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You cant write that script, award-winning producer Ross Greenburg said.

That epic 1962 US Open, a pivotal moment in one of golfs most celebrated rivalries, is what the USGA delivered Greenburg to create a one-hour documentary. This is the 50-year anniversary of Nicklaus playoff win over Palmer for the first of his record 18 major championships.

Jacks First Major will be the first USGA film shown on network television, broadcast by NBC Sports on June 17 before its final-round coverage of the US Open.

The film will make its international debut a week earlier on British-based Sky Sports.

I was a 22-year-old kid with blinders on, Nicklaus said. People ask me about Arnolds backyard, Arnolds gallery. I never heard it. All I was doing was playing golf and trying to win a golf tournament. I looked back and said, Wow! Look what happened. Its amazing that was my first win. Arnold treated me great. He couldnt have been nicer. Hes always been that way with me.

Greenburg, who won 51 Sports Emmy awards during his tenure at HBO Sports, already has spent two hours with Palmer and Nicklaus. The real treat comes next month when the King and the Golden Bear return to Oakmont.

The hole locations will be where they were that Sunday afternoon for the 18-hole playoff, when Nicklaus built an early lead, withstood a charge by Palmer in the middle of the round and wound up with a 71 for a three-shot victory.

It literally was a creation of what went on to be the best rivalry in golf weve ever seen, or one of the best, USGA executive director Mike Davis said. We went to NBC and said, What do you think of our concept? NBC loved the idea. That got us to thinking. Why wouldnt we promote some of this wonderful history? People love the game. And this is a great way to educate people.

Nicklaus at first struggled with details of the 90 holes he played that week — the opening two rounds with Palmer — but the more he talked, the more questions he fielded, the more it came back to him.

There was that 4-foot putt on the 17th hole in regulation that he hit firm to eliminate the break, knowing that if he had missed the ball likely would have rolled off the green. On some of the toughest greens in golf, Nicklaus only had one three-putt all week. The olive pants — his wife called them his Army pants — that he liked so much he wore them again in the playoff. And the 18th hole in the playoff, when Palmer picked up Nicklaus ball, only for USGA executive director Joe Dey to run onto the green and remind them it was stroke play and Nicklaus had to finish the hole.

Mostly, though, there was the cigarette.

Nicklaus used to smoke during golf tournaments, as many golfers did in that era, and a turning point in his behavior on the golf course came after that US Open. It became such an important change that Nicklaus still remembers the day — Dec. 8, 1962 — when the USGA shipped him a film of his big win at Oakmont. He watched the key putts and booming drives, his straight left leg and upright posture. What unsettled him was a scene of him setting down a cigarette to tap in a putt during the playoff.

It was the worst example for youth I can imagine, Nicklaus said. It was the last time I ever smoked a cigarette on the golf course.

Greenburg wasnt about to leave that out of his documentary, but he uses it to share Nicklaus story on what caused him to give up smoking on the golf course, and years later, to give smoking for good.

We have Jack telling the story, Greenburg said. It was a time period where people are just smoking and not thinking about the ramifications. Its interesting that at 22, Jack figured out at that point that its not the way to act as a role model. When he saw that film, he was taken aback.

Greenburg had much more to work with for the project. In collaboration with the USGA Museum, he shows early footage of Nicklaus as the prodigy who won the 1959 US Amateur and nearly won the US Open a year later at Cherry Hills until he shot 39 on the back and Palmer charged home with a 65 to beat him and Ben Hogan.

There are interviews with Dow Finsterwald, Gary Player and Billy Maxwell, who played the final two rounds of regulation on Saturday with Nicklaus, along with journalists Dave Anderson and Marino Parascenzo, who covered the 1962 US Open.

He also spoke with Nicklaus and Palmer. It was supposed to be a one-hour interview. Both gave him two hours of their time.

The rich tradition of these championships really speaks to building the brand that is the USGA, Greenburg said. At the end of the day, this championship is measured through its past. Every year is a building block to what the US Open stands for, and theres no better way to celebrate the US Open.

The way Joel Ward responded to the racist tweets that would have staggered a lesser man was beautiful.

