What a great name! In full it is Rajiv Ramon van La Parra, but usually it is written without the “Ramon”. He is a Netherlands-born soccer player for Huddersfield Town of the English Premier League. He has been in the first XI of Huddersfield’s two games this league season, both victories, and that has raised […]

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You may have heard the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers have a chance to have one of the best seasons in Major League Baseball history. They are 87-35, on pace to win 116 games — which would tie them for the most victories in a season. Here is the list of teams with “most victories”. 1906 […]

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A few weeks ago we wrote about an open house at a local winery. It was a fine affair, with friendly workers and a food truck and cart rides through the vineyards. There was another one today, even more local to us than the other — just at the end of our road, a five-minute […]

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In 24 seasons leading four college football programs, Ara Parseghian‘s teams won 170 games, lost 58 and tied six. Improbably, he is best-remembered for one of the six ties. In what was widely described as The Game of the Century, Parseghian’s top-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish made a point of running out the final 90 […]

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A couple of posts on this blog suggest the National Football League will not exist as we know it — if it exists at all — 20-30 years from now. By then, all the horrors of football-related brain trauma will have been clearly laid out and, barring some unexpected breakthrough in protective equipment, the lawsuits […]

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What I said a year ago. Nothing has changed.

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I remain on the mailing list of numerous public-relations companies in the United Arab Emirates. Generally, their missives call for about a five-second look-see at whatever person or product is being flogged, followed by punching the “delete” key. Today, I got a release that actually got me past the first 15 words. To wit: RUNNING […]

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Cristiano Ronaldo is not above the law of soccer. Neither is his club, Real Madrid. Any player who shoves a referee deserves whatever ban he is given — in this case, five matches. The game has a serious problem with players, coaches and fans heaping verbal abuse on officials, especially the referee. And sometimes the […]

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Not exactly a rousing endorsement of Major League Soccer. The data guys at the FiveThirtyEight website have come up with a batch of calculations they believe indicate the “relative strength” of soccer leagues in Europe, North America and South America. (See the rankings, about a third of the way down the page.) In simplest terms, […]

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Baseball players used to talk about how it “takes 25 guys” to win a World Series. Referring to the size of a Major League roster. Twenty-five guys? That idea is so 20th century. The Los Angeles Dodgers are 82-34 and on pace for 115 victories — 10 more than any Dodgers team has won. And […]

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