We have been in Southern California for nearly two weeks now, and one sports concept is noticeable by its absence: Any apparent enthusiasm for the return of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams.

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My default setting when it comes to big-time sports in the U.S., both professionals and major colleges, is to apply my speck of psychic energy to the support of teams from the western United States. Thus, I should be sending negative vibes (however that is done) at the Cleveland Cavaliers, who tonight clinched the Eastern […]

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Well, this is the sort of nightmare scenario for NFL teams who inevitably say: “We did our homework.” Not talking about the Los Angeles Rams here. They needed a quarterback and they took Jared Goff of Cal with the first pick in the draft — the safer (and perhaps duller) choice between Goff and the […]

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Remember the big SoCal sports story of January 12? NFL owners voted 30-2 to allow the Rams to move back to Los Angeles, after 21 seasons in St. Louis. Over the next few days came stories about the reaction in Los Angeles, where the team might be headquartered, where it might train, what sort of […]

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A professional acquaintance of mine, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, has been a traveling baseball writer for 20-plus years and has covered games in all 30 of the current Major League Baseball stadiums. Not many people have done that. Journeyman ballplayers, traveling baseball writers who have done both leagues, and ultra fans, I […]

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If you had asked the average fan — and maybe even the average college football coach — who would be the best NFL player off the 2005 Colton High School football team, Allen Bradford probably would have been the clear choice. Especially among fans. Bradford, a bruising tailback and linebacker, was the centerpiece of a […]

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For a couple of days here, it was almost like Grantland never went away. ESPN.com … just the regular ol’ website most of us go to for scores and boxscores … generated a pair of lengthy, NFL-oriented entries that are highly readable and worth the 20-minute (each) investment. One (4,500 words) was an extremely clever/funny […]

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During much of the Super Bowl, early this morning in France, I was complaining how awful it was. It reminded me of the sort of game I associate with the first 20-or-so editions of the NFL’s championship game, which often were wretched spectacles — uncompetitive or poorly played, or both. With turnovers, dropped balls, penalties […]

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Luckily for me, a French music TV station has the free-to-air rights to Super Bowl 50 and will be showing the game live at 12:30 local time tonight/tomorrow morning. Why does station W9 bother with the championship of American football? The French sports newspaper L’Equipe asked that question, and others, of the director general of […]

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  The newspaper Le Monde is probably the most important (and august) daily publication in France. It is known for the density of its prose and the nuances of opinions expressed, but the newspaper is not so stuffy as to overlook the Super Bowl. Perhaps it was 50 years of history or the game’s status […]

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