A hero for less than an hour, Ward, the Washington Capital who on Wednesday defeated the Boston Bruins with his Game 7 goal in overtime, was shown the tweets by a teammate. The messages revealed just how heroes are thought of when (1) you eliminate a high-profile team and (2) youre black.

Yes, hockeys racial makeup had a little something to do with the That n—– deserves to hang-laced tweets sent out following the Capitals victory, as did the fact that the crime Ward committed was against a city with such a racially polarized history as Bostons. As bad as this sounds, that comes with the territory.

Which makes Wards Im definitely the one black guy in a room with 20 white guys. … I dont let it bother me at all reaction such a beautiful thing. As was the fact that the tweets were meaningless to him. But sometimes things happen in sports that are bigger than one person and act as a refection of how society (large or small) sees someone.

In Wards case: a black person being a difference-maker in the Stanley Cup playoffs. A rarity of all rarities.

See, the tweets arent the issue — those things are going to happen. They are a part of sports; they are a part of society. And they are a part of how society works when fans feel the need to — and have the unfiltered resources, outlets and tools (ie, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, blogs, etc.) to — react to incidents that hit them in places they are rarely hit … by someone they are not used to being hit by.

Tiger Woods hit society. Venus and Serena Williams hit society. Tim Tebow hit society. Jeremy Lin hit society.

Joel Ward, welcome to the world.

His welcome is a reminder of how we (sports fans, media, athletes, execs, etc.) can never get too comfortable with the belief that sports has a different set of rules when it comes to race than the rest of society. Maybe on the field it does, but off the field, there will always be a reminder of the roles race and racism play in societys relationship with sports.

Should we be upset by those reminders? No. Because, somehow, sports always finds a way to rise above them. Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis (who Im sure caught some of societys race-driven venom when he OKd the firing of Michael Jordan from the Wizards a few years ago) did the right thing by publicly condemning the tweets and those who posted them.

And, inside of the sport, hockey players as a whole should show the same kind of solidarity against this that the Miami Heat showed against the killing of Trayvon Martin. At the least, thats necessary because historically thats what sports does and what athletes do. Their reaction puts situations in proper perspective and people in proper places, allows us to move on and get past the pain.

Thats the power they got.

Ward says this is the first time hes gone through an experience like this. That alone says a lot about hockey. But at some point, reality is always going to present itself. And in his case, it did once he won that game and became news.

In sports, as often in life, theres always going to be some reminder, even if you happen to be the president of the United States and the New York Post allows a cartoon to run depicting you as a monkey being shot by the police.

Unfortunately for hockey, this past fall it was a banana tossed onto the ice at the Philadelphia Flyers preseason game in London, Ontario, and this week it was the tweets directed at Joel Ward.

Tweets masked as feelings that werent about him as much as they were about the society we live in.

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LONDON (AP) Roy Hodgson was unexpectedly approached about filling the England coaching vacancy Sunday, with the well-traveled West Bromwich Albion manager opening talks about the job barely a month before Euro 2012 begins.

The Football Association has overlooked Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, who had been considered the favorite by the bookmakers and fans for the job since Fabio Capello quit in February.

Instead, a four-man FA committee has identified the 64-year-old Hodgson, who has coached in seven countries and led three national teams, as the man to take one of the most high-profile jobs in world sport.

The FA was granted permission Sunday by West Brom chairman Jeremy Peace to speak with Hodgson.

Roy is the only manager we have approached and we remain on course to make an appointment within the timescale we set-out soon after Fabio Capellos departure, FA chairman David Bernstein said in a statement. Further conversations will now take place with Roy and my Club England colleagues before any further announcements can be made.

The FA is unlikely to have to pay West Brom compensation to hire Hodgson, because his club contract expires June 30.

West Brom said on its website that Hodgson has expressed a desire to explore this opportunity with England.

Roy is a proud Englishman and we can understand why he wants to speak to the FA about this highly prestigious managerial position, Peace said. However, we have emphasized to Roy how much we would like him to remain as our head coach and continue his major contribution to our project at The Hawthorns.

Hodgson said in March that while his career ambitions had been fulfilled many years ago, he would embrace the England job.

