As someone who watched NFL games as a professional observer … well, I pretty much took a generation off. The Rams and Raiders left Los Angeles after the 1994 season, and the 18 years I worked in the same media market as at least one NFL team has since been nearly equaled by the 17 […]

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Having done this blog for 3.5 years, most of it while holding a full-time job, while moving or stationary, updated from a half-dozen countries … I can assure you it takes a lot of effort. Just to post. Let alone be good. Let alone be ultra labor-intensive and really good. Thus, recognizing the effort that […]

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More basketball! I wasn’t planning to go this way. Though I did think, the day before the Lakers played in Miami, that the Heat would win, no problem, and considered writing that just to show my powers of analysis … but then it got too late, and the Heat led by 21 after three before […]

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This is hardly noticed in the particularly British (or Indian) parts of the world, but basketball probably is the second-most popular game on the planet. I know that several sports have made that claim (from volleyball to team handball to ping-pong, etc), but hoops probably is the real No. 2. Plus, a survey conducted last […]

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This probably was a global trend, but it was certainly got a boost from the Barcelona club and the Spain national team. To wit: Soccer is increasingly the province of tiny men with high technical skills who can run forever. Big is out. Muscles? Not really necessary, aside from those needed to move your almost […]

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I have seen pieces of NBA games, this season, over here in the UAE, and the whole of the Lakers-Bulls game on Christmas Day. I have seen all of the scores, however. Some former colleagues and I are in about the third decade of an NBA fantasy league (I have both LeBron and Kobe; feeling […]

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Everton got a result against Aston Villa on Saturday, a 1-1- tie, their first point in the Premier League since Landon Donovan rejoined the Liverpool-based team on loan from the Galaxy, and when it was over David Moyes, the Everton coach, was calmly direct about identifying his most influential player. It was Donovan, the Galaxy […]

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I have witnesses to this. Two days before the New Orleans Saints — and the quarterback who enjoyed the most productive season in NFL history — played in San Francisco, I was warning a couple of NFL fans here in Abu Dhabi about Candlestick Park. I have spent many days in Candlestick, particularly in the […]

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I thought the noise was unbearable in that moment in time when beepers ruled the land, 20-some years ago. They would go off in a press conference, and everyone but the perpetrator would be looking around, staring daggers at the idiot who had forgotten to turn off his beeper, which was now squawking. Now, of […]

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I was a history major in college before I opened the door to the offices of the student newspaper, in my fourth year of school, and that was that. Had I not gone into journalism (and it is hard to imagine I wasn’t going to end up there), I would have tried to make history […]

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