Surgery, Danica,Tillman, Beckham etc.

The Dallas Morning News looks at the considerable history of the Tommy John surgery.

Ian O'Connor says too much was made of Danica Patrick's appearance.

Phil Sheridan hopes Pat Tillman will still be remembered as a hero even though the full story of his death may never be known.

Beckham in America

Plaschke looks at the lifelong impact of an umpire fighting cancer. It reminded me of this story.

Still running ...

Rickey Henderson, is still playing, talking and dreaming.

Breaking barriers

ESPN's Greg Garber has a nice piece on Dartmouth All American men's lacrosse goalkeeper Andrew Goldstein, who is gay. The reaction of his teammates is encouraging sign that we're progressing as a country.

Any story on Oil Can Boyd...

It's a pretty safe bet that just about any story on Oil Can Boyd will appear here. Tim Kurkjian has a fun one.

The LA Times looks at the Golden Baseball League.

Mike Wise on pacing Freddy Adu's development.

Plaschke on Chavez

Bill Plaschke looks at a more mature sober Julio Cesar Chavez, whose cleaned up his life as a promise to his son.

Stories like this amuse me

Curtis Heroman tries to make the jump from intramurals to the NBA.

Plaschke, Jenkins etc

Bill Plaschke on the lack of African-American college baseball players.

Sally Jenkins had a good piece on the concerning marriage of football and religion at Air Force.

Ian O'Connor on Paula Creamer.

Albom vs. LeBetard in a battle of columnists that aren't popular among their peers. I linked them, but you wouldn't missing much if you skipped them both.

Chuck Culpepper on Everybody loves Raymond. This column probably doesn't mean much to anyone who isn't a sportswriter but...

A memorable Preakness

Rick Bozich, Jerry Izenberg , Pete Thamel and John Eisenberg have good looks at a memorable finish by Afleet Alex at the Preakness. If you're unfamiliar with the Afleet Alex story, there's good stuff below.

Reggie walks away

Bob Kravitz has a nice look at Reggie Miller's farewell.

It's a Boston Globe heavy Tuesday

Oil Can Boyd stories are always fun.

Stan Grossfield has the odd story of a golf course on prison grounds.

Thomas Boswell on Chad Cordero.

Jim Reeves wrote an interesting column about Buck Showalter attending his daughter's graduation. But he did it in the second person,which is a slippery slope, in my opinion. Its' not impossible to do this well, but it's extremely hard.

The goal is to try to make the reader understand or at least reflect on what its like to be the subject of the story. If it isn't perfect or close to it, it reads gimmicky. This column is better than most attempts, but it still feels like he tried too hard.

I'm not a regular Reeves' reader, but I like a lot of what I've seen of his work, but I think this one could have been better if he'd used another voice.

I'm down off my high horse for now.

I enjoyed John Levesque's column on Ichiro. I don't read the Seattle papers every day, but I imagine its hard to come up with new angles on him regularly. I thought this one was well done.

Monday update

A trip to Atlantic City reminded me that gambling will not soon be profession for me... After three days away from a computer here's a quick collection of new stories worth reading:


The New York Times has a story on players and what they're willing to pay to get the number they want.

Doug Robinson, of the Desert Morning News has a nice feature about an umpire with a brain tumor that's still calling balls and strikes with a few months to live.

The News-Press looks at an Airman returning from Iraq still dreaming of the Majors. It would have been a better column if the columnist left himself out of it, but it was still an interesting story.

Remember Danny Almonte? He's in Florida now...

LA Times looks at Hee-Seop Choi's maturation.

Woj looks at Kaz Matsui's difficult transition from star in Japan to struggling Major Leaguer here.

The Orlando Sentinel has a long feature, that doesn't feel long, about a Texas High School football coach that was shot.

The Toronto Star looks at steroids in the Dominican.

Phil Sheridan says its time of the Eagles to send Owens elsewhere.


I love reading Jerry Izenberg on boxing. Few writers have enough knowledge of the sport to truly analyze it. Izenberg's column about Winky Wright is excellent.

LeBetard writes again about the Nash/Race controversy he stirred up. The attention doesn't appear to be bothering him.