It is the pinnacle of success in a way and certainly a pinnacle of coaching success if ever youre invited to manage your own country, Hodgson told Talk Sport radio. Ive managed other countries but Ive never been invited to manage my own. It would be an honor but I dont have it set out as an ambition as such.

Former England striker Alan Smith said he was staggered that Hodgson had been approached by the FA.

We all thought Harry Redknapp would get the nod, Smith told Sky Sports News television.

In a 36-year coaching career, Hodgson has had spells in England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Italy, where he was twice in charge of Inter Milan.

Hodgson also was coached Finland, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, and acted as a technical adviser to UEFA, European soccers governing body.

His experience is second to none which I think is fantastic … he has so much knowledge about football – football is his life, former England defender Kenny Sansom told Sky TV. He has everything to offer, I really do, he is a very calm guy. He doesnt get too excited.

Englands Euro 2012 opener is against France on June 11 before completing the group stage against Sweden and co-host Ukraine.

He will relax the players because it is a big championship, Sansom said. He will get to know the players very quickly because of his wealth of experience.

Hodgson started his coaching career in Sweden, where, aside from a brief stint with Bristol City, he stayed 14 years until 1990. After winning the Swedish championship with Halmstad and Malmo, Hodgson moved to Switzerlands Neuchatel Xamax and then the national team.

The Swiss had not reached a major tournament since 1966, but Hodgson took them to the 1994 World Cup and also the 1996 European Championship, where they exited in the first round but did manage a creditable 1-1 draw with host England.

Switzerlands World Cup run and its success in Euro 96 qualifying landed him a job in 1995 at Inter Milan, where he reached the UEFA Cup final in 1997, before departing for Blackburn.

Rovers were in a state of disrepair as their 1995 Premier League-winning side was being dismantled, but Hodgson managed to qualify for the UEFA Cup before being fired after a poor start to the 1998-99 season.

Spells at Grasshoppers, FC Copenhagen, Udinese, the United Arab Emirates national side and Viking FK followed before Hodgson took unheralded Finland to the brink of qualification for Euro 2008.

Hodgson made his mark in his homeland with Fulham, the small west London club he joined midway through the 2007-08 season and guided to its best ever finish of seventh place the following year.

He was voted manager of the year for 2009-10 by the League Managers Association for taking the Cottagers to the Europa League final.

He was subsequently lured to Liverpool, where he endured an unsuccessful six-month stint before being fired in January 2011.

But West Brom handed Hodgson a swift chance to re-establish his reputation a month later and he repaid the clubs faith in him by keeping the club in the Premier League. West Brom is 10th in the standings with two matches to go this season.

Roy has done a fantastic job over the past 15 months and the fact the FA want to discuss the England role with him is testament to that, West Broms Peace said. Everyone here has an excellent working relationship with him and he is immensely popular with our supporters.

“This won’t be another book about X’s and O’s, will it?” Joe Paterno’s daughter Mary Kay asked.

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Joe Posnanski’s biography of Joe Paterno was scheduled to be published in June 2013. His publisher moved up the release date to late this summer. More Photos »

Joe Posnanski, then a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who had done a flattering profile of Paterno for the magazine in 2009, was trying to persuade the famous Penn State football coach and his family to agree to cooperate in a full-blown biography. In his pitch to the family, Posnanski quickly identified one of their initial misgivings.

“This seemed to be the early worry of the people closest to Joe, that this would be another in the series of surface Joe Paterno books,” Posnanski wrote in a book proposal delivered to publishers, “that it would not delve deeply enough into what Joe means, the impact he has made on countless people and a college town in Pennsylvania and the game of football.”

In the proposal, Posnanski then emphatically, even ardently, tried to reassure the Paternos.

“This book, I told them, will have a few O’s, and almost no X’s,” wrote Posnanski, a product of Cleveland, a onetime columnist at The Kansas City Star and a writer with a self-confessed soft spot for sports greats of the past. “This book will tell the remarkable story about a man who could have been anything but decided that the best way he could help change America was one college football player at a time.”

Indeed, Posnanski promised, his proposed biography would be nothing less than “the most amazing football story ever told.”

