Some of us remember 1988 like it was yesterday. OK, not yesterday as much as it was like last week. Last month. Last century. Some of it is getting downright hazy. Gibson’s home run, sure, and Orel Hershiser’s two starts … and who else played on that team? Steve Sax, maybe? Also, some significant fraction […]

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About now, we can depend on baseball pundits to pose the Big Question pertaining to another disappointing season by the Los Angeles Angels: Is Mike Trout wasting his career playing for this club? It was a fair question, in recent years, as the Angels found themselves stuck on one playoffs appearance since Trout’s breakout 2012 […]

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By population, the city of San Diego ranks No. 8 in the country, with approximately 1.4 million residents. By professional sports teams, however, San Diego now ranks perhaps No. 40 in the U.S. It has baseball’s San Diego Padres … and we are done talking about Big Four U.S. sports teams based in one of […]

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It seemed too good to be true. It was. The Dodgers had a sensational run from the middle of May through late August, going 69-18 through August 25, a golden, 87-game stretch when they won 79.3 percent of their games. A nearly unprecedented run that had them on pace to win 116 games, tying the […]

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Imagine the confusion in the Los Angeles Angels front office. They knew their 2017 team was bad. It was Mike Trout, Albert Pujols running on fumes, a slick-fielding shortstop … and a bunch of guys. Angels officials hoped the team might be just good enough that Orange County fans would still buy tickets. Mike Trout, […]

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Oh, for the comparatively sane salaries of American sports! The NFL gives out big contracts but rarely means it — most of the money is not guaranteed and often is not paid out. The NBA spends enormous sums on players but 1) the league has a salary cap, which taxes big-spending clubs and 2) its […]

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Joey Votto made a bit of news today when he walked in all five of his appearances. That made for a 0000 “stat line” in the boxscore for the Cincinnati Reds first baseman, but if you look a little closer you can see the “5” for his quintet of walks. (A nerd thing. The boxes […]

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Major League Baseball has designated this “Players Weekend” … which is supposed to be about the players having fun — mainly by revealing their nicknames and wearing them on their jerseys. (Players probably would prefer an extra $1,000 in their paycheck, if MLB really wanted the players to feel special.) Anyway, nicknames. This does not […]

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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 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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