Phil Mickelson and the rest of the U.S. team's debacle at Oakland Hills was just the lates American sporting setback. ( / AP)
Americans have been ugly of late
Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 minutes ago
Thank God for football. American football.
It's just about the only sport left in which we haven't suffered a major international humiliation this year. (Unless, like me, you consider our nation's overreaction to Janet a major international humiliation.)
This past weekend's trip to the woodshed in the Ryder Cup was the latest in a string of sporting beat-downs for the good ol' U.S. of A. We got trounced by Argentina in Olympic basketball (after getting drubbed by Puerto Rico — Puerto freakin' Rico!). But that's okay, we failed to even qualify for Athens in baseball. Baseball, you know, our national pastime. Last week no American reached the men's or women's final in the U.S. Open. And our World Cup hockey team lost to Finland (population: 5.2 million).
The gold medal we won in fencing can only go so far to soothe our wounded national pride.
Somewhere in between Red Sox-Yankees, college football Saturday and ten hours of NFL action on Sunday, I actually watched some of the Ryder Cup. Had I not known better I would have thought it was one of those exhibitions where one country introduces a sport to another.
The United States used to play Great Britain in the Ryder Cup. But after going undefeated from 1959 to 1977 (with one tie in '69), Jack Nicklaus proposed expanding the British team to include the best Europeans. Now the Europeans have won seven of 10, including last weekend's 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 niblick whipping. Had this been a horse race, it would have been the 1973 Belmont.
Somewhere Sergio Garcia is probably saying, "Maybe we should give them South Africa. They sure could use Els and Goosen. We need to find a way to make this more competitive."
What happens to Tiger, Lefty and D.L. III when they play beneath Old Glory? Besides getting spanked by Paddy, Monty and Sergio. Does it rhyme with Hoch?
It just might. I think the pressure of nationalism is a big reason why we do so poorly in the Ryder Cup. The pressure would have been pretty even back when we played the Brits, but by opening it up to all of Europe, it eliminated any real sense of nationalism that might weigh on the internationals. Darren Clarke is playing for his teammates and the boys back at the pub. He is not playing for the E.U. and does not feel the weight of Europe on his top hand when he comes through the ball. This is why the Europeans are always so loose.
Our guys, on the other hand, carry the weight of expectation, past failures and national pride like a back-breaking piano. Every time Tiger Woods stands over a short putt to halve a hole, he can practically hear the whispering about Curtis Strange's collapse at Oak Hill in 1995 or Davis Love III's oh-fer-four at Valderama in 1997. You don't think there's pressure? Captain Hal Sutton just about blew a gasket during his Saturday press conference and he was the only guy on the team who hadn't choked on a big shot.
Even when we win the Ryder Cup we lose. Remember the fallout after Justin Leonard's putt at Brookline in 1999? The Europeans got all bent out of shape at the Americans for celebrating too heartily. (Who do they think they are, the NFL competition committee?)
As bad as this Ryder Cup was, at least we're used to it by now. The same cannot be said for failing to win gold in Olympic basketball when we send our professionals. We'd won all three gold medals since we sent the Dream Team in 1992 to atone for John Thompson's folly in 1988. Who's going to atone for the mess we left on the court in Athens?
Of course the flameout of the U.S. basketball team was comically predictable. Tell me why any team would ever want or need both Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury. LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony? And Dwyane Wade? Larry Brown did know that teams play zone in international hoops, right? Was Larry at all worried when he won the first three H-O-R-S-E games he played with his team. (This is apocryphal. He may have won more than three.) I mean, how much better would this team have been had it coaxed Steve Kerr and Tim Legler out of retirement?
The most embarrassing part of the Bad Dream Team was that when it lost — for the final time — it was clearly not an upset. They would lose seven out of ten to Argentina. Like the U.S. Ryder Cup team has to Europe.
And while it was a real shame that the U.S. baseball team could not defend the gold medal it won in Sydney, it was not a huge surprise that our amateurs failed to qualify for Athens. Nor will it be a huge surprise when the American League All-Star team doesn't have any Americans on it. Should happen about 2011. The rest of the world is lapping us in our own national pastime. There are more countries represented in the league leaders than in the Coalition of the Fleeing, er, Willing. Japan leads in hitting (Ichiro); the Dominican Republic in homers (Manny Ramirez) and RBIs (Miguel Tejada); Venezuela in ERA and strikeouts (Johan Santana); and Panama in saves (Mariano Rivera).
Meanwhile, back at Flushing Meadows, U.S. hopes spiraled down the drain as Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi lost in the quarters and Jennifer Capriati and Lindsay Davenport lost in the semis. This meant that for the first time since the 1980s no American man or woman would play in the Open finals.
What's happening? Is it the overproduction of corn in the Midwest that leads to corn syrup in all our foods and makes us fat? And even if that were so, where is the next Kirby Puckett? Is it the breakdown of the family that leads to a lack of discipline and poor shot selection in our hoop players? Maybe we can blame PlayStation. A generation has grown up hitting X, X, Y when they could have been outside shooting free throws or hitting backhands against the garage.
Whatever the reason, the situation would be very dire. If not for football. For it is in football that we proud Americans can take solace.
Bring on Argentina. Bring on Finland. Hell, bring on all of Europe. On the grave of Bear Bryant, I swear we will never, ever lose to another country in the greatest sport ever invented.
Unless, of course, we're forced to use the Kansas City Chiefs defense.
Kevin Hench is supervising producer of The Sports List on Fox Sports Net.