Posnanski’s pitch worked. Paterno agreed, and Simon & Schuster paid Posnanski a reported $750,000 advance to produce the biography.

Of course, Paterno’s story ended with a couple of spectacularly unexpected chapters: last fall, a former top assistant was charged as a serial pedophile, and Paterno was fired for having failed to do more after being told in 2002 that the former assistant had molested a young boy in the showers of the Penn State football building. The former assistant, Jerry Sandusky, went on to molest more boys, prosecutors have charged.

Paterno, saying little about the matter publicly, was dead months later. He owned the record for most victories by a major college football coach, but to many, it seemed as if, very late in the game of life, he might have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Certainly, the jarring revelations, and Paterno’s exit as a consequence of what Penn State’s board of trustees deemed a failure of moral leadership, created warring camps among those left to debate Paterno’s legacy.

There was a chorus of furious critics who pilloried Paterno, saying he turned out to be just another big-time coach willing to place the interests of the football program over basic human decency. This camp had more to seize on when The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Paterno, again in contrast to his polished public image, had regularly over the years tried to intimidate university officials when his football players wound up in trouble or were arrested.

On the other side, there was an aggrieved, angry population of Paterno loyalists who charged that he had been made a scapegoat, that a lifetime of accomplishment and distinction had been cast aside by a lynch mob of self-serving university officials and a knee-jerk press corps.

Then, too, there was Posnanski, the Paterno believer and biographer faced with one of the more remarkable late-project twists to reckon with. Would he halt his project, or recalibrate its timetable to allow him to trace the fuller meaning, if there was fuller meaning, to the revelations and accusations concerning Paterno? Could there be more secrets? Or would the imperative be to publish sooner rather than later, to maximize the storm of notoriety? There are, after all, 550,000 living Penn State alumni, many of them, judging by their protests and letters to the editor, hungry to have the Paterno they thought they knew delivered back to them.

Posnanski, a near compulsive blogger and poster on Twitter, offered a kind of glimpse of his predicament soon after the initial revelations last fall. In a blog post for Sports Illustrated titled “Darkness,” he acknowledged that he was still trying to process the news.

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Its going to be a struggle Saurav Ghosal, squash player

Even though Sachin Tendulkar has done a lot for the country, Im not sure how much time hed be able to give to the Rajya Sabha. Its going to be a struggle for him. But considering he is Sachin, he could even prove us wrong. Also, since he plays a game which is akin to religion in India, his name would add gloss to the nomination. But I think it would be great if people from other sports also get similar opportunities.

Why not Leander Paes Akhil Kumar, boxer

Its good to see someone from our sports fraternity getting nominated to the Rajya Sabha. It would help the cause of Indian sports as a whole. It is but obvious that a cricketer will be preferred over others. Id like to see people from other sports also getting such opportunities. Sachins name is even being considered for the Bharat Ratna. If achievement is the only criterion, then why are Leander Paes, Vishwanathan Anand or Abhinav Bindra not being considered? Im not trying to say that Sachin shouldnt be given the honour, but other people too should be considered.

This is sheer discrimination Rajpal Singh, Captain of the Indian hockey team

My first reaction was, nice. I dont know about his role from hereon, but I do hope that as a member of the RS, he understands and does something for sports. And its a known fact that cricketers are given priority in everything in our country. Our government takes great pride in honouring cricketers because they feel honoured in doing so. This is sheer discrimination.

Controversy is back in NASCAR. But it has nothing to do with wrecks.

Kyle Busch won his first Sprint Cup race of the season Saturday night, holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. Tony Stewart was third.

Its the fourth straight win for Busch in the spring race at the .75-mile oval and snaps a 22-race winless streak for the driver. Is that some sort of record? Im hoping it is, he said.

Busch also won Fridays Nationwide Series race — as a car owner. His brother, Kurt, won the race and gave Kyle Busch Motorsports its first victory as a full-time team in the series.

The controversy concerns Carl Edwards and Stewart.

