Major League Baseball hitters are on pace to obliterate the record for home runs in a season, a record set in 2000, during the height of the steroids era. An analysis done by The Ringer traces this homer binge to the second half of 2015 and suggests the surge is due to a bouncier, slightly […]

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How hard must it be to be the top brass of the Los Angeles Lakers, at this moment? They have the No. 2 pick in the draft, but no first-round pick next year, and they have some hard decisions to make — with the very real possibility if they get things wrong, come Thursday, their […]

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We have an interesting and alarming piece of journalism on espn.com today, as one of the site’s baseball writers projects 20 years into the future, and what the game might look like. For long-time fans of the game, nearly all the changes foreseen by a dozen people closely involved in the game … are appalling. […]

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Ikea exists to test me. The Swedish masters of flat-pack furniture seem to have been designated by the universe to ask hard questions of me. “We know you are not a home-improvement guy. Not mechanical at all. Ignorant of electrical workings. Not to be trusted with anything plumbing-oriented, aside from (perhaps) a plunger. “But can […]

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After the road trip came the game, the reason former colleague Damian Secore and I drove a rented Chevrolet Chevy to the Mexican capital for a 2006 World Cup qualifying match. Anyone who is a soccer fan should see a game in Azteca Stadium, if they get the chance. I have been there three times, […]

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I am perversely proud of driving from Tijuana to Mexico City for the 2006 World Cup qualifying match of March 2005, at the Estadio Azteca. The report, below, recounts the final leg — from Guadalajara to the distrito federale. As it turned out, co-pilot Damian Secore and I encountered just about zero problems across a […]

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Another installment in the 2005 Tijuana-to-Mexico City road trip report on a 2006 World Cup qualifying match pitting the United States against Mexico. I had forgotten about spending time, the previous night, in steamy San Blas watching the festivities for Holy Week. It was Mexico at its most festive and friendly. The 425 miles to […]

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This was one of the more interesting legs of the 2005 road trip across Mexico to see the United States’ World Cup qualifier at Estadio Azteca. We had seen the map, and we knew we were leaving the desert, but we did not fully anticipate the massive shift in climates, once we entered Nayarit state. […]

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Let me mention it again. I have been outside the U.S. for all but a few months since October of 2009. I remain a fan of all American team sports I once covered as a journalist — baseball, football, basketball … But I cannot say I have, week in and week out, seen all the […]

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This is about United States versus Mexico soccer. World Cup qualifying soccer at that … But this is now, not 2005 — as it is in the parts of the 12-year-old series I have been republishing on this blog in recent days. The U.S. national soccer team got a very nice result today, in Mexico […]

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