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2005 may go down as one of “those” years in sports. A major sports figure currently playing may be indicted by a federal grand jury. Barry Bonds is under investigation by a federal grand jury and his former trainer, Greg Williams, refuses to testify to the grand jury. Maurice Clarett, just four years removed from a NCAA national football championship, is now in jail facing multiple charges from robbery to consorting with known gangsters. Hugh Landis has been stripped of his Tour de France title due to doping charges.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"…  ( Click for more )

There was a very quiet birthday last week. A thirty-first birthday. There was no fanfare. There was no celebration. On August 9,1975 the New Orleans Superdome opened to a sellout crowd of 72,000 people. It opened as the most impressive structure of its day. It dwarfed the Astrodome in Houston and quickly became the favored site for such events as Super Bowls and NCAA Basketball Final Fours. In fact, to be part of a live event at the Superdome carried a great deal of weight.

Last year when it turned thirty the Superdome was housing a live event of a different sort. This modern…  ( Click for more )

Rhythm. It’s that funny word made up of six consonants that determines the flow of music. Without rhythm one person might be able to sing a song, but add a couple more people and you would probably have a song more like alley cats yowling from the back fence. Rhythm is what makes a melody come to life and harmony come together. It is the very essence of music for it is that which primitive man could determine just by tapping a foot or slapping his side.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Professional athletes will…  ( Click for more )

Wednesday evening my youngest son, Sean, and I celebrated our birthdays in our own little tradition. We went to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. With his birthday being on August 8 and mine on August 10 we chose August 9 as the logical night for the game. We were both very happy that we did. Not only did we get to see a wonderful game but we also hit one of those special giveaways that the Reds have every so often. We also hit a break as we had driven through a downpour on the way north to the game, but it never rained a drop for the game.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =…  ( Click for more )

Tiger Woods is a golfer of destiny. Now I am going to put something in print that I never thought I would. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time. He is the One. That is a difficult thing for me to do. I was raised in South Central Ohio just down the road from Columbus and the Ohio State University. I was raised marveling at a chubby kid from Columbus, the son of a pharmacist, who stood the world on its ear at OSU as a golfer in the late fifties and early sixties. I was raised idolizing Jack Nicklaus.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"…  ( Click for more )

I don't know who started the standard of the first weekend in August being the best time for a family to have a reunion, but it seems that there are many that do. My wife's family is one of those. Some forty plus years ago the extended family got the idea of returning to the area where all these families used to live. It is a region called Big Ridge and the focal point of the region is the old Antioch Christian Church. All the families that used to populate the area; the Midkiffs, the Smiths, the McDaniels, the Humphries, the Fridleys, the Hiltons (I probably left one…  ( Click for more )

August has been a big month for my family. Years ago, when we had the custom of trading small gifts with relatives, August was the reason we stopped. There were too many birthdays mounting in August so our family quit giving gifts for each extended family member's birthday. That was just my own family. Then I married and August got even more interesting. Counting birthdays and anniversaries August is a definite "avoid-buying-gifts-at-all-costs" type of month. Let me fill you in.

On August 1 there are the birthdays of my nephews Scott Snyder (my side) and Wade Johnson…  ( Click for more )

You may have heard of the "dead ball" era in baseball. That was the time period when power numbers were way down. People were not hitting homeruns the way they do today. Baseball historians and those close to the game blame it on the way the balls were manufactured back then. They were not as lively as those in use today. There are a certain group of people in the know who contend that it was not the ball but rather the way that the game was being played then. Runs were scored by concentrating on getting on and moving the runners up.

Today that's referred to as "small…  ( Click for more )

Okay. I need to know some things. This isn't quite a "didjever?" type thing but it is close. This is more of a "cosmic balance" thing. More of a "canyatellmewhy?" thing. Maybe you have thought of these also, but, then again, maybe you haven't. If you have, you don't win anything, other than the satisfaction of knowing that you think like me. That might not be all that satisfying for you. It could be disconcerting or maybe even borderline frightening. Anyway, here goes.

Why do men (or women) who live on narrow back roads drive pickup trucks with dualies?…  ( Click for more )

Wednesday was a difficult day for me in trying to get my column out to you good folks. Unbeknownst to me the local cable TV company began early to do a job and accidentally cut into the phone lines that service our neighborhood. I did not realize it that morning as I just credited it to another of many malfunctions with the ISP I have. It was not until later that day that I tried to get online that I noticed we had a little problem. The software was telling me that it was dialing the number but nothing was happening.

I felt a little Buck Owens and Roy Clark on Hee Haw, except…  ( Click for more )

Believe it or not it has been ten years since the homemade bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It was ten years ago today and it cast a shadow of doubt over the Summer Olympic Games of that year. There was a concert in the park at the time of the bomb blast and more than one hundred people were injured with one person dying from their injuries. It led to fears and speculations of international incidents of terrorism during the rest of the Games. The Games continued and nothing more happened.

Terrorism is a tool of the weak to attempt to control the…  ( Click for more )

Anna Kournikova. Remember her? She took the professional tennis world by storm as a young woman. She had it all was what we were told. Mostly what she had was enough game to play well and enough beauty to make a living with endorsements because she looked good in a commercial. Got a quick question for you. Name the tournaments that she won. Go ahead, I'll wait. And wait. And wait. That's enough waiting. Time's up. Could you name the tournaments that she won?

