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People don't connect with horses. That is the reason some people say horse racing is failing. Horse racing needs a hero to revive the sport, they say. And that is why all eyes on Saturday will be on California Chrome, the favorite going into the Belmont Stakes, the last and most grueling leg of the Triple Crown.

Columnist Frank Deford writes:

"Horse racing thrived when a lot of people still had a connection with horses, and when it was not legally possible to bet on much of anything but horses. But, of course, in America today, gambling is wide open. And horses are so much out of our daily lives that we rarely even have Western movies anymore; films based on true stories rarely involve horses. ...

Americans would rather play slot machines and point spreads and watch automobiles race, because they grew up with cars and can relate to them."

Not so long ago, while enjoying a libation in a decorous saloon, the proprietor — who happened to hail from the fabled Windy City — suddenly jarred the genteel assembled by turning on the Cubs game. Just at that moment, a Cubby was heading toward the plate when the throw came in, and the runner (spoiler alert!), being a Cub, was tagged out.

Visualize the tableau: The runner. The catcher. But also a third figure: the umpire. And see him now: feet spread well apart, solidly grounded, mask off in his left hand, and his right arm flies up, thumb to the heavens. You don't even have to hear him shout, "Yer out!"

It made me think how sometimes the action of an official is every bit as memorable and as stylish as what a player does. Like the soccer referee presenting — presenting! — a yellow or red card. He flips it, like a magician finishing a trick. Soccer officials always stand so upright then, don't they?

Or, the other extreme: a wrestling referee, flush down on the mat with the two competitors as one tries to pin the other's shoulder. And then, in a flash, the ref slaps his hand down. No player ends any kind of game as decisively as a wrestling ref does — better than a walk-off.

By contrast, my favorite action from a boxing referee is almost dainty: those times when he gently touches both boxers simultaneously to break up a clinch. And then, subtly, he drifts away. It's always called backpedaling — where else but in a boxing ring does anybody backpedal?

Football officials are the least distinctive, because they just throw flags, then let the head ref explain later. I do like the symmetry, though, when two officials, side by side under the goal posts, throw up their hands in unison to signal a successful field goal. Who would ever think that football could remind you of synchronized swimming?

Basketball officials are the most expressive, though. That hands-slapping-the-hips business –– blocking! Or the scraping motion across the top of the ball to indicate that the defender didn't touch his man, only the ball. Beautiful stuff — better than most dunks that mere players do.

The most expressive ref I ever saw was basketball hall-of-famer Mendy Rudolph. When it was time out, he'd take his stance, put the ball in the crook of his left arm and, with his right hand, wipe his brow. Whether there was sweat there or not, he'd flip the drops away. With disdain. You had to see it.

Referees always say it's best not to be noticed, but the fact is that an official who makes his call with vigor and elan is really a beautiful part of the game. OK, let's watch that Cubs game again. The runner, the throw, the tag –– but the arm up, the thumb high. 'Yer out ... and 'yer terrific.

There's a man whose name is part of millions of lives, but many of us don't know his story. This Memorial Day weekend may be a good time to hear about him.

Butch was the son of a lawyer who worked for Al Capone. The father wound up testifying against the legendary gangster in a 1931 tax evasion trial that sent Capone to prison.

Butch was in military school, and won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. He was fascinated by flying, and was learning to take off and land in tricky ocean winds when he got word that his father had been shot to death, just a few days before Al Capone was released from prison in 1939.

Like a lot of young men in uniform, Butch took on grave responsibilities in the days following Pearl Harbor; he became leader of a flight squadron. On Feb. 20, 1942, Butch's fighter was alone in the air when a wave of nine Japanese bombers swooped down on the USS Lexington. As the Medal of Honor citation put it:

"Without hesitation, alone and unaided, he repeatedly attacked this enemy formation, at close range in the face of intense combined machine gun and cannon fire ... one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation."

The U.S. economy reached a milestone this week: The country finally recovered all the jobs it lost during the Great Recession. But some states still lag behind when it comes to job creation — including New Jersey.

The Garden State's stalled economy may be an even bigger problem for Gov. Chris Christie than the scandal over lane closures at the George Washington Bridge.

When Christie took office in 2010, the state had just lost more than 100,000 jobs. Christie was undaunted. He talked about the "Jersey Comeback" at town hall meetings, on TV and at ground-breaking events.

"The noise that you hear around us is the greatest noise I could hear as governor of New Jersey," he said at one groundbreaking in early 2012. "It's the noise of construction. We have ended our decade of joblessness, and we're back to letting businesses know that they're welcome to grow here."

For a while, it seemed like the Jersey comeback was a real thing, says James Hughes, dean of Rutgers' public policy school and an expert on the region's economy.

"[In] 2011, job growth accelerated," Hughes says. "It accelerated again in 2012, so it looked like it was for real. But then somebody hit the economic pause button in the summer of 2013, and the economy has really been stumbling since then."

New Jersey has recovered less than half of the jobs it lost in the recession. A report by the Star-Ledger found the state is tied for 48th in private-sector job creation since 2010. Wall Street ratings agencies have slashed the state's credit rating six times.

The grumbling from Garden State residents is getting louder.

Kelly Conklin had hoped that Christie, a Republican, would make life easier for small businesses like his. Conklin, who owns a company that builds cabinets and architectural woodwork in the north Jersey suburbs, says rising state fees, and tolls he has to pay to get to job sites in New York City, are hurting his bottom line.

"That falls heavily on small business," he says. "I got a bill from state of New Jersey for $1,500 for fire safety. That's just outrageous, and it's a hidden tax. We're out here on our own, struggling every day."

The governor's economists predicted that tax revenues would go up by a very optimistic 5 percent this year. That didn't happen.

Christie was forced to plug the budget gap by cutting $2.4 billion in payments to an already under-funded pension system last month.

"I'm going to pledge to make the payments that we need to make to not dig the hole any deeper," Christie said. "But in a time when we're confronted with this type of challenge, I cannot also pay for all the sins of my predecessors."

The Two-Way

Review Done For Gov. Christie's Office Absolves Him In Bridge Scandal