Adonis Garcia is a third baseman/outfielder who plays for the Atlanta Braves. He also is the first big-leaguer to answer to “Adonis” in more than a century, according to the database at the baseballreference.com site. The previous Adonis was given the name not at birth, but some time after he became a professional baseball player […]

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If I could ask Aaron Hernandez one question, it would be this: “Why?” But I will never have that chance, and no one else will, either, going forward … And I’m not sure he could answer that question. The “why?” Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end with a $40-million contract, hanged himself in […]

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Mike Marshall. No, not that Mike Marshall, underachieving Dodgers outfielder of the 1980s, perhaps best known for the club’s explanation why he was sitting out another game: “General soreness.” The other Mike Marshall. Or the original Mike Marshall. “Iron Mike” Marshall. Who was, pretty much, an original, in that what he did for the Dodgers […]

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It always is perilous to pick an argument with statistics wonks. They have the “truth” of numbers in their tool kit and failing to acknowledge their intellectual superiority … well, just admit up front you are a Luddite. But sometimes I wonder … The latest trend in baseball is the notion of “leveraging” your best […]

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The NBA is a fairly big attraction, in France, a nation which also has produced the greatest number of foreign players in the league, about a dozen. The New York Times today has drawn a link between a Franco-American wannabe baller — who did heavily accented commentary for French television for much of two decades […]

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Perhaps you have been following the great debates over who should win the Most Valuable Player race in the NBA. The 2016-17 competition is about as hot as it gets. People of intelligence and good will can make a case for at least four players, and that is leaving Stephen Curry, the two-time defending MVP […]

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While slogging through the hills of northern Spain, it was easy to lose track of stories he or she thought were important, before. And after. Top of the list on the sports side, for me … is the Lakers’ ridiculous five-game winning streak that cost them a chance to have the second-best position in the […]

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We completed the five-day Camino de Santiago pilgrimage yesterday, and celebrated by having dinner twice in about five hours. Walking 13 or 14 miles a day is enough to work up an appetite that can be acknowledged without fear of gaining weight. So there is that. Thinking back, I failed to mention, over the past […]

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*By “triumphal” we mean stumbling past the sign that read “Santiago”. So, Day 5 of the Camino de Santiago, the condensed, 73-mile version of a pilgrimage that can be 10 times as long, for the minority who start walking in distant lands, and often is about six times as long when starting just north of […]

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The Camino de Santiago is a public event that passes through some of the most remote parts of Spain. The miracle is that the pilgrimage is so little touched by crime, especially given the surge in participation over the past 20 years, crossing the 275,000 mark in 2016, with women making up almost half of […]

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