The beautiful game, in under 3 hours

As the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy neared the halfway point of extra time, it dawned on me that, even with a penalty kick shootout, the match would take less time than the average Major League Baseball game. Think about that. In what turned out to be 2 hours, 54 minutes, the Lions […]

World Cup Coda: Triumph of the Soccer Moms

Defining the meaning of teamwork, Germany won the World Cup today with a thrilling victory over Argentina. In the United States, soccer will recede into the background as a third-rate sport, trailing somewhere behind lacrosse and table tennis. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway, and I don’t believe it applies any more. Throughout these last several […]

The baseball: The most perfect sphere

My son and I played catch this afternoon at the neighborhood park, and it got me thinking about how perfect an object the baseball is. With its tight red stitches and bright white cover, the baseball stands out brilliantly against a clear blue sky and against the deep green infield. The ball fits perfectly into […]

A new year, and it’s about time I got started

We’re already two days into 2011, and it’s high time I got cracking here at the Ball Caps Blog. I can’t quite explain my absence the last several weeks other than to speculate that it may be fallout from surgery in November. I just haven’t had the drive to post. Nonetheless, I’ll offer a few […]

Iconic baseball caps: Yomiuri Giants (and dreams of a true world series)

For a nation settled by immigrants from all points of the compass, Americans have a notoriously narrow view of the world. That manifests itself in many ways, from our indifference to bilingualism to our widespread shunning of soccer or what the rest of the world calls “football.” Most American baseball fans at least know the […]

Oosthuizen wins the British Open (silence the vuvuzelas, please)

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Oosthuizen&iid=9376700″ src=”http://view3.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9376700/sports-news-july-2010/sports-news-july-2010.jpg?size=500&imageId=9376700″ width=”234″ height=”333″ /] Congratulations to Louis Oosthuizen on winning the British Open today. I turned on the TV this morning and was shocked to see he was still far out front of everyone else early in his final round. One of the images that will stick with me was of […]

All hail Spain, World Cup champions

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=World+Cup&iid=9335294″ src=”http://view3.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9335294/spain-iniesta-holds-the/spain-iniesta-holds-the.jpg?size=500&imageId=9335294″ width=”500″ height=”329″ /] Congratulations to Spain for winning the World Cup. I’m wavering a bit from an earlier post that soccer is here to stay among American sports fans. The first half of today’s game was mind-numbingly dull. The only excitement was wondering whether the Dutch were going to set […]

The World Cup and Americans: This time it will stick

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Landon+Donovan&iid=9228533″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9228533/united-states-donovan/united-states-donovan.jpg?size=500&imageId=9228533″ width=”500″ height=”240″ /] Nearly 24 hours after the United States fell to Ghana and exited the World Cup, it’s time to look ahead. I really believe that the U.S. national men’s team scored a breakthrough with American sports fans this time around, and they’ve sold many people on the thrill […]

World Cup fever. I’ve got it.

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=World+Cup+and+cap&iid=9085627″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/9085627/fan-waves-mexican-flag/fan-waves-mexican-flag.jpg?size=500&imageId=9085627″ width=”500″ height=”333″ /] For the past several days I’ve been swept up in quadrennial World Cup madness, expressed rather equisitely by these Mexican fans above. The spectacle of the games is awesome, even if it is drowned out by the constant din of the vuvuzelas blown incessantly by the fans […]