Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Mark La Monica and Joe Fernandez

We're delighted by the outstanding support shown for Mustache Madness, the latest craze to sweep through the Internet. This is better than the dancing baby from a few years ago and nearly as cool as the random YouTube links you send your friends.

And come clean, readers. We know some of you have started growing mustaches because of this. It's cool. Send us your mustache photos. You might make the next tournament.

There were very few upsets in the first round, but you can read more Mustache Madness down below the polls. Right now, it's on to the Sweet Sixteen!

View the updated Mustache Madness bracket

Now commence with voting for the Sweet Sixteen. You've got until Monday night to support your favorite mustache. We made the set up a bit easier this time. Click the athlete's name to see and study the 'stache, then click VOTE to cast your ballot.

The Lou Brown Bracket
(1) Goose Goosage vs. (4) Patrick Ewing ---- VOTE
(2) Tony Pena vs. (3) Thurman Munson ---- VOTE

The Ray Finkle Bracket
(1) Keith Hernandez vs. (4) Davey Johnson ---- VOTE
(2) Sparky Lyle vs. (3) David Wells ---- VOTE

The Apollo Creed Bracket
(1) Bobby Nystrom vs. (4) Catfish Hunter ---- VOTE
(2) Don Mattingly vs. (6) Willie Randolph ---- VOTE

The Jack Elliot Bracket
(1) Walt Frazier vs. (4) Reggie Jackson ---- VOTE
(2) Sal Fasano vs. (3) Joe Namath ---- VOTE

Read the first-round analysis by clicking on the link below

By Mark La Monica and Joe Fernandez

Summer is here and we feel like having some fun. And since we know every year that baseball's All-Star break creates three days of next to nothing to do in July, we're ready to launch into some amusement now that will carry us through that little hiccup in the sports calendar.

The Keyboard Quarterbacks proudly -- very proudly -- present Mustache Madness, your chance to celebrate, commemorate and choose the greatest mustaches in New York sports history.

Athletes have been placed in one of four brackets and will face each other in a single-elimination playoff bracket, similar to the NCAA's March Madness basketball tournament.

And, of course, we've named the divisions. In keeping with KBQB style, they are named after sports movie characters -- Lou Brown, Ray Finkle, Apollo Creed and Jack "Mr. Baseball" Elliot.

The mustache tournament, perhaps the world's first, begins now and lasts through July 11. The voting schedule is as follows:

First Round: Vote from 8:30 p.m. June 27 to 11:59 p.m. June 29.
Sweet Sixteen: Vote from 12:30 a.m. June 30 to 11:59 p.m. July 2
Elite Eight: Vote from 12:30 a.m. July 3 to 11:59 p.m. July 5.
Final Four: Vote from 12:30 a.m. July 6 to 11:59 p.m. July 8
Championship: Vote from 12:30 a.m. July 9 to 1 p.m. July 11.

The winner will be announced at 2 p.m. July 11.

Mustaches were seeded based on originality, size, staying power in New York, success of the athlete while he had the mustache, longevity, celebrity of the mustache, how his teammates reacted to it, class and symmetry.

Or decide on your own judging system: Either way, have fun. Follow these three steps:

1) Cut a hole in a box.

Oops, wrong steps. Sorry. OK, follow THESE three steps

1) See the Mustache Madness photos

2) View the Mustache Madness brackets

3) Start voting in the first round of Mustache Madness.

The Lou Brown Bracket
(1) Goose Gossage vs. (8) Tom Gordon
(4) Patrick Ewing vs. (5) John Starks

(2) Tony Pena vs. (7) Herman Edwards
(3) Thurman Munson vs. (6) Gary Sheffield

The Ray Finkle Bracket
(1) Keith Hernandez vs. (8) Wally Backman
(4) Davey Johnson vs. (5) Mike Keenan

(2) Sparky Lyle vs. (7) Derek Harper
(3) David Wells vs. (6) Jeff Kent

The Apollo Creed Bracket
(1) Bobby Nystrom vs. (8) Bryan Trottier
(4) Catfish Hunter vs. (5) Harry Carson

(2) Don Mattingly vs. (7) Jose Valentin
(3) Derek Bell vs. (6) Willie Randolph

The Jack "Mr. Baseball" Elliot Bracket
(1) Walt Frazier vs. (8) Carlos Baerga
(4) Reggie Jackson vs. (5) Billy Martin

(3) Joe Namath vs. (6) Bobby Valentine
(2) Sal Fasano vs. (7) Jason Giambi

By Mark La Monica

Um, uh, er, uh, yeah. How about them Yankees?

Just two weeks ago they were chipping away at that 13.5 game lead the Red Sox held over them. Had it down to 8 games at one point.

