So, the Hall of Fame vote came around, and three players — Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Fran Thomas — made the grade, appearing on 75 percent of all ballots cast. Good for those guys. I would have voted for all three. But, again, we have the “what about the druggies?” kerfuffle. Which in part […]

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Up for nomination? Only those countries I have never visited. I have been inside several I would like to see further … like Spain. I’ve done Barcelona but not Madrid. But these 10 are “never been there at all, and changing planes in the airport doesn’t count”. Let’s do them Letterman style, counting down, with […]

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My football career ended with a concussion. I was 17. For the next 30-plus years, I didn’t give much thought to long-term repercussions. But with the NFL now at a point where dazed players are immediately removed from a game, not to come back, I reflect back on my own brain trauma — and I […]

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I was late to Lone Survivor, the book. It was published in 2007, and I became aware of it only after seeing a trailer for the movie, which will be released this week. I just powered through Lone Survivor, the book, and if we assume the basic outlines of it are accurate, it is an […]

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This was a press box thing. The saying went something like, “He has a face made for radio.” Meaning that a person might have been an expert on some topic, maybe interesting enough to get a gig on TV — except for that mug. And then the second part of it, and maybe I invented […]

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It seems silly to have to go back to the records to come up with statistics on your own journalism career, but when you have been around long enough … Five seconds ago I realized that I covered six of the first nine BCS college football championships games. Did I just take a moment and […]

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A few of these surprised me. Starting with No. 1. Other surprises came from the cities not on the list. These are the 10 most heavily traveled routes, leaving from Abu Dhabi, per Etihad Airways, the government-owned, Abu Dhabi-based carrier — which just had a record year, as this National story notes, by number of […]

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The FA Cup. Few in North America have a clear idea of what this is about. Aside from hipsters or kids who studied abroad for a year and now believe they are entitled to make generalizations about European “football” to their oh-so-sheltered friends back home. Anyway, the FA (Football Association) Cup is a soccer tournament […]

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Well, I don’t have one. Thinking about getting one, though. OK, more musing than thinking. Not seriously. Musing is never serious. I live in an apartment with two rooms, two bathrooms, a laundry room and a kitchen. Not a lot of space for a pet. Some considerations:

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Euros do funny things, yes. They eat snails and frogs and sheep intestines and pork cheeks, and they ride scooters and think Formula One is entertaining and never get married or go to church, and those who speak English drink way, way, way too much. But I am not going there, today. I am, instead, […]

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