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 cannot recall if I always loathed all things Boston. Perhaps I did. Being a Lakers fan in the 1960s would have been enough to sour a right-thinking person on Boston. The Celtics: Good, but also really lucky. If I were ambivalent about the Boston Red Sox, the Boston (now New England) Patriots and the […]

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Living and working in Southern California for three-plus decades, I am sure I did not adequately appreciate the enormous advantage conferred on those living with a few miles of the Pacific Ocean. Pacific Standard Time. Indeed, no time standard is as felicitous when it comes to presenting the day’s sports events as dear old PST […]

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So, Rihanna came to Abu Dhabi and performed Saturday night, and it only seemed as if half the sports staff attended the event — which went off well, according to The National’s reviewer … but not without some drama in the crowd, which was not entirely ready to deal with standing, mostly, on a hot […]

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The tipoff should have been watching the Under 17 World Cup. Well, actually, I did watch it, for several days. I just didn’t make the obvious mental connection. Those kids were sweating bullets. Ergo …

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It was four years ago today, October 18, 2009, that we began work at The National, in Abu Dhabi. I did not mention Day 1, in the blog entry that day, but it shows us going to the mall and trying to get a sense of the UAE. Seems like yesterday … and a lifetime […]

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Most of us hear “World Cup” and think of the big event. The senior men, 32 teams. The one every four years that pretty much everyone pays attention to, even Yanks. But Fifa runs several varieties of World Cup, the others being for women or for age-group players, and what once was known as the […]

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Even on the other side of the world we know about the U.S. federal government shutdown. The cable news stations love that story, and have for weeks — especially on days when no global natural disaster has presented itself for our delectation. The potential default of the U.S. national debt also has been talked about, […]

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I hope Kobe Bryant got paid for this. And I am certain he did. He arrived in Dubai on Wednesday and was three hours late for a press conference (plane delayed, apparently, and most every press conference in the UAE starts at least an hour late) at which he talked about healthy living, and staying […]

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Two weeks ago I pronounced Oracle Team USA dead, in the America’s Cup. Ready for a burial at sea, with Emirates Team New Zealand presiding. I also expressed my dissatisfaction in racing multihull versus monohull boats, and the amount of time America’s Cup contenders spend in court, fighting over this, that or the other. Then […]

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