A game from my youth: NFL Strategy

It’s Championship Sunday in the National Football League, and it’s snowing heavily at home in New Jersey. Small wonder that I got the urge to pull out one of the tabletop games I played in my high school days during winters in snowy Cleveland — NFL Strategy. Introduced in 1970 by Tudor, the company that […]

A visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Driving to Cleveland for a high schoo reunion this weekend, I had time to stop in Canton and visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Even though I grew up about an hour away and had been in Canton a number of times, I’d never walked through the doors of this shrine to football in […]

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 […]

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 […]

Oakland Raiders cut Cable, and other musings on big-league coaching

Word is out tonight from the Bay Area that Al Davis has given the heave-ho to Coach Tom Cable, who guided the Raiders to an 8-8 record this season, their best in recent years. Evidently improving operations is not enough in Oakland, where it’s “just win, baby.” Or so it’s supposed to be. The Raiders […]

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 […]

The incomparable Jerry Rice nominated to the football Hall of Fame

[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=Jerry+Rice&iid=2932495″ src=”b/5/3/8/Super_Bowl_XXIV_afcd.jpg?adImageId=9973428&imageId=2932495″ width=”234″ height=”355″ /] Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith head the class of seven NFL players who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at Canton, and I write today to lavish praise on Rice. He was incomparable, the dominant receiver of his era. He played superbly in […]

Farewell to Isaac Bruce, one of the great ones

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=Isaac+Bruce&iid=7452407″ src=”e/9/8/4/San_Francisco_49ers_b8d2.JPG?adImageId=8781688&imageId=7452407″ width=”234″ height=”324″ /] Isaac Bruce bid farewell to his outstanding NFL career today. He was on the field for one play for the 49ers, who went on to defeat the hapless St. Louis Rams. Bruce spent all but the last two years of his career with the Rams, dating back […]

A tip of the cap to 49ers broadcast analyst Gary Plummer

Fans who spend their lives rooting for one team in one town and listening only to the hometown announcers don’t have much of a basis for comparison of the men and women behind the microphones. As a kid in Cleveland, after the Indians’ games I’d catch a few innings when atmospheric conditions were right from […]