THE MAGAZINE EDITOR'S BLOG: KLINK YOU EMMY-WINNING IDIOT!

THE 27 BEST SPORTS IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW, ACCORDING TO ME

1. Track¹
2. NBA²
3. NFL
4. MLB
5. Sepak Takraw (Continental Asia)
6. Soccer (Europe)
7. Nascar
8. Boxing³
9. NHL
10. Golf (PGA)
11. Team Handball⁴
12. Tennis (women's)
13. Open-wheel racing (ex-USA)
14. Horseshoes
15. College baseball⁵
16. College football
17. Surfing (ASP)
18. Thoroughbred racing⁶
19. Rowing (eights)
20. Skateboarding
21. Wheelchair tennis
22. Water Polo
23. MotoGP⁷
24. Cricket
25. Table Tennis
26. Caber tossing⁸
27. WNBA

1 Great story in The New York Times about this guy in Kentucky who's trying to make the Olympics. Hard to explain, but if you read it, for at least about an hour all you'll want is for him to make the Games and win. And I read it 27 minutes ago.

2 I'm strangely intrigued by the ridiculous number of good teams in the West. Strangely because I've never really gotten over the Hawks leaving St. Louis in the late 1960s. And by never really gotten over I mean I'm more than a little embarrassed Archtown couldn't (or wouldn't) support an NBA team.

3 Nothing much going on in the fight game, but I heard ESPN's Max Kellerman talking about boxing, which always makes me like the sport better and kinda think it's thisclose from mattering again. It isn't, but still.

4 Thinking about St. Louis made me think about high school (Ladue!), where I learned to play team handball. I sucked, but it's a great sport.

5 As spring approaches I think baseball, which leads me to the College World Series, which brings me to Omaha, which lands me at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. Love that name.

6 Now's the time when we start thinking about what we' do for the Derby (and the Belmont if a horse wins the first two legs of the Triple Crown). That always makes me smile. Horse racing may have the widest gap between how I feel about a sport 362 days a year and how I feel about it the other 3 days.

7 I was reading about Valentino Rossi and I just love the fact that he's so rich and so famous in Europe and about 11 people in the U.S. know who he is.

8 You ever watch this sport? It's basically all the extras from Braveheart throwing logs. Fantastic.

BONUS: MY ENCOUNTER WITH WERNER
I once met Werner Klemperer, who played Col. Klink on the underappreciated Hogan's Heroes. (Could you even try to make a sitcom about a Nazi prison camp today?) Here's how our interaction went:

     "Mr. Klemperer, I'm a big fan of yours," I said. "I think you're the second-greatest second banana in television sitcom history." (I bumped him up a few spots out of courtesy.)
     "Who, may I ask, is first?" he replied in his a German-accented baritone.
     "Well, Don Knotts, of course," I said, referring to that actor's portrayal of deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show.
     Klemperer lidded his eyes, nodding in agreement.
     "You know," he said, "Knotts beat me two years in a row for the Emmy."
     "Yes, I did know that," I replied, lying.
     He smiled, then wagged his finger and leaned forward in perfect Klink mode.
     "But did you also know," he asked, "that I won the Emmy two years in a row after that?"
     I didn't, but he's still No. 4 on my list.

In case you forgot, I can be reached at: gary.belsky@espn3.com

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