The Volvo Ocean Race may not be well known in the U.S. It is worth knowing. It’s the greatest race in the world. Nothing else involves sailboats circling the planet as fast as they possibly can be driven. The sailors will touch every continent except Antarctica and Australia. They will sail over every ocean […]

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On the same night Landon Donovan bid adieu (check the video at the bottom of the link) to international soccer in an emotional evening in Hartford, we were Australia fans for a few hours in Abu Dhabi. The UAE was playing host to the Aussies (or Socceroos, as they sometimes are known, back in the […]

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An obscene gesture can get a person in trouble in most places. I’m fairly confident that more than a few murders in the U.S. hinged on that moment. I think many of us tend to think obscene gestures don’t necessarily travel. Across borders. Around the world. That what is an obscene gesture in, say, Italy, […]

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I am a huge fan of the author Alan Furst. On this blog, a year ago, I declared him to be the American John le Carre — and by no means was I the first to suggest that. Actually, Furst is better. Even before Le Carre turned into a political bore. Since I discovered Furst, […]

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In a corner of my mind, that semi-hopeful, semi-bitter cry was particularly associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Who for a long time were bad, and then for most of a decade were quite good but couldn’t get that elusive first World Series championship. “Next year” finally came in 1955, when the Dodgers beat the Yankees […]

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It was one of the most absurd moments in recent English Premier League history. Arsene Wenger, 64, advancing on Jose Mourinho, 51, on the sidelines of the Chelsea vs Arsenal match yesterday — and shoving his rival manager in the midst of Chelsea’s 2-0 victory over Wenger’s Arsenal. It was silly on a number of […]

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After about a 10-minute wait tonight, an open cab pulled over. The passenger-side window went down, and the driver leaned over and semi-shouted at me, so I could hear him over the noise of the street. “You know where you are going? I am new!” I said, “Yes, I know,” and climbed in. New cabbies […]

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I predicted this a couple of months ago. How Landon Donovan’s farewell match with the U.S. national team, now less than a week away, would be one of the most awkward moments in the history of U.S. soccer. The ramping up of what is going to be days and days of U.S. media and fans […]

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The National’s correspondent in Erbil, Hugh Naylor, recently did a piece about Arab refugees and Kurdish forces trying to figure out how they can recapture the city of Mosul, sometimes described as the second-biggest in Iraq, with a population perhaps as high as 1.8 million … from the Islamic State fighters who overran it in […]

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So, Game 1 is in the books, and if any Angels fan says he or she isn’t deeply worried, they aren’t being truthful. Unless they refuse to accept the reality of a concept often known as “momentum”. Momentum is elusive; it comes and goes, ebbs and flows. But when a team has it, you can […]

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