If you couldn't, don't feel bad. She never won any tournaments. For all the hype she…  ( Click for more )

Ever since I was just a little kid I have been involved in competitive sports. I began in little league at age six although I am almost certain there were some rather feverish contests of teething ring wrestling at a much earlier age. I am still playing sports competitively as I play golf in several tournaments each year as well as tee it up with blokes who think that our friendly matches are the U. S. Open. In those fifty years of competition I have been swept up by the malady of sports; professional expectations.

A number of years ago I was one of those glowering, article…  ( Click for more )

Back in those halcyon days of yore (I love those old phrases) golf was contested by a format called match play. Match play is a contest in which the players compete from hole to hole not stroke to stroke. The player with the lowest score on any given hole wins the hole. The player with the most holes won wins the match. At the end of the round the competitors do not have a score to compare against each other based on their total strokes for the round, just the hole by hole comparison.

Forty-nine years ago today was the last time that the PGA Championship was contested in a…  ( Click for more )

Some of you may have seen the email that circulated some time back about the man who went into a McDonald's Restaurant and ordered a half dozen Chicken McNuggets only to be told that they only came in orders of six, nine or twelve. Supposedly it was a true story. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. If you believe it was then you are one of those who believe in the fallibility of the American worker when it comes to applying their intellect to a situation. In short, the American worker does okay until he has to think.

Personally, I fully believe that the story about…  ( Click for more )

Day to day life. We see it as a life and death struggle on some fronts. That is why we come up with statements such as, "It's a dog-eat-dog world," and "It's a jungle out there." Perhaps it is a bit difficult at times just trying to make it from day to day. I cannot help but think that, for the most part, it is not as bad as we make it out to be. Maybe, just maybe, because it isn't a piece of cake, we make it seem worse than what it actually is. After all, if it is happening to us, then it always seems worse.

If we were to watch the world that is around us…  ( Click for more )

Speed seems to be a very important issue in many sports. In track and field watching the one hundred meter dash is a lot more exciting than perhaps watching the one hundred meter crawl. The fastest time traversing the distance is what is considered important rather than finding out who can take the longest to cover the distance and still actually be moving the entire time. Speed makes foot races fun to watch. It does the same with NASCAR, IRL, NHRA and CART events.

Speed also carries some weight in boxing as well. Many boxers are known as being quick punchers with fast hands.…  ( Click for more )

I remember when I was just a kid that a friend of mine saved his box tops and a couple of bucks to send away for a radio controlled car that was advertised on the back of a cereal box. He had shown me the ad and, I must admit, I recall that I was impressed and more than just a little jealous. The car looked like it was huge. One thing that we did notice on the ad was the fine print that said that the car was not shown actual size. Of course, my friend and I both thought that meant it was bigger. It wasn't.

Ah, the old truth in advertising problem. For those who watch…  ( Click for more )

Okay, it's time for a show of hands. How many of you are members of the "Grammar Police" and caught my colossal gaff in yesterday's column? That's fine. You can raise them. My feelings won't be hurt one bit. I made a mistake in grammar and it got through my proofread. I saw it right after I sent it out yesterday. So I figure a number of you also caught it. If you didn't, let me point it out to you. It was in the very first paragraph and the seventh sentence.

Here's how it read. "The grandchildren of one of our elders attended the VBS and…  ( Click for more )

I prefer to call it "follicly challenged." However, the little kids of the church just call it what they see. A couple of weeks ago I got to direct Vacation Bible School for our church. The music program for the opening and closing fell to me. The music was great this year with so many fantastic rhythms to lock into for the kids. They loved it. The grandchildren of one of our elders attended the VBS and was talking with her grandfather about the guy leading the song service. "You know, Grandpa, the bald man," she told him.

Again this past Sunday evening a comment about my…  ( Click for more )

There are patches of brown starting to appear in my yard. Even though we have had some rain, it is still fairly dry here in the Bluegrass. Those patches of brown don't bother me as much as the patches of white and yellow. Now that I am a homeowner with a yard that belongs to me and not a church, those patches of white and yellow are a concern. I am sure that the fellow never had his own yard who penned that famous line indicating success, "Now we're in clover."

If being in clover is a sign of success then my yard is a successful yard. However, I would rather see…  ( Click for more )

Barring the unthinkable or unimaginable, Ben Curtis should win his second PGA Tour title today. The Booz Allen Classic has been plagued with inclement weather for the duration of the tournament. The venue, the Tour Players Club at Avenel hear Potomac, Maryland, is a beautiful course that has been graciously generous to Curtis this past weekend. He has played almost flawless golf having, at one point, hit twenty-seven consecutive greens in regulation. Now he stands ready to win a tournament as he enters the last seven holes of competition with a commanding eight stroke lead.

Don't…  ( Click for more )

Ever make a mistake? Of course you have. Who hasn't? We'll get to Him later. People make mistakes all the time. It doesn't mean that they're bad people. It just means that either they weren't paying too close attention or stepped into a situation too quickly to realize what was happening. Much like the story of the hospital patient who fainted when she was told she was to be discharged. When the nurse said, "We're sending you home today," the woman thought she had said, "We're sending you home to die."

For that matter there was the German…  ( Click for more )

Our English is, I am told, unique. We have words that have more than one meaning, more than one spelling, more than one pronunciation as well as meanings with more than one word for common usage. And we wonder why some immigrants don't learn English. Maybe we should call our language American. I seriously doubt some stodgy Englishman would be caught dead speaking as we speak. But enough of the introductory material, the preface, the hook.

The word "choke." As a verb it can mean to strangle someone, have a problem swallowing or become emotional. As a noun it is a device…  ( Click for more )