Curiously, for the first 44 years of its history, the United Arab Emirates outsourced the making of its money. As in, printing bank notes and minting coins. I know the UAE dirham notes well, having carried them around in my pocket for the six-plus years I lived in the country. I had no idea, however, […]

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In the States, this would be considered odd. Crowds at major sports events … breaking into song during a game. Singing happens, now and then, at U.S. stadiums. But it usually is scheduled and involves two songs — the national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. In England and Wales and Scotland […]

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Isn’t it grand when someone writes a piece taking a position you wholeheartedly endorse? Especially when you begin to wonder if you are the only one who feels that way? That is what happened today when a staffer at The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, published a commentary pointing out the “dark arts” (that is, […]

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What a cultural intersection this is for me! National anthems, the Middle East and military bands. I lived in the United Arab Emirates for more than six years and I covered a lot of international soccer. So I was exposed to the UAE’s military band more than once, just ahead of a game pitting national […]

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Well, yes, it appears Landon Donovan’s soccer playing career has ended without a formal declaration, which we suggested last month when a deal to play for Real Salt Lake fell through. Donovan now seems interested in the business side of the game, which would mark an obvious, prominent and perhaps lucrative move for him as […]

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In the summer of 1975, my little brother and I drove across the United States to Washington D.C.  And back. We returned to Southern California via a less-direct route, one that took us to Gettysburg, Niagara Falls and Canada and across the I-70, rather than the I-40, which we had taken heading east. We arrived […]

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Eleven years ago, I made the 320-mile drive from Southern California to Phoenix to see the U.S. play Canada in Pool C competition of the inaugural World Baseball Classic. I should have stayed home. Dontrelle Willis was torched and the U.S. lost 8-6 to Canada in the “world cup” of the stick-and-ball game. Which it […]

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Or fastest over 40 yards, anyway. In a run that began with a human starting the clock. John Ross, a receiver out of the University of Washington, was timed at 4.22 seconds today over the NFL’s preferred test distance, breaking an NFL Combine record of 4.24, set by running back Chris Johnson in 2008. (Johnson […]

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This was a day when the strains inside the Buss family came out in the open and were shown to be a clear and present danger to the stability of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise. Jim Buss, who ran the basketball operations side of things for the Lakers, last week was fired by his sister, […]

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By the time the Rams left Southern California for St. Louis, ahead of the 1995 NFL season, they had shifted from their traditional white-and-blue uniforms to a blue-and-gold look. In St. Louis, it got more so, with the blue trending toward a dark blue, producing a uniform that looked as little as possible like the […]

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