I need the Lakers to close out the NBA Finals tonight. Because I have money on them? Because I have become a fan of LeBron James? Because I can’t stand to see them lose? Nope. I need them to win so I can get a little sleep. A downside for an American living in France? […]

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Well, here we are. A city, a metropolitan center that had to be content (in terms of the Big Four professional sports leagues) with a couple of Stanley Cup championships over the previous decade. Now, L.A. finds out if its favorite two clubs can win titles in the same month. Los Angeles is overrun by […]

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The dominoes are falling now. Nearly every day over the past two weeks has brought news of some other school or conference or league announcing reduced schedules, with the reductions going all the way down to not playing football this season. At all. Back in the spring, noted U.S. immunologist Anthony Fauci was asked about […]

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Baseball is on the way back, we were told this week. “Spring” training camps will open on July 1, a 60-game mini-regular-season will begin play on or about July 24, and the World Series will finish no later than October 28. The NBA’s plan for a return-to-play “bubble” in Orlando was made public on June […]

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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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February 3, 2008. Super Bowl 42. New York Giants 17, New England Patriots 14. That would be the 12-point underdog Giants taking down the 18-0 Patriots, who were out to become the first 19-0 champs in NFL history. And I was there. How lucky was I? I covered what still is the most dramatic and […]

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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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I buried the Rams on November 10, five weeks ago, when they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 17-12 and saw their record fall to 5-4. Over the weekend, the Rams were thrashed 44-21 in Dallas, to fall to 8-6. And rather than tell you about that particular game, how about going back in time, to […]

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