The Buffalo News : Sports

Idon’t watch a lot of tennis, but Wimbledon always grabs my attention for two reasons: Roger Federer and the Williams sisters.

Toughness is defined by the ability to withstand great strain without tearing or breaking, to be strong and resilient, rugged and resolute.

Itook a great deal of pleasure writing this column. Having grown up a Los Angeles Lakers fan, it was with extreme joy that I watched them dispatch the Orlando Magic to capture another NBA championship.

They are 20 players from 14 countries, all of them familiar with poverty and upheaval, some having seen unspeakable horrors. Many spent time in refugee camps. Many are without a parent or two. Each of their stories is deserving of a chapter in a book, a tome that details Grover Cleveland's unfathomable ascent to the Section VI Class B boys soccer championship.

They had lived with the memory for nearly a year, spent countless nights examining what had happened, how it could happen. Who lets a 20-point fourth-quarter lead get away at home in what amounts to a divisional title game? How does one ever make sense of that?

Nobility ran rampant in the Buffalo Bills locker room Sunday afternoon as the defense attempted to exonerate the offense for the second-half whipping inflicted by the Houston Texans. Defenders blamed themselves for Houston's 22 fourth-quarter points. They insisted there's no excuse for allowing the Texans to put a 22-minute stranglehold on the football in the second half.

Just before the season, Lindy Ruff pulled his leaders aside and told them they needed to take over the Buffalo Sabres' dressing room. He made it clear that he was finished barking after every poor performance. This was their team, he told them, and taking ownership was their responsibility.

The News' Bucky Gleason ranks the NHL top to bottom.

Ten years, four months and three weeks have passed, including three days for leap years, since the doors busted open and the Dallas Stars rushed onto the ice to collect the Stanley Cup after Brett Hull scored the winner in triple overtime. Add another day if you include the date of when the game started, not when it ended.

Lindy Ruff didn't bother addressing his team after this one. The Sabres were outplayed, outworked and outclassed in Friday night's 5-2 loss to the Flyers. Ruff let them talk it out among themselves. Evidently, Mike Grier did most of the talking.

I'll be honest. I missed him Wednesday night. In the aftermath of the Yankees' 27th World Series championship, I found myself wishing for one of those classic scenes of George Steinbrenner, exulting in front of the TV cameras as his team sprayed champagne in the victorious locker room.

Last July, after Martin Biron became a free agent, he drove his wife, Anne Marie, and three children from Philadelphia to Buffalo. Biron got off Interstate 90 at the Pembroke exit so he could take a nice, leisurely drive through the country roads.

We Western New Yorkers like to poke fun at ourselves sometimes by saying that national trends tend to take 10 years to reach Buffalo.

The News' Mark Gaughan ranks the NFL top to bottom.

Q: Do you think Dick Jauron wanted to cut Langston Walker? — Bill Austin, Buffalo

NEW YORK — You can run down the list and see the difference. Start with Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon. Move to Ryan Franklin and Huston Street. Then came Brian Fuentes and Jonathon Broxton. Throw in a smidge of Brad Lidge.

PHILADELPHIA — Back in April, former Buffalo Bisons star Ben Francisco became the answer to a trivia question when he scored the first run in the new Yankee Stadium. He told me after that game he didn't realize the significance until his phone was flooded with text messages when he came into the clubhouse.

While the big games continue on the field, there's a huge one playing out off the field as well. You've probably never heard the name Aroldis Chapman but by this time next year, you may know all about him.

One of the reasons that I've never been a big fan of Fox play-by-play man Joe Buck is that he rarely says anything memorable after the final out in a World Series.

The New Millennium, which no longer is very new, has not been kind to today's visitors, the Houston Texans, or to their hosts, the Buffalo Bills. The Texans, who first hit the field in 2002, received the usual NFL thumb in their eye via the expansion draft and haven't fully recovered from it. The Bills' wounds of this receding decade have been almost exclusively self-inflicted.

Another week, another trio of annoyances from a guy who prides himself on having a little Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") in him.

Sometimes we get too caught up in all the football testosterone and forget what is really important in life. I am grateful I was reminded.

Mark Gaughan recently crunched some numbers to “prove” that American Football League players were not underrepresented in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Here are some numbers of my own:

Larry Felser’s commentary raises an interesting issue on the ability of the modern-day quarterback and their offense to produce against the athletic multitude of schemes on the defensive side of the ball.