Now, um, not so much. It's right back up to 11 games. Pick-up basketball games go to 11. Not American League East division leads with nearly half the season gone. You double-down on 11. Not walk in the winning run for fear of throwing a strike on a full count.

Eleven games. Not insurmountable. Not good, either.

Not when "pitchers" in the bullpen have names such as Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth and inhabit uniforms belonging to the New York Yankees baseball club.

That "Chipping away" piece from June 11, although accurate at the time, looks more like slipping away now.

Red Sox Nation can breathe easier for now.

Slip, slip, slip.

Right now, I feel like Jim Carrey at the end of "Ace Ventura" when he tries pulling off Capt. Lois Einhorn's hair. "Boy that's really on there," Ventura says, trying to avoid embarassment as the cops and others watch Ventura try to explain that Einhorn (Sean Young) is really a dude named Ray Finkle.

The Yanks are slipping away.

Finkle is Einhorn.

By Mark La Monica

I went YouTubing again just a moment ago. Got caught up in some Herm Edwards moments. From there, the twists and turns of this whole Internet thing led me to a great 31 seconds of edited material by some YouTuber named Dango. Bless you, Dango. Solid work. Enjoy, good people.

By Karen Bailis

She made it look easy: The fast breaks, the spins around three defenders to get to the hoop and score, the fade-away jumper with the shot clock ticking to zero. And maybe it was. Maybe it was easy to play the game she’d become one of the best at.

Until it wasn’t. Chamique Holdsclaw, the phenom from Astoria who knew only winning at Christ the King and the University of Tennessee, walked away from basketball yesterday. She walked away with three consecutive NCAA titles, an Olympic gold medal, six appearances as a WNBA All-Star and league scoring and rebounding titles. Holdsclaw shocked the women’s basketball world Monday by announcing her retirement, at age 29, five games into the WNBA season. She did not give a reason for her abrupt retirement and did not say what other endeavors she might pursue.

Fans and, presumably, her team, the LA Sparks, have been left bereft, with only memories of her greatness and of her great promise, unfulfilled in the WNBA.

Although Holdsclaw entered the league a much-heralded No. 1 draft pick in 1999, was Rookie of the Year that season with the Washington Mystics and consistently was among the top scorers and rebounders in the league, she had only one winning season with the underachieving Mystics.

Holdsclaw nearly walked away from the WNBA in 2004, when she left the team under mysterious circumstances and then later disclosed that she’d been suffering from clinical depression and had contemplated giving up basketball.

It would have been hard to blame her. After the death in 2002 of the beloved grandmother who’d raised her and that of her grandfather in 2004, she found herself in a dark place, unable to get out of bed let alone play against some of the best athletes in the world. Her family had depended on her to get them through, and there she was, paralyzed.

"I just didn't want to be Chamique," she told Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post in 2004. "People look at me, even my family and friends, in an almost supernatural way. I just wanted to be a regular person."

Maybe that’s what she wants -- needs -- now. She insisted in an interview for Tuesday's editions of the LA Times that she's not battling the same demons that surfaced in 2004.

"There's nothing going on. You have your good and bad days, but the place where I was a couple years ago, I haven't been back to," she said. "I'm not pregnant, I'm not going crazy, I'm not depressed, or anything like that. I'm fine, I just want to kind of kick back."

Though she’d been sidelined by a number of injuries throughout her pro career, she’d looked healthy at the start of what already was going to be a tough season for LA, with star Lisa Leslie on maternity leave and point guard Temeka Johnson still recovering from knee surgery. Holdsclaw had assumed point guard duty and was leading the team in scoring with 15.8 ppg. She told the LA Times that she came back this season out of a sense of responsibility.

"I felt like I owed the organization," she said. "Without Lisa, I knew it would have been a double-whammy. But after the first few games, it hit me really hard, and I wanted to be honest with myself and the organization, and not keep going out there, acting one way, but really, feeling like something else."

Holdsclaw had been traded to LA in 2005 after getting treatment for her depression and regaining her passion to play. She had wanted to come to LA, where she could start anew and pursue a championship.

"I want to be somewhere where I'm playing with great players, and we can go out there and make things happen,” Holdsclaw told the LA Times in 2005. “For once, since I've been in the pros, to have some excitement. I'm excited to be here. I know it's going to be hard work but this is where I wanted to be."

Unfortunately, now being on the basketball court is no longer where she wants to be. Fans are stunned and even angry that Holdsclaw made the decision after the season already had started. Not many would have been surprised if she’d announced her retirement before the May tipoff. She’d talked about it last year, when she took a leave from the team to care for her father and stepfather, both ill with cancer.

Perhaps it all became too much, the illness, hers and her family’s. Perhaps basketball no longer was easy, fun. Perhaps she’s just ready to move on. Her wishes, her needs must be respected. And we wish her the best and all that is beautiful in life, because that’s what she was on the court.

