Tennis? Where Have All the Aaron Kricksteins Gone?

Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time passing

Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time ago

Where have all the flowers gone?

Girls have picked them every one

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

       -- Pete Seeger

NEW YORK, MARCH 4, 2013 -- With all due respect to Mr. Pete Seeger, and Peter, Paul & Mary, let's take a crack at a re-write of the epic tune just as the tennis world serves-up the 2013 season and celebrates "Tennis Night" in Hong Kong and New York's Madison Square Garden where Rafael Nadal will headline a night of exhibitions along with Argentine Juan Martin del Potro on the men's side while Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka square-off on the women's side right in the center court big top of New York City's sporting spotlight.

Where have all the Aaron Kricksteins gone?

Long time passing shots,

Where have all the Aaron Krickteins gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the Andre Agassis gone?

Charming personality for everyone,

Where have all the Andre Agassis gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the Michael Changs gone?

He's won Roland Garros for Hoboken,

Where have all the Michael Changs gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the Paul Annacones gone?

Wimbledon quarters and coaching a ton,

Where have all the Paul Annacones gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the Andy Roddicks gone?

A U.S. Open Champion,

Where have all the Andy's Roddicks gone?

Long time ago.

John McEnroe

During my lifetime, I had the great pleasure to witness the glory years of several sports and sports franchises.  It's been well documented that I worked my way through the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson era of NBA basketball, arguably the greatest time period in league history. I was also lucky enough to see the New York Mets win their "Miracle Mets" world championship in 1969, the New York Knicks in their most glorious era where Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and the Red Holzman-led Knickerbockers played a team-oriented, pleasing brand of basketball that forged two NBA titles and created a legion of "make the extra pass" basketball fans that grew-up with "The City Game" and a "Hit the Open Man" mentality.

I was hand-delivered a New York Islanders franchise that struggled mightily as an expansion franchise but soon after upset their New York Rangers rivals ('75) and went on to win four consecutive NHL Stanley Cup championships when Bryan Trottier personified the perfect two-way player maker, Denis Potvin took a lesson from the NHL's all-time greatest defenseman, Bobby Orr of the Bruins, to mold the NYI team around his very intimidating defensive presence while he quarterbacked the offense and power play to perfection. The Isles, with super-sniper Mike Bossy (50-in-50 was the norm), Clark Gillies and a host of muckers and fan-favorites, like Bobby Nystrom, Butch Goring, John Tonelli, complemented by rock-solid goal-keeping by Billy Smith.  Not bad fort a high school sophomore, eh?

Them there was tennis.

On the women's side, every summer at the U.S. Open, we were there to witness Chrissy Evert going up against the greatest tennis player of all time in Martina Navratilova, a singles, doubles and mixed doubles ultra-champion and 18-time Grand Slam title winner. On the men's front, the list is ridiculous and I'll rip through it in no particular order ...

We were there to watch John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Pete Sampras - all American-born and bred. Meanwhile, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer, Rod Laver, Boris Becker and Mats Wilander were the international opponents, to name just a few.

Undoubtedly, it was the greatest era of tennis in history and it might never ever be duplicated.

So what happened?

Where did all the tennis players go? And, specifically, where are the American tennis players?

Let's ask Johnny Mac?

"Andy Roddick's now gone and we haven't won any slams in 10 years since Pete Sampras quit other than Roddick's one (2003 U.S. Open), so obviously there's some concern here. There's a lot of work to do and I think people remember the old days a bit," said McEnroe to a media contingent assembled to see the John McEnroe Tennis Academy housed at Sportime and located at three different locations in New York and its 'burbs.  "It was a great time for me and it was sort of a golden era for American tennis -- Jimmy Connors and myself, then Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier.

"So, yes, there's something that's missing and hopefully we can fill that niche and maybe inspire some younger kids as well."

What happened to the talent pool? Did the kids all start playing basketball and lacrosse, because they're certainly not playing baseball and (American/NFL-style) football. Ask President Barack Obama about that, eh?

"I've seen them all," McEnroe chimed in. " What Billie Jean King has done for the game and the way she played was more like how I played, Then, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert won a billion tournaments, Steffi Graf. And, when Serena (Williams) is on, she's the best I've ever seen play. She has the whole package as far as what she can bring to the table.

