Coach's Corner

I just finished watching three national newspaper columnists on ESPN's SportsReporters expounding on the greatness of Mike Tyson. According to these wise scribes, only Tyson's place in the boxing pantheon of Gods is still to be decided. If Tyson hadn't the misfortune to spend those three silly years in prison, why, they might have renamed the sport Miking. Tyson burst upon the heavyweight scene in the mid-1980s, at the tail end of the Larry Holmes era. Holmes was, by the way, the most underrated fighter of our time, better than Tyson in every quantifiable way, except early knockout power. With few quality fighters around, the Tyson era was a singularly low point in heavyweight history. If I'm sitting in one those chairs, I say Mike Tyson's the most overrated athlete of our generation, more a creation of the media than any objective gauge of his career.

Looking at Tyson's opponents until Nov. 22, 1986, when he won the heavyweight title from Trevor Berbic, you'd be pressed to find a name -- any name -- you recognized. Of course, it's not Tyson's fault the competition sucks, any more than the Bulls should have to justify their domination of the 1990s. A great team or fighter will erase those doubts with a complete and thorough mastery of their era. Mike Tyson never did this. From 1986 until 1990, when he lost his title in Tokyo to Buster Douglas, Tyson whipped up on a succession of 40-year-old ex-champions, undersized heavyweights, and bums. All the while avoiding the only real fighter in the division, Evander Holyfield.

Today, it seems the attention of the public is captured only by raw power. I can only imagine the aura of terminator-like invincibility that Sonny Liston -- a truly baleful, frightening ring presence -- would be accorded were he fighting today. I'll grant Tyson's hard to explain charisma. I'll grant his intelligence. I'll grant him the title of a great, three-round fighter. But no matter what the outcome of his bout with the 36-year-old Holyfield, Mike Tyson should not be considered in the upper tier of heavyweight champions.

On the subject of power, we're in the middle of the penultimate test of power tennis: Wimbledon. But who's watching? The whisperings of the death of tennis are somewhat exaggerated. It's not dead; it is, however, in a deep coma. In the 25 years I've been following the sport, this is the least amount of interest I've seen. Today's trendy sport, thanks to Tiger Woods, is golf. Not long ago, fueled by Conners and McEnroe, it was tennis. What happened? Simple. As ethnocentric as it may sound, no Americans.

In an individual sports like tennis or golf, we have to be able to root for and relate to the player. Americans are going to have a difficult time cheering for players whose names they can't pronounce. There are just two Americans in the men's Top 20, only one of whom, Pete Sampras, has a chance to win in England. Then, there's the long suffering woman's game, in worse shape than ever. If a 16-year-old is the best player in the game, if the commentators are better than the players, well, sports fans, you've got some serious problems. Wimbledon is going to be a uniquely unwatched event.

Six months ago I noted that inter-league play was a good thing, and it would be successful. Though both of these premises seem supported by the first round of this experiment, uncertainty remains. What will happen once the novelty wears off? As long as They, whoever They are, keep the number of inter-league games limited, this shouldn't happen. Baseball's biggest problem continues to be the lack of any objective leadership to guide the game and to help focus its (pardon the oxymoron) collective vision. The longer Brewer owner Bud Selig stays in place as "interim commissioner," the more likely it is baseball will never get a real commissioner, which in their historically consistent stupidity, they don't think they need.

The game needs someone respected by both sides, not an owner puppet, to force the sport to address painful issues. Baseball's a laughing stock, with two different sets of rules. Can you imagine an NBA, where the Western Conference would have the three-point play and an international size lane, while the East stuck to the deuce and had no shot clock? The game needs help from a person paid full time to look after the interests of The Game. What form should inter-league play take? What about realignment, the different strike zones, the length of games, the lack of a permanent labor agreement, new television packages, and the squabbling among owners? How about subsidizing college baseball programs, which are now a defacto minor league, at least giving them wooden bats, so future big league pitchers learn to pitch without fear of good pitches being pinged into the stands and hitters learn to hit instead of just swinging.

A major league operation would address these concerns head-on, having long ago appointed a commissioner with power and vision. Baseball, as it always has, will deal with some of these issues only because it can't avoid it. Not exactly a pro-active approach. Some will never be dealt with while Brewer Bud is wearing two conflicting hats. All of which would be surprising... in any sport... except... baseball.