Still, Holdsclaw leaves her fans, the game of basketball and her potential unfulfilled.

By Mark La Monica

Uh oh, Red Sox Nation. Don't look now, but those Yankees are starting to chip away at your monsterous lead in the American League East.

On June 2, the Red Sox had a 13.5-game lead. Nine days later, it's down to 9.5.

Chip, chip, chip.

With 100 games left for Boston and 101 for the Yanks, including six more games against each other, this is no time for celebrating such a reduction.

However, since the entire baseball media world made it sound like the Yankees were contributing less to society than David Hasselhoff, it's worth noting even for a small moment that the lead is down to single digits.

The chipping has begun. At some point late this summer, will the Orioles or Blue Jays look at the standings and say, "Wow, how 'bout them Red Sox? I haven't seen a collapse like that since they torpedoed that casino in 'Ocean's Eleven.'"

By Karen Bailis

We knew it wouldn’t – couldn’t – last. The Liberty? Undefeated? Nah. Not this retooled team of neophytes. Not without Becky Hammon. Not without a go-to player. Still, they’d exceeded expectations in their first four games of the season, bringing down the previously undefeated Indiana Fever, a favorite to win the WNBA championship, in the process, and coming up with at least two go-to players: previously underused Erin Thorn and Cathrine Kraayeveld.

Reality came crashing down on Friday night at the Garden, against the Detroit Shock, who came in 4-0 and left with their undefeated season and “Bad Girls” moniker still intact. The Liberty led in the first quarter, but when their shots stopped falling, and the Shock started being more aggressive, the Liberty looked intimidated.

With Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn leading them, the Shock can’t help but be big, bad and ugly. I’m not talking appearances, I’m talking about the way they play: gritty and dirty.

And I love it. When they’re firing on all cylinders, they’re fun to watch, elbows, push-offs, hard fouls, trash-talking and all. The Liberty isn’t battle-tested, and it showed. They’re too nice. After a hard foul on basketball elder stateswoman Katie Smith that sent her tumbling into the cameras on the baseline, Thorn offered an apologetic hand to Smith, who wouldn’t have it. Even a technical on Liberty coach Patty Coyle – a Philly native who can trash-talk with the best of them – didn’t fire up her team. Surprisingly, Laimbeer, who jumped and stamped and yelled like usual, escaped the T.

Success, of course, takes more than playing with attitude, it takes skill. And Detroit has it in spades. And when they’ve lacked it, Laimbeer has gone out and gotten it, such as in the trade that brought Smith, the U.S. women’s pro basketball all-time scoring leader, to the Shock in 2005.

Detroit, which won its second WNBA championship last season, is bigger and deeper, faster and stronger than any other team in the league. In contrast to the Liberty, they have five go-to players in their starters, six if you count sixth-woman Plenette Pierson, who contributed 13 off the bench.

Deanna Nolan, one of the most athletically gifted players in the game, burns the Liberty all the time, and Friday was no different: She scored a team-high 17. No one can guard her, not even underplayed speedster Sherill Baker, who led the NCAA in steals a season ago and was brought in at one point Friday to try to stay with Nolan, to no avail. Nolan, 144 lbs. of fast-twitch muscles, stands 5-foot-11 but has hops that help her match up on the inside. She skied for an authoritative block against the 6-4 Kraayeveld, and made it look easy.

And then there’s Cheryl Ford. She leads the WNBA in career rebounds per game (9.9). In only her fourth season in the WNBA, she’s in the top 10 in career double-doubles in points and rebounds. She tallied another on Friday, with 11 points and 11 rebounds. She outplayed Kraayeveld (13 points and 7 rebounds) and rookie Jessica Davenport ( 8 points, 4 rebounds) down low. Her father is Karl Malone, and the elbow doesn’t fall far from the tree. She’s a bruiser who’s only going to get better.

Swin Cash appears to be back to form after a torn ACL in late 2004 and is averaging 14 ppg this season, which is what she scored against the Liberty.

The Liberty, now No. 3 in the Eastern Conference behind Detroit and Indiana, plays in Indiana on Sunday. I hope some of Detroit’s attitude and swagger rubbed off. They’ll need it if they’re to continue to overachieve this season.

By Mark La Monica

Diddling around on the password-protected HBO Media site in search of any news and photos about Season 4 of "Entourage" for my Entourage blog the other day, I got flustrated with the lack of new information and clicked on the HBO Sports link.

Those who caught the reference in that last sentence and combined it with the keywords in the headline know what's next.

Herm Edwards is back on the national scene!

HBO Sports is bringing back its awesome behind-the-scenes reality series Hard Knocks (finally!), the inside look at training camp with a particular team. The first two years had the Ravens and Cowboys.