"Hopefully for us, (meaning American tennis), we're wondering where the next American guy is? For the next American woman, we're still looking pretty sharp. Hopefully this will inspire some other people to get out there," noted McEnroe.

And, he's backing up his wish with a venture sure to create a few new stars, right from the New York metropolitan area because McEnroe's academies help train more than 300 young prospects, who get first-hand training from Douglaston's favorite son, along with his brother, mark, and Peter Fleming - Mac's longtime doubles partner who heads up a gaggle of 30 of the top tennis coaches in the country, all packed into facilities on Randall's Island, Westchester County and out on Long Island. Because of Johnny Mac's heavy travels and TV commentary gig, his academy is managed by his brother after it was created by New York entrepreneur Claude Okin.

So where's the beef?  Where's the next American champion?

"You look at John Isner, he's big and athletic and he played four years of college tennis," said McEnroe. "That's the type of kid, an athlete, that will become the future of tennis and I think, here, in a city like New York, we can find those type of kids."

P. U. - The distict aroma of hockey

This gem from Sunday's Boston Globe:

***
P.U.

No, that’s not a typo.

Pee youuuuuuu. That’s the distinctively disgusting smell of the hockey equipment bag.

Unzip it at your own peril. It contains a witch’s brew of bacteria, sweat, mucus, dried blood, metal, foam, and plastic. The scent has been described as a combination of rotten eggs, dirty socks, a wet dog, and low tide.

The hockey bag smell drives hockey moms bonkers.

“I’d say the hockey bag is the smelliest thing in the world,” said Laura Norris as she gazed lovingly at her son Cal, a clean-scrubbed 7-year-old munching on pizza before a Bruins scrimmage game.

On tournament days, she said, his bag is distinctive.

“It smells like a combination of really bad-smelling feet, throw up, and probably a little bit of a dirty diaper,” said Norris. “It gets aired out after every practice, except if it’s not warm enough, then unfortunately it gets aired out in my kitchen.

“It’s disgusting. It gets sprayed down with Clorox spray. It masks it but doesn’t really get rid of it.”

Former NHL enforcer Chris Nilan said his mother viewed his stinky bag as a major misconduct.

“My mother used to go nuts,” said Nilan, who grew up in West Roxbury. “I was too tired and lazy after practice to unpack it and air it out.

“My mother said, ‘If you don’t start airing that out, I’m going to throw it out.’ So one day she tossed it out. I had to get it out of the garbage.”

Nilan said the odor is unique to hockey.

“They just stink from the sweat and throwing stuff in,” he said. “It’s a cloth bag. It retains the sweat, that musky smell. You clean your underwear but you still have the scent and it kind of ferments a little.

“That’s a part of the character of the sport. The smell. I still have my Canadiens bag; there’s a little smell in it. They all smell the same. You can be in a California locker room and it’d smell the same as in Boston.”

To Nilan, though, the aroma is nirvana.

“There’s nothing better,” he said. "It smells like a hockey locker room. Ever since I was a kid. It’s the smell of hockey. The smell of your pads and your skates. That good hockey smell.”

Good as gold to him

Jack O’Callahan was part of the “Miracle On Ice” 1980 US Olympic team that upset the mighty Russians en route to a gold medal. The pride of Charlestown played seven seasons in the NHL before co-founding Beanpot Financial Services in Chicago. His olfactory receptors are a bit eccentric.

“Ha, I actually like that smell,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It’s like the line in ‘Apocalypse Now,’ modified a bit: ‘I love the smell of my stinky hockey bag in the morning. It smells like Victory.’ ”

O’Callahan’s 1980 Olympic bag is one of his most cherished possessions.

“My ’80 bag is in a safe deposit box in Glencoe, Ill., with the other stuff, probably stinking up everyone’s diamonds,” he said.

Washing someone’s hockey bag can be the ultimate show of love. It can even lead to a diamond.

Heather Stone of Pembroke used to wash her then-boyfriend’s stinky hockey bag while they were dating in 1999.

But no more.

“I tried to be helpful,” she said, “but he said I made it smell too good, too flowery, and I haven’t touched it since.”