Edwards mistakenly believed he was the leader on a restart on lap 319 of 400 and passed Stewart before the restart line. NASCAR had Stewart listed as the leader and since Edwards passed him before the restart line, Edwards was black-flagged for jumping the restart. He was forced to make a pass-thru penalty under green.

NASCAR made a mistake, they lined us up wrong, and I was at a disadvantage being on the outside, said Edwards, who placed 10th. So I thought, Im getting the best start I can get. I got the best start I could get, looks like Tony waited or spun his tires, so they black-flagged me.

Stewart, meanwhile, appeared to be cruising to the win until a caution on lap 387 for debris on the track. All of the lead-lap cars pitted for tires, with Busch coming

When is the hot hand of pro basketball players actually the not-so-hot hand?

Stars Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller and Kobe Bryant have all had shooting streaks, but research reveals the so-called hot hand is a myth, derived from our tendency to see patterns even when there arent any, says John Matson in Scientific American.

One study published in the journal Nature Communications looked at statistics for hundreds of NBA players and concluded they put too much stock on the outcome of their last 3-point shot. If they made one, they were much more likely to try another than if they missed.

Matson says the Lakers Bryant was a prime example in his MVP season of 2007-08. When he hit a 3-pointer, he shot again from long range nearly four times as often as following a missed 3.

But trying to ride a 3-point streak is often bad strategy, Matson says. Players actually tend to shoot a lower percentage after making shots than after missing them — once again sending the idea of the hot hand up in smoke.

Whats so special about silk underwear?

To many of us, theyre a touch of luxury, but for the British, American and Australian troops in Afghanistan, theyre an essential piece of kit, says armor scientist Simon Holden of the United Kingdoms Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, as reported in New Scientist.

The first thing an injured soldier tends to ask is Are my bits OK? and of all the fabrics available for underpants, silk is a traditional favorite. It is lightweight, stretches easily and can absorb an impressive amount of energy, helping reduce the severity of injuries.

Small pieces of shrapnel are unlikely to pierce the silk, and if they do embed themselves in the groin, the silk is pulled in with them, Holden adds. This means fragments can be extracted simply by pulling on the surrounding material.

Silkworms have long been the industrial powerhouse of the silk world, but researchers are studying giant gold orb weaver spiders for their silk-producing capabilities, says the magazines Jessica Griggs. The magazine says, Weight for weight, spider silk is 20 times as strong as steel and four times as tough as Kevlar.

And its flexible, stretching as much as 50 percent of its length while eliciting no immune reaction in humans. As yet, though, spider silk is too labor-intensive to exploit in sufficient quantity commercially.

When is there not a ghost of a chance that the Tweets coming your way are authentic?

When youre reading Tweets from celebrities who hire ghost Tweeters to handle their image-making, says Erin Biba in Wired magazine. Of the 250 million posts published every day, many are by hired professionals. In our social-media-obsessed culture, capturing the most followers can be a blood sport, costing celebrities money and reputation. So ghost writers and impersonators become a natural part of the game.

Enter ghost writer Annie Colbert, who has posted for Hollywood starlets, sports icons, authors and tech biggies like former Apple chief venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Everything put out there is generated by the ghost poster or their team. For careful Twitter management, they plan the entire week, then post throughout, identifying people to be followed and responded to.

Colbert will take time to study clients previous Tweets to capture their style: Do they use emoticons? Do they abbreviate certain words? These are key tipoffs.

So how can you tell if a favorite celebrity has a ghost Tweeter? In a word, Colbert answers, when the feed goes from informal to formal voice, you can assume its been taken over by a publicist.

Brothers Bill and Rich Sones are Cuyahoga County residents who research and write the Strange But True column. Send questions to strangetrue@cs.com.

LONDON — Ambition is the spur at the top of many walks of life, and in sports especially. But what drives the players at the foot of their leagues? Fear can inhibit them, but in Wigan, a small English club, it is transformed into the stimulus to escape relegation from the Premier League.

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A month ago, bookmakers stopped taking bets on Wigan Athletic’s surviving the cull of the lowest teams. The team was rooted in the bottom three, and still had to visit Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal.

Some home games appeared daunting: Manchester United, which had never lost a point to the Latics, and Newcastle United, the hottest team in England after six successive victories.

