A GENTLE GIANT by ST

This morning in our nation's capital, they held the funeral of Manute Bol. When he burst on the NBA scene in 1985 you had to look. He was the tallest player ever at 7'7", rail thin and carved out a mostly unspectacular 10 year career. Blocked a ton of shots and retired. All he did was become one of the great humanitarians of our time working to make conditions better in his native Sudan. He became ill on a trip to offer his assistance to construct a new school. I can't help but think about the punks like Bonds, Zambrano, Sheed or Clemens who are so self wrapped they probably look at Bol as a freak. Wrong! What an amazing man he was.
Have you ever seen an entire team just cave in under the blanket of expectations? When the National's Steve Strassburg took the mound for the 1st time on June 8th, his team was 4 games under .500, snapped to attention, won 3 in a row, then when A.W.O.L.
They've dropped 13 of the next 16 and scored a total of 1 run over S.S's last 3 starts. Remember, this is the same franchise who lost a total of 205 games the past 2 years. Yuck!
On yesterday's show I said to expect an All Williams final Saturday at Wimbledon. In my usual impeccable prognosticating brilliance, Venus got bounced today by a player ranked in the 80's, Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria. No kidding, I did not know that was even still a country. Sister Serena advanced. I still think she'll make it! Poor kid.