A couple of requirements, seemingly, for the Western soccer player — meaning Europe and the western hemisphere. 1. A silly haircut. 2. A batch of tattoos. We have the silly hair, here in the Gulf. We do not have sleeves (or torsos) of tattoos — aside from those adorning/marring the foreign imports. Which I find […]

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It has been explained here how difficult it is to follow college football, and what little of it could be seen, easily, is now gone. Leave the country for four years, you realize most of college football you can get along without. With some exceptions. Your own team. Maybe your team’s league. A few of […]

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I like Bic pens. I’ve been using them throughout my professional career. “Medium black”, specifically. Nothing else will do. No fancy pens, and no blue Bics or “fine” points. Medium black, please. One of the great French inventions that has nothing to do with food or wine. Their attributes of Bic pens are many. Cheap, […]

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It had never occurred to me. That Vin Scully’s hair might not be his own. It required a British colleague, at The National, to make me confront this. He had seen a photo of the Dodgers broadcaster on a page proof; I had run a small story on our two-page lighter-side-of-sports package in The National, […]

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Today was the final day of the World Championships in Athletics — or track and field, as it is known in North America. It was the first of several big events to be held in Russia in the next few years. The Winter Olympics in Sochi next February, the soccer World Cup in 2018. They […]

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Some stir in the blogosphere over the meticulously planned (and exhaustively justified) suicide of a former Kansas City Star sports journalist. It got a bit more exposure when Jim Romenesko posted excerpts of a Kansas City Star obituary and also some of the rationalizations behind the actions of the man who killed himself in the […]

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So, back in the U.S. with a chance to peruse what is left of American daily print journalism. It is a melancholy activity, indeed. Measured against the sweep of history, the nosedive of U.S. print was an accelerated affair. A decade ago, American newspapers were still making a lot of money and, collectively, were probably […]

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Since moving to Abu Dhabi, nearly four years ago, I have returned to the U.S. on three occasions. Each of those three times … I saw a baseball game within a few days of clearing customs at LAX. In this case, the Angels and Red Sox, at Anaheim Stadium. As usual, I found it a […]

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Luis Suarez, the Liverpool forward and one of the elite bad boys in modern soccer history, made news today when he bit the arm of the Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic. Got to give Suarez some credit. He fairly rooted around till he had brought his teeth to bear on Ivanonic’s upper arm, and gave him […]

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The origins of fandom are elusive. Perhaps the most common notion is a kid, hand in hand with his or her father, going to a ball game. It wasn’t quite like that for me in the mid-1960s. My father was not much of a sports fan and I wasn’t pointed at this or that team, […]

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