Jim Stone says he likes the way his hockey bag smells. Today, the couple have four kids and seven hockey bags. Jim and the kids are allowed in the house; the bags are not.

“We have a swimming pool business, and it’s seasonal,” said Heather. “When we shut down, it turns into our hockey locker room. We store the bags next door with the chlorine.”

Other wives are not as fortunate.

Anthony Sorrentino of Lynn hates when his hockey stuff gets frozen outside in the winter.

“We play late, so when I come home, I’ll put my stuff in the spare room where the computer is and shut the door so it doesn’t stink up the rest of house,” he said.

“My wife will get up at 5 a.m. to go to work, and she’ll walk in to go use the computer and there’s my raunchy, stinking hockey bag with no windows open. And you can hear her gag.

“She’s gagging, she’s swearing, and then she’s up throwing elbow pads at me.”

Cleaning it up in NHL

In the Bruins locker room at TD Garden, Chris Bourque, 26, smiles at the subject. He survived the old Boston Garden as a kid with his father, Hockey Hall of Famer Ray Bourque.

“I’m used to the smell,” he said. “I grew up in a locker room, so it doesn’t really bother me.

“My wife doesn’t like it so much. She says, ‘Get that stuff out of the house, go wash your hands, stuff like that.’

“It’s just sweaty old hockey equipment that has been worn for a long time. The stench doesn’t go away. In the NHL, the rooms are lot cleaner. They put in air fresheners and wash our equipment for us, so it’s a little bit better.”

Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara, whose hockey bag never left the arenas in his native Slovakia, also thinks the smell is getting better in the NHL.

“Oh, they don’t stink as much as they used to,” said the Boston captain. “The technology of the equipment is better. The trainers do a great job; they’re washing gear at least once a month. But some guys still like wearing 10-year-old shoulder pads because they are more comfortable”

The Bruins were one of the first NHL teams to buy an $11,000 ozone-infused sanitizing machine to reduce bacteria and eliminate odor from equipment. Former Bruins center Joe Thornton developed a serious staph infection on his elbow in 2002 and then an infected cut above his eyebrow the following year that required hospitalization.

Now, 27 NHL teams have the Sani Sport cleaning units in their locker rooms.

“It’s not funny,” said Sani Sport president Steve Silver. “The smell is not the big deal; the fact that the smell is eliminated is a nice byproduct.

“The reality is that the smell is caused by upwards of a million living organisms on the average set of hockey or football equipment.

“You get an abrasion on your skin, and ironically the bacteria from the shoulder pad or the skate or whatever piece of equipment that is supposed to be protecting you, bacteria from there can seep into your skin and cause things like MRSA [methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus].

“It is resistant to most drugs, so unfortunately people die from MRSA and get very sick from other staph infections.”

The Bruins take all of this all very seriously.

“We’re very sensitive to that kind of stuff,” said defenseman Dennis Seidenberg. “You get a cut or just a little scratch, you’ve got to make sure you cover it with a Band-Aid and ointment. Make sure it doesn’t get inflamed. If some bacteria gets in, even a little scratch could be trouble.

“I got cut last year from [goalie] Timmy [Thomas’s] skate, and they stitched it and it did get infected. They had to open it up again and wash it out. I had to take all those antibiotics.”

Great advice

A couple of the game’s greats say that cleanliness and odor elimination begin with young players taking care of their own dirty stuff.

At Hockey Town USA in Saugus, Ray Bourque skates incognito in an afternoon pickup game, steam rising from his broad shoulders as he heads to the locker room. Bourque says the problem begins with teenagers who just leave everything in the bag.

“They sweat and they don’t dry it out,” he said. “It doesn’t smell very good, but you’ve got to take care of it, just like anything else.

“I had a spot at home that I aired out my stuff after I played, and that was that.”

Fellow Hall of Famer Bobby Orr thinks a reporter asking about smelly hockey bags is sniffing down the wrong path.

“I don’t know what smell you’re talking about,” he said.

So hockey gods don’t smell?

Orr smiles that still-boyish grin.

“I dried my equipment out as a kid,” he said. “Mine didn’t smell. I don’t remember my duffel bag having an odor.

