Welcome!

... to Three and Out, a sports blog with five writers, so far. We just wanted a place to write about our favorite teams, players, and sports stories, share our joys and pain (there are Eagles and Vikings fans here, so plenty of pain), and laugh at each other. So here we are. And I'll kick it off with a commentary on everyone's favorite sport: tennis!

David Foster Wallace has said much better than I have time or insight to match how good Roger Federer is. But in case you didn't hear, at the Australian Open (motto: "Technically a Grand Slam just like Wimbledon!"), he let Andy Roddick get up 4-3 in the first set and then ran off 11 straight games to put the match away. Roddick, you might have heard, under new coach Jimmy Connors, has been rejuvenated, blowing through the tournament like, well, a poor man's Roger Federer. Federer, with his typical modesty, dismissed it as a lucky game: "I had one of these days when everything just worked, I was unbeatable. [...] I am shocked myself. The tournament is not even over yet, so let's not get carried away."

Considering he's just matched a seventy-year-old record for consecutive Grand Slam finals, maybe it's okay to get a little carried away, wouldn't you think?

"Let me do it one more time," says Federer, a statement which must make Fernando Gonzalez and Tommy Haas feel good. They play late tonight in what we might call the "NFC championship game" of the Aussie.