This is quite a display.

Gwynn also was beloved by the writers who covered him.

Bob Nightengale, USA Today:

Gwynn, the Hall of Famer and the San Diego Padres’ eight-time batting champion, was just about everyone’s favorite person in the world.

He was a baseball reporter’s best friend. You could talk to him about steroid abuse in the game to an occasional hitting slump, and he would give you the same courtesy whether you’re from Time Magazine or the Escondido High school newspaper.

He treated the kids picking up the dirty socks in the Padres clubhouse with the same respect as ownership.

When a certain reporter arrived into San Diego to write a piece on Gwynn’s final season for USA TODAY Sports, only for the 9/11 terrorist attack to hit and postpone baseball games for a week, guess who was calling to make sure everything was OK, and bringing him to his home.

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated:

All of his amazing numbers, however, don’t tell the true story of Tony Gwynn. He was an ambassador not just for the game of baseball but for mankind. His dignity and modesty were remarkable in any age, but especially this one, in which the individual who shouts the loudest about himself gets the most fame, and we have confused fame with character. Gwynn won the 1995 Branch Rickey Award, the 1998 Lou Gehrig Award and the 1999 Roberto Clemente Award, all honors given to baseball players for their character and humanitarianism, not just their batting skills.

Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune:

I’ve been in this sportswriting dodge for 43 years and along the way have met athletes who are great people and total idiots, but I easily can admit Tony was my favorite. Maybe because I knew him so long. But he was always there for me. Always. Never turned me away, honest as a mighty oak.

Richard Justice, MLB.com:

And Gwynn held court with anyone — with teammates and reporters, with opposing players … with anyone, really. Today, there are hundreds and hundreds of people — teammates, clubhouse attendants, front-office employees — who are grieving because this remarkable man made all of them feel important.

Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette filed an interesting piece on what it was like to cover Chuck Noll.

Like many kids my age, I was a Steelers fan during the ’70s. After reading Bouchette’s story, I have an even higher regard for Noll.

Bouchette writes:

Noll could be intimidating, Noll could be unquotable, Noll could be uncooperative.

Yet I gradually learned during the seven years I covered him as Steelers coach is that Noll also was among the most interesting people I ever wrote about. While he may have had little to say, when he said it, it meant something. He also treated everyone with respect, even reporters, whether they worked for the New York Times or the Indiana Evening Gazette.

Later Bouchette wrote:

We were never pals or anything like that, and I continued to write stuff he wished I had not, like the time he hired an assistant coach he thought was coming directly to the Steelers from his job as an assistant at California. In fact that coach had just taken a job as a head coach at San Francisco State and did not tell Noll that (today, that would be impossible). Noll fired him as soon as he found out. There also was the time he fired some assistants after the 1988 season because he was ordered to by Dan Rooney, only I wrote who was being fired before some of the assistants were informed.

Noll never took those things personally. He knew I and others like me had jobs to do and as long as we did them competently, he said nothing. While Noll was coach, I could walk up to any assistant coach at any time and interview him – even in his office, as I was doing with Hoak on that day in 1985. That doesn’t happen anymore.

And some memories:

I have a few personal favorite moments of mine about Noll that are not newsworthy but experiences I will always remember:

— Late in his career, he and others gathered in a room at Saint Vincent College that was called either the beer room or the “5 o’clock club.’’ It was open to coaches, the media, scouts, and visiting coaches and scouts. On this particular evening, a group of visiting football coaches from Japan were in attendance. Noll spent much of his time in that room that night getting into various stances such as a three-point — as he might have when he was a pulling guard for the Cleveland Browns – to show the Japanese coaches some football technique. It was pure Noll.

— He and I walked together across a baseball field atop the hill back to the old Bonaventure dorm at Saint Vincent (where Noll, like everyone else, had a room with no air conditioning). As we did, a boy ran up to Noll and asked him for his autograph. Noll asked the boy his name. “Jim Brown,’’ the boy answered. Noll replied, “I knew someone else by that name,’’ signed his autograph and that was that. To this day, that kid may not know who Noll meant.

— Early-on in my tenure covering the Steelers, the NFL held its March meetings in Maui. Because of the time difference, our work was done mostly by mid-afternoon and, at the suggestion of Noll, I sometimes would snorkel right off the beach at the hotel where we stayed. The next day, I’d describe to him the ocean life I saw. On our final day there, I returned from breakfast and bumped into Noll and his wife, Marianne. We chatted and they informed me they were going snorkeling in a little bit and would I like to join them. I politely declined, said I had some stuff I had to do. I really wish I had said yes.

