We were unclear about French familiarity with Halloween. Do they know about it? Do they celebrate it? How do they celebrate it? Do kids come to your door looking for candy? It made for an interesting October 31 in the south of France. Early in the day, we saw a handful of adults wearing a […]

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Cleveland Indians. No championships since 1948. Chicago Cubs. No championships since 1908. That makes for a long (and very, very long) history of failure for these ballclubs. But they are playing each other in the current World Series, and somebody has to win. Even if the DNA of both clubs suggests ways to lose it […]

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I like statistics as much as the next baseball fan. They were an important part of the stories I wrote whenever I covered the sport as a journalist. Once upon a time, it was up to individual reporters to come up with special statistics. Then teams got involved … then stat services got involved. And […]

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What happens when newspapers are no longer printed on paper? Among other things more dire … good luck trying to pack your ceramics and glasses for the big move. Newspapers were once widely available, on paper, and used in all sorts of ways beyond conveying news, ads and photos. It was “recycling” before the term […]

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This always has seemed semi-tacky. Team A gets to the championship series/game, and politicians who share a city or a state with that team … announce a “bet” with their opposite number from Team B on the outcome of the event. Always backing the home team, of course, usually boasting about them — but often […]

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I became aware of this tune incrementally. It is played in the background of a television commercial — for a French insurance company — we have seen many times, here in France. By the time I figured out what was going on in the vaguely uplifting commercial spot (young school teacher finds car wrecked by […]

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Maybe I have been out of the U.S. too long. Or maybe this is just some collective American madness that feeds on itself and at the end of it … we all apparently hate Fox’s World Series broadcast voice Joe Buck. How do we know? Let’s start with the last-minute push, this week, to get […]

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The 2016 World Series is a mismatch. The much-beloved Chicago Cubs are just too good for the Cleveland Indians, and the series will be the sort of romp they should be able to celebrate in Wrigley Field, when this thing ends in Game 4 or (at most) 5. It must be assumed that planning for […]

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Had this one in heavy rotation inside my head almost from the day it came out. “Party Like a Russian” by the British singer Robbie Williams. Have a look at the “official” video, which already has been seen 7.2 million times. Have a listen/look.

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The Dodgers’ limp surrender to the Chicago Cubs tonight, allowing the Cubbies to reach the World Series for the first time since 1945, seems to call for a reassessment of the Los Angeles team’s priorities. What matters most to the people who run this club? Is it a championship? Or is it selling tickets and […]

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