Good Reads about Bad Commisioners

U.S. Women's Open has my busy so I stole the links for this from sportsjournalists.com.

It is the Post's three part series on Selig.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Good Read: More Contreras

I hate the Yankees, but I like this Contreras story as Woj followed up on his earlier piece.

Good Read: USBL

Life in basketball's minors.

Sunday Best

William Rhoden is nuts.

Adrian Woj captures the Jose Contreras reunites with his family story nicely.

DMN's Kevin Blackistone on Lance Armstrong.

Sally Jenkins has another example of why she's one of the best serious columnists in the game.

The Globe's Joe Burris looks at phenoms throughout sports leading up to the U.S. Women's Open in South Hadley.

Good Reads: Ratto on Balco

I just like the way Ratto on Balco sounds. It reads pretty good too.


Is there some columnist retreat weekend going on somewhere: Albom, Plaschke, Caulton Tudor, Wojnarowski, Wilbon, Chimelis and more are all on vacation or something.

Good reads: Cockade (PG rated don't worry)

I have rooting interest in South Carolina in the College World Series. This is a fun story.

Good Read: Cooperstown and Nomar

Slim pickings today.
DMN's Tim Colishaw's column on the Baseball Hall of Fame and the changing weight of 500 homers and 300 wins is the only things that's interested me enough to read all the way through.


I'm quick to complain about Dan Shaugnessy, but I liked his Nomar story today.

Good Reads: Tiger, Metallica and Lou Gehrig's disease

I don't know if the Baltimore Sun's Mike Preston is breaking any new ground on Tiger here, but it efficiently puts together what a lot of people have surmised.

KC Joe has his take.

Washington Post's Sally Jenkins may be the best of the three on this topic.

I've always appreciated Metallica, although, I'm hardly a big fan (I think I account for 1/90,000,000th of their 90 million record sales. But I found this NY Times Magazine article interesting.

This isn't one of Jackie Mac's best pieces from a writing standpoint, but I'm sympathetic to causes right now.

Good read: Bonds

Philly.com's John Smallwood disputes Barry Bonds comments about Boston being racist.

Good Read The Magazine

Tim Keown of ESPN has a good story on former phenom Josh Hamilton's battle with addiction. You need insider status to access it, but it's also in ESPN the Magazine.

Good Read: Shaq Derby

Plaschke examines Jerry Buss' potentially franchise-destroying devotion to Kobe.

Mike Bianchi wants Shaq back in Orlando and creates a million new nicknames for the Big Aristotle in the process.

Good reads: Sunday Best

Joe Pos on Father's Day.

William Rhoden on Marion Jones and the attention on Balco.

Good Reads: Pumpsie Green and Barry Bonds

1. For the Red Sox trip to Pac Bell Park (or whatever its called now) the Contra Costa Times talks to Pumpsie Green, who broke the Red Sox color barrier.

Pumpsie Green talk always makes me wonder why Sam Jethroe breaking the Boston Braves color barrier in 1950 doesn't get more attention in Boston. They were the fifth team to integrate.

Why haven't the Red Sox done more to honor Pumpsie Green?

2. Co-worker Jim Pignatiello passed along this Boston Globe piece on the always unpleasant Barry Bonds.

Good reads: Thursday

Another sobering look at Colorado football.

Jackie MacMullen compares the Pistons to the Patriots... perhaps borrowing an idea from a certain columnist some 90 miles west. I'm of course kidding.

Good Read: Grossfeld

Stan Grossfeld's professional existence amazes me. The guy has won a pulitzer as a photographer and is recognized as one of the best photograpehrs in the world as a member of the Boston Globe staff. But somewhere along the line he convinced someone that he could write too and he's become an occasional feature writer as well and he's pretty good at it.

Anyway today's offering from him is on Kathy Redmond, who talks about being a rape victim of former Nebraska and NFL defensive lineman and all-around horrendeous human Christian Peter.

NCAA President Myles Brand seems to be a crusader for change. I hope that harsh penalties for sexual predators that happen to be athletes are high on his priority list.

Good Reads: Title talk

Plaschke puts final touches on Lakers collapse.

Mitch Albom salutes the Pistons.