If Tiger Woods did what Martin Kaymer did last week, nobody would have said it was a boring U.S. Open. The same holds true for Rory McIlroy.

Actually, both have done it, winning the Open by eight or more shots; Woods in 2000 and McIlroy in 2011. Those Opens still registered with viewers.

Not so much for Kaymer’s victory yesterday at Pinehurst.

NBC only did a 3.3 overnight rating for Sunday’s final round. Last year, the network did a 6.1 overnight rating on Sunday for Justin Rose’s win at Merion. Look out below.

The low rating hardly was unexpected. Kaymer’s performance, while one of the best of all time, sapped any of the drama out of the tournament. Erik Compton was a great story, but viewers weren’t going to stay tuned in to see if he qualified for next year’s Masters.

Clearly, American golf fans weren’t captivated by Kaymer the same way they were for Woods and McIlroy when they scored their big wins. The big German still is relatively unknown in the states despite being a former No. 1 player in the world. It also doesn’t help that he barely displays any emotion on the course. That’s why U.S. viewers always loved Seve Ballesteros.

Kaymer, though, could be the best player from Europe (outside of Great Britain) since Ballesteros. He only is 29, and Players Championship and U.S. Open titles in recent weeks show he might have figured it out. He definitely will be the favorite going into next month’s British Open and has the talent to be the dominant player in golf.

That’s likely a sobering thought for golf’s governing bodies. Kaymer probably could have had dinner last night in a Pinehurst restaurant without getting recognized. Unless he is going for the Grand Slam, he isn’t going to move the needle.

Once again, the U.S. Open showed how much the game misses Woods. Here’s why: Even though he hasn’t won a major since 2008, more often than not, he usually is on the first page of the leaderboard on Sunday. The networks can count on him being in contention, which is considerable.

The same can’t be said of McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, the others on golf’s short A list. They are too inconsistent to be up there at every major. The lack of star power from elsewhere only compounds the absence of Woods.

It is appearing more unlikely that Woods will tee it up in a major this year. The ratings haven’t been pretty without him.

ESPN is next up to air the British Open. Kaymer will be a main focus.

Will you tune in?

Congratulations to San Antonio. The Spurs barely get any attention compared to the Heat–until they win another title.

If you are a bit starved for some golf drama after last weekend, tune into the latest In Play with Jimmy Roberts on the Golf Channel (Monday, 9 p.m. ET).

Roberts looks back at Tom Watson nearly winning the British Open at age 59.

Here’s a preview.

After Los Angeles beat Chicago in seven games, I noted that the difference in passion for hockey in the two towns could be seen in the front pages. LA was rather subdued.

Well, in the interest of fairness, it should be noted that the Kings were treated royally today.

As a long-time golf guy, the folks at ESPN know how much I really, really, really don’t like Chris Berman doing the U.S. Open.

Each year, everyone from Scott Van Pelt to the network’s PR brigade tell me about Berman’s passion for the event and his intense preparation.

Andy Hall at ESPN’s Front Row did a post with Berman talking about his memories of covering 29 U.S. Opens.

I don’t doubt Berman’s sincerity for a second. Yet when he signs off for the final time this afternoon, the majority of golf fans will applaud, and not in a good way.

I don’t want to pile on, but I would be remiss if I didn’t note this day.

Quite simply, Berman and his schtick are an ill-fit for golf. The gravelly-voice, the nicknames, forced phrases, and everything else are incredibly irritating for golf viewers who were weaned on the elegant style of Jim McKay.

I always thought it is telling that Berman is not part of ESPN’s coverage of the Masters. If he loves the U.S. Open and golf as he says, you would think he would like to spend a week in April hanging around Augusta National every year, right?

While nobody will confirm it, I am certain the lords of Augusta, who closely monitor the purity of the Masters telecasts, have told ESPN to keep Berman off of its announce team for the tournament. They don’t want to hear references like Jack “Saint” Nicklaus, or Ben “Hogan’s Heroes.”

As usual, Twitter is exploding with golf viewers weighing in on Berman. And as usual, it isn’t pretty.

Ah yes, Twitter might be the only thing that misses Berman when Fox takes over next year’s U.S. Open.

If Fox is bringing innovation to golf coverage means Joe Buck wearing white pants, well, let’s say the network already has a leg up.

Fox is letting everyone know that it has the U.S. Open next year with Buck and Greg Norman filing reports from Pinehurst for Fox Sports 1.