Cicadas are not just a Midwest U.S. thing. They are common around the world, and we can vouch for their presence, in large numbers, in the south of France. How do we know they are here? Because these particular insects make a heck of a racket, and we have been hearing it day after day […]

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I covered the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. (I was a teeny bit too young to see the 1932 L.A. Games, back when the Memorial Coliseum was “only” 11 years old.) And I can vouch that things went off quite well, in 1984. From Opening Ceremonies and the 84 grand pianos and right on down to […]

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Lonzo Ball’s first game with the Lakers, in an NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas last night, was a disaster. The stuff of nightmares. The No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft, the “next Magic Johnson”, stunk it up. Two-for-15 shooting from the field. One-for-11 from three. Welcome to the league, Lonzo. Or the […]

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I am not a rugby fan. Most Americans are not. We have our own collision/territorial sport known globally as American football, which makes redundant a need to see some other incarnation of large men running into each other. I have, really, only one position, when it comes to world rugby, and it is this: I […]

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I happened on a web entry recently that suggests the long history of sports reporters “sticking to sports” is over. We have entered an era, the author wrote, when your favorite sports correspondent should feel free to work into his or her Twitter feed his or her opinion on the political side of current events. […]

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Ichiro Suzuki is playing his 17th season of Major League Baseball, but I still don’t know quite what to make of him. He picked up his 3,054th hit today, making him the all-time leader among MLB players born outside the United States, one ahead of the Panama-born Rod Carew. That puts him 24th among all […]

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Chicks may dig the long ball, as the slogan went from 20 years ago. But I do not. And when a pitcher hits a 467-foot home run, as Jon Gray did in Denver today, it’s time to act against the home run madness that is disfiguring Major League Baseball in 2017. Gray’s homer was the […]

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Thank goodness this is July 4, because after tonight’s games Major League Baseball players can stop wearing the garish and ridiculous special uniforms they have been trapped in since July 1. What is it the kids say of something that is lame and stupid? “Clown shoes”, I think it is. Just about everything the world’s […]

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I was going to do this as a list. “The five dreariest assignments in sports journalism.” Down from the normal 10, when I do lists. (And I ought to do some sort of list soon, just cuz.) Then I realized I would have trouble coming up with even five events that felt like drudgery, while […]

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I remember the 2009 Confederations Cup, in South Africa, where the U.S. national team nearly won a global competition. Bob Bradley’s Yanks shocked world-No. 1, unbeaten-in-35-matches Spain 2-0 in the semifinals (go back and read that again), then faced Brazil in the championship match and led 2-0 at half … before losing 3-2. I noted, […]

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