The Olympic Tennis Final

Chronicles with Chris

8:37- So I wake up with aspirations of seeing Federer and Murray warming up, giving me enough time to go to the deli for a pork roll egg and cheese. Wrong. I woke up to Equestrian on my TV, this didn’t go as planned. Back to sleep.

9:13- Let’s give this another shot…yes! Two times a charm. I am awake and Federer is giving Murray some overhead smashes in warm-ups. I don’t think I have enough time to get a pork roll egg and cheese though…damnit. Mom where are you??

9:15- Warm-ups are almost over and there is enormous tension brewing in Centre Court at the All England Club, the crowd is timorously awaiting the start. It’s almost as if they don’t want it start. They are torn between supporting a historic champion who is starving for a gold medal to fill the last empty space in an otherwise flawless resume, and their withering hopes in a man that has failed them so many times before. Andy Murray has never won a major, he has lost a Wimbledon final, a final in which he played one of the best matches of career and still lost in four sets. I feel awful for the man. In any other of era of tennis he would have multiple majors to his name, but he was born into an age of arguably the three greatest players of all time all playing at once. He has been on the outside looking in for his entire career. Today, the greatest player of all time, a player who has won seven titles on this very court, stands opposite of him.  God help him.

9:46- Set 1, 6^th game, Andy Murray had gotten the first break of the match. Murray seems to be taking more chances of the two, hitting more unforced errors but also hitting more winners. Both players are serving well. The crowd has been slightly aroused. They still don’t want to fully commit. The cheers after each point are escalating, but in the back of their mind they also know that they have gone through this tantalizing story before, only to see their countryman succumb to the overwhelming pressure.

9:53- Murray hits a backhand that scrapes the top of the net and elegantly drops in out of Federer’s reach. Murray waves his hand up and apologizes for the stroke of luck. I have always found that phenomenon interesting about tennis, apologizing for winning a point.

9:55- Murray gets another break. He has taken the first set. The crowd is still tentative, but emphatically giving their compatriot a standing ovation as he walks to his chair. On Henman Hill, which rests just outside of Centre court, flags are waving and the roars are erupting with greater volume. However, once again, they have done this before. Murray won the first set of the Wimbledon final, only to lose the next three.

10:03- Murray has hit another two winners that scratched the net, giving him his third break in a row and a two games to love lead in the 2^nd set. Murray is moving with reckless abandon, he is flying over the court and chasing down excellent shots from The Great One.

10:19- Murray survives six break points to go up three games to love. The crowd has deserted their commitment to cheer for both players. It’s a one sided crowd. Commentator John McEnroe comments, “Even Andy Murray isn’t accustomed to this type of support, not even at Wimbledon. And certainly Roger Federer is not accustomed to this little of support.”

10:27- Wow. Roger Federer, the great Roger Federer, has just double-faulted to give Andy Murray another break, and a four games to love lead. Andy Murray, the Scotland native, is dominating the most prolific tennis force to ever graze the grass at Wimbledon. Federer has no answer for the barrage of backhands down the line and forehand winners. He can’t get anything past Murray, who is moving and playing like a man possessed.

10:41- A stat just came on the screen: the fewest number of games Roger Federer has ever won in the first two sets of Wimbledon is eight. He just lost the first two sets to Murray, 2-6 1-6.

10:55- Murray gets another break and is up 3-2 in the third set. He has turned for home and is now alone in the homestretch, alone with an entire nation begging him, imploring him to finish. As long as he doesn’t fall off his horse, Andy Murray will be an Olympic champion. McEnroe is making his case that the Olympics should be considered a major. That may not be the actual case, but if Andy Murray were to close the deal, I think this will be better.

11:00- 4-2 Murray. The crowd has lost it. They are almost unconscious. Is this really happening?

11:08- 5-3 Murray. It’s been 73 years since a British man has won the gold medal. Henman Hill has exploded. The crowd chants “Mur-ray, clap clap clap, Mur-ray…”

11:10- It takes Federer about a minute and a half to hold his serve. 5-4 Murray. Andy Murray will be serving for the gold medal, a title he has craved and sought for so long. He gets up from his chair, and the crowd detonates once again.

11:12- Murray may never win a major, he may forever be regarded as the best player to never win a major, a title no player wants, but this title may be sweeter than any gratification a major has to offer. This may be the moment that sparks a turnaround in a truly great player’s career who was born into the wrong era of Tennis.

11:14- After four grand slam final losses, after five years of suffering under the wrath of three superior players, after two hours and three sets of dominating tennis, Andy Murray is finally a champion. Congratulations Andy, you earned and deserved it. Final Score: 6-3, 6-1, 6-4.


