EUGENE, Ore. -- In addition to watching fireworks, barbecuing burgers and nibbling cobs of corn, heres something else to do this Fourth of July. Ask your friends and family to name the reigning Olympic champion in the decathlon. If they have trouble answering, point out that hes American, as were 11 previous Olympic champions, including a two-time winner.This is a question that would have been easily answered by many in previous decades. Oh, you mean the worlds greatest athlete? Easy. Thats Bruce Jenner. Or Daley Thompson. Or Rafer Johnson. You get the point. The Olympic decathlon champion used to be well-known in the old days.Not so much anymore. Americas Ashton Eaton is the reigning champion after having won gold in 2012. He also holds the world record in the event. Despite dealing with some nagging injuries -- Most decathletes probably have something, Eaton said. Its just the nature of the event -- he won the decathlon at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Sunday, placing or sharing first in five of the 10 events and finishing with 8,750 points -- 325 more than runner-up Jeremy Taiwo. Eaton has topped 9,000 points twice in his career and hasnt lost since 2011. Hes the favorite to win in Rio, joining Thompson and American Bob Mathias as two-time Olympic champions.That would be cool because those guys are -- well, cool is like a crappy word because that would be awesome company to be in, the 28-year-old Eaton said.So with that dazzling résumé, why isnt Eaton more of a national focus? And why dont Americans care about the decathlon the way we used to?The questions to ask are, why was the decathlon so popular before, and what happened to make it fade? Eaton said. I notice a lot of things in general tend to follow that up-and-down trend. Perhaps in four years well see the decathlon become popular for some unknown reason. And for some unknown reason it started being unpopular a while ago. Im not sure what to do to make it more popular.I think the media tends to have a say, so maybe if you guys trend it up?Eaton is right about that. We need to talk up the decathlon champions again, as we did in the past.Just look at Eaton. Not only is he the worlds best in the decathlon, hes married to Canadas Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who is among the favorites to medal in the heptathlon in Rio (and remember when that event was a bigger deal in the days of Jackie Joyner-Kersee?). Think about it. A married couple each competing to be the worlds greatest male and female athlete at the Olympics when most of us find it a challenge just to not snore and keep our partner awake.Its pretty cool. We probably wont fully understand until were older and have opportunity to look back on the experience, Eaton said. Were very focused right now. Shes a massive supporter of me and Im a massive supporter of her. I think it does make the pursuit easier because we understand what it takes in our marriage -- the success of our athletic dreams comes before everything. Its kind of tough sometimes, especially when youre married. Hey, do you want to go watch a movie? No, I have a hard workout tomorrow.Luckily I understand her and she understands me.The two have also been active supporters of charities, including work with organizations like Right to Play and World Vision.Its pretty emotional, Eaton said. We feel really strongly about those organizations. As an athlete, you really see a lot of the Instagram paradigm. Where its just like Me! Me! Me! When you realize you can Give, Give, Give, its very interesting and its good.Eaton is also a fair teammate -- after taking the first two questions at his post-decathlon news conference Sunday, he said he wouldnt take any more until the media first asked fellow U.S. qualifiers Taiwo and Zach Ziemek to talk about their achievements.Those are all reasons to root for Eaton in Rio -- and to bring up his name today so more Americans know it as well as we did Jenner, Mathias, Johnson, Jim Thorpe ... Authentic College Football Jerseys . "Jeff is a hard worker who was an important special-teams contributor for us last season," said Stamps GM John Hufnagel. Stitched NCAA Jerseys . The nimble-footed quarterback got his wish, dashing through the snow and a weary defence all the way into the NCAA record book. http://www.cheapcollegejerseys.net/ . -- Nate Robinson has played for seven teams, so beating one of them is no longer a rare occurrence. Wholesale NCAA Jerseys . White came in fourth place in the event. He was the two-time defending gold medallist. The gold medal went to Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov. Clearance College Basketball Jerseys . Galatasaray said in a statement on its website Monday that Mancini signed a three-year contract and will be paid 3.5 million euros for the upcoming season, with his salary upped to 4. The Indians would not be where they are without the extraordinary work of Andrew Miller, the MVP of the American League Championship Series. Andrew Miller would not have been the MVP of the ALCS without the unconventional managing of Terry Francona. But theres a third leg of this stool, the back leg, small and obscured by perspective but just as necessary to keeping the thing standing: Terry Francona would probably not be managing unconventionally if it werent for Cody Allen.Its not often an outstanding closer goes underappreciated in the postseason. Mariano Rivera, to give the obvious example, might well go down as the greatest postseason hero ever. But even slightly lesser relievers like Jeurys Familia and Wade Davis and Koji Uehara and Sergio Romo and Kenley Jansen and Brian Wilson have all, for a few weeks in recent postseasons, been temporarily elevated to gods by the stakes and the tension of October. Allen has been as good this month as any of them were, which is valuable enough on its own. But in this case, it has been even more important because it has made the Andrew Miller experiment possible.I have some experience in this. In the summer