Shelter from the Storen

By Joe PosnanskiSep 13, 2015, 1:14 PM EDT

Belief is a funny thing. Friday afternoon in New York, a 32-year-old tennis veteran named Roberta Vinci did not really believe she would beat Serena Williams in the U.S. Open semifinal, not in the way we would normally use that word. She booked a flight out of New York for Saturday, the day of the final. When a friend told her she could win, she laughed. When the first set ended as expected, with Williams cruising through an easy 6-2 destruction, Vinci told herself to just enjoy the moment (her first grand slam semifinal) and to just try and put the ball back into the court and make Serena work for her inevitable victory.

Of course, we now know that Vinci won the match – an upset for the ages – and as I wrote in the moment, it does seem to bring into question the idea that you need to believe to win.

Then, there’s the contradictory case of Drew Storen. In baseball, when you look at the big data, it’s often hard to find the narratives that sportswriters and storytellers have been pushing for more than 100 years. Belief? Clutch hitting? Chemistry? The value of grit? The wisdom of sacrifice? The significance of pitching (is it 90 percent of baseball)? The extreme difficulty of pitching in the ninth inning? These things sound likely and important, but the numbers tend to motor on without them, which is why I suspect so many people mistrust the numbers, and why I suspect so many others mistrust the gut.

Drew Storen, as an individual, seems particularly driven by the gut. It’s probably silly to speculate why, though it could be as simple as his being the son of a fine sportscaster, Mark Patrick. My own daughters, I am shocked to find, tend to believe more or less what I believe about sports even though we never talk about it and, as far as I know, they have not read one sports story I’ve ever written. The other day our younger daughter, Katie, just blurted out that intentional walks are unfair. It was like looking in the mirror.

In any case, Storen grew up just as the Nationals did. From the start, he had a good fastball and a devastating slider, the reliever’s Happy Meal. His first year, 2010, the Nats lost 93 games, and he unsteadily worked his way into being a regular in the bullpen. The next year, he became the closer and saved 43 games in 48 opportunities. The Nationals were just a game under .500.*

* I saw that pal Brandon McCarthy made a bit of a Twitter stink the other day about the habit of saying that an 80-81 team is a “game under .500.” If there was a .500 team in the division, the Nationals would technically finish a HALF-GAME back, meaning that the correct terminology (according to Brandon) should be “The Nationals finished a half-game under .500.”

Well, I would say I 37 percent agree. The reason I 63 percent disagree is that when someone says that a team is any number of games under .500, they are often referring to how many more games they need to win to get to .500. As of this writing, Baltimore is four games under .500 – 68-72. They do not need to win two games to get to .500. They need to win four.

Now, where Brandon is right is after the season ends. If the Orioles finish the year 79-83, they did not really finish four games under .500 – two more wins would have made them .500. So it’s all pretty confusing. I’d say this: If someone finished 79-83 and you said they finished two games under .500, nobody would get it and there would be mass confusion and the earth would be swallowed whole by giant marshmallows. Brandon, buddy, some fights ain’t worth fighting.

During the 2011 offseason, Storen had a bone chip removed from his elbow, which forced him to miss more than half of the 2012 season. As it turned out, that was the Nationals’ breakthrough season. Storen eased his way back in after the All-Star break, pitched very well, and then was named the closer in the playoffs. Everything seemed in place in October. He threw a scoreless inning to preserve a 3-2 victory over St. Louis in Game 1 of the NLDS. He pitched another scoreless inning in a big loss in Game 3, then pitched beautifully again and was awarded the victory in Game 4. All seemed right with the world.

And then came the all-important Game 5. The Nationals went into the inning with a two-run lead and the people in the crowd were going out of their heads – three outs away from Washington’s first series victory in the postseason in 70 or so years. Storen had been just about flawless up to then. He came in and gave up a double to Carlos Beltran, but then he got two outs. One out away. Nothing about Drew Storen’s young career suggested what would happen next.

He walked Yadier Molina, who, it must be said, is not easy to walk. He then walked David Freese to load the bases. He gave up the game-tying single to Daniel Descalso, who hit .227 that year. He gave up the game-losing single to a rookie, Pete Kozma, who had only played in a few games. The Nationals lost. The moment was devastating for Washington. No one felt it more deeply than Drew Storen himself.

So … now what? If you can look at it in a big picture way, nothing had really changed. Storen had one bad moment. That’s all. True, the timing for that moment was terrible, but he’d pitched extremely well for two years, and he’d pitched extremely well in the playoffs before that game. Heck, ONE DAY EARLIER, he came into a tie game, and pitched a dominating inning, so you couldn’t say he was incapable of pitching under extreme pressure. He had played a critical role in the ascent of the Washington Nationals. That was the big picture.

But, when something that traumatic happens to a baseball team, the big picture tends to become fuzzy. Three months after the loss, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo signed Yankees closer Rafael Soriano to a two-year, $28 million deal.

“Drew Storen is a closer,” Rizzo told reporters. “He’s going to be a closer. He’s got closer stuff. He’s got a closer mentality. And by no means was the signing of Rafael Soriano … based on one inning and one game at the end of the season.”

Look at that quote again and ask yourself: Then what was it? If Storen was a closer – with closer stuff and a closer mentality and all that closer goodness – why in the world would you spend $28 million on a 33-year-old closer who, incidentally, was not as good as Storen the previous two years?

Soriano 2011-12: 107 innings, 44 saves, 1.215 WHIP, 10 HR, 105 Ks, 42 walks, 3.56 FIP.

Storen 2011-12: 105.2 innings, 47 saves, 1.013 WHIP, 8 HR, 98 Ks, 28 walks, 3.05 WHIP

Soriano is almost eight years older than Storen; he did not grow up in the Nationals’ organization the way Storen did; he had never been a closer for a team for more than a year. Why in the world would you bring in Rafael Soriano unless, well, unless the obvious: That one inning had triggered Storen doubts in the minds of people who make the baseball decisions in Washington?

Storen pitched horribly as a setup man in 2013. For four months, the National League absolutely teed off on him, hitting .295 and slugging almost .500. Why did it happen? There are never easy answers for such things – Storen talked often that year about “command.” But what is command? In a general way, it means throwing pitches exactly how you want and where you want. In a general way, you could argue, it is baseball’s version of “belief.” The lack of faith in Storen may have played a role. And maybe it didn’t. We can’t get into other people’s heads — heck, we have a hard enough time getting into our own heads.

In late July, the Nationals sent Storen down to the minor leagues, apparently to get his head together. He pitched horribly in Syracuse and then came back up and … was absolutely terrific the rest of the year. Go figure. From mid-August to the end of the season, he gave up three runs in 19 innings. He did not allow a homer. The league slugged .214 against him.

Meanwhile, Rafael Soriano was kind of mediocre. He blew six saves, a career high, and opposing hitters seemed quite comfortable when he came into the game. This could only have surprised someone who is unaware of the aging pattern in baseball. In 2014, Soriano started off brilliantly – the league managed just 19 hits and one home run against him in his first 37 appearances – but no one really seemed to buy it. And then, Soriano went in the tank – the league hit .305 and slugged .505 against him the rest of the year. In early September, he blew a three-run lead and exited to a symphony of boos. “We’ll address it,” Nationals manager Matt Williams told the media. The Nationals were playoff bound again after a hugely disappointing 2013 season, and they needed someone they could count on to close games.

