It was a terrible moment. Not in a cosmic sense, of course, but in a way that millions of baseball fans could recognize — and realize that, but for the grace of God, it could have happened to them. Steve Bartman. The Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins in Game 6 of the 2004 National League […]

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The non-waivers trade deadline is tomorrow at 1 p.m. PDT. And what should the Los Angeles Dodgers, frustrated since 1988 in their attempts to get back to the World Series, do ahead of the deadline? Nothing. Well, they could tinker around the edges of the club, if they see some left-handed hitter who could help […]

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If it sometimes seems as if American sports tend to cycle through the same few dozen coaches … well, it’s pretty much the case. How else to explain Larry Brown, Buck Showalter, Marty Schottenheimer, et al? But international soccer coaches take it to a whole ‘nother level. Some of these guys have coached at 10, […]

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Adrian Beltre has 2,998 hits in his career. As soon as tomorrow’s game with the Baltimore Orioles, the Texas Rangers third baseman could join the 3,000-hit club, becoming the 31st member. Not really a big surprise, when we look back at how long (20 seasons) and productive Beltre’s career has been. Now 38, he received […]

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Is “music appreciation” still a thing in elementary schools? I fear not. In the United States, anyway, so much emphasis is placed on mastering the basics — reading, writing and ‘rithmetic — that soft stuff pertaining to “art” tends to be jettisoned. Which is too bad, because being exposed to the great music of the […]

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This post was inspired by a piece that appeared in The Telegraph, a British newspaper, in 2015, during the Fifa Women’s World Cup. In it, the author came up with “11 reasons why women’s football is better than men’s” I have been watching women’s soccer for the past few weeks, and thinking about it, as […]

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Another story, another alarming connection between NFL players and brain damage. How long can the league semi-ignore this and hope it goes away? That $765 million settlement the NFL made in 2013, concerning former players with brain damage … now seems so 20th century. It is going to cost the league more money than that. […]

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This could be when the “too good to be true” moment arrived for the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers. There they were, stampeding through the season, threatening to eclipse records for “games won” in Los Angeles (102) and even Brooklyn (105), and then on a Sunday afternoon in Chavez Ravine left-hander Clayton Kershaw, walked out of […]

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Maybe Magic Johnson as club president is worth the price of tickets. Brandon Ingram, the second-year forward, could move the needle, too. But most observers seem to think it is Lonzo Ball who is the key to the Lakers selling a lot more season tickets than they did a year ago. And now they are […]

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Not long after Landon Donovan was pushed into giving up international soccer, by U.S. national soccer’s blundering coach Jurgen Klinsmann, I took a look at Landon’s record 57 goals for the U.S. national soccer team and broke them down by categories. That parsing of his production appeared on this blog on August 9, 2014 (along […]

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