COMMENTARY : We Can Sleep Tight--Cup Is Ours Again

Whew, I’m sure glad we’ve gotten the America’s Cup back. I’m sure happy the appellate judges in New York interpreted the Deed of Gift in our favor. (By the way, what exactly is the Deed of Gift? It sounds like something you can win on Let’s Make A Deal. “Okay, you’ve got the Deed of Gift. Do you want to trade it for what’s behind Curtain No. 3?”) I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well lately thinking that the America’s Cup could end up lying around somewhere in New Zealand. What if a herd of spring lamb tramped all over it? It’s such a relief to know The Cup is safe from foreign domination. I’m sure you’d agree that Tom Ehman, the head of San Diego’s America’s Cup Organizing Committee, said it best when he said, “The long national nightmare is over.”

The long national nightmare is over!

What is this guy, from Mars?

What long national nightmare? You take 100 people on the street, and 98 of them not only won’t know where the America’s Cup was, they won’t even know what the America’s Cup is.

The long national nightmare!

We’re talking about a boat race, for heaven’s sake. A boat race! Not even a fast boat race, like with power boats, or cigarette boats drug dealers have. At least in those somebody could flip over; you’d have some action. America’s Cup races last for hours and hours. When the sea is calm, as regularly happens, the boats don’t move at all. (Some reporters bring novels to read while they’re covering the race; others actually write novels during the race.)

The long national nightmare. Over yachts?

I haven’t read all the surveys, but the last time I looked yachting wasn’t crowding football or baseball onto the agate page. How many people do you know who yacht? Forget everybody in the flyover. How can you yacht in Colorado? What would you do, turn on all the spigots and flood Mile High Stadium? Those who do yacht are usually somewhat upper crusty. Let’s put it this way, they’re not worried about which bus to take to work. (When was the last time you went to the regatta and heard someone say, “Schlitz, and put a head on it”?) You gather a bunch of yachtsmen in one big room, and how do you think Mayor Marion Barry’s going to salute them?

Apparently this new decision means the site of the next America’s Cup will be San Diego. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to get a bet down. Maybe the Kiwis will bring back their gigantic monohull. (It’s so long the crew doesn’t grind or winch it, they just baste it every 45 miles.) Maybe we’ll counter with the refurbished Exxon Valdez.

If they really want some strong wind and active seas they ought to hold the race right now off the Atlantic Coast, smack dab in the path of Hurricane Hugo. Let’s see if Dennis Conner’s catamaran is fast enough to outrun that baby. I asked my colleague, the learned Angus Phillips (you’ll remember how on Monday Night Yachting, Howard Cosell always referred to him as “Angaroo”) what kind of boat he’d choose if the America’s Cup were conducted in a hurricane, and he said, “I’d defend in a submarine.”

In other international sporting news: The Washington Capitals will be home soon after touring Sweden and the Soviet Union. (I thought surely they’d bring Bengt Gustafsson back with them. They’ve always said he’s the key ingredient to winning the Stanley Cup. Maybe they can get Ingemar Johansson instead.) Keeping in mind that these were exhibition games, it was amusing to read Bryan Murray’s comment after the 7-2 loss in Moscow that his players had done too much sightseeing, and their minds weren’t on the game. “Red Square? Nah, not for me. I’ll stay in the hotel and watch film. After all, it’s not like I won’t be back in Moscow anytime soon.” Why is it all coaches want to conduct training camp in a military barracks in Antarctica?

Abe Pollin had a memorable trip, going by train on an eight-hour pilgrimage to his parents’ birthplace in the Ukraine, where he met an elderly cousin. Unconfirmed reports quoted the cousin saying, “So, tell me why you can’t beat this Hextall?” Scott Stevens is in midseason form already. He smashed out a Soviet player last week. So much for glasnost, eh? If he played in Europe, he’d be banned for the whole season. In the NHL somebody would give him 500 free gallons of gas for the Hit of the Week.

No one knows how this trip will affect the Caps, whether they’ll be jetlagged or disoriented by the larger European rinks. Since they usually start each season by losing nine of their first 10 games, almost anything would be an improvement. I expect they’ll go to Nepal next summer and play the notoriously rough Yeti League All-Stars and work on high-altitude training.

One last item: They’re holding the Ryder Cup this weekend in England. How they manage to get all those rental trucks across the ocean is beyond me.