Yep. They turned back to Drew Storen.

Well, Storen had pitched fantastic baseball all year. Whatever command or belief or mechanical issues he’d had in 2013 were now worked out. He’d added a new changeup to his arsenal of pitches. First time out, he struck out two in a scoreless inning and he did the same in his second outing and that was more or less how he pitched all season. Through September 6, he had a 1.37 ERA and Matt Williams brought him into close out a one-run game against Philadelphia. Storen did that. Williams called on him to close out a game the next night and the night after that, and Storen did that too. In all, he was called in to close out 10 games in an 18-day period. He did not give up a single run.

Then came the playoffs – and more pain. In Game 2, Jordan Zimmermann pitched 8 2/3 innings of shutout baseball. Then he walked Joe Panik and Matt Williams made a bizarre decision: He decided to pull Zimmermann — though he’d only thrown 100 pitches and been dominant – and bring in Storen to get the final out.

On the one hand, you could say the Nationals were only showing great confidence in Storen (and none in Zimmermann). On the other hand, it looks like the desperation move of someone managing scared. Whatever the case, it didn’t work. Storen gave up a single to Buster Posey and a double to Pablo Sandoval – Posey was thrown out at the plate or the Nationals would likely have lost right then … but that would have been preferable to what followed. The game turned into an 18-inning horror show for Nationals fans and ended in a loss anyway.

Storen pitched again two days later, with the Nationals up, 4-0, a clear effort to help him regain whatever confidence had been shattered. He gave up a single and a double to lead off the inning, but then did settle down to get out of the inning with only one run. He did not get to pitch again.

So … now what? Well, Mike Rizzo tried a different strategy after this postseason disappointment. The Nationals let Soriano go and did not try to sign a veteran closer. “We trust Drew,” Rizzo told reporters. He said that Storen was penciled in as the team’s closer and that was that.

And Storen repaid Rizzo’s confidence this year by becoming one of the best closers in baseball for for four months. He saved 29 games in 31 opportunities – even in his two blown saves, he allowed just one run and the Nationals came back to win them. The league slugged .244 against him. Unfortunately, Storen and Bryce Harper aside, the Nationals were playing bumpy baseball. The team had been expected to be the best in baseball after the 2014 success and the signing of Max Scherzer. But there were injuries, and there was inconsistent play, and the rotation disappointed, and the bullpen leading up to Storen was shaky. Still, on July 29, the Nationals were seven-games above .500, they were up two games in the National League East …

And Rizzo traded for Jonathan Papelbon to be the new closer.

I’ve already written about the utter bizarreness of that trade. But, on July 30, you saw what Rizzo was thinking. The Nationals led Miami, 1-0, going into the eighth inning. In came Drew Storen, who struck out two and forced a weak groundout. In came Papelbom for the ninth, and he also went 1-2-3, striking out Michael Morse to finish the job. The Nationals were three games up. Everything was roses.

Only, of course, it wasn’t. Storen was gutted by the demotion. Well, of course he was. You can say that it’s a baseball player’s job to play the role that is given to him. You can say that a player too fragile to handle the ups and downs of big league ball is not one to be counted on in the big moment. You can say anything you want. Reality is reality. Storen held his own for a week. And then the roof caved in. Against Colorado, he entered the eighth with a three run lead, he loaded the bases and gave up a grand slam. Two days later, he entered a tie game then gave up a single, hit a batter and gave up the game-losing two-run single. Two days after that, he came into a game the Nationals trailed by a run, he promptly hit another batter and gave up a run-scoring double.

What was happening? There was no obvious answer because there never is an obvious answer. He was throwing as hard as ever. He was mixing his pitches as he had. But, suddenly, batters were just not swinging and missing his pitches anymore. Command? Confidence? Belief? As things got worse, he got worse. The Nationals were falling apart as a team and desperately needed to beat the surging Mets last week just to give themselves a chance at October.

In Game 1, Max Scherzer gave up three homers and a collection of bullpen guys helped the Nationals blow a 5-3 lead.

In Game 2, the Nationals led, 7-1, when the bullpen went haywire in the seventh inning. Blake Treinen gave up two singles and a walk. Felipe Rivero came in to walk the only two batters he faced. And then Storen came in, and he was an absolute mess – he gave up a double to Yoenis Cespedes and then followed with a walk, a wild pitch, another walk, ANOTHER walk and the game was tied. Jonathan Papelbon came in to give up the game-winning homer in the eighth as all of Mike Rizzo’s nightmares came to life.

In Game 3, Bryce Harper hit two home runs and Stephen Strasburg struck out 13 and it still didn’t matter – Storen was brought into the eighth with the score tied and a runner on first and he gave up the season-crushing home run to Cespedes. That was that.

Storen went into the clubhouse, slammed the lock-box on his locker and broke his thumb. He’s gone for the season. Anyway, the season was already gone.

And what is there to learn from all of this? Some will say that Mike Rizzo and the Nationals ruined Drew Storen by alternately treating him with disdain and faith through a stormy few years. Others will say that Storen is simply too temperamental and erratic to be relied on in the biggest moments. What you and I believe probably says more about you and me than it does about Storen.

But maybe there’s something here about belief. Roberta Vinci says she beat Serena Williams without belief … but in a weird way, her lack of belief was a sort of conviction. She kept telling herself to just keep the ball in the court. She kept telling herself to have fun. When she needed to serve out the match, she told herself, “It’s OK. You’ve already lost this game. Just accept that you have lost.” These were the right things for her to think. All of this kept her present, kept her centered in the moment, and this is how people can do great things.

Storen, I suspect, has found all that harder to be centered in the moment. In the end, he cannot blame anyone else for stupidly breaking his thumb in a temper fit or for collapsing after the Nationals demoted him. But there’s a difference. Tennis is an individual sport, all you have is yourself. Baseball is a team sport. Or anyway, that’s what we’re told.

Peter King goes 1-on-1 with Cowboys’ Jason Witten

By NBC SportsWorldNov 19, 2017, 7:27 PM EST

Year: 2017
Runtime: 19:25
Originally aired on: NBC

Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten has done it all during his 15-year NFL career. The two-time All-Pro and seven-time Pro Bowler is the Cowboys’ all-time leader in both receptions and receiving yards and is third in franchise history in touchdowns. The future Hall of Famer let Peter King of The MMQB and Football Night in America behind the scenes for a look into Witten’s recovery process. The end result is an incredibly rare shot of what it takes for an NFL player to take his body from gameday to gameday and perform at their absolute best week after week.

Off Script: Jeremy Roenick opens up on career, family

By NBC SportsWorldFeb 8, 2017, 5:10 PM EST

Jeremy Roenick was as outspoken as he was talented during his 20-year NHL career.

Now 47 years old and almost a decade out of the league, the NHL on NBC analyst opens up to Kathryn Tappen about trouble with coaches, life after getting traded, close family ties and much more in the debut episode of “Off Script.”

