The 31st Sun Baseball League draft commenced at 5:30 a.m. today, in the UAE, which left me at a competitive disadvantage. I am not sharp at that hour of the day. Not a morning person. But, then, in the first 30 years of the league I won the championship exactly twice. So it probably doesn’t […]

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Of all American sports, none is so little known or understood, in this part of the world, as baseball. Basketball … they play here a little. They have heard of LeBron and Kobe. Most of the sports clubs in the country (who back the soccer teams) have basketball teams. They also have volleyball teams. And […]

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In August, I spent most of two days traveling from Abu Dhabi to Southern California, and on my third night there I went to Angel Stadium — specifically to see Mike Trout play baseball. Four of us went to the game. The other three were there because I wanted to see Mike Trout; they would […]

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Absolutely no one was voted into the Hall of Fame today, and that is exactly what needed to happen. I wasn’t sure my former Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) colleagues would deliver a message, but they did, and I’m proud of them. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens each failed to get into the Hall […]

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I am more than a bit unsettled by the Dodgers’ spending spree since the new owners took over. The notion that if this acquisition (Carl Crawford) or that one (Adrian Gonzalez) is just an expensive mistake and, oh, well, we have more money where that came from … It creeps me out. Isn’t that the […]

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At my first professional journalism job, at the San Bernardino Sun, in 1976, one of the biggest and brightest influences on me was Paul Hagen, whom I considered a wise old sports writing veteran. He might have been 25. Paul covered the Dodgers for us, and he did it well and loved the beat. The […]

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I prefer to think I was never strident about this. Or did it capriciously. Fire the bum! However often I might have thought about it or written it, years ago, I find I am increasingly loathe to write it now. I believe it is a function of age. For a sports fan (a sports writer) […]

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I’m not quite sure how I feel about the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series. Having grown up a Dodgers fan, I came to loathe the Giants, and their shifty ways and their awful ballpark. Ah, the memories. Juan Marichal beating John Roseboro over the head with a bat; Willie Mays’s whining when Don […]

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Sort of a classic conundrum coming up here, at the end of the American League season. One guy won the Triple Crown. The first man to do so since 1967. The other, however, had a better season. A significantly better season according to stat wonks. So, how will this turn out?

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Have I written this before? Probably. But I am thinking of it now and will restate it. I love losing streaks. In life. But especially in sports. It gives us something to talk about. Something to focus on. A running subplot. Sometimes the plot. We lost some great losing streaks in the past decade. Four […]

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