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Villanova’s Second Title Not Best in NCAA History; Villanova’s First Was

April 4th, 2016 · No Comments · Basketball, Sports Journalism, The Sun

Oh, we of little memory.

Villanova hit a three-point shot as time expired to defeat North Carolina 77-74 in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament, and some are calling it the greatest final played.

Hang on a minute.

This one wasn’t even the greatest final involving Villanova.

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French Sheep Show Leadership Skills

April 3rd, 2016 · No Comments · France, tourism

OK, maybe it wasn’t witting. Not much that sheep do is witting, as I understand it. Not the smartest mammals around, and not even the cleverest herd animal, apparently. They need to be led.

But they played a key role in getting us over the trackless plateau atop a ridge, west of where we are staying, in southern France, that had brought us to a hiking standstill more than once.

If not for the sheep, we would not have made it across and down the other side of the hill in the picturesque walk to the neighboring village of Caux.

But back to the direction-finding sheep …

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Toting Up My Appearances in Baseball’s 30 Current (and Former) Stadiums

April 2nd, 2016 · No Comments · Angels, Baseball, Dodgers, NFL

A professional acquaintance of mine, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, has been a traveling baseball writer for 20-plus years and has covered games in all 30 of the current Major League Baseball stadiums. Not many people have done that. Journeyman ballplayers, traveling baseball writers who have done both leagues, and ultra fans, I suppose.

A logical thing to do, when you have been inside all 30, is to rank them, from first to worst, and put up a monster photo gallery, showing each of the 30 stadiums — with a few words describing each yard. That is exactly what Plunkett did at the link, above.

I went over the list of 30 stadiums and many of them still seem new to me, which is a function of age, of course. Anything opened since 2000 — and 14 ballparks have been — seems new to me.

Then I wondered 1) how many of the current 30 I have been inside and 2) how many demolished or unused stadiums that housed MLB teams I have been inside.

It is less of a close-run thing than I thought.

Let’s start by ranking the stadiums currently used that I have been inside. Then we rank those I entered that are no longer hosting baseball — or no longer existing.

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Golden State Warriors and the End of a 54-Game Home Streak

April 1st, 2016 · No Comments · Basketball, Lakers, NBA

This is remarkable, at first blush, but also in closer analysis.

The Golden State Warriors had not lost a home game in 54 tries, extending back to January 27, 2015.

We know the Warriors have been the league’s best team, since last season, but to go that long without stubbing their toes at least once at home is a remarkable stat — and NBA record.

But it ended tonight, in a 109-106 loss to the Boston Celtics.

The Warriors looked a bit like a tired and jaded team. They have been expected to win every game for a year now, and have done just that about 90 percent of the time. Showing up a bit flat for a home game … well, it happens, even to a team as good as these Warriors.

The Celtics played well, and Stephen Curry, the official golden boy of American sports, had more turnovers than points (7-6) in the first half. Curry got it going late, finishing with 29 points, and he had a decent look at a 25-footer that would have tied the game in the final seconds … but missed short, which is what you do when you are tired.

The Warriors and Curry said they didn’t care, but that isn’t true.

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The Major Leagues and Lots of Bad Baseball Teams

March 31st, 2016 · No Comments · Angels, Baseball, Lists

While preparing for our annual fantasy league, the strongest unexpected impression I got, from examining 30 Major League teams … was how bad so many of them are.

Baseball has a half-dozen no-hope teams right out of the gate. And probably closer to a dozen.

And I am not thinking of 78-84 bad.

I’m thinking 70-92 bad, and perhaps worse.

What is going on here?

My theory is that baseball is taking a cue from basketball, and deciding that the only thing worse than being horrible is being mediocre. Better to trade off your remaining assets for draft picks and prospects and be awful, with the hope of contending for the playoffs in a couple of years with a young and cheap team.

A recent example of a team that made this work was the Houston Astros.

In 2010, they were 76-86, out of the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season. Instead of trying to fix what they had, after a poor start in 2011 they blew up the team. They lost 106 games, 107 and 111 games in the three seasons through 2013, one of the worst three-year runs in baseball history.