Once more, with feeling

By Joe PosnanskiNov 22, 2016, 6:45 PM EST

NEW YORK — Again and again, over and over, they ask him how he FEELS. Well, this is the question to ask, isn’t it? The bus crawls through New York traffic and takes Jimmie Johnson from office building to office building. People wait inside. Kelly Live waits. Charlie Rose waits. USA Today … Mad Dog Radio … NFL Radio … TMZ. They wait for him on top of the Empire State Building. They wait for him outside the Time Life Building.

How does it FEEL, Jimmie?

How does it FEEL to come from nowhere to win your seventh NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, Jimmie? How does it FEEL to tie the two enduring legends of your sport, “The King,” Richard Petty and “The Intimidator,” Dale Earnhardt? How does it FEEL to be the best at what you do, to be inside a race car, rushing at the speed of chaos with 39 maniacs around you barely holding on? No, really, break it down for our audience, how does it feel to be you, Jimmie Johnson, championship race-car driver, part-time triathlete, millionaire philanthropist like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark, loving husband, adoring father, everybody’s best friend and somehow, still, the nicest guy?

How does it FEEL, Jimmie?

“Insane,” he says. “It feels insane.”

“Awesome,” he says. “It feels awesome.”

“Wonderful,” he says.

“Surreal,” he says.

“Incredible,” he says.

“I don’t know that I have the words,” he says.

We’ve known each other a long time, Jimmie and I. We’ve talked about a lot of things through the years, about family and sharks, about food and dreams, faith and football, about kids and ice cream and how hard it is to not care when people boo.

“Let me ask you something,” I say as the day crawls on, and he has been asked the question two or three dozen times, and his eyes begin to close because he’s worn out. “All these people keep asking you how you feel.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Part of the job.”

“I know,” I tell him. “But if you keep talking about how it feels, how do you keep anything for yourself?”

He smiles at that and shrugs and looks out the window of the bus.

* * *

There is a giant hill near the small house where Johnson grew up. People tend to know he grew up around San Diego and so they might think about the sun and the beach, colorful sailboats and yachts. He gives off the impression of royalty. But that’s not the San Diego where he grew up. His town was called El Cajon. There are no yachts in El Cajon. His father operated heavy machinery. His mother drove a school bus. They made do. Jimmie would escape down that hill on his bicycle.

WATCH: NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards on Dec. 2 (7 p.m. ET on NBCSN, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app)

That hill — El Cajon mountain — is a road that seems to go straight down. Even in a car, it is a bit daunting. And for the young Jimmie Johnson it held all the secrets worth knowing. He would rush too fast down that hill, then faster, then faster still, until his parents would tell him to chill, and his friends would nervously call him crazy. Then he went faster again. At that speed, he found that he could feel everything. Fear. Breathlessness. Joy. Hope. Love. Pain. Oh, sure, there was always some pain. There was always another crash. Jimmie Johnson was the kid who showed up for just about every class photo wearing a cast or leaning on crutches.

Well, he couldn’t help it. He needed that speed. He needed to race. There was something about being on the edge — barely in control and barely out of control — that called to him. He would do ANYTHING for that feeling because being on that edge was the thing that made him feel most alive. As the years went on, he realized that to get that edge, he needed to make connections. So he made connections. He realized that to get to that edge he needed to know people. So he met people — the Herzogs, the Chevy people, Jeff Gordon, Rick Hendrick, the people who could help him get where he so needed to go.

He is just one of those people who cannot leave his fears alone. He needed to explore the fears, dance around them, poke at them if he can. It’s still true. Even after he made his name as a race-car driver and could do more or less anything he wanted, he still spent a vacation diving into the water so he could be thisclose to sharks. Why would a sane person do that?

“Because I’m absolutely terrified of sharks,” he says, as if that explains it.

* * *

Richard Petty. Dale Earnhardt. Jimmie Johnson. It does boggle Johnson’s mind that he’s now in that company, officially and inarguably, one of NASCAR’s holy trinity to win seven championships. People can argue who is, in fact, the greatest of all time — and there will be those who believe it isn’t ANY of the three but instead is an Allison or a Gordon or a Richmond or someone like that. Johnson doesn’t care. He’s so happy to be in the discussion.

Johnson never did race against Petty or Earnhardt, though he raced plenty against their sons. He did meet the legends. Well, he has met Richard Petty quite a few times, but he doesn’t really have any good stories about it. “What can you say about him that hasn’t been said a million times?” Johnson says. “He’s the King. He treats everyone with respect. He’s our greatest champion. He’s always been very nice to me, but he’s nice to everyone, you know? I don’t really know that I have more to add than that.”

Johnson does have good stories, though, about the two times he met Dale Earnhardt.

As part of Johnson’s effort to know people, he became friends with Ron Hornaday Jr., a four-time World Truck Series Champion, and a friend of Earnhardt’s. And one day, Hornaday sees Johnson and says, “Hey, you want to meet Earnhardt?” And of course Johnson says yes because Earnhardt was a legend by then. “People my age,” he says, “there was no one on earth cooler than Dale Earnhardt.”

They walk in together, and Hornaday introduces Johnson. Earnhardt sizes up the kid; Johnson was 21 years old then. And then Earnhadt reaches for a little box and gives it to Johnson. “Here,” he says with no warning or explanation. Inside is a little pocket knife with Dale Earnhardt’s name on it. Johnson is overwhelmed.

“OK,” Earnhardt says. “So what did you get me?”

Johnson kind of stumbles around. “Um,” he says, “I didn’t know …”

Earnhardt growls, “You know it’s YEARS of bad luck if you give somebody a knife and then don’t get a gift in return.”

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Johnson begins to turn red, “I mean …”

Earnhardt goes on: “I don’t need your bad luck. I still haven’t won Daytona. I give you a knife and you don’t have anything for me, and now you’re telling me I have to walk around with your bad luck …”

Johnson panics. He rushes outside and, using all the ingenuity he could muster up, gets a penny. He goes in and gives it to Earnhardt saying, “It’s a heads-up penny for good luck.”

Earnhardt doesn’t say a word.

“You know,” Johnson says now, almost 20 years later, “I wonder if he was messing with me.”

* * *

Did you see Johnson going crazy? In the minutes after Johnson won that race at Homestead on Nov. 20, the one that clinched the seventh championship, he lost his mind. He danced. He jumped around. He hugged everyone and everything in his path. He screamed — screamed so loud and with such force that even days later he did not have his voice back. He had won six championships before this one, and he celebrated those heartily, too. But this was different. This was unchained. This was Spinal Tap’s eleven.

“I don’t even know who that guy was,” Johnson says as he looks at footage of himself going bananas.

Shock, of course, had something to do with it. Johnson went into Sunday’s race needing to finish ahead of three drivers — Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch — to win the seventh championship. And all race long, he could not beat any of the three. They all had better cars. They all had better track position. Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, had tinkered and gambled and even tried making a few rather desperate changes, but none of it mattered. Johnson just didn’t have enough car. Those three guys pulled away, and Johnson was left sitting in his car thinking of ways to be gracious when the inevitable loss happened. “I knew I wasn’t going to win,” he says. “I accepted it.”

