Stan Hochman died a few weeks ago. He had been a reporter and columnist with the Philadelphia Daily News since 1959, and for the past few decades probably was the city’s most prominent sports journalist. Before Philadelphia? He had worked as a sports writer at the San Bernardino Sun, my old paper. Actually, he went […]

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The Dodgers sent out a press release last week describing the “new menu” items at Dodger Stadium for the 2015 season. Nos 1 and 2 on the list? (And these are real.) –Lasorda’s Meatball Marinara Specialty Fries –Lasorda’s Meatball Marinara Cone Also, La Taqueria’s Carne Asada Specialty Fries … and Fried Dodger Dogs at Extreme […]

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I know. I know. I could hardly put up a headline worse than that, in terms of enticing people to read. “Don’t read this” would do far, far better. But this won’t take long. And you some tiny fraction of you might find it interesting to see who went in the first round of one […]

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The Los Angeles Dodgers seem to be spending money … for the sake of spending money. It’s almost as if they feel empty if they haven’t offered an enormous contract to someone for a week or two. Can you come up with a better explanation for the Dodgers giving $62.5 million over the next six […]

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The Grantland sports website has a story that pretty much cuts to the heart of the lockerroom “relationship” between athletes and media. Deconstructing a rude comment Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder made to a hometown newspaper columnist. The relationship between jocks and hacks was never good, not when I entered the profession in […]

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The first adult photo of the Islamic State executioner known in popular media as Jihadi John was revealed today … And Mohammed Emwazi, Kuwaiti national, former London resident, is seen … wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates cap. Much to the consternation of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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I was a big fan of Maury Wills, when he played for the Dodgers in the 1960s. These were the struggle-to-score Dodgers, who often went back to Dead Ball Era tactics to win, with “Little Maury” leading the way. Bunt single, stolen base, ground ball to the right side, sacrifice fly. That was a Dodgers […]

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And no, it’s not “Happy Valentine’s Day!” The sweetest words of February are some variation of this email headline from a Dodgers media release received today: PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT TO SPRING TRAINING All that’s missing is an exclamation point. Ah … baseball is coming back, and all is right with the world.

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Let’s start this with one of those achievement test-y questions. Which of these four names does not belong? 1. Sandy Koufax 2. Justin Turner 3. Fernando Valenzuela 4. Vin Scully Too easy!

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Running the sports section of The National is a bit of an out-of-body experience for an American. The Big Three of American sports are baseball, basketball and football. The Big Three of sports in this part of the world are cricket, rugby and football — football, as in soccer. We run cricket off-day stories here. […]

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