So much for the Dodgers. Realists had no hope for them, once they coughed up Game 4 and, truth be told, even if they had tied the series at 2-2 … them winning two of three from Boston, with two of those games played at Fenway … well, it just seemed really unlikely. The Red […]

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Do you do this? Something goes badly wrong for your team, and you spend a minute or five replaying the events in your head, and settle on what you believe led to your team’s destruction. I do that. Especially in regard to baseball, which is a start-and-stop game chock-full of decisions, choices, options. And the […]

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If this thing goes seven, we may be zombies. Or vampires. Undead creatures of the night. We certainly will suspect we have shifted into a new time zone, one where our “days” dissolve into evenings. Over in France, I woke at about 6 a.m. Saturday, local time. Looked at my watch. Feared World Series Game […]

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This is a list of reasons why regular folks around the baseball world should support the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, which begins tonight in Beantown. First and foremost? –The Dodgers have not won the World Series in 30 years. The Red Sox have won it three times […]

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The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox are two of the half-dozen most prominent Major League Baseball teams. In theory, then, they should be rivals of some sort. Perhaps bitter rivals. But they are not. And have not been for a century. A time frame that does much to explain why they enter […]

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A sample size too small even to call a sample size, but that never stops us from expressing enthusiasm — or confessing alarm — about a team we have been studying. In this case, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers of LeBron James. The Lakers who Are Back. Relevant Again. In Theory. The Lakers who […]

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The Dodgers defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 in 13 innings to even the National League Championship Series at two games apiece. The game lasted 5 hours and 15 minutes. It only seemed like it went on for 10 hours and 15 minutes. It has been three decades since the Dodgers won a World Series, and […]

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I was as badly wrong about Jared Goff as … well, just about anyone or anything over a long stretch of time. Back in 2016, his rookie season, I was suggesting the Los Angeles Rams quarterback was in big trouble even before the season began, and then declared him a top-of-the-draft disaster. Or nearly did. […]

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Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers. Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros. Two teams that played in last year’s World Series. Two teams that led their league in victories. Four teams that are rolling. Two best-of-seven series to decide who plays in the 2018 World Series. Baseball has reached its version of the Final Four, […]

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Much has been made this week of the moments of madness after Khabib Nurmagodemov defeated Conor McGregor in a highly anticipated Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Las Vegas. People rushed into the ring, punches were thrown. Some people who were at the event feared that the situation could devolve into a riot in the sold-out […]

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