The cleveland browns, when they were champions

Yesterday, December 27, was the anniversary of the Cleveland Browns’ last NFL championship, a 27-0 thrashing of the Baltimore Colts at old Municipal Stadium on the shore of Lake Erie. Today, a friend posted to Facebook a marvelous video summarizing the game, and I reveled in every minute of it. The video, from the heretofore […]

Opening day for old Guy Football

It’s opening Sunday for the National Football League, and even better, I survived the first game of the year in the long-running “old guy” touch football game that’s been playing in Princeton since the mid-1990s. In my mid-60s, I was a rookie last season. Now I’m hoping to avoid the sophomore jinx, although I’ll settle […]

How to talk to your kids about Richard Sherman

While trying to keep an open mind, I’ve been watching the arguments unfold the past couple of days in the wake of Richard Sherman’s bombastic remarks after the Seahawks defeated the 49ers in the NFC championship game. Outrage was in abundance that night, with many football fans denouncing Sherman as an ungracious lout and vowing […]

Fond memories of Candlestick Park

As the final curtain of fog is about to go down on Candlestick Park, I’m grateful for my memories of the place. I went to a smattering of Giants games at the ‘Stick in the mid- to late 90s, the first of which as I recall was against the Montreal Expos. That was the second […]

Great Baseball Books: ‘How to Star in Baseball’ by Herman L. Masin

An avid reader and aspiring ballplayer as a kid, I had one book in my hands more than any other: “How to Star in Baseball” by Herman L. Masin. That book was the Bible of Baseball to me. I studied its pages for hours and hours, reading up and memorizing the fine points of how […]

Who’s the more aggrieved Bay Area athlete – Alex Smith or Brian Wilson?

There’s nothing “tender” in the dispensing of major league contracts to baseball players. San Francisco last week declined to offer a contract to Brian Wilson, the fierce and funky closer who in 2010 helped the Giants win their first World Series since the franchise bolted New York for the West Coast. Wilson has been rehabbing […]

The death of Art Modell, and a bitter aftertaste in Cleveland

Art Modell died early today, and that will dredge up a lot of memories – the bad far overshadowing the good – in my hometown of Cleveland. The Plain Dealer had it right that Modell was “forever vilified” after moving the Browns to Baltimore. I had long since left Cleveland when Modell moved the team […]

Paving the way for women sports writers in the locker room

The Baseball Hall of Fame saluted a pioneering female sports reporter the other day in noting that a couple of her press passes from the late 1970s will be on display in a new exhibit on women in baseball. The reporter was Melissa Ludtke, who was writing for Sports Illustrated during the 1977 World Series […]

New York vs. Boston again – but I’m OK with that

On these posts I’ve complained, whined and kvetched about how America’s major television networks and the media overall are obsessed with the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. Super Bowl XLVI is upon us, and we have another Boston-New York matchup with the Patriots and Giants. The network executives must be mighty pleased that those two big northeastern […]

My TV is too lame, so I can’t host a Super Bowl party

At a measly 36 inches on the diagonal, the low-def television set in our family room is simply too pathetic for me even to begin thinking about inviting people over to watch the Super Bowl. Our Toshiba is a hand-me-down from my brother. He gave it to us when he moved overseas back in 2001, […]