This year, HBO heads to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to chronicle Herm Edwards. OK, the Kansas City Chiefs, too. But seriously, can anyone think of a better reason to watch than the potential for new Hermisms.

Will there be another "We're on the bus"? Or maybe some poisoned Kool-Aid? Can something come closer to topping his "Helloooo? You play to win the game!"?

You just don't know with Herm.

For five years, the New York Jets fans and media were treated to the magic and aura (and yes, some poor clock management) of Herm Edwards. This is the second year Kansas City fans can appreciate the magic and aura (and yes, some poor clock management) of Herm Edwards.

Now, the entire cable-subscribing nation can sit back every Wednesday night for a month at 10 p.m. starting August 8 and come understand the magic and aura (and yes, some poor clock management) of Herm Edwards. And then they can do it again with encore replays Thursday nights. What lucky star did we settle under to get this treatment?

This is going to be just as exciting as watching Entourage each week to see what kind of drama Johnny Drama will get into.

Oh, Herm, please don't disappoint us.

Luckily, there's little chance of that. He's Herm, and this is reality television. The nature of this so-called genre, with its sounds-better moniker of "unscripted drama," yields story lines based upon what happens.

There will be some quarterback drama unfolding since Trent Green was finally traded. And there will be plenty of on- and off-field Herm. There's a 24-person crew from NFL Films in Wisconsin to produce this show. Certainly one of them knows to keep a camera on Herm at all times.

H-E-R-M. Herm! Herm! Herm!

Some video fun (thank you, YouTube!)
You play to win the game

Larry Johnson impersonates Herm

Karen has been a professional journalist for 16 years, most of the time at Newsday, where she’s served as a news copy editor, assistant sports news editor, news editor and senior news editor, her current position.

Previous to working at Newsday, Karen was a copy editor at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., and as a reporter, copy editor and assistant city editor at the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa.

As a WNBA Liberty season-ticket holder and someone who has been known to travel hundreds of miles in a day just to see a women’s basketball game, Karen has been described by some of her friends and colleagues as a women’s basketball fanatic. Let’s just say she’s an exuberant fan who can spend hours on end talking about the season with others who share her passion.

By Karen Bailis

Three of the best stories in women’s basketball were in Madison Square Garden Sunday afternoon, and only one of them was the New York Liberty advancing to 4-0 in its best start since the inaugural WNBA season.

As inspiring as the Liberty’s 83-82 win over the Phoenix Mercury (4-3) was – and it was a helluva game, with rookie Jessica Davenport scoring the winning three-point play with 6.9 seconds left – two greater inspirations were in the “World’s Most Famous Arena.”

After the first quarter, the Rutgers women’s basketball team was introduced and took the Garden floor. The team, which put together a spectacular run after an abysmal start and ended up playing for the national title before being subjected to the likes of Don Imus, was honored “for their inspiring and magical run through the 2007 NCAA Tournament.”

And the Garden crowd stood and cheered. The fans stood and cheered for the team’s on-court accomplishments, yes, but more precisely the applause embraced each young woman for they way they rose with dignity above the words meant to bring them down.

The ovation was like few I’ve seen during a women’s basketball game at the Garden. The team, which showed such grace in the face of ignorance and ugliness, smiled and waved and soaked in the appreciation. The applause went on longer than it has for the introduction of the great Martina Navratilova and perhaps for Liberty legend and Garden favorite Teresa Weatherspoon when she was honored last year. It went on and on and stopped only as play was about to resume.

Another inspiration rose amid the crowd.

In the second half, the screen above the Garden floor focused on the cancer-ravaged countenance of Coach Kay Yow, sitting in the front row facing the Liberty bench. As the announcer introduced her, citing her North Carolina State team’s rally to reach the Sweet 16, the crowd rose again. Yow, a Hall of Famer, had taken a temporary leave from coaching this past season to battle a cancer recurrence, and when she returned her team adopted her never-say-die attitude and fought and scrapped their way past the No. 1 and 2 teams in the country and deep into the NCAA tournament. All this while Yow was undergoing chemo and was sometimes too weak to stand during practice. She stood yesterday at the Garden, and the fans stood with her.

The Liberty stood up too, to its toughest opponent so far in this young season, with a young team matching up against a more experienced one that has the best backcourt in the WNBA. It had looked for a while that Diana Taurasi might single-handedly outscore the Liberty, who got off to a slow start. But the Liberty defense buckled down, and the offense came alive behind Loree Moore’s career-high 22 points. The home team withstood an onslaught by Taurasi’s backcourt mate, former Rutgers star Cappie Pondexter, who had put the Mercury ahead, 82-80, with 10.3 seconds left. Then Davenport did her thing. Again, the Garden crowd stood and cheered.

Not to diminish what the Liberty accomplished on the court Sunday – but sometimes the game is transcended by the strength that surrounds it.