I was mulling the whole idea of fandom, and team affinity, and how fairly random it is — most of it being based on geography or heredity. How we can love a guy when he wears our team’s uniform and hate him when he doesn’t, meaning we ultimately are rooting for or against, as Jerry […]

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Can’t say the final score is a shocker. Italy. The United States. The Yanks not playing particularly well of late. Italy still being Italy, defending World Cup champion, and all. But the match was more interesting than that, and it was lost to the Americans by an early blow from the referee, not the Azzurri. […]

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You saw the game. Not a lot more I can tell you about it. What struck me was the sense, in the second quarter, even before the 16-0 run, that Orlando’s spirit finally was breaking. The Magic had come back from seemingly crippling defeats throughout the playoffs, but this time it seemed like they knew […]

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The United States national soccer team is in Pretoria, South Africa, getting ready for the Confederations Cup, an eight-nation event that is something of a preview of the 2010 World Cup, which also will be played in South Africa, and promises to provide the stiffest competition of the year for the Americans. They are in […]

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Los Angeles authorities are already concerned about “celebrations” that get out of hand if the Lakers clinch the NBA championship on Sunday. “Riot” is the word that some might prefer. And might be more accurate if it turns into more than a few blocked streets and a few broken windows. Here is a story from […]

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A curious case, this one. A former journalism colleague of mine has been born again. But not in a religious sense. This person has turned back the hands of time … by inventing a birthday in 1970. Or 15-16 years after the real one.

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We went out to dinner at the invitation of my sister and her husband, who run a restaurant here in Long Beach, name of Lasher’s. Their son had graduated from middle school and, no, it’s not like getting out of college but it was a good excuse to get together on the patio on a […]

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I suppose my first inkling came a few years ago, when I was still living in Highland, and a guy I knew along my jog route always seemed to be out puttering in his front yard, and as I chugged past would call out a variation of the same encouragement. “Keep on smilin’!” I remember […]

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This may be the slowest-moving train wreck in NCAA history. But it appears as if we are … finally … at long, long last … about to see some action pertaining to USC and the NCAA’s enforcement arm. That was my first thought when I heard that USC basketball coach Tim Floyd had up and […]

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This series should be all but over. The Lakers could be up 3-0, a deficit no NBA team ever has overcome in the history of the playoffs. But Kobe Bryant cost them Game 3. Yes. Kobe.  The man who has helped the Lakers win so many games over the past decade was awful in the […]

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