(All the while, his wife, Chandra, was a mess. Chandra is famous around the track for her relatively serene approach to watching Jimmie race. On Sunday, she admitted, she was in the fetal position).

And then in the final 10 laps of the race, suddenly, a whole series of wacky things happened. Carl Edwards was in command of the championship when the caution flag came out. Poor Carl Edwards. He’s had a glorious NASCAR career, winning 28 races and more than $80 million in prize money, but something has always blocked him from being THE GUY. There was the time he tied Tony Stewart and lost the tiebreaker. There was the year he won nine races, including the last one, but fell short on points. And then there was this one, the time when he had the championship in his hand but a caution flag came out with 10 laps to go and it all went to hell.

Edwards restarted on the front row, and he had Joey Logano behind him. Jimmie Johnson was behind Logano. And for the first time all day, Johnson thought: “Well, hey, maybe there’s a chance.”

Logano, as is his style, made a bold move inside to try and beat Edwards on the restart — nobody in NASCAR restarts quite as aggressively and forcefully as Logano. He went so far inside that his car rolled over the painted area near the interior wall. And it was a winning move — his move would trap Edwards between cars, and there’s no escaping that spot. Edwards knew it, knew his race was over if he let Logano by, and so, in a desperate effort to block Logano, he swerved left. “I was a bit optimistic,” Edwards said ruefully afterward. He bumped Logano, and then lost control, leading to a fiery wreck that ended Edwards’ hopes and shut the race down for 30 minutes.

“As soon as I got by that wreck,” Johnson said, “I thought, ‘Wait a minute. What’s happening here? I might actually win this.'”

Well, that was certainly the thought in the Johnson camp, where Knaus was pumping his fist and Chandra was losing her mind and so on. During that 30-minute, red-flag delay, Johnson’s crew, his fans, and the many people around NASCAR hoping to see a bit of history were going out of their minds. It was going to happen! Jimmie Johnson! Seven championships! Impossible!

And, inside the car, Johnson fell asleep

“I guess I was calm,” he says, and even now he’s surprised.

There was one more break to come Johnson’s way — he expected to be lined up in the third position, which would have been him on the inside lane with his championship competitor Kyle Busch on the outside. If there was one thing that was clear all day in Miami it was this: You did NOT want to be in the inside lane. That was the lane where Carl Edwards AND Joey Logano saw their dreams end. “You just can’t hold your speed on the inside at Miami,” Johnson says.

But, NASCAR determined that Busch, not Johnson, should be in the third spot. Johnson broke free from Busch on the restart and took the lead.

* * *

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There’s an irony about NASCAR: It is the ultimate thrill ride — 200 mph on sheet metal and horsepower and all that’s left of your tires — but you don’t get to NASCAR and you don’t win championships through daredevil feats. You get to NASCAR through great racing, yes, but also by building relationships, by impressing sponsors, by pitching the Lowe’s-Budweiser-M&M’s-FedEx-Napa Parts-Chevrolet-Toyota-Ford car and by working within a team. You win championships by driving like the devil when your car is loose and seems to be on a sheet of black ice, yes, but also by understanding what you don’t know and trusting your crew to handle things. You win championships by controlling your car, but also by relinquishing control. It’s the shakiest of balances.

And balance is what Johnson does better than anyone in the sport.

So when everyone asks Johnson how he feels after the seventh championship, well, he tries his best, he uses the balanced words that come closest, but really, in a private moment, he will tell you: He doesn’t really know HOW he feels. It’s all too much to take in.

“All my life,” he says, “I just wanted to race cars. It was never about the numbers. I didn’t want to win seven championships. I didn’t really want to win one championship. I mean, yeah, I wanted to win, but what I really wanted was to drive a race car.”

Before this race, he said the thing he wanted was to feel like he did when he was a kid, to strip away all the money and all the fame and all the past glory and just feel that thing he used to stay up all night dreaming about, that thing that pushed him to go down El Cajon Mountain just a little bit faster than felt right.

Did he?

“When people ask me how I feel,” he says, “I tell them best I can. I want people to share in this feeling i have. … But I don’t tell them everything.”

* * *

The second time Johnson met Dale Earnhardt, well, it’s a much shorter story. Johnson was hanging around with some buddies at Earnhardt’s garage when they all saw The Intimidator’s car roll slowly by with its windows pulled up. Suddenly the car stopped, and it backed up, and the window came down.

“Hey,” Earnhardt said to Johnson. “You work for me?”

“No sir.”

“Then get the hell out of here. I don’t need no lawsuits.”

And the window rolled back up and Dale Earnhardt drove away.

At the end of that magical race at Homestead, there was one final restart, and after that Johnson heard “Clear” from his spotter, meaning the race and that seventh championship was his. Then came the disbelief and the crazy dancing and screaming and joy and hugs from his wife and children and the greatest compliment a driver could ever get.

“Jimmie,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. would say to his friend as he pulled Johnson close, “Dad would think you’re such a badass.”

The fourth wheel

By Joe PosnanskiNov 18, 2016, 12:51 PM EST

MIAMI — Carl Edwards has to know that he’s sort of the odd duck in this year’s Chase. Here, you have Kyle Busch, defending champion, force of nature, superstar. There, you have Jimmie Johnson, six-time champion, legend of the sport. And third, completing the triangle, you have Joey Logano, 26 years old, phenom trying to insert himself into the story, everybody’s favorite young villain, the future of NASCAR.

And here is Carl Edwards, 37 years old, a former dirt-track driver who ground out 28 victories in an excellent 13-year career but has never quite crashed through, never won a championship, never quite broken out of the pack of those excellent and professional drivers who make up the heart of NASCAR. People who know him probably know him as the guy who does a backflip when he wins. That’s fun. But it isn’t exactly what he wants.

When you look at a list of the drivers who won the most races without winning a championship, you see this:

1. Junior Johnson, 50 wins

2. Mark Martin, 40 wins

3. Fireball Roberts, 33 wins

4. Denny Hamlin, 29 wins

5. Carl Edwards, 28 wins

Edwards knows this, knows it better than anyone. He knows there’s a difference in how people look at you when you’ve won a championship — knows there might even be a difference in how you look at yourself.

Watch: NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship (Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports App)

“Winning a championship,” he says, “it just means that, you know, you go to bed Sunday night and know, hey, you did it. You beat the best in the world. And we’re the champions … at least until they start racing again. I guess that’s what it comes down to. That’s about the longest a win can last in this sport.”

Edwards has had his share of championship heartbreak, beginning with his loss to Tony Stewart in 2011. The two were actually tied in points after an epic duel at Homestead, but the championship went to Stewart because he won more races than Edwards that year. NBCSN has shown that race this week, and Edwards admitted that he watched maybe 10 minutes of it. After that, he was so motivated he was ready to jump in a race car immediately.

There were other close calls, but now, he’s back, and he will not pretend that it’s just another week. When someone asked all four drivers if they were going to try and treat this week differently from other weeks, the other three guys said, “No.” They talked about how you have to treat this race like any other, prepare the same way. Edwards had a different answer.

