I made the quick trip over to Carson this afternoon for a press conference featuring two of the three or four most important guys in U.S. soccer — Galaxy forward Landon Donovan and Galaxy coach/general manager Bruce Arena. (I mean, really, who else are straws that stir the soccer drink the way those guys do? […]

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It will take a while for the surviving media pundits in downtown Los Angeles to notice … but the last serious player in Inland Empire sports journalism — and one of the final 3-4 in the entire Greater L.A. market — has given up its claim of “major league” status in the past 24 hours. […]

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What is it like being a season ticket holder with the Los Angeles Galaxy? Well, David Beckham will play for the club this season. Or he won’t. Landon Donovan will be here. Or he won’t. Actually, I don’t know how anyone can spend any money at all on this club, until we get an idea […]

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I’m reading, well, actually re-reading John Keegan’s book on World War I. (Entitled, simply, “The First World War.”) Keegan is the best military historian over the past 30 years. Probably since World War II. Absolutely readable yet consistently incisive. I’ve been struck again by the concept of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I am fascinated by it. […]

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I don’t write this blog to make money off it. Very few bloggers do. They have something to say, or just feel like writing, and that’s that. Financial reward just isn’t part of the equation. When I began this particular blog, it had no ads at all. Then a couple of people told me to […]

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Another bad day in the print journalism world. The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News announced that tomorrow’s paper will be its last, after something like 150 years of publishing. I know at least one person who works in that newsroom, former Sun assistant sports editor Chuck Hickey, probably the best sports layout/production person in the history […]

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I’ve been doing one blog entry per day for months now. Once in a while two, but at least one per day since, what, last summer? Maybe longer? Today, I’m going to go crazy and make at least four entries. And instead of making each one a sort of “instant newspaper column,” which has been […]

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The Auto Club 500 is going off this weekend at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, and it doesn’t look like it will be a commercial success. Not that failing to sell tickets is a new phenomenon here; the last sellout was in 2003, the final year that Fontana had only one Sprint Cup race. […]

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During my four months with the International Herald Tribune, in Hong Kong, I was reintroduced to Rob Hughes, the IHT’s soccer writer. I believe Hughes is one of the leading assets of the IHT. He writers at least three times per week for the IHT during the European soccer season. He has scads of experience, […]

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Alex Rodriguez and steroids. Lots of anger out there. Ball fans, journalists, regular Joes and Joannes. “How could you!” “He’s evil!” All the rest. It’s pretty amped up. I absolutely am not going to give A-Rod a pass on this, but I’m not blowing a gasket over it, either. For several reasons.

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