They outplayed Oklahoma today in the second half and deserved to win–but that was the worst officiating in a major game in as long as I can remember. Read it all.

“No question, there’s a larger weight in Chicago,” Lee said after the Cubs were swept from the playoffs for the second year in a row. “I hate to call it pressure, because it’s hard to put more pressure on us than we put on ourselves. But you can feel it in the city. They want it bad. It’s understandable. But it’s all about how you perform on the field.”

The Cubs performed their worst when it mattered most. A year after scoring only six runs in a three-game sweep by Arizona, the Cubs produced the same meager output in another early exit.

They have lost their last nine postseason games, and some of the most unsightly were in this series. In Game 1, starter Ryan Dempster walked seven in four and two-thirds innings. In Game 2, the Cubs made four errors, one by each infielder. In Game 3, they went 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position.

The team that led the National League with 97 wins and 855 runs never gave itself a chance. As similar as the result was to 2007, this flameout was harder to explain.

Read it all–it was an awful meltdown.

Weather services reported an 8 m.p.h. wind in Chicago on Friday. They failed, of course, to factor in the collective sigh of Cubs Nation.

“Good grief!” fans shrieked, as the Cubs stumble toward a possible Saturday elimination.

Holy Cow, oh wow, it’s deja vu all over again.

How””just how””they asked, could the team with the National League’s best record deliver this 72 hours of ineptitude and misery?

I do not even know if I can bring myself to watch. At least they have the starting pitcher I feel best about on the mound this evening. Read it all.

Well, I’ll give Carlos Zambrano credit. His head didn’t explode. He didn’t break Mark DeRosa over his knee like a maple bat. Didn’t try to stuff Derrek Lee down the dugout drainage pipe like a piece of used chaw.

As his Chicago Cubs fell into an 0-2 NLDS sinkhole, as his team melted into a little Cubbie-blue puddle of Game 2 errors, Zambrano at least tried to do his part. But it didn’t matter. Almost nothing matters now as this series is all but over except for the champagne spray.

“It’s hard when your teammates make things difficult for you,” Zambrano said. “Like I said, it’s not an excuse.”

“We didn’t help him out much, that’s for sure,” Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot said.

Read it all. I can’t talk about it rationally.

This might not be the end of the world, but Cubs fans can see it from here. The Cubs spent six months working and hitting and pitching and fielding and sweating to get home-field advantage in the playoffs, and they gave it away in five innings.

They might’ve given this series away, too, because losing the first game at home in a five-game series is exponentially more disastrous than doing it in a seven-game series.

So now what?

Read it all. It was a horrible night for Cubs fans. Dempster didn’t have it, it is as simple as that. Congratulations to the Dodgers–KSH.

As he prepares for October baseball at Wrigley Field, manager Lou Piniella feels good about his team.

He feels good about the starting pitchers. Feels good about the lineup. Feels good about the back end of the bullpen. Feels good about the character of his resilient ballclub.

“I do like our team, yes, and I’ve got a whole lot of confidence in them,” he said.

But, as has been his habit from the beginning of the Piniella era, he cautioned fans not to get overconfident about his 97-win team. If he had a playoff T-shirt licensed by Major League Baseball, it probably would read: Be Happy, Not Giggly.

Read it all.

They beat the Cardinals 5-4. I kid you not, I turned on the game and it was 5-0 and about a minute later it was 5-4. I was sweating….

Immediately after finishing off the game of his life, Carlos Zambrano got down on one knee and thrust his arms toward the sky.

The emotional right-hander threw the Cubs’ first no-hitter in 36 years Sunday night, a 5-0 win over Houston at Miller Park in which he returned from an 11-day layoff in his own inimitable style.

“I guess I’m back,” Zambrano said with a wide smile.

Big Z is back, all right, and better than ever.

Read it all.

Major League Baseball reversed its long-standing opposition to instant replay and will allow umpires to check video on home run calls in series that start Thursday.

The start date comes nearly 10 months after general managers voted 25-5 to use the technology, and following MLB agreements with the unions for umpires and for players.

“I believe that the extraordinary technology that we now have merits the use of instant replay on a very limited basis,” commissioner Bud Selig said. “The system we have in place will ensure that the proper call is made on home run balls and will not cause a significant delay to the game.”

Three series are scheduled to start Thursday, with Philadelphia at the Chicago Cubs, Minnesota at Oakland and Texas at the Los Angeles Angels. For other games, replays will be available to umpires starting Friday.

I am concerned it may unduly extend the games–but let us see how it works in practice. Read it all.

The Cubs are 31 games over .500 for the first time since 1984.

