Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
July 11, 2003, Washington Post

Everything Under the Sun

I am going on vacation early this year. A week in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with my family with nothing to do but root for the Red Sox, go to the beach, stare out at the Atlantic Ocean . . . and think about sports.

That's right. When you are a sports fan like I am, you never take a vacation from thinking about sports. Here are some of my summer vacation thoughts.

• Why do basketball players have to touch hands with their teammates after every free throw? Even the ones they miss. Just let the player on the foul line shoot the ball.

• Want to know what is the hottest sport around? Lacrosse. But lacrosse will get really big when the kids who play sports such as football and track pick up a stick. Can you imagine someone like Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss or Olympic sprinter Marion Jones in a lacrosse game? They'd be unstoppable!

• You know what else is gaining ground? Skateboarding, dude! Thousands of fans showed up recently to watch Tony Hawk's skateboarders do tricks in downtown Silver Spring. I am not sure that skateboarding is a "real" sport, but it sure is cool.

• Why do Virginia high schools play soccer in the spring? I thought soccer was a fall sport.

• I was watching Wimbledon and I was wondering, where did tennis players learn to count? Love . . . 15 . . . 30 . . . 40 . . . Deuce?! Why not just 0 . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . Tie?

• Some people say that the fact that none of Sammy Sosa's 79 other bats were corked means Sammy must have grabbed the corked bat by mistake. Yeah, but what are the chances of picking up the one corked bat by accident out of all those bats?

• And another thing . . . Who would practice with a lighter bat? Sorry to say, but the more I think about it, the more I think Sammy meant to cheat.

• Now that Annika Sorenstam showed that the best women can hold their own with the guys, I think it would be way cool if the leading money-winner on the LPGA Tour was invited to play at the Colonial Invitational.

• Why don't they move the pitching mound back five to 10 feet in fast-pitch softball? Give the hitters a chance.

• You know whose job got more difficult after the NBA draft? Announcers. They are going to have to pronounce names such as Darko Milicic (pronounced MILL-a-chik), Zarko Cabarkapa (cha-bar-KAH-pah), Zoran Planinic (PLAH-nin-nich) and Ndudi Ebi (IN-dee EE-bee).

• Another guy whose job is getting to get tougher is Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen. Just when the Terps were starting to catch up with Florida State, the Atlantic Coast Conference expands. Now Ralph's team will have to contend with Miami and Virginia Tech too.

• Speaking of coaches . . . Is it just me or does Redskins Coach Steve Spurrier seem a lot quieter this summer? I guess a 7-9 season will do that to you.

• I may hate the team, but I have to admit that the New York Yankees' pinstripe uniforms always look cool.

• Oh yeah, one more thing I always wonder on summer vacation . . . Why can't summer vacations last longer?