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Monday
Evening QB
IF you randomly asked 10 people on a street in America who Marion Jones is, most would not know. Barking on a
dog-day afternoonThe same Marion Jones can't walk on any street in most other countries without people recognizing her, and mobbing her for autographs.
But Jones will be America's temporary sweetheart in a couple of months, as mainstream USA embraces her sport, track and field, the only time it ever does -- during the Olympic Games.
You've probably seen Jones, even if you don't know who she is yet. The articulate, photogenic former college basketball player is already appearing on television commercials and magazine covers. Her quest for five gold medals will be one of the biggest stories in Sydney.
Yesterday, the torch was quietly passed at Sacramento, Calif., in the women's long jump at the U.S. track and field Olympic trials.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, track and field's most dominant performer over the past 15 years, failed to qualify for a fifth Olympiad.
Jones qualified first in the event, which will probably be the hardest one for her to win at the Games.
If she does strike gold five times, Jones will be rightfully crowned as the greatest female athlete in the world (unofficially, because that actual title goes to the heptathlon winner) -- better than Cynthia Cooper, Mia Hamm and the Williams sisters.
And most of America will care for about five minutes, until 2004.
Brilliant move by KFVE to replay last year's University of Hawaii home football victories.
Saturday's first installment was UH's 31-27 win over Eastern Illinois, the one that ended the Rainbows' 19-game losing streak.
It wasn't very pretty. It was against a Division I-AA team. Hawaii's defense and special teams looked sloppy.
But it had to be a thing of beauty for Rainbow fans, even to watch again 10 months later.
Major League Baseball appears on the verge of its own version of "Survivor," and is ready to move or lop off some unprofitable franchises.
While the few fans of the Expos and Devil Rays -- two of the prime candidates to be moved or dissolved -- will suffer, the populations of Montreal and Tampa Bay have voted for years by staying away from their ballparks.
Montreal has been a glorified farm team for the rest of the majors. Some of the best players of the '90s started out with the Expos, including Randy Johnson and Larry Walker. The team's ownership just never anted up to keep its stars.
The Expos, however, could be a strong franchise because of its minor-league infrastructure. They need to move somewhere where people actually care about baseball.
As for the Devil Rays, they suffer the curse of their development being compared with that of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Both debuted in 1998, but the Diamondbacks made it to the playoffs in their second year while the Devil Rays continued to languish in last place.
Baseball also finally has some plans to share overall revenue with small-market franchises.
The big question will be who gets Montreal's Vladimir Guerrero in a dispersal draft if the Expos are done away with.
He might be the league's most talented player.
And because of the city where he plays, he's just a little more famous than Marion Jones.
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 dreardon@starbulletin.com