That ’84 team, of course, came agonizingly close to reaching the World Series for the first time since 1945, losing a best-of-five NL Championship Series to the San Diego Padres after taking a 2-0 series lead at Wrigley Field.

Comparisons between the ’84 team I covered for the Tribune and the current Cubs can always be debated. The ’84 Cubs, for instance, finished with a team earned-run average of 3.75. The current staff has a 3.74 ERA at this point.

Read it all.

It was the perfect end to a perfect Olympic Games for China as the Olympic flame was handed over to London in the grandeur of one of the world’s greatest stadiums this morning. As the memories of a sensational Games faded into memory, the Chinese nation was left to celebrate achieving its ultimate aim of heading the Olympic medals table for the first time in history.

Unless you are in the United States where, strangely, you will discover that Team USA remains the dominant force in world sport, yet again topping the medals table.

The race for the ultimate Olympic accolade is measured in medals, it just depends on which medals you decide to count. The International Olympic Committee issues its league table based on the number of golds won, which gives China the honours, but then admits that there is no official system in place to decide who is top dog. So the American public is reading tables counting the total number of medals, including silver and bronze, won at the Games. On that measure, the USA keeps the whip hand over the home nation.

You pays your money and takes your choice on this one, but the undeniable fact is that this has been China’s Games in every sense. A century ago at the 1908 Games in London – where Britain registered 145 medals, including 56 golds – China did not even field a team. In recent years, though, they have overtaken Russia and now loom in America’s sights. In Beijing, China contested almost every event and, even where they could not win medals, showed signs that they will be a formidable force in four years in London.

Read it all.

A nice profile of one family involved in this year’s Olympics–watch it all.

Phil Dalhausser blocked out the score, the sun and the sounds of the crowd that danced for Brazil while samba music shook the Olympic beach volleyball venue for the gold medal game.

Then he blocked just about everything else.

Rejecting four straight shots in the decisive set of the final on Friday to turn a tight match into a blowout, Dalhausser did it again on the championship point to give the Americans the sport’s first Olympic gold medal sweep.

“I got in a zone, I guess,” Dalhausser said. “I blocked it all out. It’s just one of those things where you see everything perfectly and it all seems to be in slow motion.”

Read it all. I caught it live during the morning run this morning–they played great. I especially enjoyed the after match interview in which they noted how much they benefited from losing early on to Latvia–a match I also caught.

Two weeks before leaving to compete in the Olympics, the archer Brady Ellison waded into a pool not far from the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., and was baptized in the Christian faith.

In the water with him was Kisik Lee, the head coach of the United States archery team and a Christian who has become a spiritual guide for Ellison, 19, and the larger group of athletes who train and live full time at the Olympic Training Center. He has also served as a sponsor in the baptism of three other resident archers.

During the Olympics, Lee and at least three of the five United States archers who qualified to compete in Beijing met every morning to sing hymns and read from the Bible, and to attend church together in the chapel at the Olympic Village. Lee believes having a strong faith makes for better archers because it helps quiet their minds. To that end, he tailored Ellison’s Olympic schedule to include spiritual and athletic objectives.

“I give him six tasks a day, including reading the Bible and education,” Lee said. “And he’s doing it.”

Read it all.

Ryan Dempster cradled the card deck as deftly and lovingly as he does baseballs. He took the ace of spades from the top, shuffled it into seeming oblivion and removed a two of clubs off the top as proof.

“But I can make it come back,” Dempster said coyly. He tapped the deck and flipped over the top card.

Bingo.

“See?” he said. “There’s your ace.”

A fine amateur magician, Dempster’s best trick this season has been turning himself into an ace ”” of the Chicago Cubs. His next stunt? Trying to make 100 years disappear.

Read it all.

What a marvel to watch.

The Olympic Basketball Gymnasium here is the first N.B.A.-style arena in China. From the Black Eyed Peas’ singing “Let’s Get It Started” at tip-off to the scantily clad halftime dancers, it has all the trappings of an N.B.A. showcase.

The United States team showed again Saturday night that it is right at home in Beijing. The gym has been host to a show of basketball gluttony that could be known as Team USA Revival.

In their most thorough and dominating performance of these Olympics, the Americans trounced Spain, the reigning world champion and their supposed stiffest competition, 119-82. It was such a thorough demolition that the Spanish star Pau Gasol was asked in the postgame news conference whether his team had tanked the game.

He dismissed the question, in the same way his teammates had no answer for the Americans, who forced 28 turnovers, outscored Spain by 32-0 on fast-break points and had eight players score in double figures.

Read it all. Our son Nathaniel, a Duke fanantic if ever there were one, keeps saying, Dad, of course they are going to win, they have Coach K. They are playing really well, especially Dwyane Wade.

