Wyatt Earp? Frank and/or Jesse James? Is that how Bill Hickok became Wild Bill Hickok? They started mass producing pistols in the 1850s and sometimes the gunslinger clumsily yanked the six-shooter out of its holster and wound up with a bullet in his metatarsal.
The phrase took an ominous turn in World War I with trench warfare. Soldiers were firing a round into a muddy combat boot to keep from going over the top and into the deadly path of enemy bullets.
Now it's back, closer to the original meaning, politicians and golfers and movie stars derailing careers and marriages with a metaphorical shot to the foot.
Likelihood of a lockout in 2011? The union's executive director, DeMaurice Smith, says it ranks 14 on a scale of 10. Evidence? A guaranteed $5 billion from television networks to the owners even if no games are played in 2011. At stake, the players' share of revenues, hovering near 58 percent now with the poor-mouthing owners aiming for a number closer to 41 percent.
Only in America. Only in a business where the charade of a Pro Bowl game drew huge television numbers. And the Super Bowl was watched by the biggest audience in the history of mankind. Americans want to love sports, but the decimal-point bayonets keep getting in the way. And then there's the clumsy foot-shooting in boxing, baseball and golf.
Pow. Boxing gets to the brink of a glorious match, Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Manny Pacquiao, a $40 million payday for each pugilist, at stake the coveted title of greatest fighter in the world, pound-for-pound.
So what happens? Mayweather, who has been known to pick his opponents as carefully as a guy who defuses bombs for a living, demands the kind of prefight drug testing normally reserved for a Bulgarian weightlifter in the Olympics. Pacquiao politely refuses. Mediation fails.
