Out in Sports: August 2007 Archives

Came in from the pool late yesterday afternoon and flipped on the U.S. Open. My timing was perfect. There was a tribute to the late Althea Gibson, the great black player who broke the color barriers in tennis back in the 50s winning the U.S. Open for the first time exactly 50 years ago. It was an amazing ceremony which included words from my hero, Billie Jean King, who broke quite a few barriers of her own. They had a parade of black women who had accomplished firsts including the evening's hostess Phylicia Rashad, the first to win the Tony Award for best leading actress in a play. After a few dozen of incredible women like Roberta Flack and Jackie Joyner-Kersee walked onto the court, out strolled the Queen, Aretha. She launched into "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" and everyone boogied. I wished I were there. After the ceremony, the resurgent Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, each played a match on Arthur Ashe Stadium...and won.

And finally, even though he had nothing to do with the evening festivities, I love this picture (below) taken of top-ranked Roger Federer who won his 22nd consecutive match at the U.S. Open on Monday...

Look at the beautiful head of hair Brady Quinn used to have...below is Brady with his new look. I miss the locks!

If I can't be in New York City watching the U.S. Open, I'm cool with watching some of it on this giant screen TV in my air conditioned room at La Dolce Vita Resort in Palm Springs.
I love vacation.
Anyway, some of the top players were at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York today for the annual Arthur Ashe Kids Day. It's always fun to see the top seeds relaxed and interacting before they shift into tennis playing assassins. Serena Williams (pictured above with fellow players) cannot be counted out - ever. She is gunning for a third U.S. Open but trying to stop her will be her sister Venus who is the reigning Wimbledon champ as well as top seed Justine Henin and defending champion Maria Sharapova.

There is much hope for a Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal final. They've already met in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon the past two years and are 2-2 so this would be a good tie-breaker. Says Federer of the rivalry: "We're totally different types, you know? He's a lefty, I'm a righty. He's got a double-handed backhand, I've got the one-handed backhand. Two different characters -- that always works well in the game of tennis. The dress code is different: He's got that long hair, mine is a bit shorter. He's young, I'm kind of, you know, the experienced type. So I think it's got great potential."

Andy Roddick, now ranked fifth, will have to beat Federer in the quarterfinals if he is to win his second U.S. Open. It's a tall order but Roddick (above) has the desire and the game.
Meanwhile, you cannot count out the chance of Novak Djokovoc (right) who is widely considered to be tennis' next superstar. He beat Federer, Nadal and Roddick in a row to win the Canadian Open earlier this month. This could be his breakthrough.
I don't see anyone other than these four players winning the men's title.

TOMORROW: Greg's list of the top 10 hottest guys competing in the U.S. Open. (photos too, of course)...

I'll be rooting for Tim Henman to do well at the U.S. Open which starts Monday.
The British tennis player, long one of my favorite players, announced this week that he is retiring from the game at the end of September. Henman was the top-ranked male player in the Britain for ages. He is a great sportsman and a joy to watch with that wonderful serve-and-volley game of his that got him to the semifinals of Wimbledon four times and once at the U.S. Open and the French Open.. He won 11 tour titles overall and achieched his highest ranking of number four in the world in July 2002.
It was at Wimbledon where Henman came closest to becoming the first British male since Fred Perry in 1936 to win. He reached the last four at Wimbledon four times from 1998 to 2002, and also reached the quarterfinals four others times. Each time Henman made the semifinals he lost to the eventual champion. Seven-time winner Pete Sampras was his opponent in 1998 and 1999, Goran Ivanisevic in 2001, then Lleyton Hewitt the following year.
He was good...but not quite good enough to knock off the champs.

Roger Federer is a champion in his prime. The world's top-ranked player won the ATP tournament in Cincinatti, Ohio today over ninth-ranked James Blake of the USA. Federer next heads into the U.S. Open where he is the three-times defending champion. The competition is getting tougher all the time but Federer seems to rise to the occasion on tennis' biggest stages winning this year's Wimbledon and Australian Open titles.

While writing today's story about the pro athletes gay men love for the Daily News' "Sex Appeal of Sports" package, it reminded me of a long ago crush I had on former pro baseball player Kevin Elster. He played for the New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers, among others teams, during his career.
As you can see by the photos, Kevin was movie star handsome during his playing days. But I met him before he made it to the big leagues: we were in the same chemistry class at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. He was. easily, the cutest guy in school with a body that took your breath away. He was pretty quiet and I was too shy then to even try and talk to him. I had a break between classes after chemistry and would sometimes walk behind Kevin on the way to his next class. He would often wear shorts and the view just could not be beat. It wasn't stalking in my mind then but seems kinda like it now.
Still, I have no regrets!

I knew Kevin played baseball but I didn't know how good he was until I got a press release from our sports information department (I was editor of the school newspaper at the time) which said Elster had been drafted by the New York Mets. My sports editor was quite surprised when I, who had never written a sports story, announced that I would writing a profile of Kevin! I called his coach, got some quotes and Elster's phone number. Called him up and we agreed to meet at the dugout at school the next day. I did a crash course on the New York Mets and Kevin's college career to get ready for our interview and wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into. The interview went smoothly and what I remember so well was how confident and excited Kevin was about his future. I got caught up in the enthusiasm and the story ran in the next issue with the headline: "Kevin Elster's Story Has Just Begun."
And it had. within two years of our interview, he had made it from the minors to the Mets and was part of the 1986 World Series winning team. A shortstop, he later set a record for the most errorless games in a row.
I followed Elster's career throughout the years as he had high highs and low lows that included injury and amazing comebacks. During one injury stretch, he actually appeared in the feature film "Little Big League" as, you guessed it, a pro baseball player. Hey, the cast also included Jason Robards so Elster was in good company.
When he was with the Dodgers, I saw him play several times but I was older now, and not about to pitch our sports editor a story. They had REAL sports writers for that. Besides, he woulda been onto me right away!

