Final thoughts on the Rangers' Stanley Cup playoff run

At first, it hurts. When the team you love to root for is eliminated from the playoffs, the pain is immediate and palpable. And so it was on Friday, when the New York Rangers' season came to end that on one hand seemed inevitable -- given their 3-1 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final to the Los Angeles Kings -- but also sudden, in that the end came in double overtime of Game 5.

As playoff series go, this might have been the closest five-gamer you'll see; of the Rangers' four losses, one was in overtime, two in double OT. All games in the series except one were decided by a single goal. A bounce in off the post instead of out -- which happened a bunch of times -- and the victory parade could well have been down the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan instead of Figueroa Street in downtown L.A.

That's what made this one tough to take for Rangers fans in the moments after Alec Martinez ended it, and the image seconds later of the Kings celebrating just feet away from Henrik Lundqvist, lying face-down on the ice in despair.

But even detaching ourselves a bit, just a few days later, it's easy for Rangers fans to look back on this season with satisfaction. They came a long way from a slow start by Lundqvist and his mates under their new coach, the easy-going  Alain Vigneault. The team responded to his calm, even-keel demeanor -- a far cry from his predecessor, John Tortorella -- and began to turn it around.

At the trade deadline, they dealt popular captain Ryan Callahan to Tampa Bay for the Lightning captain, perennial All-Star Martin St. Louis. I'll admit I didn't like the trade at first; I thought it would cripple the team's chemistry down the stretch (through the whole first half of the season, I kept telling anyone who'd listen how much the Rangers missed Brandon Prust). But the more I saw how the classy St. Louis carried himself, despite not being able to contribute on the scoresheet, along with the way his younger teammates looked up to him, I was converted.

Even more so after he lost his mother four games into their second-round series with the Penguins, with the Rangers trailing 3-1. The tragic event pulled the team together in a way Vigneault described as "profound," and they went on to beat Pittsburgh in seven games, then Montreal in six in the conference finals.

There is no shame in losing to a team as good as the Kings. All playoffs long, we kept hearing how much stronger, tougher and better the West was than the East. While their talent was evident, the gap between the finalists wasn't.

This Rangers team is one its fans can be proud of. They played the right way, were likable and they created a true buzz in the city. I can only imagine what the feeling for Game 6 would have been like if Game 5 went their way.

Some of them will leave. That's the nature of the game. The NBA is the only league that's set up for teams to stay together and keep their stars. The NHL, NFL and MLB are now year-to-year entities, which is why it's so difficult for championship teams in those three sports to repeat.

I'm also reminded of my dad. He was a huge sports fan (wonder where I get it from), and loved nothing more than watching the Rangers -- he had seats in the first row behind the glass for years at the old Garden. When I was a kid, he would quickly thumb through the newspapers every June -- he faithfully bought and read the Star-Ledger, Post and Daily News every day -- and then scowl, saying, "There's no hockey in the paper." 

Well, there was plenty of hockey in the paper this June. I know how much he would have loved watching all of it and how excited he would have been. 

The same way the rest of us were.

Rex Ryan has us all fooled ... right?

Rex Ryan is either the smartest, most cunning, most innovative coach in the history of the NFL, or ... he's not.

What to think? Which way to go? There's no middle ground here. It's sort of like cats -- you either love 'em (which I do) or you don't. You're either in or your out, to paraphrase Pat Riley, who actually was pretty smart, cunning and innovative. You either have confidence the plan will work when it counts, or you don't.

The Jets have been pretty terrible throughout the first three games of the preseason: This is not news. The defense doesn't look bad, but the offense is a mess. The line has holes, especially at tackle (Winston Hill is not walking through that door), their receivers are banged-up and old, their top running back is pretty pedestrian and though they profess confidence and trust in their starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, he's going to have to play with whiplash every week, what with that Tim Tebow guy breathing down his neck.

And through it all, Ryan has remained the steady, stoic captain of this ship that everyone else can see is taking on a lot of water. And instead of grabbing the buckets and bailing, he's calmly forging ahead, telling us not to worry. Trust me, he assures us. I got this.

"I see some encouraging signs that we're headed in the right direction," Ryan told my New York Post colleague, Brian Costello. "It might not be obvious to everybody in the public. Again, I'm confident in our offense. I'm confident in our coaching staff. I'm confident in our players. I believe that we're going to have a very productive offense when it's all said and done."

