* – Subtitled … Promotional campaigns gone badly wrong, or “don’t point that thing at me.” I understand the concept. The Amarillo Sox of baseball’s independent American Association wanted a mascot to go with the club mascot — an anthropomorphized sock. Making a bit of hosiery into a living, breathing entity is a tricky thing, […]

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Well, so much for the Fabio Cannavaro experiment. He arrived in the UAE about a year ago to much excitement and acclaim, and with a two-year contract. But his playing career in the country appears to be over, unless Al Ahli, the Dubai club that recruited him, trades him — which seems quite unlikely, given […]

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My favorite quote of the day, in the wake of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt filing for bankruptcy, appeared in a collection of bon mots that appeared on the L.A. Times website. It comes from Bob Daly, who was running the Dodgers until Fox sold them to the McCourts in 2004, a particularly dark day in […]

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Just when it seemed possible that Major League Baseball would take over the Dodgers, ending their long National (League) nightmare … the official bogeyman of Los Angeles, Frank McCourt, declared bankruptcy today. The Dodgers now may be saddled with this vile little creature for the foreseeable future. Here is the early Los Angeles Times version […]

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It was my turn to do our “big” column in the sports section, and I decided that the most topical concept was the U.S.-Mexico soccer match. Normally, I wouldn’t spend much time on this in the UAE. This is a British-oriented sports section with a strong Indian/Pakistani (read: cricket) undertow, and a soccer game in […]

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My subconscious must have wanted to see this game. It began at 5 a.m. UAE time, and normally I’m in a coma about then, about four hours from stirring … but I bolted up at about 5:45, turned on our squirrely TV, saw the Yanks walking off for halftime … and I followed it to […]

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Let’s be honest: Not many soccer games happen in North America that anyone is all that crazy to see, in person. The occasional Mexican League game. The rare Major League Soccer game. Some of the World Cup qualifiers. And we’re about done. It’s not like the Old World, where every country has a national league […]

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I had noticed this but hadn’t given it great thought. Filipinos have unusual given names, or often go by nicknames. It probably was Benjamin, our preferred Filipino taxi driver, who brought this home to me, on the shores of the UAE.

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Such a strange story. Blowing up the domestic football league in order to save it. As we got into Day 3, things began to settle down. By now, Football Association sources (and the FA is now in charge of the league) seemed to spend much of their time telling us about all the things that […]

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Nearly everyone here speaks some English. From the Emiratis to the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Filipinos and the Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Bangladeshis … The trick is … understanding what they say. Every day we find ourselves mentally straining to understand what we are saying to each other. And I’m talking about inside […]

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