumentally as the National Hockey League does, and I don’t think any sports media organization does a more thorough job in covering one than the CBC does. By the time they got to the 22nd player on the roster, I was getting a little tired, but I was very impressed with the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast team – and it’s a big team - which knows just about every salient detail of every player’s career and private life.

The coverage might have been too good. I’m quite sure that I heard at least three Penguins use the “magic word” as they lifted the Cup. I can hardly blame their exuberance, but guys, come on, you know you are on national television.

That aside, it was a great show. And I ask again, if you say you don’t like the game, have you ever watched the Stanley Cup playoffs?

Pitarresi: Farewell to Randy Smith

 

The death of former Buffalo Brave Randy Smith the other day brought back some memories.

 

Smith was in college the same time I was. I never saw him play then, and only on television when he made the NBA, but we were well aware of his exploits. He was a big name back then.

 

Smith went to Division III Buffalo State. I have no idea why he was there, because he clearly was a big-time athlete. He was All-American in basketball and soccer and track, went on to become an NBA all-star, and held the league’s consecutive games streak for many years. That from a small college seventh-round draft choice.

 

Buffalo Braves coach Jack Ramsay, a man whose knowledge of the game is unsurpassed, call Smith the best athlete he ever coached.

 

"He had stamina, great speed and developed into a very good player," Ramsay told the Los Angeles Times. "And was so fun to be around. There was not a bad day in Randy's life."

 

We wish he had a lot more of them to enjoy.

Pitarresi: Cherry wins us over

So, yesterday, I cut up Don Cherry a little bit for what he had to say about D-Day.

 

I thought it was very nice that he took time to pay tribute to the heroes of that time, but I took him to task for going over the top and insulting everyone involved in the invasion who wasn’t Canadian.

 

So what happens? During his Coach’s Corner segment during the sixth game of the Stanley Cup finals between Detroit and Pittsburgh last night, he let us know again that, right or wrong, smart or dumb, he is all about passion, loyalty, patriotism – whether you think it is misguided or not – and being real.

 

Cherry began a tribute to Canadian soldier Alexandre Peloquin, 20, recently killed in Afghanistan. A photo of the young man, in uniform, was shown on the screen, and then Cherry began reading from a piece of paper. He barely got it done. He mentioned  the soldier’s parents – this kid was French-Canadian, which makes it all the more amazing if you know Cherry’s history with Quebecois - giving some details and then breaking down and crying. “I love him,” he said through his tears. The camera cut away and CBC went to a commercial, far sooner that scheduled I’m pretty sure.

 

I couldn’t believe it, but I could. It’s Don Cherry – loudmouth lout and big-hearted promoter of rock-solid values, visor-hating, foreigner-disparaging Neanderthal, big teddy bear of a great guy. He really ticked me off Saturday, then he made me love him all over again Tuesday.

Pitarresi: Cherry offbase on D-Day comments

I love Don Cherry … to a point.

 

Cherry, nearly three decades into his second career as the centerpiece of Hockey Night in Canada, is the most recognizable person by far from our neighbor to the north, and, depending who you talk to from up there, either a national hero or a national disgrace.

 

Cherry says anything he wants to after the first period of the hockey games televised on CBC, and he does it in a colorful manner, to say the least. He’s refreshing in many ways, and a lot of fun, but he also crosses the line way too often and way too easily, and he’s capable of saying incredibly ignorant things – about European hockey players, French-Canadians and lots of other stuff.

 

He did it again the other night, during the fifth game of the Stanley Cup Finals, which occurred on the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

 

Cherry started out fine. It was very nice that he went out of his way to honor the soldiers who participated in the invasion, and I certainly didn’t mind his pride in the work of the Canadian 3rd Division on Juno Beach. However, when he compared the Americans and British unfavorably to the Canadians, and when he deeply insulted the French Resistance, which played a key role in the operation, he charged across the bounds of good taste.

 

“Canadians are the best soldiers,” Cherry said. “You know why? Because they were volunteers.”

 

Like a good portion of the Americans, British and French weren’t? And whether they were or they weren’t, they were out there fighting and dying. So were soldiers from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland. Apparently, Don was unaware of those guys.

 

I liked the idea of Cherry calling attention to D-Day. I just wish he had done it without somehow belittling non-Canadians, especially since thousands of them found their finally resting places beneath white crosses in France and Belgium. Be patriot, but have a better understanding of what went on, and have a bit more compassion for all those people who helped make D-Day successful and helped win the largest, most decisive conflict in the history of the world.