Boxing and Pope trading cards

Ian O'Connor looks at the fading relevance of boxing.

If he's right that doesn't bode well for Jerry Izenberg's strong column on Winky Wright getting a lot of readership.

Bob Ford on Pope baseball cards.

The NCAA big wigs must hate Dan Wetzel

Because he exposes stuff like this.

Race, Steve Nash and the MVP

Dan LeBetard wonders if Nash winning the MVP was racially motivated.

Michael Wilbon disagrees with him.

Peter Vescey thinks LeBetard is a jackass.

* NEW ADDITIONS HERE *

Jason Whitlock and Rick Telander weigh in.

Redskins vs. News media

The Redskins aren't hiding the fact that they're treating their web site as a media entity and plan to compete with newspapers for scoops after some negative press from the Washington Post.

The Washingtonian had a story on what amounts to a changing face of media.

This is going to be just the beginning of stuff like this. Some team. You can be sure at some time, some team will stop allowing players to be interviewed. They'll simply release a page of bland quotes and be done with it.
Newspapers will then hunt more diligently for negative stories. Partially out of spite and partially because its something that can still scoop web sites.

Nice piece by Moritz

It's always fun to get to link to a good story by a piece by a friend here. Brian Moritz writes for the The Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin Journal Register News Tribune (or something like that). He had a nice piece Sunday on a community college softball player, whose husband is in Iraq.

I don't usually care about horse racing but...

...the Afleet Alex story caught my attention. I know I'm a late arriver to this heart-warming tale, but I wanted to include it anyway.


If you don't know the story, basically this horse has provided hope for people battling cancer. For the long version click some of the links below.

Orlando Sentinel
Lexington Leader Herald on Alex's lemonade.

The Wilmington News Journal wonders if Afleet Alex realizes he's a horse.

Elsewhere, Bill Plaschke has good pieces on Giacomo and Steinbrenner.

Keep pounding

Carolina Panthers linebacker Mark Fields has cancer again. His last fight inspired countless other victims, who were uplifted by his return to the field. Hopefully this one has a similar effect and a similar ending. Players around the league have worn white "Keep Pounding" wristbands as a show of support.

If his story inspires you to donate. Click here.

Mascot moronity

It's stunning to me how dumb colleges are when it comes to nicknames and mascots. Marquette is the latest to switch nicknames. The Gold? Is this MLS? USFL? Did they consider the Grey Wolves? The Milwaukee JS has the details? Trivia how many Division I schools have nicknames that are just colors?

Joe Posnanski wrestles with the morality of steroids.

Nice piece on Kevin Youkilis in the Globe today. I appreciated Nick Cafardo laying off the overdone "Greek God of Walks" silliness.

Wetzel takes the next shot at the Yankees.

Yankee Eulogies

The New York and national media have started piling on the Yankees...


Mike Vaccaro said the new look isn't helping

For all the changes. For all the noise. For all the clamor. That's what they are right now. Just another bad baseball team.

Dan Graziano says Kevin Brown is a reflection of the Yankees.

Bob Klapisch says the end is here for the Yankees

If you have ESPN Insider status, Buster Olney's epilogue to the Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty" is well-written and well-reported.

Rich Hoffman says the Sixers need to keep Iverson

Jim Souhan of the Star Tribune isn't surprised baseball is only catching the little guys.

I'll read anything Jason Whitlock has to say on race. I won't always agree, but I respect him enough to pay attention. He looks at the Oklahoma baseball coach being fired for using a slur.

More Simers

If you liked Williams vs. Caulkins, Simers vs. Jason Phillips is kind of fun too.

Mark Becker Night

T.J. Simers takes a unique approach to memorializing a Dodger fan that died. We had a discussion in hte office about whthere Simers' delay in getting to the death was good or bad. I'm not sure where I stand, but I liked the column overall.

Jay Mariotti says Jordan's gambling has become troubling.

Wetzel looks at the hypocrisy of extending college football to 12 games.

Jason Williams vs. Geoff Caulkins is another reminder that Williams' social skills are miserable.
Caulkins, who has above average social skills, took the high road referencing the encounter.