Steve Kelley

KIRKLAND, Wash. -- The doctor's words were chilling. Even if Joe Tafoya subconsciously knew the post-surgery verdict on his injured foot, his athlete's heart was ready to fight against it.

The poll results are in and it appears that 99.7 percent of America's sports fans don't give a hoop about the NBA lockout, don't care if there's a season, don't care if there's a league.

At least that's that conclusion from an informal poll of my email correspondents. I don't know about Gallup or Pew or CBS polls. Maybe their numbers are different, but I doubt it.

I'm sure if we ran a poll asking people what they hope will happen to NBA commissioner David Stern, 94 percent would say they hope he replaces Ashton Kutcher on the slow death of "Two and a Half Men."

But come on, people. Aren't you the least bit excited to see how LeBron James will do in his second season in South Beach? Isn't there some curiosity about life with the Lakers after Phil Jackson? Don't you miss Kendrick Perkins' scowl?

SEATTLE -- Macklemore, a fast-tracking local hip-hop artist, is on stage at KeyArena for Bumbershoot, when a familiar roar comes from the stands the way it used to tumble from the upper deck in the mid-1990s.

The Reign Man is in the building again and he is joining Macklemore on stage and, judging from the jolt of electricity in the building, you would think Shawn Kemp had just dunked on Karl Malone one more time.

A couple of weeks later, the Storm is fighting for its WNBA playoff life against Phoenix. A timeout is called and the KeyArena spotlight falls on Kemp. He stands along the sideline and whips a towel over his head and again, the arena rocks the way it did when Kemp was a Sonic.

SEATTLE -- None of us knew just how prophetic Alex Rodriguez's remarks would become when he met the media on his first return trip to Seattle, following his free-agent flight to Texas.

It was a Monday night in mid-April, the night fake dollar bills rained from the upper deck of Safeco Field every time Rodriguez came to bat; just one of so many magical nights during that 116-win season of 2001.

All of us wish that the great athletes could be eternal. That Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer could mount charges at this week's U.S. Open. That Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe could play at least one more Wimbledon final.

The NFL slammed the doors shut again last weekend. Padlocked its gates and told its players to go elsewhere to repair their broken bodies and find their own fields to prepare themselves for the next season of their most dangerous game.

SEATTLE -- His demons were everywhere. They followed him to the pool for practice. They stalked him in the Olympic Village when he tried to relax. They were on the stage with him for every news conference, on the board before every dive.

In 1988, in Seoul, while the world was preparing to watch the last of the best of Greg Louganis, the greatest diver his sport has produced, Louganis was merely trying to keep his life together.