Vin Scully plans to return next season for his 67th season as the voice of the Dodgers. Hurrah! The club made the announcement late last week, and then a few days ago Vinny, who will be 88 in November, talked to reporters about his decision. His planned return is great news for everyone who loves […]

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Apparently, I am supposed to have a phone that does everything but whistle Dixie. A flat, rectangular thing that covers my palm and connects me to news events and the very latest ridiculous thing on Twitter. And allows me to be overtly rude by staring at it while I am in a group of people. […]

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August has been an ugly month for the Best Player in Ball. Through games today, Mike Trout looked like a slow, tired impostor who somehow had gotten access to Trout’s No. 27 jersey. With two games left in August, the Los Angeles Angels outfielder was 18-for-93. That’s a batting average of .194. With five runs […]

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This was the year Yasiel Puig was supposed to put it all together. The kid who got MVP votes after a fairly solid second season would emerge as one of the game’s best players. Or, at least, his production would be so significant that we wouldn’t notice the things that pertain to his being a […]

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I am a sort of Arsenal fan. Not a live-and-die fan. I would never say that. Not when I was only vaguely aware the club existed for at least the first half of my life. Not until we spent four months in Hong Kong, 2008-09, did I consider the concept of having a preferred Premier […]

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This was predictable. A UAE team playing in Tehran against an Iranian team in the quarterfinals of the Asian Champions League … No way it was going to come off as a tribute to sportsmanship. But the reality was even uglier than I had expected, mostly (thankfully) in small, petulant ways — jersey-grabbing, shin-kicking, faking, […]

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On this side of the Atlantic, they have a tired, trite expression for perennially successful soccer teams. Those that dominate their league, pay the best salaries and seem to suck up the best players, as they become available. “Giants”, they inevitably are called. “Juventus, the Serie A giants … Bayern Munich, the German giants … […]

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I have written more than once that only two sports accept death as a part of doing business: Boxing and motor racing. Racing lost another competitor today, when Englishman Justin Wilson succumbed to head injuries suffered when hit by debris yesterday during an IndyCar race at Pocono Raceway. That led to a melancholy conversation, over […]

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Major League Soccer’s season runs from March until late November. That encompasses some really warm days in the North American summer, but it doesn’t take in too much cold and damp — approaching winter or escaping it. And then there is the English Premier League. Which plays right through the winter, but starts in August. […]

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I am a fan of the Arabian Gulf League. This is soccer. The top division of the domestic league. It may not be La Liga or the Premier League, but it’s what we have, here in the UAE. It’s indigenous. It’s hometown. And your local club is just down the street from where you live, […]

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