At the highest levels — say, in the English Premier League — soccer is played on immaculately groomed fields of vibrant green. The reality is that you should not study the grass too closely unless you are a connoisseur of the dark art of spitting. Throughout the history of the game, players have been spewing […]

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Sports may not be the be-all and end-all we came to count on. Many of us have only recently grasped that, as sports content disappeared from our TV diets, shoved aside by a microscopic but deadly bug known as Covid-19, or the Coronavirus.

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The biggest story in world football since the most recent Champions League final (May, 2019) … was Liverpool’s dominance of European soccer. Before their game at Watford last night, Liverpool not only was being called “the best club football team in the world”, and they had some staggering numbers to back up that assessment. Unbeaten […]

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When the San Francisco 49ers secured a place in Super Bowl 54, to be played tomorrow in Miami, my brain banged out several memories of my two visits to Joe Robbie Stadium. The most recent was to see USC and Oklahoma in the college football national championship game in 2007. (USC 55, Oklahoma 10; later […]

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The last time the Kansas City Chiefs appeared in the Super Bowl? It was 50 years ago, on January 11, 1970. And I saw that game — because I have never missed a Super Bowl. Seen ’em all, if not in person (about a dozen of those as a sports journalist), then on TV. So, […]

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A clever headline tells a story … with a twist. I prefer to think everyone likes a clever headline, but I fear only people in the publishing business really appreciate a good “hed”. Like this one, from the Los Angeles Times 40 years ago. “Arrivederci Aroma: Rams Stink Up the Coliseum”

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Joe Namath has a new biography out, and in it the former New York Jets hero and leader of the great upset victory in Super Bowl III relates his spending Christmas alone, in December of 1979. The episode is outlined in this excerpt from “All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters.” And nearly any […]

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Perhaps you have heard about the successful Disney movie entitled “Frozen II” — a thing with princesses of a northern kingdom, spirits, trolls, a magic salamander and lots of ice. The National Football League, which appeals to a slightly different demographic, has a similarly successful sub-zero event. It’s called Chicago at Green Bay. It is […]

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Write it down. The “new” Los Angeles Rams reached their zenith in a 54-51 nationally televised victory over the Kansas City Chiefs a year ago, improving to 10-1 and looking very much like a championship team. They did, in fact, reach the Super Bowl last season, but they were awful, against the New England Patriots, […]

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Anyone with the patience to follow this blog knows that every now and then … OK, maybe once a month … I go on a rant about how feckless is Arsenal FC, the London club I chose, a decade ago, to offer my support (mostly in the form of psychic energy), in all their competitions. […]

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