Uh, OK. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe in all of their shrouded-in-secrecy practices Ryan and new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano have cooked up the most amazing, intricate mind-blowing offensive attack, the likes of which we've never seen before. Maybe Tebow will line up as quarterback, running back, H-back and wideout ... on the same play (Hey, Bugs Bunny did it on the baseball field, so there is precedent). Maybe Antonio Cromartie will catch passes ... from Nick Mangold.

Or maybe not. Maybe behind closed doors and security-encased fields far away from the prying eyes of the media and Bill Belichick's camcorder, they're as frustrated and frantic as their fan base is. Maybe they're just trying to buy as much time as possible to figure something -- anything -- out before the regular season starts, when all the world will finally see whether the Jets are fantastic ... or frauds.

Ryan and the Jets either have all of this under control ... or they don't.

Which is it? We'll soon find out.

NFL must end officials lockout -- now

Picture this: A company at the unquestioned top of its field, at the apex of success with its profits only forecast to go higher and higher with no ceiling in sight, decides to endanger everything it has built by waging labor war with a small but crucial department of its operation -- which just happens to be the gatekeeper of the integrity of the entire corporation.

Why would that company even think about messing with such a good thing just to save a couple of bucks? 

Excellent question. And it's one that Mike Arnold, the lead counsel of the NFL Referees Association wants an answer to, with the NFL officials lockout now expected to last into the regular season, which begins Sept. 5 when the Giants host the Cowboys.

"This is one of the perplexing things about why the NFL would lock us out," Arnold told USA Today. "Why would an organization with $9.3 billion in (annual) revenues expected to rise to $12 billion or $14 billlion in the forseeable future jeopardize the health and safety of its players and the integrity of the game by hiring scab officials?"

The amount of money the league and its officials are haggling over -- a $16.5 million gap in negotiations, according to Arnold -- seems like nickels and dimes ... if not pennies in perspective to the entire picture. But there's more:

The NFL wants its officials to become full-time positions -- a break from the current and past, as many officials have had long and successful careers in other fields. The league also wants to hire three additional officiating crews to allow the existing ones to take a week off here and there, with the possibility of rotating new officials into the current crews should the performance of individual referees decline. Not surprisingly, the officials' union is against all of that.

Arnold said the league also wants to blow up the officials' pension program and replace it with "annual contributions" the league would pay to retired officials instead.

But on top of all of that, and most important to fans, is how the games are affected on the field. And while there's only a very small sample size -- one week of the preseason -- it's more than enough to prove the point this nonsense needs to end. Now.

Mistakes and gaffes have been so numerous in just one week, it would be impossible to list them all here. Instances of penalties called on wrong players, not moving down markers and misinterpretation of rules have become tragically comical in short order.

At the conclusion of the Giants-Jaguars game last Friday, the Giants had the ball with time running out, trying to get into field-goal range for a potential game-winning kick. The Giants were called for a penalty, and under that scenario, a 10-second runoff should have been assessed and the game should have been over.

I -- and everyone else on the sports desk at the New York Post that night -- knew the rule. The commentators broadcasting the game knew the rule. But the officials, who huddled for several long minutes, didn't, and gave the Giants one more play. They didn't score, but imagine if they had ... and it had been a regular-season game against, say, the Cowboys ... on national TV.

"I actually heard one of the refs (say) he'd only reffed glorifies high school games, which I don't even know what that means," the Giants' Victor Cruz told my New York Post colleague, Paul Schwartz. "I just want to make sure (the officials) have the best interest of the players at heart and they know what they're doing out there, because there were a few instances where there were some iffy calls made and there were some things that were ... out there.

"Sometimes you could see them being a little flustered at times ... like they called a holding call on the returner when he was returning a punt. That was probably the most mind-boggling one to me. We just want to make sure we get the refs back out there and out there making the right calls."

Don't we all.

Then there is the issue of player safety, obviously a major concern of the league's rank and file.

"Everybody says the preseason is at one speed and once you get up to regular season the speed picks up and it goes to the next level," Bears punter and player rep Adam Podlesh told ESPN. "That is one thing that basically all these refs that are officiating our games haven't experienced ... That's the concern for the players: Are they going to be able to keep up with the speed of the game and are they going to make the right calls that are going to make the players feel safe?"

The regular NFL officials have, and would -- all the reason the league needs to end the insanity ... as soon as possible. 

Drama Queens' show closes

With all the emotion, excitement and attention the U.S. women's soccer team stirred up last Sunday with its improbable victory over Brazil in the World Cup, it didn't seem possible that could be topped. But we should have known better. That was, after all, only the quarterfinals.

