Four years ago I suggested a parlor game of my own devising. As I recall, it came from my staring at a four-digit clock on a treadmill. Start with a year and match it with any event that happened in the 365/366 days attached to that year. For instance: 2016, Cubs win the World Series […]

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A few days ago, I watched Tottenham Hotspur’s final match at their ancient stadium at White Hart Lane, where the London club had played its home matches since 1899. Fans were a bit melancholy but the celebrations before and after the match, won 2-1 by Spurs over Manchester United, seemed to mollify them. Actually, they […]

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Baseball is becoming dull, and the strikeout is to blame. I woke up early today, with the TV still running, and while looking for the NBA playoffs I came across the New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs, at Wrigley Field, just as the bottom of the ninth was happening. I decided to stay with it […]

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Dodgers fans certainly know about Madison Bumgarner. He was a key performer as the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and especially in the latter, when he gave up only one run in 21 innings and won Games 1 and 5 and threw five innings of scoreless relief in […]

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So says the sports media department at my alma mater, which currently is ranked No. 11 in the nation by the NCAA. That’s a pretty prominent spot for a program which often struggles to separate itself from the NCAA masses. In any sport. By the calculations of the PR guys there, Long Beach State baseball […]

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Let’s get at this the long way ’round. Most of our possessions arrived in southern France, from southern California, in one big crush of boxes along about mid-October. We had them stacked on a big plastic sheet in the garage, and the boxes made for a pile about three feet high and maybe 10 yards […]

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Adonis Garcia is a third baseman/outfielder who plays for the Atlanta Braves. He also is the first big-leaguer to answer to “Adonis” in more than a century, according to the database at the baseballreference.com site. The previous Adonis was given the name not at birth, but some time after he became a professional baseball player […]

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Mike Marshall. No, not that Mike Marshall, underachieving Dodgers outfielder of the 1980s, perhaps best known for the club’s explanation why he was sitting out another game: “General soreness.” The other Mike Marshall. Or the original Mike Marshall. “Iron Mike” Marshall. Who was, pretty much, an original, in that what he did for the Dodgers […]

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It always is perilous to pick an argument with statistics wonks. They have the “truth” of numbers in their tool kit and failing to acknowledge their intellectual superiority … well, just admit up front you are a Luddite. But sometimes I wonder … The latest trend in baseball is the notion of “leveraging” your best […]

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Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees was a multiple threat on a ball field. He could hit, hit for power, run, catch, throw — and describe it all in an elegant hand. I am deeply impressed by the Yankee Clipper’s … penmanship. In an era when many of us can barely sign our own […]

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