A few non-hockey sporting things...

**A few months ago when I tossed out rather casually that Tiger Woods is "the most dominant professional athlete of my lifetime", a couple of commenters came back with No, it's Federer. I don't think so, for the two reasons I touched on in the comments. One is that tennis has had a talismanic figure for most of my life -- either men's, women's, or both. The name changes every so often, but I have a hard time agreeing that this name has been so unstoppable that his dominance exceeds that found in any other sport.

The other is this clay court/French Open thing. If Tiger Woods had never won the U.S. Open because his game isn't very well suited to narrow fairways and high rough, he'd surely be about as rich and famous as he is now anyway, but most sports fans wouldn't even consider him to be the greatest golfer ever, let alone putting him with Jordan, Gretzky, and a few others in the pantheon. Bigger tennis fans than me are free to argue about Federer's rightful legacy in his sport, but that gaping hole in his resume means he ought to be set aside in discussions of Most Dominant Pro Athlete.

**I'm right back into baseball now. My enthusiam was pretty damp early on, when my Alberta Baseball Confederacy fantasy team (The Willie McGee Helmet) went 1-11 in the first 3 weeks, but now that Shaun Marcum has turned into a near ace and C.C. Sabathia has stopped bringing a gas can with him to the mound, it's a lot more fun. Also, it's nice having the closers for the two best teams in the majors.

The other thing that has really amplified my enjoyment of MLB this season and last is having XM Radio in the car, which carries the home feed for every single game of the season. Not only are you able to catch any game you're particularly interested in following, but you get to develop an appreciation (or hate) for some of the crews.

Much like hockey -- TV and local radio both -- baseball has a LOT of PbP guys and analysts who have been on the job for a long time. And it's a pretty mixed bag. Some of them are clearly losing their chops and/or their interest (I'm not too high on the Mariners' Dave Niehaus), but some of them remain absolutely golden.

Jon Miller, better known to most fans as the English-speaking half of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball booth team, is a hell of a treat to listen to as the Giants' guy. And my absolute favourite is the Padres' Jerry Coleman, who is apparently in his 36th year as their radio voice.

My absolute favourite thing, as it turns out, has been listening to the home broadcast for Blue Jays' road games where Roy Halladay is the starter. In all sports, hearing the regular crew extol the virtues of the local hero gets old, and lord knows the national broadcasters are always intent on making everything about the superstars (Crosby). So there's something kind of thrilling about listening to the other team's broadcasters spend an entire game saying -- and I paraphrase -- "Christ, this guy is good!"

These are the times I wish I carried a notebook around. One of the few comments I do remember is the Tigers' crew last year, with Detroit coming up in the bottom of the 8th. "The Tigers must be hoping this is Halladay's last inning... while they trail only 2-0, they've only managed 3 hits tonight, and all three were batted off the dirt in front of home plate."

**And speaking of enjoyable broadcasting, I commend you to the LiveBlog-thingie that Yahoo! UK runs for the Euro 2008 matches. They write just like they talk!!! (Example: "Real fizz about this game now... High drama here. A goal now would be priceless for either side... TURKEY HAVE WON IT AT THE DEATH!!!..." etc.)

**The CTV purchase of "The Hockey Theme" seems like a resolution that should satisfy everyone. I hope we can stop talking about it now.

**Go Flames.