-Chris Collins

A Dying Art

Alright before I do this let me give you my baseball resume so you don’t think I am out of my element. I was a catcher pretty much all ofmy life. I played junior varsity my freshman and sophomore years and did fairly well. I was on varsity my junior year, and by “on varsity” I mean glorified bullpen catcher. I played one inning and accumulated one at-bat. In thatat-bat, I hit the ball probably 53 inches in front of home plate. The catcherthrew me out by roughly 37 steps. I didn’t eat my Wheaties that morning. Have Iconvinced you that I know what I’m talking about yet?

My senior year I stepped in and started at catcher, hit.300, and defended my position very well. My arm was comparable to a bag ofRamen noodles, but I could block balls, and I certainly knew how to block theplate.

I was unable to watch last night’s Met game due to aprevious commitment. And by previous commitment I mean last second BBQ. Anyway, I am watching the highlights this morning and I saw this play cost them the game:

Josh Thole, WHAT WAS THAT??!!! Are you kidding me?! Watch that again. He ran away from the plate! That was pathetic! That was thesorriest attempt at blocking the plate I’ve ever seen! Not only that, this playoccurred in a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the 7^th inning. In thatsituation you have to make sure Carlos Quentin regrets ever even thinking aboutrunning you over. Your goal should be dislocating his shoulder at the risk ofyour own. (In my best Under Armor commercial voice): YOU MUST PROTECT THISHOUSE! Watch it in slow motion. Thole thinks about putting his shoulder into Quentin taking the shot like a catcher is supposed to, he says, “Oh shit. This guy is really big. Instead of letting him hit me like a man and keep the game tied for my team, which is what they pay me $498,920 to do, I am going to turn away from him and let him hit the ball out of my hands.” By the way, thatsalary is accurate. Google is a wonderful thing.

Look Josh, I am sure you are a great guy and all, but thisis was the straw that broke the camels back for me. The Mets cannot moveforward with this guy as their catcher. He is a .260 hitter with no power, a below average catcher, and couldn’t tag a runner out to save his life. Orshould I say save a run?

Ever since Buster Posey’s leg nearly snapped in two, the art of blocking the plate has beencompletely lost. Nobody blocks it like Mike Scioscia anymore. Catchers areafraid and it’s agonizing to watch. To be a catcher you’ve got to love those collisions. You have to live for them. You have to take a step in front of theplate, hold the ball in your mitt with your free hand, and not let anything through you. Make the guy regret hitting you.  When you see a guy rolling around third and you know thereis going to be a play at the plate, you have to get excited, not scared. Josh Thole gets scared.

-Chris Collins

Michael Phelps

Cherish What We are Witnessing

Every day for the past week I have made my best efforts to avoid twitter, ESPN, and any sort of social medium that would spoil the primetime Olympic results for me. Well, I have pretty much failed everyday.

I didn’t get home from work until late last night, and even though I already knew the results to most of the major primetime events and because I am weird like that, I still stayed up to watch my recording, which led me to this thought and column…

I remember being too young to appreciate what Michael Phelps accomplished during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, I remember watching ESPN and seeing reports of his record-shattering swims. He won six gold medals and two bronze medals in Athens, he set two world records and three Olympic records…at the age of 19. I am 19. I work at a summer camp in the morning and bus tables at night.

Let’s go to 2008 in Beijing. I remember thinking to myself: “What the hell, it is only swimming but this guy is getting a lot of hype. May break Mark Spitz record? I’ll tune in.” So the first event I watch is the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, Phelps 2^nd event after already winning gold in the 400-individual medley and shattering the world record by more than two seconds. In the 4x100 free relay with Phelps swimming the opening leg, Jason Lezak ran down the heavily favored French in the final 50 meters. Lezak swam the fastest 100m relay split in Olympic history. The rest is history. That swim was an omen. Something special was about to happen. Something magical. Something inconceivable.

And it did. Phelps competed in 8 events, he won gold medals in all of them, breaking Mark Spitz’ 32 year old record of 7 golds in a single Olympic games. His 7^th and record tying medal, was done in miraculous fashion, out-touching Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by one one-hundredth of a second. Seven of his eight golds were done so in record-breaking fashion. The other was a new Olympic record. He did this at the age of 23.

After Beijing, Phelps celebrated, took some time off, and downsized his intense training. Criticize his preparation all you want, condemn his out-of-the-pool behavior all you want, what Michael Phelps is accomplishing in London right now is still unbelievable. It’s mind blowing. Legendary.

Phelps failed to medal in his first event, the 400-individual medley, losing to fellow American Ryan Lochte. It was the first time he failed to medal in an Olympic event since the age of 15, when he finished 5^th in the 2000 Sydney games. Since that swim, he has added four more medals in four events, the third of which surpassed the all time record for Olympic medals won, previously held by Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina. The fourth of which was his 3^rd consecutive 200-individual medley Olympic gold. That too, has never been done before. Phelps is scheduled to compete in two more finals, the 100-m butterfly and the 4x100im relay. Gold medals are certainly realistic for both. Phelps has said that this will be his last Olympics. If that is indeed true, when it is all said and done, Phelps could and should end up with 22 Olympic medals, 16 of which are already made of gold.

