Roger is the GOAT; case closed

Sports media live on debate.  Did the Warriors win or did the Cavs choke (answer: Warriors won)?  Who’s better, Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera (answer: Trout, by a wide margin)?  Who would win if the 1927 Yankees played the 1998 Yankees (according to the TV show Sports Night, the 1927 Yankees would probably be distracted by all the jets flying overhead). 

Who is the greatest men’s tennis player of all time?  The answer is obviously John McEnroe.  What, that answer isn’t obvious?  What about Sampras, Borg, Federer and Nadal?  All great players, but Mac is a top ten singles player who is arguably the greatest doubles player of all time.  Mac has 77 singles titles and 78 doubles titles, a total of 155, which is a lot more titles than those other guys who eschewed doubles like Roger Federer who only has 101 singles and doubles titles.

So, let us turn to the question of who is the greatest men’s singles player of all time.  I attempted to answer this for women's tennis, but the results were difficult to interpret; Serena seems dominant, but Steffi Graf won more majors faster against better opponents, and Martina Navratilova was winning major doubles titles when she was 50.   It’s a little clearer for the men, as the game has evolved linearly and we can focus on recent champions.  Yes, maybe the answer is Rod Laver but since he played with wooden rackets he might as well have been hitting the ball with the femur of a brontosaurus.

The answer boils down to Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal.  Roger has more major titles, 19 and counting.  But Nadal enjoys a 23-14 edge in head to head match-ups, plus he had more success at a younger age.  Then he broke down and Federer, instead of gently going into that good night, resurrected himself and is now back on top at age 35.

I think the answer is Fed.  I don’t care if Nadal wins the next 5 French Opens and passes Federer with 20 majors, and I don’t care about their head-to-head.  The head-to-head is easily explained by two factors; first, Nadal is four years younger than Roger, so naturally he should have an edge as they both approach their prime and then move beyond it.  Would it have proven anything if Pete Sampras had beaten a 60 year old Rod Laver in 1998? 

Secondly, Nadal is a clay court specialist who is also kind of good on other surfaces.  His edge over Federer on clay is 13-2, so if you disregard clay his record against Federer is 10-12.

This is one time when I want to just disregard the numbers and say Roger Federer is the best because he just is.  Nadal has a crashing, bruising style of play that is effective, but destructive to his body. Federer developed a way of playing that is not only very, very effective, but keeps him from being injured.  He seems to hover a quarter inch above the court.  It is hard to play tennis well, even harder to play tennis well and avoid injuries.

Also, Federer has been able to evolve his game more than any player ever.  He came up and was number one when Nadal arrived and challenged him.  Faced with a younger rival and needed to shorten points, Federer developed a big serve, so big that he is now third all-time in career aces and got his 10,000^th ace at Wimbledon this year.

A few years went by and he realized he needed another weapon to stay on top, so he invented SABR, the Sneak Attack By Roger, where he would suddenly run up and take an opponent’s second serve as a half volley.  Since the invention of the backhand, who else has invented a new tennis technique?

But time went on and Roger’s body started to fail him.  So, he took 6 months off, and instead of rust he came back refreshed and won the Aussie Open. Then he skipped the clay court season and came to Wimbledon rested, with the result that he became the oldest winner of the event by four years, AND didn’t drop a set.

Numbers don’t begin to encompass all the reasons why Roger Federer is the greatest men’s singles player of all time.  Nadal might catch his career majors total by continuing to dominate at the French Open, but again, Nadal is the only the greatest clay court singles tennis player of all time.  When looking at the big picture (and leaving out doubles) Nadal can never really catch up with Roger for the title of Greatest Of All Time (in men’s singles).

The 2017 Emmy Nominations--Who cares?

I could do a long, thoughtful analysis f the recently announced nominees for the Primetime Emmy awards, but frankly who cares?  The number of series available for nomination now that we have broadcast networks, basic cable networks, premium cable networks, streaming services and digital platforms (for god sakes, Facebook and Snapchat got a nomination!) that the whole thing is ridiculous.  Instead of throwing everyone into a big hopper, maybe we should go back to when only the broadcast networks competed for Emmies.  Cable shows competed for Cable Ace Awards. We could invent new awards for Netflix and Hulu to fight over.  It would make more sense that considering there are now over 1,400 series on TV (and that number is 18 months old).

Before I start griping, a couple of shout outs.  I am pleased that Stranger Things got a Best Drama Nomination, and that Millie Bobbie Brown snagged a Supporting Actress nod.  In a time when the category of Best Drama has gotten increasingly pompous, with only “serious dramas” being considered, it is nice that a fun little science fiction-ish show made the final cut.  Shows like the old 60’s series Mission Impossible used to win Best Drama, but lately it’s been all The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad type heavy dramas.  Good for Stranger things, although why it is a series and not a limited run series I don’t understand; yes, a second season is planned, but there were three seasons of Fargo and it’s a limited series.  Oh, and the actress who played Barb got a nomination; how wild is that?

I am also thrilled that Ellie Kemper FINALLY got a nomination for Best Actress for Unbreakable Kimie Schmidt.  How they nominated the show for Best Comedy and failed to nominate her makes no sense.  Her performance is so central to the success of that show, you can’t appreciate the show without appreciating her.

