Not sure I’ve ever given an idea of what it is like for a sports writer to cover a soccer game, here in the UAE. Some of it will seem familiar to American journos. But some of it is not at all similar to your experience in a U.S. press box — from being served […]

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This was a press box thing. The saying went something like, “He has a face made for radio.” Meaning that a person might have been an expert on some topic, maybe interesting enough to get a gig on TV — except for that mug. And then the second part of it, and maybe I invented […]

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It seems silly to have to go back to the records to come up with statistics on your own journalism career, but when you have been around long enough … Five seconds ago I realized that I covered six of the first nine BCS college football championships games. Did I just take a moment and […]

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This is always a bit tricky. Putting out newspapers on December 24 and December 25. Even in the Middle East, where Christmas this year was “Wednesday” … not much goes on. End of the year, a batch of sports taking a few months off … that happens even in Arabia. December 24 is the slowest […]

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The UAE does not observe daylight savings. No moving around of clocks here. The country is four hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time the year round. That is not the case in the United States and western Europe, however, and that is handy, for those of us living here. In some ways. Not so good […]

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I love this story. And the timing is good, too. The Formula One guys are gathering in Abu Dhabi this weekend for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. So, we were looking for ways to localize the big motors story, and our sports columnist, Ali Khaled, came up with this 5-year-old Emirati kindergartner who races go-karts […]

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This was a bit of a scandal, here in the UAE: The South African cricketer found tampering with the ball. Yes, they mess with the ball in cricket, too. Meaning it is a story that baseball fans can relate to. First, have a look at television footage showing South Africa’s Faf du Plessis attempting to […]

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I suppose this entry is a day late. I actually gave up on the Dodgers when they lost that 13-inning game to St. Louis in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. I had just written an email to a friend — it was the 12th inning — saying that whoever won Game 1 […]

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We were riding in the Land Cruiser over the broad and grassy uplands of the Masai Mara, looking for a leopard, when we saw a tent-like structure on the horizon. What could that be, out in the middle of the game conservancy? A watering station for some truly exotic creatures who would be traversing the […]

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One more bite of the apple here … (did you know Brits say “bite of the cherry”?). Some links to interesting post-America’s Cup stories.

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