On Saturday, Wigan pulverized Newcastle. Wigan scored four goals in the first half — goals that were created with such vibrancy, such confidence, that you could almost think that this was Barcelona in disguise.

There is a reason for that: Wigan’s team manager is Roberto Martínez, a Spaniard who formed his ideas of how to play the game as a boy watching the Barcelona coached by Johan Cruyff from 1988 to 1996.

To dare is to do is an approximate translation of the Cruyff — and the Martínez — approach.

The setup of their teams is similar. Cruyff believed in a fluid, interchangeable, attacking lineup. He used only three defenders, two speedy players wide as either attacking wing-backs or genuine wingers, and movement between the midfield and front lines that could loosely be defined as a 3-4-3 formation.

To emulate is fine — if you have the talents.

Cruyff’s Barcelona, continued by one of his players, Pep Guardiola, nurtured those talents at the academy or paid world market fees to buy them.

Wigan, a town on the road to Manchester and Liverpool, has neither resource. It is predominantly a rugby league town, the rugged, working-class version of the rugby code. The same man owns Athletic and the Wigan Warriors rugby team.

That man, Dave Whelan, knows soccer better than most owners. He played professionally and turned the compensation he got from breaking a leg in the 1960 F.A. Cup Final into a fortune in retailing.

His policy might be to buy cheap and sell as profitably as you can. Wigan does that on a global scale. The best winger currently in English soccer is Antonio Valencia, an Ecuadorean imported by Wigan and sold to Manchester United in 2009 for about £16 million, or $26 million at current rates.

In place of Valencia, and others sold by the club, Martínez coaxes bargain-basement players. His match winner Saturday was Victor Moses, a striker who played for English national teams from age 15 to his present age, 21, but who recently chose to represent Nigeria where he was born.

When inspiration strikes Moses, he can be devilishly hard to defend against. His feet are swift, his mind imaginative. His leap Saturday was timed to outwit much taller defenders to head the opening goal.

It was the making of that goal that so impressed. Shaun Maloney, a left winger born in Malaysia and raised in Scotland, started the move with a visionary cross-field pass into the stride of Emmerson Boyce, a Barbadian wing-back. Boyce, nominally a right back, sprinted into attack, outpaced Newcastle’s Italian defender Davide Santon as if the opponent were standing still and used his left foot to curl in a cross for Moses.

The fluidity of that move pleased the man on the sideline in the immaculate suit, coach Martínez.

With an early lead, most teams in the Premiership would regroup and defend. Wigan is not built to do that. The Wigan of Martínez — who by the way was a decent but not an exceptional player — goes for more.

More came, and swiftly. Within two minutes, Moses poached a second goal, then Maloney scored the third, and Franco Di Santo, a tall Argentine striker, volleyed an exquisite fourth.

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(04-29) 14:51 PDT LAS VEGAS, (AP) –

Floyd Mayweather Jr. didnt exactly plan for it to happen this way. The thought of sitting in a jail cell for two months cant be a pleasant one, especially while the entourage enjoys life without him at the Big Boy house.

But theres a fight to sell, and once again it doesnt include Manny Pacquiao. The opponent Saturday night will be Miguel Cotto, a game but outmatched fighter who this citys oddsmakers figure will end up either on the canvas or on the losing end of a lopsided decision.

Some will plunk down $69.95 to watch it on pay-per-view because its their last chance for a while to see Mayweather in boxing gloves instead of handcuffs. Others will buy it because theyre hoping the mental stress of his upcoming jail sentence will finally bring Mayweather down in the ring.

No matter. Once again, Mayweather has found a way make them pay.

The great thing is that they boo, they cheer, they know who I am so Im relevant, Mayweather said. So at one particular time in their life they paid attention to me, so its a good thing.

For Mayweather its been a great thing. Hes become one of the greatest salesmen of his time, making untold millions by crafting a bad boy persona and flaunting a lifestyle that either thrills boxing fans or enrages them so much they will pay good money in hopes of seeing him get beat.

