The mystery of Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey has been solved as well as resolved. A Mexican national with a media credential apparently snatched the No. 12 Patriots jersey after New England’s dramatic 28-25 victory in Super Bowl 51, but the jersey is back in the U.S. along with what appears to be the […]

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One of the worst teams in Major League Soccer has signed German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. Five years ago, this would have been an enormous coup for the Chicago Fire, which has not won a playoffs match since 2009. But the Schweinsteiger the MLS club signed is 32, with skills fading in real time, who appeared […]

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The question for Lonzo Ball now is this: Just how memorable will his one-and-done NCAA Tournament be? He certainly will leave UCLA after this season, moving on to the NBA/multi-millionaire portion of his basketball career. This is Ball’s one chance to leave a lasting impression, as a freshman, on March Madness. Could he channel John […]

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I didn’t plan this. It was early on a Saturday evening and many of the regular TV options were not available, so on went the second half of West Virginia vs. Notre Dame in the NCAA basketball tournament, which I could see via ESPN GB … And nearly eight hours later I had watched much […]

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I love the Volvo Ocean Race. The idea of circling the planet in a boat that has about an inch between sailors and the world’s oceans … is compelling. I became fully aware of the eight-month, round-the-world event, often described as the “Everest of sailing”, in 2011, ahead of the 2011-12 race, which included a […]

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After leaving the U.S. for Abu Dhabi, in 2009, my interest in college basketball waned. As I noted in blog posts from recent years, while living in the UAE, it requires work to follow the college game from the other side of the world. Too many teams, too many games, too big a time gap […]

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Some odd things happen in the United Arab Emirates and The National newspaper, the English-language publication based in the capital, Abu Dhabi, does a good job of recording them. Today? Cat-killers sentenced to three months of sweeping up at the Dubai zoo … the $10,000 hamburger in (of course) Dubai … and the cardboard faux […]

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If you follow college basketball, you already know who LaVar Ball is, but his latest pronouncement might stun even those who have become accustomed to his bombastic assertions. This is about money. And it reinforces what already seemed like a father’s plan to run the careers/lives of his three sons. He wants a $1 billion […]

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If you lack context, this will seem like a bizarre story. This story in The National describes an alleged murder in Dubai that stemmed from the victim being accused of having smelly feet. The word “disproportionate” springs to mind. If smelly feet were a capital crime, most adult males would risk assassination on a regular […]

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Think of it as a sort of cosmic balancing of the scales. The fat kids who played in the line in high school are more highly prized in the NFL than the fast guys who got all the attention. At least, when those fast guys are running backs. The first few days of the NFL’s […]

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