“For me,” Edwards said, “I’m going to be honest, this week does feel different. I mean, yes, we do have to go do the same job, like these guys said. But for me, each moment, I almost have to pinch myself, like, ‘Hey, this is really it, we’re getting to do this.’ So this is more excitement for me personally.”

“Would winning a championship change your self-perception?”

“Well, yeah, it would be great. I think it would be great … you can print that. It would be great for a different reason for me at this point in my career, though. I’m starting to just realize how difficult this is.

“As far as self-perception, probably like most race car drivers, I kind of have an ego problem already. So that could put me over the edge, honestly.”

Edwards’ advantage could be the track. He has won the pole twice at Homestead and has won the race twice, finishing top five five times in his 12 starts. He just won at Texas, which is a similar track that uses a similar tire setup. “There’s not a better race track,” he says. “Statistically, this is as good as it gets for me.”

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And his dirt-track background sets him up well too. The toughest part of competing in a winner-take-all race is that you have to find a way to win no matter what gets thrown your way. In other races throughout the season, you just do the best you can with what fate deals you. There is always more than one winner in a regular season NASCAR race. There’s the driver that takes the checkered flag, but there are also those who had to overcome numerous problems, mechanical issues, tire trouble, poor pit stops, whatever, and somehow finished seventh or 10th or something like that. Every week, you will hear drivers and crew chiefs say happily, “We got the most out of our car today.”

But for the four drivers left in the Chase, that’s not really an option on Sunday. It’s all about winning.

“Carl’s real good at driving through the limits and being able to compensate for something not being right the with the car,” his teammate and competitor Kyle Busch says. “He’s able to make more out of it. So that sets him up pretty well.”

“I think that comes from his dirt background,” Johnson says. “He’s used to dealing with cars that just weren’t exactly right.”

“Yeah, that’s nice for people to say,” Edwards himself says. “But this is NASCAR, you have the best drivers in the world, they’re ALL good at making the most of their car. The other three drivers in the Chase are incredible. I don’t really think I have an advantage in that. All of us are good at that.

“I do feel like, yeah, I like the challenge. I feel like if they would spray the track down with water and said, ‘OK, everybody race,’ I would enjoy that struggle. … But I’ll enjoy this week no matter what. It’s fun. This is what I like.”

One for the history books

By Joe PosnanskiNov 18, 2016, 8:52 AM EST

MIAMI — There is a funny thing about sports dreams. You know, the kind you have when you’re a little kid. You dream about hitting the game-winning home run. You dream about catching the game-winning touchdown pass, or swishing the game-winning basket, or scoring the game-winning goal, or making the putt that wins you the Masters.

Few of us ever get to do it, of course. But that’s not the funny part.

The funny part is that the people who DO get to do it, well, they find that it isn’t exactly like the dreams. Take Jimmie Johnson. He has won six NASCAR Sprint Cup Championships. Six. Only two men — Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt with seven — have any idea what that’s like. But to be realistic, even they don’t know EXACTLY what it is like because the sport has grown so much bigger, the money has grown so much bigger, the pressure has grown so much bigger. So many people are counting on you. So many people are rooting against you. Gigantic companies have many millions of dollars at stake.

And so even though this is all Jimmie Johnson ever wanted — to be the best race car driver — those first five championships felt nothing at all like his childhood dreams. He didn’t even ENJOY them, not in the way we understand the word “enjoy.” Yes, he was very proud of what he and his team did. Yes, he thrilled in the racing, the speed, the challenge, the victories, the opportunities that came with being the best stock-car driver in the world. But it wasn’t fun, if that makes sense. It wasn’t that innocent joy that went along with all those childhood daydreams, that feeling of the world going in slow motion, that intoxicating blur of champagne and happiness and wonder. He would stay up at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how he could stay on top.

In 2013, when Johnson was 38 years old and won his sixth championship, the feeling was closer to what he had hoped. By then, Johnson had let go of a lot of things, a lot of the insecurities. He had stopped worrying so much about pleasing everyone. But even that wasn’t EXACTLY what he had dreamed about.

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“You’re like, ‘Wow, this is nutty, this is stressful, can I do it?'” Johnson says. “You have all of these things weighing you down. When I won those first few championships, it wasn’t fun AT ALL. There was always more to do, you know? In ’13, it definitely felt different. I felt different. That was the most fun I’ve ever had racing for a championship by far.

“Still, some days, you wish you could feel that thing you wanted as a kid, you know, that place you see in the movies or hear about in stories, and it is surreal, and the world stops and time stops, and it is perfect.”

So that’s what this time is about. Johnson is 41 years old. He’s a legend of the sport. He has won six championships and 79 races and more than $150 million in prize money. He has won multiple races every year since he was a rookie. The legacy, if such a thing matters, is secure.

And so, this race is for him.

“I feel different going into this championship than I have ever felt before, there’s absolutely no doubt about that,” Johnson says. “As weird as it may sound, I’m more comfortable in my own skin than I’ve ever been. And that’s a major player. I have nothing to prove to anyone, and I don’t care what other people think. I really don’t. I’m racing this weekend for me and my family and my team. I don’t have any outside baggage that’s on me. That was other years. There was plenty of that stuff. None of that matters to me anymore.”

He endured an odd year. It began like most Jimmie Johnson years do — he won in Atlanta in the second race of the year and followed that up three weeks later with a win at Fontana. And then he and his team went into a bit of slump. In a 15-race span, he finished in the top five four times while finishing 20th or worse six times. He and his crew chief Chad Knaus struggled week to week. There was the talk — which has grown louder the last couple of years — that Johnson was close to the end. “I definitely missed driving up front,” Johnson says.

Watch: NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship (Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports App)

Then came the Chase and it has been absolutely perfect. He breezed into the second round, then won the first race, Charlotte, to automatically move into the third round. He promptly won the first race of the third round, in Martinsville, to qualify for Sunday’s final four. Johnson’s team has had two stress-free weeks to prepare the car for this final race, and while nobody knows if that will make a difference, well, it can’t hurt.

And Johnson is just enjoying it. “I’m excited,” he says. “And I’m fresh. I don’t know if it will change as we get closer to the race, if the nerves will come. But I don’t think it will.”

He is well aware, of course, that winning this title would tie him with Earnhardt and Petty for most championships — so aware of it that ever since he won the race in Charlotte he has been wearing a helmet with Petty and Earnhardt’s photos on it and the words “Drive for Seven.” He says that if he could tie those two legends of the sport, it would mean the world to him because it would connect him to history.

But, again, he promises not to let that inflate into pressure.

“I never race for stats,” he says. “I’ve never raced for stats, for fame, for money. I’ve just always loved racing. I feel like I’m more in touch with that, in tune with that, than I’ve ever been in my career.

“I think about those dreams I had as a kid, dreams all of us have in our own way I suppose. I guess I want that moment. I’ve done this for a long time. And I’d love to have that moment.”

Promises, promises

By Joe PosnanskiNov 17, 2016, 11:02 PM EST

MIAMI — Two years ago, Joey Logano showed up for his shot at destiny … and he was scared out of his mind. He doesn’t like to say it that way. He would prefer to just say, “I was nervous. Because I didn’t know what was happening. And I think that’s where nerves are going to come from.”