Sometimes, though, life conflicts with reality television. What the HBO cameras that document the show 24/7 never showed was what happened between Mayweather and his ex-girlfriend early one morning in 2010 while two of their children watched.

It landed him in court on domestic violence charges. And on June 1 it will land him in a jail cell to begin serving what is expected to end up being a sentence of just under two months.

He got a reprieve earlier from the judge so he would be able to fight. But any celebration Saturday night will have to be muted because of what is in front of him.

The only thing it can do is make me mentally strong and grow mentally strong as a person, Mayweather said. Its all part of life, you have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally.

The upcoming sentence is the first serious time Mayweather will spend in jail, despite a past littered with battery and violence arrests. It came after he pleaded no contest to charges in December, avoiding a trial that could have gotten him up to 34 years in state prison if he was convicted on all counts.

He got a license to fight Cotto only after promising Nevada boxing officials that he wouldnt make any attempts to avoid his jail term. The judge had earlier postponed it until June 1, so his adopted hometown wouldnt lose out on the millions of dollars in revenues brought in by a big fight on Cinco de Mayo weekend.

It would have been a much bigger fight if Mayweather were meeting Pacquiao, of course, but odds are thats not going to happen. Mayweathers insistence that Pacquiao takes far less money on the fight than he will make is the main reason for that, though Mayweather will try and tell you that the fight would happen if Pacquiao agreed to Olympic-style drug tests which he has already done.

The new head of HBO Sports, Ken Hershman, said a few months ago that the fight has to be held later this year or early next year, because after then it becomes less and less relevant.

Thats a shame for a sport that needs huge fights to survive. And while the blame can be spread on both sides, Mayweather deserves to be taken to task for not making it happen. Hes content to make $30-40 million to have relatively safe fight against guys like Cotto and Victor Ortiz, rather than risk his unbeaten record in a fight that could earn him twice that much.

Not that Cotto isnt a legitimate opponent. He is, though Pacquiao gave him a beating before stopping him in the 12th round three years ago. And Mayweather was willing to move up to 154 pounds a weight he hasnt fought at since beating Oscar De La Hoya in 2007 to make the fight.

Even with the pending jail sentence to spice things up, though, the selling of Mayweather is getting old. Theres only so many times you can watch him argue with his father, pal around with rapper 50 Cent, and throw dollar bills through nightclubs. We get that hes rich and likes to flaunt it, but theres nothing particularly interesting anymore to watching him in the extravagant mansion he calls his Big Boy house or behind the wheel of the armored van he has converted into a party vehicle.

Mayweather himself seemed to say as much Sunday when he sent out a tweet apologizing for the episode of 24/7 on HBO the night before. He said it wasnt up to his standards, and suggested bringing in the producers who were doing the series when he fought Ricky Hatton to spice things up.

One of the greatest fighters ever as he insists? No, not unless he fights Pacquiao and soon.

But as a master salesman, no one in the game comes close.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg

BARCELONA, Spain — Before the big game that night, the radio caller wanted to talk about his team. He wanted to rant and to plead, to rationalize and to predict. He wanted, perhaps most of all, to complain.

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Barcelona’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea dominated the conversation on Spain’s Radio Marca.

But this was not Benny from the Bronx on the line, not Ira from Staten Island, either. He was Rafa from Gracia, and on Tuesday afternoon, he had his say broadcast throughout much of Catalonia, where no doubt many listeners shared similar views before Barcelona’s Champions League semifinal against Chelsea.

The host of the program, Fèlix Monclús, listened amiably. Monclús sometimes plays games with his listeners, challenging them with trivia, but much of his show is similar to the usual sports-talk radio format throughout the United States. He gives his opinion. The callers give theirs. And every few minutes, everyone takes a break to listen to a jingle (though, perhaps thankfully, it appears that Brad Benson’s Hyundai dealership ads have not yet made it to these shores).

“Radio here faces the same challenges as radio everywhere,” Axel Torres, a popular Spanish sports radio and television personality, said in an interview. “There is television, there is Internet — but people always want to talk sports. They still listen in their cars.”