The LA Daily News features a series of stories on "The Sex Appeal of Sport." I was asked to contribute a story looking into the appeal of pro athletes to gay men. This was an assignment I gladly accepted. CLICK HERE to read my piece.
Among those I interviewed was Outsports.com CEO Jim Businski whose site runs a "King of the Hardwood" contest each year which has twice been won by former NFL player and Olympic skiier Jeremy Bloom.
“We did an interview with Bloom and he was flattered, but wanted to be thought of as more than a pretty face,” Buzinski says.
Still, Bloom’s website has a wide array of photos of the athlete and plenty of them feature him shirtless.
“He showed a lot of skin and was not bashful about it,” says Buzinski. “That is what is happening right now with Brady Quinn. It’s the guys who are well-known and the European and Australian athletes who tend to be less hung up. Beckham has said he is honored to be a big gay fan favorite. It’s the guys who show off their body, are
visible and in the public eye who get the attention.”
This seems like a good excuse to post a buncha pics of some of these hunky dudes we love to look at including football's Brady Quinn and tennis' Andy Roddick.
There are even more after the jiump! Enjoy...

Basketball stud Wally Szczrbiak

Sexy soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo

The one and only...Beckham!

Nice abs Andy! This is the summer hardcourt season in pro tennis and American hearthrob Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and 2006 U.S. Open runner-up, is supossed to be one of the best players in the world on the surface. With the Open less than two weeks away, Roddick suffered what has become routine this season: an early round loss - this time at the ATP tournament in Cincinatti, Ohio where he was the defending champion.
He was beaten by the 15th-rankied David Ferrer of Spain 7-6, 6-4 (left) who, like Andy, is pretty easy on the eyes. But it's good for the game when telegenic, articulate players like Andy win or at least stick around until the final days of a tournament. Let's hope he's into the mix at the Open even if he doesn't go into the tourney riding a wave of confidence.
But Spanish stud Carlos Moya, who achieved a tough three-set win to reach the quarterfinals, remains in the hunt and is looking oh-so gorgeous during every win.

Maybe Novak Djokovic (above) should have taken the week off to rest on his laurels. The world's third-ranked player, who beat Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick in successive rounds to win in Canada, crashed out of ATP event in Cincinnati on Wednesday, losing badly to 20th ranked Carlos Moya (below).


American Robby Ginepri (above) continued to be a beautiful loser. But the 2005 U.S. Open semifinalist did take the fifth seed to three sets....
Meanwhile, Spanish hunk Nadal suffered a wrist injury was was forced to retire from his match. This is not ideal preparation for the top players with the start of the U.S. Open less than two weeks away.

Posting pictures of Carlos Moya playing tennis just makes me happy. So here are two shots of the Spanish hearthrob during his win earlier today over David Nalbandian of Argentina during the ATP tour stop in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Roger Federer is a wonder to watch, probably the best player ever to grace a tennis court. On Friday, he beat Lleyton Hewitt to advance to the semifinals of the Canadian Open.

Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic was able to retain his number three world ranking with a win over fifth-seed Andy Roddick. Had Andy won, he would have moved up to the third spot. It seems like on all of the sports biggest stages this year, the 19-year-old Novak has fared better than Roddick and truly is the best player behind Federer and second-ranked Rafael Nadal. All he needs is a grand slam win...

World number one Roger Federer won his match at the Candadian Open on Wednesday then celebrated his 26th birthday on court. We all know that he already got his biggest present: a fifth straight Wimbledon title last month. Federer will be gunning for a fourth straight U.S. Open crown in a few weeks and I would not wanna bet against him!

Outsports.com has this cool article on French decathlete Romain Barras who doesn't mind one little bit that gay men look at his photos -- he actually welcomes it!
"It is lucky to have articles [about me] on the gay websites," the 27-year-old Barras said in an interview with the French gay blog "A Cause des Garcons" (translated as "Because of the Boys"). The blog had posted a bunch of photos, mostly shirtless, of Barras under the headline "Romain Barras: The body made in France."
He added: "I visited the sites, I saw the photographs, the galleries. I found it to be super flattering on these sites to be surrounded by very beautiful guys...I always had affinities with the gay community. This is a world which does not shock me."

American tennis hearthrob Andy Roddick, suffering through a subpar year, got back to the winner's circle Sunday with a win in the ATP tournament in Washington D.C. He beat John Isner 6-4, 7-6 for his second title of the year and 23rd overall. Roddick suffered a stunning loss at Wimbledon last month and has slipped to number five in the world (he was ranked first in 2003) and will be severely tested by the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as he seeks his second U.S. Open title beginning later this month. Tomorrow, play begins at the Canadian Open in Montreal where the top 23 men in the world are entered.
Go Andy!