I make a habit of having a copy of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in my home. Never know when you might have a few minutes for reading about “baseball in the 1890s” and I can consume James’s treatment of it, at length (the book runs 998 pages) — or in short bites. […]

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Interesting post-journalism story making the rounds. A veteran writer for Sports Illustrated, laid off last year, is earning $17 an hour delivering packages for Amazon. And now he has written about his career change for The Atlantic.

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That wasn’t such a chore, was it? A mere 421 days after the U.S. national team lost in Trinidad and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup … and the Yanks have a coach! That would be Gregg Berhalter, recently head man of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew. Not a glamor hire, certainly. Berhalter […]

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We were watching an NFL game a week or so ago, when a running back was violently pushed out of bounds, stumbling several steps and into the motley clot of people who have permission to be on the edge of the action. When the play was over, a large person in street clothes had been […]

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In 30 prep football seasons, through 2007, I reported on … I’m going to make an educated guess and say … 300 games. In the 11 seasons that followed, I reported on … zero prep football games. Not because I lost interest in the high school games, but because I was out of the business […]

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I saw the high school basketball debut of California native Tyson Chandler. Not many people can say that, because among the material I filed on deadline that night, December 2, 1997, is a note about how the Compton College gym was pretty much empty. Chandler was a 15-year-old freshman and, more importantly, already 6-foot-11. But […]

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Much has been made this week of the moments of madness after Khabib Nurmagodemov defeated Conor McGregor in a highly anticipated Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Las Vegas. People rushed into the ring, punches were thrown. Some people who were at the event feared that the situation could devolve into a riot in the sold-out […]

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The inspiration for this comes from a dictionary.com gallery of “the saddest phrases in the English language”. It ranges from single words (heartbroken, lonely, melancholy) to actual phrases (time for bed, if only, back to school). It struck me that we might be able to put together a saddest list that would resonate with journalists. […]

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One of the sops thrown out at print journalism reporters at the dawn of the digital age was this one: “You can write as long as you want!” That was supposed to allay the fears of reporters and other writers who were alarmed at the shrinking newspaper. The print product. Less space all the time, […]

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I never played soccer as a child. Never saw a match. Didn’t own a soccer ball. Never knew anyone who followed the game. The extent of my pre-adult exposure to soccer probably was occasional videotape on ABC’s Wide World of Sports; presumably World Cup highlights; lots of Pele. By the early 1980s, I was the […]

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