Torres hosts “Marcador Internacional,” which focuses on popular soccer leagues throughout Europe. The show is broadcast on Radio Marca, which is believed to be the only all-sports-talk radio network in Spain. Radio Marca, Torres said, has its main office in Madrid but also operates several studios throughout the country, including the one here where he and Monclús do their shows.

Not unlike American radio, many of the shows that are broadcast nationally, like Torres’s, rarely take calls from listeners, choosing instead to read aloud text or Twitter messages. the local shows like Monclús’s often take more calls and — as in the United States — can become fixated on a single topic.

Mets fans, for example, who are furious when WFAN-AM in New York is overrun with Yankees talk in July, should know they are not alone. Fans of Espanyol, the other team in Barcelona, can relate.

“It is Barça, Barça, Barça here,” Torres said. “It does not matter the month. Barça, Barça, Barça and more Barça. That is what they talk about.”

Over coffee at a cafe on Avinguida Diagonal, Torres traced a rough history of Spanish sports radio, an industry that has changed considerably. Decades ago, Torres said, the sports radio landscape here was dominated by José María García, an abrasive personality who was so popular he was known as Super García.

García was “like a god,” Torres said, and he is credited with pioneering several aspects of Spanish sports journalism that fans might now take for granted. The notion of sideline reporting was advanced by García, Torres said, and García was also the first person to report on a cycling race from a helicopter.

As a well-connected trailblazer, García grew famous, his stature in Spain giving him clout that American sports radio personalities like Mike Francesa or Jim Rome can only dream about.

“If García called the president, the president would be on the phone in one minute,” Torres said.

It did not matter that García’s show was broadcast on a multiple-format station at midnight — many stayed up to listen so they could talk the next morning about what Super García had said.

But as García’s dominance faded, new personalities developed. García retired about 10 years ago after waging an often bitter war with a rival host, José Ramón de la Morena, Torres said. Radio Marca, which is owned by the same company that operates a sports newspaper and television channel, began its all-sports-radio format nationally about 12 years ago and opened its studio here about four years later.

Now, Radio Marca in Barcelona runs much like an American station. Its offices are on the third floor of a modest building with an elevator so narrow it barely fits three people. On a recent weekday afternoon, the control room for Locutori No. 2 smelled of French fries as Blai Iniesta, a producer, regulated the sound levels while scrolling through audio clips on a computer screen. Instead of file names like “A-Rod homer” or “Manning postgame,” though, many of the file names began with “Messi,” for the revered Barcelona striker Lionel Messi.

In the hallway, memorabilia on the walls includes soccer jerseys from several teams (one is signed by England’s Alan Shearer) and, near the entrance, a prized possession: a Messi shirt, autographed and inscribed, “Para Mis Amigos de Radio Marca.”

“You know Messi, right?” Iniesta asked a visitor. “Everyone loves him.”

Not all the players love listening to the radio, however. Ivan San Antonio, a reporter for the newspaper Sport, often participates in radio roundtables, or tertulias, in which commentators have spirited debates about sports issues and personalities.

Some players, like Messi, San Antonio said, do their best to block out what is being said about them on the radio. Others, like Xavi or Dani Alves, are known for following more closely.

Barcelona Coach Pep Guardiola, who stepped down Friday despite having won 13 trophies since taking over the team in 2008, could share tips with many N.F.L. coaches about the news media. Guardiola often says that he does not routinely track the coverage of him and his team, but he somehow knows everything that has been said or written (as well as who said it or wrote it).

He has been said to ban cameras from training sessions just before Spanish League games to avoid tipping off the opponent to any strategies.

“He knows everything,” San Antonio said of Guardiola. “And what I know is that most of the players know, too. Even if they don’t listen, they have people who do it for them and tell them about it.”

That, too, is a common approach for athletes in the United States, though the most striking similarity between American sports radio and the Spanish variety lies in the listeners. Hysteria, it seems, crosses all geographic (and linguistic) boundaries.

Early last week, Torres considered what might happen on the radio if Barcelona — seeking its third title in four years — did not beat Chelsea and fell one match short of the Champions League final, which is what happened Tuesday night at Camp Nou.

“It would be bad, bad, bad,” Torres said. “But for radio, sometimes, that is good.”