The Americans ousted France in the semifinal on Wednesday (in regulation, yawn), setting the stage for what appeared to be their coronation this past Sunday, against a Japanese team they had never lost to in 25 games, and had beaten twice already this year. Certainly, Wheaties boxes and appearances on David Letterman and The View were already in the works for Hope, Abby, Alex, Megan and rest of these ladies our country was suddenly on a first-name basis with.

I have to admit I fell under the spell, too. As I sat in a packed Manhattan sports bar (and I had to wait for a seat, by the way) watching the second half before my shift at the New York Post Sunday, I was conjuring back-page headlines for the victory that seemed assured when Alex Morgan scored the game's first goal in the 69th minute.

"American Splendor," "American Beauty" and "U.S. Yea!" were the three that immediately came to mind. Even after the Japanese scored to send the game into extra time, it seemed destiny would have its say, and so it was when Abby Wambach's header gave the U.S. the lead with only 16 minutes to kill.

But as we found out, destiny all depends on your perspective, and which side of the Pacific Ocean you live on. Turns out the Japanese trumped the U.S. on this one; with every victory throughout the tournament, the overachieving Nadeshiko were healing hearts and minds in their tsunami- and earthquake-ravaged homeland.

After each win, they would raise a banner that read, "To our friends around the world -- thank you for your support." In return, their coach, Norio Sasaki, said, "We wanted to use this opportunity to thank the people back home for the support that has been given."

Even U.S. goalkeeper and erstwhile media darling in waiting Hope Solo was driven to say, "I truly believe that something bigger was pulling for that team. And as much as I've always wanted this, if there's a team I could give it to, it'd be Japan."

It can be argued instead of the Japanese taking it, the Americans gave it away. The U.S. took 27 shots to Japan's 14, and hit two goalposts and one crossbar in regulation before the final dagger: the Americans missed their first three penalty kicks (kudos to Japanese goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori for her kick save against Shannon Boxx), which gave Solo no chance to win it for them.

So perhaps fate did have a hand -- or foot -- in what happened here. I'm reminded of the words of the late John Bauer, a legendary high school football coach I used to cover in Randolph, N.J. It was a rarity when his team lost, but whenever it did, the first thing he'd say, nodding to the opposition, was, "They've got to eat, too."

And how about this: I wonder if anyone standing in the war-torn ruins of bombed-out Frankfurt in 1945 could have even fathomed that one day nearly 70 years later, an international sporting event would be played between the United States and Japan ... there, on German soil? Probably not.

Which might be fate's greatest act of all.

An instant classic, in every way

Every so often, we are treated to a sports event that transcends its usual sphere of influence, bursting outside the lines to take on a greater meaning. In the span of 24 hours this weekend, we were fortunate enough to see two of them.

The first came Saturday, when Derek Jeter recorded his 3,000th hit with, of all things, a home run at Yankee Stadium. And just when we thought The Captain was hoarding all the drama to himself, along came Sunday, with the U.S. women's soccer team's last-gasp comeback and eventual victory over Brazil on penalty kicks in a World Cup quarterfinal game.

We're not going to go down the potholed road of, "maybe THIS will put soccer on the map in the United States," or fly a Title IX flag -- or Brandi Chastain's sports bra -- from the mountaintop and proclaim yet another short-lived victory for women's sports. This isn't about any of that.

What this is about is a celebration of why we love sports, and for those of us lucky enough to do it for a living, it means that much more. Fact is, you didn't have to be a soccer fan -- hell, you didn't even have to be a sports fan at all -- to appreciate the careening emotions, tension and twists and turns, all packed into one game. It absolutely had everything.

This wasn't just about sports. This was about life. There was fleeting success, stolen away and replaced with failure. There was adversity, there was determination, there was redemption, there was an unexpected plot twist, a climax and a denouement. You couldn't have gotten Martin Scorsese or Ron Howard to write a better script.

This game so intrigued me, had I witnessed it in person, it would probably have overtaken some stiff competition to become the best live sporting event I've ever seen. My top two on that list are the Robin Ventura "grand-slam-single" game between the Mets and the Braves in Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS at Shea Stadium, and Michael Jordan's 55-point game against the Knicks in his first game back at Madison Square Garden in 1995 following his brief retirement.

Even if Hope Solo, Abby Wambach and the rest of the U.S. team don't win another game in this tournament -- or their lives, even -- what they accomplished on Sunday secured them a place on the short list of instant sports classics of our time. This is one that will last a lifetime -- an achievement that will never be taken away from them, will never be forgotten.