He was just 24 years old then and he was trying to join Jeff Gordon and Bill Rexford as the only two drivers to win a championship before turning 25 years old. But it was different for Logano. He’d been preordained to be NASCAR’s next superstar ever since he was a teenager. “Sliced bread,” they called him — as in “best thing since …” — and while he sort of got a kick out of the nickname and the expectations when he was a kid, those things soon felt like an anchor tied to his waist.

“Sliced bread,” people would mutter savagely every time he finished out of the top five.

“Sliced bread,” people would taunt him because he won just three races in his first five full seasons.

“Sliced bread,” other drivers would mock when they felt like Logano pushed his aggressiveness too far.

Then in 2014, it finally came together for Logano. He won five times. He came to Homestead with a real chance to win the championship … only he readily admits that his head just wasn’t in the right place. “I couldn’t settle my mind down,” he says. “I was thinking about what could happen … or what’s going to happen … what’s the week going to look like … what’s the feeling on Sunday going to be … what is it going to feel like like getting in the car … do I have what it takes?”

Here Logano smiles. He’s famous for that smile.

Watch: NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship (Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports App)

“I think that’s the big one. ‘Do I have what it takes?’ I didn’t know then. I know now.”

“What do you know?”

“I know the challenge ahead. I’m prepared for that. I’m ready for that, ready for the pressure. I’m more than ready, I’m excited about it. I’m genuinely pumped. It’s like a complete 180 from last time I was here.”

There are times when it feels like Logano has been racing forever — and he HAS been racing full time since 2009 — but he’s still just 26 years old. He’s five years younger than Jimmie Johnson was when he won the first of his so-far six championships, three years younger than Dale Earnhardt when he won his first of seven. And he’s five years younger than any of the other drivers in the Chase this year.

And it’s the combination of youth and experience that makes him unique … and dangerous. NASCAR people will tell you: Young drivers go FAST. The great Junior Johnson used to say, “They don’t know no better — they haven’t hit the wall yet.” So younger drivers push closer to the edge than might be prudent out of youthful exuberance and daring. That makes them go extremely fast, yes, but then they tend to burn out (or spin out or get spun out).

Logano has that speed. But he has more or less stopped burning out.

“When you’re flirting with the edge, you’re going to step over it from time to time,” Jimmie Johnson says. “And he has. I think he’s figured out how to inch his way up to the edge instead of flying over it like he did three or four years ago.”

“For me,” Carl Edwards says, “a switch has gone off the last couple of years for Joey. He’s just so fast everywhere. I have a feeling he’s going to be VERY fast on Sunday. He’s hungry. He wants this very badly. You could argue that he doesn’t have a lot of experience or whatever but I’ve been around long enough. I’ve watched how he’s been approaching this. I think he’s got a ton of confidence.”

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The other three drivers talk a lot about handling whatever adversity comes this week, being patient, always, in the immortal words of NASA legend Gene Kranz, “Working the problem.” Logano talks about these things too, but more he talks about being aggressive … and being aggressive … and when that doesn’t work, to keep being aggressive.

“Attack all day,” Logano says of the gameplan. “That’s it. It’s the way our team is. It has been for the last three years or whatever. That’s what we found to be successful for us. Race aggressively. Attack every minute. I start the race and say, ‘I’m here to win,’ and I have that ‘I will not get beat’ attitude throughout the race. Whether that’s good or bad, well, it’s different for other people. Probably it’s a lot different. But it works for us.”

And when you ask him how he will deal with the frustration that might come with a poor pit stop or a car that won’t quite adjust to conditions or the ever-changing conditions of the track, he smiles again.

“Frustration is OK,” he says. “It’s OK as long as it’s channeled in the right way. But there’s never that feeling of ‘We’re just not going to win today. It’s just not our day. We suck.’ There’s never that feeling. Because I know we don’t suck. I know I’m a very good race car driver. I know I have a very good race team. And I know we can handle this.”

The Magic Man

By Joe PosnanskiNov 17, 2016, 10:07 PM EST

MIAMI — The wonderful thing about the press conference for the NASCAR Championship Four — just three days before the big race — is that you have all four of the contending drivers sitting on the stage side by side. And because they are sitting next to each other, you can get just a small feel for how they feel about each other and their chances and everything else coming into the winner-take-all final race.

Joey Logano, for instance, is totally pumped up, super happy. Why not? He won last week to become one of the four drivers to have a chance to win a championship Sunday. This is the dream, man.

Jimmie Johnson seems calm, beyond calm, like he’s done this whole thing a million times before, which is pretty close to true.

Carl Edwards looks a bit dazed, but in the best of ways. He’s 37 years old now and he has won 28 races and more than $80 million, but he has never won a Sprint Cup Championship. He looks like a guy in a dream.

And then there’s Kyle Busch. He looks, um, lethargic.

“Do you guys like each other?” someone asks the group.

“Kyle,” Logano says, “we’ll let you answer that.”

Watch: NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship (Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports App)

Busch looks out with a bit of a bewildered expression, as if someone has just woken him up from a nap. “I am exhausted,” he would say later. And when asked why, he would say, “I am always exhausted.”

“Do you like each other?” was the question to the group.

“Right now, yes,” Busch says. “In about 25 seconds, no.”

Kyle Busch has the aura now. For so many years, he was the guy with unlimited potential, the impossibly talented driver who won a lot of races but always should have won more. Busch himself bought into the hype. He lashed out. He got into numerous dust-ups. Fans loathed him. He beat himself up continuously. In the words of his team owner Joe Gibbs: “He always felt like he was letting himself and his team down, like he wasn’t living up to his great talent.”

Last year, it all changed. What a year that was. Busch got into a wreck at Daytona that threatened to end his entire season — for a brief time it seemed like his career might be in danger. Even once the doctors got a handle on his condition, Busch was supposed to be out for a minimum six months. Three months later he was standing — wobbly but standing — in the hospital room when his wife Samantha gave birth to their son Brexton.

Then he came back to the track … and he was essentially unbeatable. In a beautiful five-week span, he won at Sonoma, at Kentucky, at Loudon and finally at the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis — his first major victory. He won so much that he easily qualified for the Chase even though he’d missed 11 races. Then he made it to the final four, and he ran away to victory at Homestead for his first championship. In the last few laps, he was singing the theme song for “Vocabularry” — his infant son’s favorite TV show.

A magical year like that, yeah, it changes a person.

“No,” he says now, “it doesn’t feel a whole lot different.”

A magical year like that, um, it sort of changes a person?

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“Well, look, it hasn’t been terribly different on the racing side,” Busch says. “Personally, with Brexton at home and stuff like that, that’s different. Having him come to all the races, that’s pretty fun. We certainly enjoy the time that we have on the road. But, you know, I’m just me.”

So, OK, maybe a magical year like that doesn’t change a person — but don’t tell the other drivers that. They see a different Kyle Busch. There was always a saying in the garages about Kyle Busch during those years when he could not quite put everything together: If he ever wins a championship, watch out.

Now that he’s won one, yes, watch out.

“He just has so much confidence now, you can see it,” Johnson says. “I mean, he was always a confident guy, but it’s different, I think. Now, he’s a champion. Now, he KNOWS.”

