It perhaps come as no surprise that the Fourth of July is not a big holiday outside the United States. And especially not on in the UAE, where Yanks are thin on the ground.
Not that we didn’t try to do a little something to commemorate the day. But the Fourth here was … Monday, and […]

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I was walking down the street to the tiny apartment hard by Airport Road, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, and a thought popped into my head about high school. Happens, sometimes. People tell me I have a good memory. Or maybe I just remember remembering, and I tell them stories about themselves that I […]

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* - Subtitled … Promotional campaigns gone badly wrong, or “don’t point that thing at me.”
I understand the concept. The Amarillo Sox of baseball’s independent American Association wanted a mascot to go with the club mascot — an anthropomorphized sock.
Making a bit of hosiery into a living, breathing entity is a tricky thing, I will […]

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My favorite quote of the day, in the wake of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt filing for bankruptcy, appeared in a collection of bon mots that appeared on the L.A. Times website.
It comes from Bob Daly, who was running the Dodgers until Fox sold them to the McCourts in 2004, a particularly dark day in the […]

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Just when it seemed possible that Major League Baseball would take over the Dodgers, ending their long National (League) nightmare … the official bogeyman of Los Angeles, Frank McCourt, declared bankruptcy today.
The Dodgers now may be saddled with this vile little creature for the foreseeable future.
Here is the early Los Angeles Times version of events. […]

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I’ve known Andy Baggarly since he was a kid from Upland who was going to school at Northwestern. He was good right out of the box, like so many Northwestern J School people are. Maybe we gave him some room to grow, back in the L.A. market, but it wasn’t like we had to mold […]

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This can’t be right, can it? Nothing about bobblheads is bad. David Eckstein is nodding in agreement even as I write this.
However, the New York Mets seem to believe their bobbleheads are cursed. Or, at least, the people whose likenesses are represented by bobbleheads.
Maybe too many people are sticking pins in the bobbleheads? Breaking off […]

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I love bobbleheads. Have I mentioned that?
I have a bobblehead of David Eckstein on my desk here at The National in Abu Dhabi. Whenever I bump the desk, Li’l Eck gives me a little nod.
It may be the only baseball bobblehead in a city of more than 1 million people. Thanks again, Michelle, for sending […]

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I love relegation. I knew about it, of course, long before I got off the plane in Abu Dhabi in the heavily Euro-influenced UAE. But seeing it in action … brings home what fun it is and how the NBA, the NFL, MLB could all be improved.
Not that I expect this ever could happen. But […]

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The 2011 Dodgers season has been about one topic, really: Frank McCourt, and hoping that the team can be pried from his clutches.
Which is too bad, because Andre Ethier has just done something that has a place in history.

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