"It's like a storybook," Wambach said.

Except it really happened.

Derek Jeter from a Mets fan's view

By now, you've probably read all the accolades, all the praise and all the celebration that came pouring down yesterday, not only from the highest seats at Yankee Stadium but from all corners of the sports world after Derek Jeter became the 28th player in big-league history to enter the 3,000-hit club.

You know he became the first Yankee to make the list, the first to do it as a full-time shortstop, only the second to do it with a home run and the fifth-fastest to reach the coveted milestone. That his historic hit was part of a 5-for-5 day that, by the way, included the winning hit that lifted the Yankees to victory over the division-rival Rays, was a sidebar on this day.

Always a model of class and playing the game "the right way," Jeter is one of those rare people who "you never hear anything bad about." (You can discount the hissy fit from the Yankees before the season, when negotiating Jeter's contract extension; that was just negotiation posturing).

Even from this corner, from someone who's a Mets fan, I've always marveled at his consistency and professionalism, perhaps never as much as Saturday.

There have been many Subway Series games watched from my desk at the New York Post, and for the contingent of us who are Queens-leaning, it always seemed whenever the Mets needed a crucial out to escape a jam, more often than not, No. 2 would be walking to the plate.

"Not THIS guy again," one of us would exclaim. And more often than not, it seemed, Jeter would come through. So it was only mildly surprising, when reading down the list of Jeter's 3,000 hits by Stadium, 49 of them came with the Mets as the home team -- 44 at Shea Stadium, and five at Citi Field -- places where Jeter only played three games a season.

In fact, before Jeter's recent visit to the disabled list, it had been a foregone conclusion to many of us that Jeter's 3,000th hit would come at Citi Field. How could it not?

It's in my DNA not to love the Yankees. Granted, not with the vitriol of Red Sox Nation, and there have been a few pinstripes who I've ardently rooted against. Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez are two that come quickly to mind. But when watching Jeter, there comes the perspective that you know you're watching one of the greatest and classiest players to put on a uniform, and especially as time goes on, you relish and appreciate every play, every act, every second. I've had similar feelings watching Lawrence Taylor and Brett Favre; Jeter, of course, comes without the off-field baggage Taylor and Favre lug around.

And when you're witnessing such a dramatic moment that tames the hearts and minds of the most cynical among us, then that's saying something.

Jeter can do it perhaps better than anyone else. And did it again Saturday.

You kinda almost gotta believe

The heretofore laughingstocks of the big leagues, the guys whose owner was pictured in the New York Post wearing nothing but a barrel and holding a begging cup, are now the architects of a six-game winning streak, their latest triumph coming after a four-run rally in the ninth inning. Holy Tug McGraw! After an endless list of last-place predictions, are we in for an unexpected Amazin' season from our lovable Mets?

Probably not. While I would love to push forward such an agenda and pull my Keith Hernandez T-shirt out from the bottom of my closet, we need to check in with our good friend, reality.

After a 5-13 start that had the Mets speeding reckelessly toward oblivion and irrelevancy by May Day, they're suddenly 11-13, and even out of last place in the National League East. But we must point out the Amazin's have put some meat back on their bones at the expense of the Diamondbacks and Nationals, with combined records of 20-26. That, after losing two of three to the mighty Astros, they of the 9-15 mark.

It gets significantly more difficult, very quickly. After they finish up with the Nats, the Mets will play three games each against the pitching-rich Phillies (16-8), then the Giants (11-12) and McCourt-distracted Dodgers (13-13), both better clubs than their records reflect, before a three-game set with the Rockieds (16-7), who throttled the Mets in a recent four-game sweep at Citi Field. those four clubs have a combined mark of 56-40.

There are a few glimmers of hope. Ike Davis is batting .345 and Jose Reyes is batting .311 (though few expect him to remain a Met past the trade deadline). Carlos Beltran appears to be healthy, and Jason Bay is showing the kind of pop since coming off the DL to make you think maybe signing him wasn't such a bad idea.

But let's see where things stand after the next two weeks before we can legitimately get excited.

***

Following up on a recent blog post, I saw that Peter King of Sports Illustrated paid a recent visit to NFL Films president Steve Sabol, who is back to work while undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Sabol, 68, doesn't know his prognosis ("I never asked, I don't want to know," he told King), but is driven to "make it" until August, when his father, Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It's an inspiring read about one of the really good guys in sports. Here's the link:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/04/17/mmqb/index.html