That is exactly the thing that is apparent as Kyle Busch sits off to the side during the press conference — it’s like he’s separate from the other three. He knows. He’s the defending champion. He’s the closest thing this Chase has to a favorite. He’s the guy in the best position to take over this sport, to be the new Dale Earnhardt, the new Bobby Allison, the new Richard Petty. A year ago, after he won his championship, he boldly said he’d like to win 10 in a row. When people laughed, he made it clear that he wasn’t joking.

“It’s not about what we did last year,” he says. “We’ve already got that one. It’s in the bag. This is about going out there THIS one. It’s one race. It doesn’t matter what the situation is this week, doesn’t matter what comes your way, you have to figure out a way to win.”

That, more than anything, might be what makes Kyle Busch the favorite. Right now, there is no stock-car driver anywhere who can make more out of less than Kyle Busch. Just last week in Phoenix, he had a tepid car that was running around 15th for most of the race. Through sheer relentlessness, a few adjustments on the car and a bit of driving brilliance — especially on restarts (Busch is a wonder on restarts) — they somehow finished second and could have won.

“Oh, Kyle can make some magic,” Johnson says. “And knowing him, I’ll bet he will on Sunday.”

No more fun and games

By Joe PosnanskiNov 17, 2016, 10:55 AM EST

Cam Newton, at his best, is a magical player. He does things that blow minds. He throws 30-yard darts that slip by defensive backs before they can react. He avoids sacks not so much by eluding them as by simply standing up through them, a brick house in the Big Bad Wolf’s wind. Newton takes off running and in the open field he is both halfback and fullback, able at times to split defenders in two the way Gale Sayers could, able at other times to blast through a defender, not unlike the way Neo blasts through Agent Smith at the end of “The Matrix.”

This is Newton at his height, when the conditions are right, when his team is playing great and the opponent is in retreat and, as the Magic 8-Ball says, “All signs point to yes.”

This was Newton last year for a 15-1 Panthers team that went to the Super Bowl.

Something has changed this year, of course. That part is obvious. It isn’t that Newton is playing badly. His numbers are down, yes, and the Panthers are 3-6 and in last place. But he’s still among the top five or 10 quarterbacks out there. And there have been a few familiar moments. He threw for four touchdown passes against San Francisco. He has had a couple of dazzling runs. He has put his team in position to win for the most part, including last week against Kansas City. It isn’t like Newton suddenly forgot how to play football … he’s still Cam Newton.

But something has obviously changed.

What? There are a few clear possibilities. The Panthers’ defense was otherworldly last year, forcing turnover after turnover, setting up Newton and his offense with golden opportunities time and again. That has more or less stopped this year. The Panthers are starting inside their own 20-yard line more often. This has affected the Panthers’ offense generally and Newton specifically. He’s thrown only 10 touchdown passes this year. All the numbers are down.

On offense, the line has been beat-up and inconsistent, and that has knocked Newton off his game. He has thrown off his back foot more often, and that usually leads to bad things. It did last week when the Panthers seemed about ready to put away Kansas City — a retreating Newton threw a pick-six that put Kansas City back in a game that should have been over. Newton has dealt with injuries, too — he missed the game against Tampa Bay, and he wasn’t himself in others.

Watch: Saints vs. Panthers on Thursday Night Football (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports app)

And, perhaps most of all, teams have been taking their free shots at him at every turn. Newton is 6-foot-5, 245 pounds and a great runner, so teams obviously have to tackle him hard. But there’s no question opponents have taken this to an extreme this season. They have hit Newton late a few times, stolen some shots to the head, unloaded some knockout blows. And, for the most part, there have been no penalties to accompany the hits, possibly BECAUSE Newton is so big and powerful.

This has driven Newton to distraction. Newton seems to believe the whole world is ganging up on him. A couple of weeks ago, he flatly said that the late hits are “really taking the fun out of the game for me. At times I don’t even feel safe.”

Newton has a beef. But more to the point here, all of this leads to this rather simple theory that I have about Cam Newton.

He needs to be having fun to play his best football.

And this year, he’s just not having any fun.

Great athletes tend to feed off different motivations. Some want to be loved. Some seem to get a huge kick out of being despised. Some are motivated by fear, others by anger, still others by fame and fortune. Tom Brady, for instance, STILL seems to motivate himself by disrespect (you might have heard that he was selected in the sixth round of the NFL draft) even though it has been years since anybody disrespected him (Roger Goodell aside). Meanwhile, a player like Carolina’s impeccable linebacker Luke Kuechly seems to motivate himself through the daily challenge of figuring out how to break up an offense — it is like a puzzle for him.

Newton apparently grazes off joy. He wears the hats. He does the dances. He gives away the footballs. The bigger the lead, the more fun he has, the better he plays. The louder the crowd, the more fun he has, the higher he soars. This is part of what makes Newton such a joy; through it all, he PLAYS football the way kids PLAY football. It’s a game. And it’s so much fun when everything is working and everyone has come together.

This is something people around the Carolina team have noticed for years. There have been times that people inside the organization have wondered if Newton could be serious enough to become a great NFL quarterback. Soon enough they realized that it was the wrong question, realized that being serious doesn’t suit him or his play. You probably noticed how serious Newton looked in the Super Bowl last year. That didn’t turn out well.

Marty Schottenheimer is one of the many coaches who noted that you can’t have fun in the NFL if you lose. The Panthers are coming off one of their worst losses in recent franchise history, a complete giveaway to the Chiefs. Their playoff situation looks pretty dire — Carolina might have to win out. The key will be getting Newton to start having fun again.

The remarkable rise of Andy Murray

By Joe PosnanskiNov 8, 2016, 5:09 PM EST

For years, there was this fun argument going on about Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. The argument assumed that both men are the best who ever played golf and tennis (an open debate, obviously). And it led to one question: Who is better at their sport?

The argument never really went anywhere because for every point (golf requires beating the WHOLE field rather than one opponent at a time), there was a counterpoint (one mediocre/bad day in golf does not sink a golfer’s chances, but it can end a tennis player’s tournament).

For every factor that points to the difficulty of golf (it is so mentally challenging that even the great golfers will miss cuts with some regularity — Phil Mickelson missed 11 in his career) there is another that points to the difficulty of tennis (it is so physically grueling that many of the greatest players — John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Mats Wilander, on and on — won their last Grand Slam singles title by the time they turned 25 years old).

Anyway, it was fun to talk about, even if it never really led anywhere. But there is something that does seem to be emerging about the wonderful dominance of Woods and Federer. You might call the two effects “dishearten” and “hearten.”

All of this, eventually, will take us to Andy Murray. Hopefully.

Tiger Woods was such a force in golf that he disheartened his opponents. He broke their spirit. They could not beat him, not when he was on his game, not when he was slightly off his game and, quite often, not even when he was very much off his game. There’s an old Jack Nicklaus line that is even more true for Woods: He knew he would beat you, you knew he would beat you, and he knew that you knew he would beat you.

FIfty-eight times, Woods was either in the lead or tied for the lead going into the final round. He won 54 of them. He won the first 14 major tournaments he led after 54 holes.