I was also pleased, but not surprised, that Ewen McGregor was nominated for his astonishing work on Fargo.  This season’s version seemed like a let down from the first two, but McGregor and fellow co-stars Carrie Coon and David Thewlis all were recognized.  Playing twin brothers is difficult, but playing non-identical brothers must be even harder.

Now for the griping.  For the love of all that is good and holy, can someone explain to me why the show with the most primetime Emmy nominations is Saturday Night Live, a show that isn’t even in prime time.  In fact, the actors are called the “not ready for prime-time platers.”  There are six nominees in the best supporting actress in a comedy category, and half of them are from SNL.  These are performers who do not create a character week-in and week-out, do not do consistent character work, and just do skits in a free form variety show; they should not be confused with REAL actors who attempt to create REAL characters that are supposedly based on some semblance of reality. The show also takes up 5 nominees in the guest actor/actress categories.  With so few nominations and so many shows, a show that is not in prime time (and hasn’t been consistently funny in 35 years) shouldn’t be hogging so many slots.

Possibly the single greatest acting performance I saw last season was Ted Danson’s brilliant turn around in the final episode of The Good Place, when the seemingly feckless Michael was revealed to be (spoilers!) the architect of the scheme to put Kristen Bell’s character through perpetual torment.  Maybe the academy has gotten so used to Danson being so good for so long that him being brilliant isn’t enough.  Or maybe too few people saw the show, or got the context of his performance within the show.  Whatever, he should have won the Emmy for Supporting Actor in a Comedy.

And any season in which Andre Braugher isn’t nominated for Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a travesty. 

Ok, Mr. Robot’s second season wasn’t as good as its first (how could it have been?) but no love for last year’s winner, Rami Malik?  Is it because his performance is so one note, because he had several episodes where the usual Elliott persona was dropped and he showed real range. 

And The Simpsons was nominated for Best Animated Series.  Remember when the show was good, twenty years ago?  And people complain that Modern Family gets nominated based on reputation.

That’s it, I’m out of bile.  It’s just impossible.  It’s like the debate between the critics at Hollywood Reporter who argue whether the answer is putting ten nominees in every category, or just getting the Academy to not nominate shows that have passed their sell-by date (House of Cards, Modern family, The Simpsons).  There is no answer.  There are too many shows, and the categories are too blurry.  Series or Limited Series?  Drama, Comedy or Dramedy? 

As the great sage (and Nobel Lauriat) Bob Dylan once said in an Oscar winning song, I used to care but things have changed.  I think I will stop worrying about the Emmy Awards.  Maybe I’ll start taking the ESPYs seriously.

There is No Big Four in Men's Tennis!

This is going to be a rant about tennis, and unfortunately Andy Murray is on the receiving end of two separate rants.

First of all, I am sick and tired of ESPN sticking to their nomenclature that there is a “Big Four” in men’s tennis, those being Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Andy Murray.  The problem is that there is no “Big Four,” there is a Big Three and everyone else.

The definitive piece on this was written by the FiveThirtyEight website four years ago.  Of course things have changed since then, Andy Murray has now won three majors, not two.  So, does that make him one of the four?

Well, the Big Three all have double digit wins in majors, and Murray . . . doesn’t.  He has three, which last time I checked (and I do have a graduate degree in mathematics) is not anywhere close to ten.  So when Murray has won 7 more majors, let me know and we can talk about a Big Four. 

The other problem is that Murray isn’t alone in 4^th place among active men’s tennis major winners.  Stan “The Man” Warwinka also has three major titles, having won the 2014 Aussie Open, the 2015 French Open, and the 2016 US Open.  Since Murray has won Wimbledon twice and one US Open, that also makes Stan closer to a career Grand Slam than Murray.  So why is Warwinka left out of the Big Five?

This is a classic example of making a prediction and then molding the facts to fit the prediction.  Murray was supposed to be the next challenger to the Big Three, and he is currently ranked number one, but he never developed into a consistent thorn in the side of the Big Three as far as Winning majors.  But the sports cognoscente insist on shoehorning Murray into a mythical Big Four that doesn’t actually exist. 

My second complaint is the attempt to rechristen the section of Wimbledon known as Henman Hill into Mount Murray or Murray Mound.  No, no, no!  I realize that Andy Murray is the first Brit to win Wimbledon in ages (assuming you consider a Scot to be a member of the British empire, which is how the vote went but there was some dissent).  But don’t do a disservice to Tim Henman by taking his name off of a key part of Wimbledon.

Why?  Because Henman was never good enough to win Wimbledon.  He was the top British men’s player at the time, but he wasn’t in the same league as Pete Sampras, who was dominating at the time.  Despite that, every year Tim Henman put his nation on his back and he usually went one round further than he had any right to at Wimbledon.  He made it to the Wimbledon semi-finals four times, and the quarter finals another four times.  Not bad for a guy whose year-end ranking during that time was between 8 to 11.  Overall, he had five wins against top ten players at Wimbledon.

So, let’s not forget Tim Henman’s noble efforts at Wimbledon by taking away Henman Hill.  Sure, he was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2004, but remaining at fixture at his country’s biggest tennis event is a more fitting tribute.