Living and working in Southern California for three-plus decades, I am sure I did not adequately appreciate the enormous advantage conferred on those living with a few miles of the Pacific Ocean. Pacific Standard Time. Indeed, no time standard is as felicitous when it comes to presenting the day’s sports events as dear old PST […]

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I suppose this entry is a day late. I actually gave up on the Dodgers when they lost that 13-inning game to St. Louis in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. I had just written an email to a friend — it was the 12th inning — saying that whoever won Game 1 […]

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So, the Dodgers clinched the National League West, which is fairly impressive, considering they were in last place on June 1. This season. They wrapped up things in Phoenix, beating the Diamondbacks 7-6, and the party was on. It started on the field, just after the game, and went to the clubhouse, So far, so […]

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I take it, from the other side of the world, that the narrative in Los Angeles remains this: Yasiel Puig is a baseball superstar. Or a star, anyway. Or so we thought. Now, I am not so certain. And maybe this has been noted already, several times, and I have not seen it … but […]

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It had never occurred to me. That Vin Scully’s hair might not be his own. It required a British colleague, at The National, to make me confront this. He had seen a photo of the Dodgers broadcaster on a page proof; I had run a small story on our two-page lighter-side-of-sports package in The National, […]

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On June 21, the Dodgers lost 5-2 to the San Diego Padres to fall to 30-42, last in the National League West and 9.5 games out of first place. Clayton Kershaw had been roughed up a little, and the Dodgers hitters didn’t get much going against the parade of relievers the Padres used that day […]

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A few years ago, we splurged on the slightly slicker version of the cable TV package. The one with all the Al Jazeera sports stations and, more important, the one with three ESPN stations. Yes, here in Abu Dhabi. ESPN, ESPN America and ESPN Classic. Those three were the primary lifeline, in the UAE, back […]

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Before the Dodgers’ game tonight with the New York Yankees, they had Cristiano Ronaldo of the Real Madrid soccer club throw out the first pitch. As often is the case for non-ballplayers … it did not go well.

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The annual Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held yesterday, in Cooperstown, and the gala event may have been the strangest in the history of that institution. All three of the men who became Hall of Famers … were born in the 19th century. Each has been dead at least 70 years. I had […]

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It has been a long, dry spell for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On a couple of levels. The more historical is their inability to win a World Series over the past quarter-century. You have to be at least 30 years old to have even a dim memory of 1988 and Orel Hershiser and “look who’s […]

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