But in 2014, boasting youngsters Jose Altuve and George Springer, they were 72-90. And last year they added youngsters Carlos Correa, Jake Marisnick and Lance McCullers. They jumped to 86-76 and made the playoffs.

It seems a bunch of MLB teams would like to follow that path. But in the meantime, we have some really bad clubs cluttering up the 2016 season.

Let’s look at this batch of losers, ranking 10 of them from bad to worst.

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Sun Baseball League, Season 34

March 30th, 2016 · 1 Comment · Baseball, Sports Journalism, The Sun

The Sun Baseball League is made up of 12 owners who have two things in common: They 1) once worked in the San Bernardino Sun sports department and they 2) love baseball.

The first season was played in 1983 and the draft for the 34th season was held over five hours on Wednesday night (or, in the case of one person living in France, early Thursday morning).

First, let’s share the news on the players who went in the first two rounds of the draft. A few surprises in there.

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Two Matches and Some Good News/Bad News

March 29th, 2016 · 1 Comment · Abu Dhabi, Football, Maradona, soccer, World Cup

The two national soccer teams I follow had successful results today.

The UAE got a brilliant goal from Omar Abdulrahman, the best player in the Mideast, as the Emiratis secured a place in the final round of Asia qualifying for the 2018 Russia World Cup with a 1-1 draw versus Saudi Arabia.

Abdulrahman not only made the killer pass to split the Saudi defense, he then covered 30 yards to get into scoring position and bury a shot in the upper-left corner.

And the United States got back on course in the second-to-last round of Concacaf qualifying for the World Cup by thrashing Guatemala, 4-0.

And then there is some bad news, which I will get to at the bottom.

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Two World Cup Qualifiers of Great Personal Interest

March 28th, 2016 · No Comments · Abu Dhabi, Fifa, Football, France, London 2012, soccer, World Cup

Of great interest to me, anyway. And this may be one of the more bizarre pairings among global soccer fans.

Two of the three world countries with “United” in its name, and neither is the United Kingdom.

–The United Arab Emirates, home to Saudi Arabia.

–The United States, home to Guatemala.

Both are tomorrow. The UAE-Saudi match at 7 p.m. Abu Dhabi time (4 p.m. in France, 5 a.m. in Los Angeles). And the U.S. match, at 7:25 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio (1:25 a.m. Wednesday, in France).

Both games are quite important for the two national teams I know best.

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Formula One: A Dreary Sport I Can Give Up Following

March 27th, 2016 · No Comments · Abu Dhabi, Motor racing, The National

In the suite of British sports, Formula One auto racing is something like the No. 4 competition. Behind soccer, cricket and rugby … but not much else.

They don’t seem to mind that the sport is shockingly dull and depressingly predictable, featuring entire races in which the pole-sitter is never headed.

One team tends to dominate proceedings and in the past six years it has been Mercedes (two championships) or Red Bull (the previous four).

So, anyway, I paid no attention to the approach of the first race of the 2016 calendar, and had no idea what happened in Australia a week ago and would have remained in that state of blissful ignorance … had not Fernando Alonso crashed spectacularly.

Here is YouTube video of the crash, during which we find that announcers had no idea what had happened for several minutes.

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You Can Call Me ‘Baron’ … or Maybe ‘Professor’

March 26th, 2016 · No Comments · Abu Dhabi, Travel

Gulf airlines always are looking for new ways to gild the lily. First class? Not good enough, for the mega-rich. Kind of down-market, really.

So we have something better for you, at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways.

This is on the mammoth A380 only, for those who like to spend $20,000 on themselves to fly — one way — between Abu Dhabi and London.

The Residence. A three-room suite for two, with bedroom.

And once we get past the stupidity of spending that kind of money for an eight-hour flight … my favorite part of this is the “drop-down” window at the Etihad site — where you let the airline know by which title you prefer to be known.

Here they are, alphabetically:

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