SPORTS -- What can Big Brown do for you?

As I've said before, I'm not one to throw around superlatives so easily, especially during my sportswriting career. For every "greatest player I've ever seen" statement that comes along, well, guess what? A generation later, another "greatest player I've ever seen" comes along.

But I have to say, in 22 years of writing, I've never seen anything like what I saw on Saturday, when Big Brown won The Preakness Stakes.

I only have a vague appreciation for what Secretariat did in 1973 when he won the Triple Crown, including his amazing 31-length victory in the Belmont Stakes. After all, I was only 8.

But check out this video from the camera in the blimp that covered The Preakness on Saturday. Watch how, at the top of the stretch, Big Brown literally takes off like somebody shot him out of a cannon.

I mean, I've seen horses bolt away from the pack early in a race, or in the middle, only to falter and/or have the pack catch up. I've never seen anything like this.