Swimming is a sport with problems.
1. Hardly anyone pays attention to swimming unless it’s an Olympic year. (The world championships are going on right now, in Rome. Did you have the foggiest idea?)
2. About 80 percent of all swimming news stories seem to be about what sort of suits the swimmers are wearing.
So, let’s see […]

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If I could go back to the height of steroids abuse in baseball … and maybe 2002, 2003 would be it … I am convinced I could pick out the users, most of them, just by looking at them.
I now believe I can spot the reckless or unsophisticated user — and that was most of […]

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If I’m picking up on this correctly, from the other side of the ocean, 2008 can’t be over fast enough for a lot (most all?) of people.
“People” meaning Americans. Or at least English-speakers.
Like, everyone is all fixated on this “economy” thing … Letting it get them down.
Hey, 2008 wasn’t that bad. Take it from somebody […]

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No, not talking NASCAR and its (at the moment named) Sprint Cup.
Talking sprinters. Speed-merchants. Dashers.
Just looking at the sports news on espn.com, and the juxtaposition of these two stories caught my eye.
Usain Bolt runs 9.77 seconds.
Marion Jones gets out of prison.
And the question: How long until Bolt is as discredited and humiliated as Jones has […]

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Abby Wambach is to U.S. women’s soccer what Mick Jagger is to the Rolling Stones: Take them out of the mix, and it’s hardly a functioning unit.
Wambach means more to her team than any athlete on any significant sports franchise anywhere. She is that good, and the rest of her teammates are that ordinary.
Which makes […]

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Ran across this story just now, and it speaks to some of the discussion that came after an item, farther down on this blog, on Landon Donovan and the U.S. team and the Beijing Olympics.
A point of contention among those who commented was … do club teams have to allow their players to go to […]

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Landon Donovan played for the U.S. Olympic team that finished fourth at Sydney in 2000, and loved the experience. He told me, while in Australia, that the Olympics were a huge thing for him. He has told me twice in the past six months that he would like to get back to the Olympics, in […]

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It has taken me years to grasp this. Even though I know it to be true. I’m always stunned.
“Wow, that guy is short.”
“That girl is way shorter than I expected.”
This applies to actors (the former couple of Edward Norton and Salma Hayek come to mind), and to athletes who aren’t pro basketball players — the […]

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