of 2015, as part of a book project with Ben Lindbergh, I ran the baseball operations of an independent minor league team called the Sonoma Stompers. This included pushing our managers (we replaced one midseason) toward certain in-game tactics. Nothing consumed our time and our powers of persuasion so much as trying to convince them that our best reliever should come in whenever we most needed our best reliever -- as Andrew Miller has been used this month -- instead of in the ninth inning by default. We ran into two obstacles, each specific to the manager in question, and each significant to understanding the role Cody Allen plays in Cleveland right now.Our first manager, the old-school one, simply would not bring in our closer -- an outstanding sinkerballer named Sean Conroy -- if he wasnt sure that Conroy would be available for the final out. He saw the 27th out as infinitely more important than the 26 before it, and considerably more difficult to attain than the 26 before it. After one brutal loss, we tried again to convince our manager that Conroy should have been brought in for the biggest moment of the game -- with runners on and our opponents best hitter batting in the seventh. But then I dont have a closer, he said. I need to have a closer. If I dont have a closer, I cant count on anybody else to get those last outs.Our second manager, more open-minded to our numbers-driven recommendations, was convinced by the leverage-based argument for bringing Conroy in earlier. Eventually, he was calling for Conroy as early as the fifth inning, just like Francona has used Miller. But, like his predecessor, this manager also didnt trust anybody else to get the final out, so he would leave Conroy in the game all the way to the end, pretty much no matter what. This was thrilling to watch, but it introduced some new problems: Conroy was throwing 50, 60, 70 pitches in relief outings. That probably dimmed his effectiveness by the time the eighth and ninth innings came around, and it made him unavailable for a couple days afterward. The latter concern had its own ripples: We were sometimes gun-shy about bringing him in, knowing it would leave the back of our bullpen gutted for the next games.For each manager, the obstacle to using Conroy the right way was the lack of another Conroy behind him. No matter how big the game situation, the manager cant stop worrying about the bigger situation that might come.At the risk of burying Allen further under Millers legend: Cody Allen is Terry Franconas second Andrew Miller. Hes thrown fewer innings than Miller this postseason, but theyve been almost every bit as good: Miller has a 47 percent strikeout rate, six Ks per walk, a 17 percent swinging-strike rate, and no runs allowed; Allen has a 43 percent strikeout rate, five Ks per walk, a 17 percent swinging-strike rate, and no runs allowed. Like Miller, hes death to both lefties and righties -- indeed, like Miller, hes got a slight reverse split -- allowing him to cut through large swaths of a lineup uninterrupted. Like Miller, hes capable of memorable acts of endurance, having entered in the eighth for his first two saves of this postseason, having twice thrown 40 pitches in an outiing.ddddddddddddAllen is not, to be sure, on quite the same level as Miller -- or Wade Davis, or Aroldis Chapman or Zach Britton -- but hes comfortably in the second tier of major-league closers, with a better ERA+ over the past three seasons than Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Roberto Osuna or Ken Giles. Hes converted 89 percent of his saves since taking over as Clevelands closer in 2014 -- the difference between him and Chapman is about one blown save in 50 tries. He is, in other words, a closer who not only gives a manager confidence going into the ninth inning, but cover in the post-game interviews if something goes wrong. Terry Francona neednt worry about being second-guessed for using Cody Allen in the ninth inning.Theres no rule that a manager has to romanticize the 27th out, and even without Allen, Francona might still have used Miller the way he has. But Franconas history suggests he wouldnt have. In two postseasons before this year, he has had exceptional closers. His usage of those closers seems to presage the way he has used his bullpen this fall -- but also strongly suggests that Francona wouldnt have used Miller this way without a closer as good as Allen pitching behind him.In 2004, Francona had Keith Foulke, and used him extremely aggressively in October. Foulke entered one save situation in the seventh, which very few managers have been willing to ask of their closers even in October. He pitched even in games the Red Sox were trailing, and in 11 of 14 games Boston played. In six of those games he went four outs or more, with single-game pitch counts of 36, 37 and 50.In 2007, he had Jonathan Papelbon, and used him extremely aggressively in October. In six of Papelbons seven appearances, he was asked to get four or more outs. From 2007 to 2009, Papelbon made 16 postseason appearances, and 12 of them were either four or more outs or began in the eighth inning (or earlier).So we have two data points for Francona using his relievers in unconventional ways, but notably not in the way he has used Miller. In no instance did he put either reliever into a situation where the pitcher was likely to be relieved. (There were games Foulke or Papelbon were removed from, but only because the game was tied or the situation changed.) They were used in the most aggressive way that would still have them on the mound for the 27th out.Maybe Francona got religion since then, but a) he was already way ahead of his peers in pushing his closers to their limits, and he still drew the line at bringing in either pitcher for the sixth and b) he has never used Allen that way since he took over in Cleveland.In addition to making it safe for Francona to use Miller in the sixth and seventh innings, Allens excellence has made it safe for Francona to pull Miller i