What Phelps has accomplished in the last decade of swimming is one of the most astonishing, dominant athletic feats in the history of sports. Phelps is to swimming and the Olympics as Ruth is to baseball, as Jordan is to basketball, as Gretzky is to hockey. He captivated the entire world in the greatest two-week spectacle of athletic achievement in Beijing, and is now taking a victory lap in London. He is doing so training half as hard as his competitors, and not nearly in his best shape. He has accomplished all of this before his 28^th birthday.

I wasn’t alive when Babe Ruth was hitting more home runs in a single season than entire teams. I wasn’t old enough to understand Michael Jordan’s dominance of professional basketball or Wayne Gretzky’s supremacy over the National Hockey League. However, I am and will forever be proud to say I witnessed a living legend, the most prestigious athlete of our time, and the greatest Olympian who ever lived. 

-Chris Collins

Deadline Passes, Mets Silent

So every morning I get into my car and take the five-minute drive to my minimum wage paying camp counselor job. During that five minutes, I have the privilege of listening to some sorry soul call the FAN and rant on about garbled non sense, vilifying the Mets organization for not making any moves before the Major League Baseball trade deadline, non-sense in which the caller probably waited in line for almost an hour to utter. I have a message to these callers and others who share the same opinion: (In my best Stephen A. Smith voice) STOP IT!!!

Did you guys really think the New York Mets would make a playoff push this year? Did you really think they could continue to win with the worst bullpen in the league? Did you really think David Wright would continue to hit .360? C’mon, get off the high horse Met fans. This team isn’t very good. They overachieved for almost 100 games. Good for them. Now let’s talk reality.

Who did you plan on trading? Andres Torres? No. He sucks. Jon Rauch? Nope, he sucks too. Oh I know, I know!!! Jason Bay!! Teams will give us somebody for Jason Bay!! Wrong again, he REALLY sucks.

Look, the Mets aren’t built to make an impact this year. Hell, maybe not next year either. But in 2014 when Matt Harvey is ironing things out in the big leagues, when prized prospect Zack Wheeler is ready for the big show, when Jason Bay is finally gone, when Sandy Alderson makes a couple moves and puts together the pieces, then they will make a run. For now, the Mets stay put. They let this season play out, they let these young guys accumulate more innings and more at bats. They let Ike Davis find his swing again and determine if Dan Murphy can be a franchise second baseman. You can’t trade what you don’t have, and you can’t jeopardize the future for a team that’s not built to be in the postseason this year.

Be patient Met fans, it’s a marathon…not a sprint.

-Chris Collins

What is Ice Bath Report?

PJ and I have no outstanding credentials to offer you. Together we share 6 varsity letters. Score: Pj 4 –Chris 2. But c’mon, he played tennis and I played baseball…we will call it even. Anyway, I can tell you with full confidence and to put it bluntly: we know our shit. PJ was the kind of kid who started reading MLB and NFL almanacs before he went to bed. I…ok well I didn’t do that stuff. However, we are the kind of guys that know the last pitcher to win 30 games was Denny McLain, Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs in 1996, and Chris Ogbannaya may be a fantasy sleeper this year.

We will bring you weekly op-ed columns, debates, daily blogs (roughly), and general analysis of the sports world today. We are from the great state of New Jersey, so a lot of our work will be geared towards New York sports, with a heavier emphasis on baseball and football. PJ will handle Yankee analysis and I will handle the Mets. We are both die-hard Giant fans, but also enthusiastic general NFL fans. We will give you fantasy football previews with our sleepers and busts and previews for various sports with our individual rankings. We will breakdown the entire upcoming NFL season. Once hockey season rolls around, I will be discussing the Rangers and their road to the cup, shout out Rick Nash. We are not big NBA guys, but PJ can offer sparing contributions and more specifically, New York Knicks coverage. Spoiler alert: that will be mostly criticism.

There are no boundaries to this site. We will explore everything and discuss everything that goes on in sports today. Did the NCAA’s punishment serve fair justice on Penn State? Is it wise for the Nationals to shut down Stephen Strasburg in the midst of their first pennant race in over a decade? Is Roger Federer the greatest tennis player who ever lived? When there is nothing really going on and the sports universe is dull: Was The Dark Knight Rises better than The Dark Knight? Is U2 better than Bruce Springsteen in concert? You will get our opinions here. If you agree, that’s great. If you don’t, you can comment and share your thoughts right here on our page.

Sit back and enjoy the one and only Ice Bath Report.

-Chris Collins