The Olympic Village’s religious center has become the target of a quiet protest by athletes, coaches and other delegates who say its staffing and services fall woefully short of the promises made by Chinese organizers.

Previous Olympic hosts welcomed foreign chaplains, but China has banned them from living with the athletes. It has instead pledged that it will provide equivalent services from its pool of state-employed pastors, imams and other clerics.

Josh McAdams, 28, an American athlete who runs the 3,000-meter steeplechase, said members of the U.S. track and field team have been “quite dissatisfied” with the center. Not only are the services conducted in broken English, most staff members do not have experience with sports or with foreigners.

“They should allow chaplains””perhaps one from each country””to be in the village. … This is important, because for many of us, athletics is not only physical and mental but spiritual,” said McAdams, who is Mormon.

Read it all.

Could everyone please stop hyperventilating about Michael Phelps?

Yes, he now has won more gold medals than anyone in Olympic history.

No, that does not make him the greatest Olympic athlete in history.

In fact, he doesn’t even make my top five.

Read it all. All I can say is I am really enjoying the olympics!

Would Michael Phelps’s bid for eight gold medals in the Beijing Games dissolve in a pool at the Water Cube on Monday? The answer was a resounding No.

Not over Jason Lezak’s 32-year-old body.

Lezak, swimming the anchor leg of the United States’ 4×100-meter freestyle relay, hit the water a half-second after Alain Bernard of France, who came into the race as the world-record holder in the 100-meter freestyle.

“I knew I was going to have to swim out of my mind,” Lezak said, adding, “I had more adrenaline going than I’ve ever had in my life.”

Dragging off Bernard, who was hugging the lane line that separated them, Lezak made up ground, but with 25 meters remaining it appeared as if he would run out of pool. Trailing Bernard by half a body length, Lezak put his head down and surged to the wall.

I caught the whole thing live this morning, and I honestly was not sure who won, even after I watched the first replay–incredible! Read it all.

Update: There is a lot more here also.

Makes a Cub’s fan’s heart glad–watch it all.

The Jets, once the team of one of football’s most charismatic quarterbacks, now have another one. They acquired Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers in a deal late Wednesday night that the Jets hope will ignite excitement for a team that struggles to remain in the headlines in the same city with the Giants and struggles for competitiveness in the same division as the New England Patriots.

“We just felt this was an opportunity to go get somebody of Brett’s stature and what he’s accomplished,” said Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum.

The terms of the trade were not announced, although it was believed to be for a fourth-round pick that, depending on Favre’s performance and the team’s results, could increase in value, all the way up to a first-round selection. The trade was first reported Wednesday night by FoxSports.com.

Quarterback Chad Pennington, a former first round draft pick, is loved and respected in the Jets’ locker room, but Tannenbaum said early Thursday morning that the Jets will part ways with him now that Favre is on board.

“It’s a bittersweet moment for us,” Tannenbaum said. “I have all the respect in the world for Chad as a person and as a player. He gave his heart and soul to this organization for a long, long time.”

What a national soap opera this became. Watching ESPN’s sportscenter turned into as the Brett Favre saga turns. Read it all.

They are still playing well, especially in that four game sweep of the Brewers in Milwaukee recently.

he Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages – politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

On Wednesday – two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games – the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

Read it all.

Greg Norman, age 53, is leading by 2 strokes going into the final round. Wow–what a great story.

Nadal, seldom short of positive energy, leapt with delight and hustled to his chair to prepare to serve for the championship. It was 9:10 p.m. in London when he walked to the baseline, and the light was so dim at the end of this intermittently rainy day that both players were concerned.

“I almost couldn’t see who I was playing,” Federer said, shaking his head.

Nadal agreed. “In the last game, I didn’t see nothing,” he said. “Was unbelievable. I thought we have to stop.”

Wimbledon’s organizers have pushed their sessions to the limit this year, with other matches finishing at 9:30 p.m. Not finishing on Sunday would have forced the tournament to extend to Monday, with all the logistical challenges that would have entailed.

“It would have been brutal for fans, for media, for us, for everybody to come back tomorrow, but what are you going to do?” Federer said. “It’s rough on me now, obviously, to lose the biggest tournament in the world over maybe a bit of light.”

You have to love the picture. I was interested to hear Brad Gilbert, Patrick McEnroe, and Bud Collins all describe it as the best match ever in their mind. I leave that evaluation to later when more perspective is possible, I am just blessed to have seen it–read it all.

You just absolutely have to love it–watch the whole thing.

A superb Wimbledon final going on.

Now to a tie breaker in the fourth set.

With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.

Local officials have initiated an all-out effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently covered a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic races.

Water quality has been a concern for the sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

Read it all.