To nobody's surprise Dan Wetzel is excellent.


MIke Freeman of Jacksonville calls Phil Jackson a fraud.

J.A. Adande of the Los Angeles Times said that while most of the Lakers got what they deserved, Karl Malone deserved better.


I usually like Bill Simmons when he's writing fun and pop cultury stuff and think he's weak when he's trying to write serious. This was one of his better showings for a traditional column.

It was just a matter of time

If you had June 15 in the "When would Kevin Brown go on the Disabled List" pool, Congrats, you're the big winner.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1822496

Good reads: Albom, Borges

Mitch Albom doesn't win award after award for nothing. This Ben Wallace feature is a little dated (April 20), but I just found it and enjoyed it.

Ron Borges is at his best when writing about boxing. This story on Kassim Ouma is excellent.

Good read: Remembering Ralph Wiley

Brian Moritz, a good friend and good writer at the Olean Times Herald sent along today's entry on ESPN Page 2 columnist Ralph Wiley, who died yesterday. The San Francisco Chronicle's Ray Ratto did a nice job eulogizing a friend.

Good read: Sage advice

A little humor for a Monday morning from the twisted brain of Norman Chad

Dan Wetzel's take on Bob Huggins is worth reading.

Following up on yesterday's theme, Orlando's Mike Bianchi is usually good and this is no exception.

Bill Plaschke's fine work on the finals continues.

Sunday best

I think it has been interesting to watch how TV has played up the Larry Bird re-marks regarding white players in the NBA. What Bird said about feeling insulted when he was guarded by a white guy was dumb. But the statement that NBA would benefit from a white superstar has been treated like a racist one.

Is it?

NASCAR just hired Magic Johnson to help broaden black interest in its sport. The NHL has both made concerted efforts to help develop its game in the inner cities in hopes of having more diverse rosters and fan bases. I think the league would love to have a black superstar in one of the league's bigger stages (New York, Toronto, Bos-ton, Philadelphia etc). It that racist? Somewhat? I don't know.

Anyway Tim Colishaw of the Dallas Morning News gives an interesting take on it here.

Indy Star looks at some numbers on the topic is here.

The Kansas City Star builds on the Bird debate and looks at young black athletes relying to much on the unlikely future of a pro career here.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer on Bob Huggins

Good read: Plaschke

I'm been hunting lately for well-written columns off games. I'm trying to get better at writing those myself. I don't like the Lakers and I don't like the NBA, but I liked this column.

Good Read: Straying from sports a bit

It's hard to do tongue-in-cheek sarcasm well for an entire article, but this pulls it off.

Conan O'Brien

"Parcells apologized and said he would refrain from using racially insensitive nicknames in the future and then told the media that he had to go prepare his team to play the Redskins."

Good Reads: Smarty Jones and USA Hoops

I like this one on Smarty Jones.

And this one, by the San Francisco Chronicle's underrated Scott Ostler.

Send me some.

Dewey defeats Truman

Tampa goes oops.

Site update

My goal is now to find at least one story worth reading every weekday and post a link to it here.

The idea is to give people a reason to check here regularly. I'm inviting submissions and suggestions and will credit the sender. I'll continue to send e-mail to the people who'd been on the Good Reads list, but the link will bring you here.


Send suggestions here:

Good Read: Baseball fan in Iraq

Quality stuff from Joe Posnanski. Click here for his latest, a story on a Royals fan in Iraq.

Smarty Jones good read

An interesting Smarty Jones story.

A blink of inspiration

The radio is conspiring to kill me.

It's been a rough 12 days as I try to cope with the fact that my best friend isn't coming back and it seems like every song on the radio reminds me of that. "Here Without You," and "The Reason" seem to be on constantly.

But I found some inspiration in Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising." Track two is a song called "Into the Fire," a song that is saluting the firefighters that ran into the towers during 9/11.

Its message is powerful anyway, but the chorus makes me think of Casey. I've heard from so many lately how warm, courageous, inspirational and loving she was.

Losing her makes us sad. I hope that remembering her makes us stronger.

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
-- Bruce Springsteen

Thanks to all for all the phone calls and the e-mails. I have great friends.