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Monday
Evening QB
THINK Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, except with Nicklaus kicking Woods' butt on a regular basis, and not pretending he doesn't love it. NASCAR loses
its heart, soulThink Ty Cobb in a race car.
Think Michael Jordan dying while trying to win Game 7 of the Finals.
Think of these impossibilities, and you get an idea of the impact of Dale Earnhardt -- and his death yesterday during the last lap of the Daytona 500 -- on the sports world.
Jeff Gordon became the face of NASCAR in the 1990s. But Earnhardt always remained its heart, its soul, its guts.
Gordon brought the general public to stock car racing, but Earnhardt never lost the true gearheads who loved him for his simple, take-no-prisoners style.
In a sport that became increasingly dependent on sponsors and sound bytes, Earnhardt didn't change for anyone.
He was the guy the true fans could relate to; the gritty, good old boy who never tired of playing bumper cars at 185 mph.
Earnhardt owned Daytona, except when it really mattered. That was until 1998, when he finally won the 500. It was the equivalent to John Elway winning the Super Bowl after all those years -- but only if he'd done it at Mile High Stadium.
Remember David Ishii winning the Hawaiian Open? Multiply that by about a million, and you have what North Carolina native Earnhardt winning the Daytona 500 meant to the South.
Earnhardt had a lot of good races and a lot of good years taken away from him, his family, friends and fans yesterday.
While there's no softening the tragedy, the man died doing what he loved best, and what he was best at, at the place of his greatest triumph.
Just as he gave an opponent the finger during yesterday's race, The Intimidator did the same to many of NASCAR's conventions, including those involving safety gear. And it might have cost him his life.
Earnhardt was old-school before the term became a cliche. He was a working-class hero in a working-class sport.
You don't have to be a racing fan or from the South to appreciate him. Dale Earnhardt was the best in the world at what he did.
Two very in-the-know local baseball people tell us Sid Fernandez is preparing to make a comeback. One says "eight to 10" big league teams are interested in the former pitcher for the Dodgers, Mets, Orioles and Phillies.
But the guy who would know for sure if this is true, El Sid himself, insists it is not.
"No way, I'm too old," Fernandez said Tuesday night after his induction into the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame.
Actually, he's not too old at 38 -- especially for a left-hander.
If Fernandez is in shape, there's no reason he couldn't help a team, especially considering what passes for big-league pitching these days.
Kamehameha varsity boys' basketball coach Micah Kroeger learned the hard way in his first season at the Warriors' helm that parents are way too involved in issues they shouldn't be at the high school level. This isn't true only at Kamehameha, but at several local high schools.
Kroeger was put on temporary leave while the school's administration investigated complaints by parents.
Since it appears the complaints mostly had to do with issues such as playing time, Kroeger was reinstated.
Hopefully, this will serve as notice to parents that leagues do exist where participation is the priority. But the Interscholastic League of Honolulu is not among them.
Nor should it be.
Dave Reardon, who covered sports in Hawaii from 1977 to 1998,
moved to the the Gainesville Sun, then returned to
the Star-Bulletin in Jan. 2000.
E-mail Dave: dreardon@starbulletin.com