And how did this uncommon mastery of a sport that is supposed to defy mastery affect other golfers? It crushed them. Sure, there were supremely talented golfers in Woods’ time, several who are in the World Golf Hall of Fame. But let’s put it this way — from the time when Woods broke onto the scene and breezed to the 1997 Masters title to when he won the U.S. Open on one leg, there were 46 major championships.

Tiger Woods won 14 of them, as mentioned.

The other 32 majors? Well, 25 different golfers won those 32 majors. Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson won three. Mark O’Meara, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els won two each. Those five terrific players — four already in the Hall of Fame with only Goosen waiting — won fewer majors than Woods COMBINED. And the other 20 majors were won by 20 different golfers. It’s a clear pattern: Everyone would show up at the majors with the hope that Woods was way off his game. Then, and only then, did they have a chance.

His magnificence was unassailable. It was meant to be enjoyed and feared but not challenged. The best golfers on earth not named Tiger Woods had to console themselves with the huge sums of money that Tiger brought into the sport and the hope that maybe someday he would stop winning everything and leave some tournaments for everyone else.

So, yes, Tiger Woods was disheartening.

Roger Federer, somehow, was the opposite. He was every bit as dominant as Woods — the numbers are even more striking. From 2003, when Federer won his first Wimbledon to 2010 when he took the Australian Open, there were 27 Grand Slam tournaments. Federer won 16 of them, more than half, and reached the final in another six. The only other tennis players to win Grand Slams in Roger’s time: Rafael Nadal, who won six, and five others who managed one each.

But it was different somehow. There was something magnanimous about Federer’s beautiful game, something that opened up possibilities in the minds of other tennis players. Golfers would see Tiger Woods hit miracle shots out of trouble and make every important putt he looked at and they would think: NO SHOT. But Federer would hit some implausible running forehand winner or spin a drop-volley with such touch that it would not even bounce, and the other tennis players would think: I WANT TO DO THAT!

That begins with Nadal, of course. He seemed to be just the latest in a long line of Spanish and Latin American clay-court specialists — Sergi Brugera, Gustavo Kuerten, Gaston Gaudio, Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrera — who would show up at the French Open to win and then disappear like top-spinning swallows of Capistrano.

Nadal, though, was stirred to take his game to a higher place. He has spoken eloquently about how the inspiration of Federer took him there. Nadal has won all four major championships and 14 Grand Slam tournaments in all — he has his place now in the inner circle of all-time tennis greats. His rivalry with Federer might just be the greatest in tennis history. Nadal has controlled it for the most part with shots that kick up high and attack Fed’s backhand like wasps. Still, their tennis has lifted the sport.

Novak Djokovic was next. He had both Federer AND Nadal to contend with, something that certainly could have left him entirely discouraged. At times, he did indeed seem discouraged. Djokovic does not have quite the grace or touch of Federer nor the ferocious power of Nadal. He found his own path — foot speed, instincts, hitting balls on the rise, imposing return of serve and sheer ambition. He has now won 12 Grand Slam titles, including the career Grand Slam. He has a winning record against both Federer and Nadal. He too has a place in tennis’ inner circle.

All of which brings us to Andy Murray. He has been around a long time. It is tempting to think that Murray is younger than he is, but he was born in the same month as Djokovic (Murray is actually a week older). He is less than a year younger than Nadal. He played in his first Wimbledon in 2005. He has endured more or less the ENTIRE period of Roger and Rafa and Novak’s dominance.

He did not just endure that dominance, he was repeatedly smacked down by their dominance. The first 10 times he reached at least a Grand Slam semifinal, he was knocked out by Nadal (four times), Federer (three times) or Djokovic (two times)*. If anyone had good reason to grudgingly accept that he was born at just the wrong time, it was Murray.

*He was also beaten once in a semi by Andy Roddick, another slap in the face — he couldn’t even be the best ANDY on the court that day.

And Murray seemed, well, to put it delicately, just the type of person who would grudgingly accept that he was born at just the wrong time. Murray in 2008, when he was 21 years old and had not yet won a single significant tournament (no offense to the Qatar Open) nor reached the final of a Grand Slam event, wrote an autobiography called “Hitting Back.” Nobody was entirely sure WHY he wrote an autobiography at that time, but he did indeed hit back — at British tennis, at the media members who doubted him (he was refusing to even talk to the BBC at the time) and at the unfair obstacles he seemed sure that everyone was putting in his way and his way alone. He came across as a very angry young man, though nobody was entirely sure why.

Then, maybe the answer why was obvious. Federer was majestic then. Nadal was ascendant. Djokovic won the Australian Open that very year. There seemed to be no room in the tennis world for Andy Murray, and he seemed to know it.

So what happened from there? The book kept getting updated as Murray began growing up. The paperback version of that book was called “Coming of Age.” And then the book title was updated and titled “Seventy-Seven: My Road to Wimbledon Glory.” That happened in 2013, after Murray broke the 77-year British drought and won Wimbledon. By then, he was a different tennis player and a different man. He had won the Olympics in London. He won the U.S. Open that year. He had found himself.

And I would argue that it was, once again, the inspiration of Federer, who inspired Nadal, who inspired Djokovic, who inspired Murray. Andy improved everything about his game. And he did it by building up every single part of his game. He doesn’t really do anything specifically better than the rest of the world. But you know those Sprint commercials where Sprint basically admits it’s not QUITE as good as Verizon, but it’s 99 percent as good for half the price?

Murray doesn’t quite have Djokovic’s return of serve (no one in tennis history does) or his pure speed — but it’s probably 99 percent.

Murray doesn’t quite have Nadal’s bullfighter tenacity — win or die with honor — but he’s probably at 99 percent.

Murray doesn’t quite have Federer’s ability to hit the “gaga shot” that tilts an opponent’s head the same way shaking a pinball machine does — but he’s probably at 99 percent.

In other words, at least as I see it, Murray created a game that is like an homage to those masters he has been trying to beat. He does a little bit of everything, and he brings along some of that youthful rage and intensity, and here he is: Murray is now the No. 1 player in the world.

It is unclear if he will stay at No. 1 for very long. Djokovic seems worn down by his own extraordinary rise, but he has still made the final of nine of the last 11 Grand Sam tournaments, winning six of them. Djokovic also dominated the head-to-head matchups between them, winning 24 of 34 matches and eight of the 10 times they played in Grand Slams. It seems a pretty good bet that he will be back, and so this could be just a Murray blip, a fluke of timing.

Or it could be more. Either way, for Murray to reach No. 1 after all these years is an extraordinary thing.

When Tiger Woods hit the golf scene, you will remember there was a lot of talk about the generation of golfers he would give rise to, the young golfers who, seeing what he was doing, would find a way to take golf even higher. We might be seeing that with golfers like Rory McIlroy and Jason Day and Jordan Spieth, though it is too early to tell.

Federer’s impact is clearer. He came into the sport during a lull, just as the Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi era was ending, and he played sublime and previously unimaginable tennis. And his tennis genius has helped create three of the greatest tennis players who ever lived. I’m sure he didn’t mean to do that. But, hey, who DOESN’T want to be Roger Federer?