Professional football is a shockingly violent game. Unless you have been on the sidelines of an NFL game, yards away from the action, you cannot really grasp of the severity of the collisions. Which is why the NFL’s moves to limit blows to the head is an excellent idea. Otherwise we were destined to see […]

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I’m not sure a day at the races of any horse track of the least global significance can go past without a UAE-owned horse or five on the card. The country’s presence in the sport is of such significance it is fair to wonder if it would survive without financial support from the Gulf states, […]

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A franchise that has been spinning its wheels for a year made a good move today. The Dodgers signed Theodore Roosevelt “Ted” Lilly, the left-hander they picked up from the Cubs on July 31, for three years. It is a good move pending, of course, disclosure (or guestimates) of how much the veteran will be […]

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I thought the quote was: “When a man is tired of Paris he is tired of life.” But upon closer inspection it appears that the line (attributed to Samuel Johnson) was … “When a man is tired of London he is tired of life …” However, it still could apply to Paris because the quote […]

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OK, it wasn’t actually opera. Which is how we planned it. Opera requires lots of patience and an appreciation for le danse I will never develop. We were more interested in seeing the inside of the Paris Opera house than seeing an opera staged at the building now sometimes known as the Palais Garnier. (Though […]

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Anyone who has edited copy has pet peeves. “Ironically.” Split infinitives. “Stamping ground vs. stomping ground” and “gauntlet” vs. “gantlet.” Well, and “pet peeves” is more than a little worn, isn’t it? Many of these peeves we editors share. Some are primarily personal. One of mine: The reckless use of the word “surreal” — a […]

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Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day in 2009, October 15, a Thursday, when we got on a plane to leave the United States. We have not been back since.

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I saw the story on espn.com … taken from wire services … from the hefty Sports Illustrated piece in which a former football agent talks about making cash payments to college players during the 1990s. I should have thought of R.Jay Soward immediately. Instead, it was more of an “well, of course” moment, when I […]

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I have noticed that I don’t loathe the San Francisco Giants as I once did. It could be a direct correlation of not being around their fans in any numbers for several years now. (Giants fans, en masse, are crude and declasse, not at all what we would expect from the presumably cultured crowds culled […]

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How does the expression go? “Act like you’ve been there before.” I first heard it applied, decades ago, to guys breaking into some sort of celebratory spasm when scoring touchdowns. Spiking the ball, throwing it into the stands, dancing. Whatever. The idea is, behave as if whatever you just did successfully … is not unusual. […]

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