The English Premier League. Has to be the longest competitive schedule in team sports. The 2016-17 season, which ended over the weekend with 10 matches … began on August 13 and concluded on May 21. Yes, that is a season that lasted nine months and one week. Or, if you prefer, 40 weeks and one […]

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The place where we live, in the south of France, has a large room on the ground level. However, it was not necessarily a garage. Until the other day, when we slowly backed a dinky Toyota into a space that offers no more than 10 inches of extra room. Ta-da! Our place has a garage, […]

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The NBA has become a bit unbalanced. Twenty-eight teams can do all the coaching, scouting, planning and plotting, building and rebuilding they want … and it will not change a basic, unalterable reality: They have no chance against the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Which ought to make for a fascinating championship series, […]

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A few days ago, I watched Tottenham Hotspur’s final match at their ancient stadium at White Hart Lane, where the London club had played its home matches since 1899. Fans were a bit melancholy but the celebrations before and after the match, won 2-1 by Spurs over Manchester United, seemed to mollify them. Actually, they […]

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The most authentic sports experience in the United Arab Emirates is anything pertaining to the domestic soccer league — the Arabian Gulf League. It is a league overseen by Emiratis, largely staffed by Emiratis, featuring clubs overwhelmingly made up of Emirati footballers, and the whole of the league is largely watched by Emiratis, whether on […]

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Tonight is the night. The night when the ping-pong balls land and it is determined who drafts in the top three of the NBA lottery. In a matter of minutes the Los Angeles Lakers have a chance to go No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 3 in next month’s talent-heavy NBA draft … or […]

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Until a few years ago, this is what I knew of Gustav Mahler. He was a famous composer whose work I had never heard. He was the favorite composer of the eternally snooty television brothers Frasier and Niles Crane, of the long-running show Frasier. (Whenever the two went out for a night, odds were it […]

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El Jefe Loco, as I liked to call him while writing my countdown-sa2010 blog, back when Diego Maradona was coaching Argentina ahead of the 2010 World Cup, is off the unemployment rolls. He has been hired to coach a club in the UAE. The biggest and best? Al Ain or Al Ahli? Well, no. One […]

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A former colleague was driving in Banff, Alberta, looking for a restaurant, when he came to an intersection that spoke to him. Just as it would to most every Baby Boomer who grew up watching Jay Ward Productions on television. The colleague sent the photo to several members of his age cohort, and the cracking […]

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I spend a lot of time reading soccer stories. As one does, in Europe. It does not take long to become caught up in European clubs and European leagues, and especially with English football’s Premier League, the most competitive in the world by the accounting of its boosters. Reading about what happened (or what might […]

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