“My last duffel bag is in Parry Sound, in the Hall of Fame up there. And I haven’t noticed that it smells.”

But what of mere mortals?

“Well, the problem we have is the kids expect the parents to carry the bag, hang the equipment up, and so on and so forth,” said Orr. “I took responsibility for my own and I didn’t wait for my parents to do that.

“The kids ought to be doing that themselves, and then it wouldn’t smell so bad.”

Stan Grossfeld can be reached at grossfeld@globe.com.

Ramble On ...

I have been holding on to some real human emotion and a few notes and quotes from the past week, so here they are for Sunday:

First, I was deeply disturbed by a murder-suicide on Boston I495 this past week. A young woman and her young nephew and niece, aged four and five, died. I can't even bear to type the details, so I will just leave it at that. My prayers and thoughts go out to the family members who will have to make their way through this terrible, terrible ordeal. (Click on Ramble On, if you must.. but I recommend you just read on to the rest of the blog below).

On to other news ...

Did you see this?

The Chinese government said Friday its Internet population has soared to 210 million people, putting it on track to surpass the U.S. online community this year to become the world's largest.

The official China Internet Network Information Center, also known as CNNIC, said the online population grew 53 percent, from 137 million reported at the same time last year. According to the government's Xinhua News Agency, China is only 5 million behind the United States online, a figure consistent with some American estimates.

***

In a sports business daily and journal poll, Bobby Orr was named the 74th most powerful and influential person in current day hockey. Sidney Crosby was #1 and Gary Bettman was #2.

***

It took me a while to figure it out as the Boston Sports Guy, the Sugar Hill Gang of all bloggers, used the following acronym; ATPEWTSB.

Assuming the Patriots eventually win the Super Bowl.

***

According to the Wall St. Journal...

Michael Golden, publisher of the New York Times Co.'s International Herald Tribune for the past four years, is leaving that post to concentrate on his role as vice chairman of the company. Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, executive vice president of the International Herald Tribune since 2006, will succeed Mr. Golden. Mr. Dunbar-Johnson, who has worked at the International Herald Tribune for 10 years, will report to Mr. Golden and Scott Heekin-Canedy, president and general manager of the New York Times.

***

Also according to the Journal ...

On Thursday, the PGA of America, in concert with a number of other major golf organizations (including the PGA Tour), announced the results of a new golf economic-impact study. Unlike previous studies, this one calculated both the direct and indirect impact of golf: what players and courses spend on clubs, balls, fees, mowers, fertilizer, golf travel and the like, but also the number of indirect dollars and jobs required to support the people who work directly in the game.

WSJ goes on to say: The two numbers that jump out are the total economic value of golf in the economy -- $195 billion in 2005 -- and the number of jobs that the game generates: about two million.

By the way- I just love the Weekend Journal.

***

Fresh Direct frozen pizza's not so bad either! I'm gonna miss that when we head to Boston.

***

Don't know if you saw this item, reported in the East Valley Trib, near Phoenix:

by JERRY BROWN, TRIBUNE
By the end of the day, Leandro Barbosa was laughing about a practical joke that had him scurrying around the team’s Beverly Hills hotel Thursday. But for a while, a phone hoax that had Barbosa believing he was traded to the New York Knicks was no laughing matter.

Barbosa, who made the mistake of registering under his own name, was in his room when he received an anonymous phone call “informing him” of a trade, and telling him he needed to meet Suns general manager Steve Kerr in the hotel lobby.

“My heart was hurting,” Barbosa said. “Every time I hear the word ‘trade.' It’s just not a comfortable word for me, at all. This is my team. I went a little crazy.”

Frantic and near tears, Barbosa rushed to the lobby in search of coaches or team personnel for answers before he was finally assured it was all a hoax.

“I said, ‘L.B., use your head. Don’t you think I would have told you if something like that was even possible?” said Suns assistant and Barbosa confidant Dan D’Antoni, who was able to put his fears to rest. “I told him, ‘You’ve got to use someone else’s name when you check into a hotel. If someone told me to come down to the front desk and pick up a million dollars, do you think I’d start running for the elevator?”

Even hours later, it was no joking matter for Barbosa. “That was a terrible thing,” he said.

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