Among the grand heroics and tragic disturbances of humankind, the performance of a baseball team is a puny thing. But it looms awfully large right now for a lot of people. Why, just the other night, in a saloon that shall remain nameless, I witnessed a bar-pounding, drink-spilling, shoulder-shoving exchange…
There are no distractions. At Barry Fey’s house, the parrot keeps screeching at the dog. The phone won’t stop ringing, and Barry’s beleaguered assistant, Leslie, just can’t find the wallet-sized photos of the first time he won the big handicapping tournament in Vegas. The guy is here to fix one…
This epic poem of a baseball season is drawing to a close. But before Tino Martinez hangs up his spikes for the winter, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa settle into the history books and the game’s financial titans dare to believe that the game’s wronged fans have returned, there’s a…
This just in: The National Basketball Association has canceled its 1998 exhibition games, the players and owners remain at each other’s throats over filthy lucre, and the entire regular season remains in grave jeopardy. Hello? Let’s try this again: The National Basketball Association has canceled its exhibition games, the players…
Some wonderfully gaudy facts and feats have decorated this extraordinary baseball season. Mutual admirers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa demolished home-run history, of course, going downtown a total of 136 times. Cal Ripken–he of the silver countenance and the iron constitution–finally decided to take a day off after seventeen years…
For Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and a stampede of horses called the New York Yankees, this has been the most glorious of baseball seasons. Not so for the 77-85 Colorado Rockies, who in the mists of April were thought to be solid contenders. But when the ax fell, as everyone…
In the fight game, the fun never stops. On Friday night, welterweight Oscar De La Hoya, boxing’s undefeated “Golden Boy,” took eight rounds to dispose of a faded ex-champ, Julio Cesar Chavez, in Las Vegas. De La Hoya had so bloodied his old enemy that Chavez could not answer the…
A vast right-wing conspiracy couldn’t get the job done. For that matter, neither could the left-handers. This summer’s hero hit five dozen dingers off 57 pitchers. And in the end, the Chicago Cubs’ Steve Trachsel–who gave up a league-high 32 long balls in 1997–yielded Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire’s historic 62nd…
After sitting in hot traffic for an hour and coughing up $40 for a parking spot, some were looking for good omens Saturday night. Maybe this filled the bill–for CU fans, anyway. Following months of big-game hype and just five minutes before the kickoff, Cam the Ram, Colorado State’s galloping,…
Once upon a time, in a game far, far away, a princess named Chris Evert started collecting U.S. Open tennis titles like charms on a bracelet. Her racquet was wooden, her dress was snow-white, and her words were measured–if she spoke at all. When the announcers at tournaments called her…
Can DeGeezer still throw DeBomb? That’s the question coaches, players and fans are asking this simmering August in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of 44, veteran NFL quarterback Steve DeBerg has returned from five long years of retirement (and two years of coaching) to become backup to the Falcons’ oft-injured…
For a fellow who’s regarded as one of baseball’s old goats, commissioner Bud Selig has been remarkably flexible when it comes to certain innovations. While he was still “acting” commissioner–an impermanence that lasted six years–Selig pushed each league to split into three regional divisions and add a wild card team,…
They’re old. Starting with the left guard, who’s undergone twenty surgeries since high school, they’ve got more dents than a demolition derby. The owner has painted lurid orange flames on their new unis, so they look less like Super Bowl champs than an arena-ball club on the make. After crying…
The New York Yankees lost three times last week. You could look it up. But the rest of the picture remained pretty grim. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was still hitting .320 and keeping company with singer Mariah Carey. David Wells, the huge, unkempt moose of a Yankees pitcher who paid…
Another day at the office: Shelly Anderson slams her foot down and the ground shakes. The stench of tire smoke and the sting of burning nitromethane shoot into the crowd. Almost 6,000 horsepower–enough to drive an ocean liner–leaps into the rear wheels, and five G’s of force smash Shelly deep…
Grab a bag of peanuts, crack a cold beer and make yourself at home while we administer today’s number-association test. Here goes: Fifty-six. Sixty-one. Five hundred and eleven. Seven hundred and fifty-five. Four thousand one hundred and ninety-one. Point three-six-seven. Three. Two. One. Simple, wasn’t it? Piece of cake. Any…
Last Saturday, three days before the All-Star Game, Petey Maestas waited two hours for the chance to hit a home run off Randy Johnson. Johnson, the hawk-nosed, fright-wigged, six-foot-ten-inch flamethrower of the Seattle Mariners, has not been enjoying the best of seasons–seven wins, seven losses, seventeen home runs yielded in…
If you had a nickel for every man, woman and child watching the World Cup on television, you could buy Denmark–or maybe a decent lunch for two in Paris. Astonishing but true: Around the globe, 37 billion people are currently glued to their sets as assorted South Africans, Paraguayans, Dutchmen…
In his storied playing career with the Denver Nuggets, Dan Issel amassed 16,589 points and pulled down 6,630 rebounds–both club records. Now his daunting task is to score a few points with the fans. And any kind of Nuggets rebound will be welcome. As the new vice president, general manager…
When it was all over, rider Kent Desormeaux said he felt sick to his stomach. Then proved it. He had asked his mount for winning speed too soon, he said gloomily, then let the horse’s attention wander with a furlong to go. Down in the jockeys’ room, Chris McCarron draped…
Last Wednesday night, Michael Jordan threw a little outside fake, stopped short and rose from the floor of the United Center like an ascending saint. The soft jumper hit dead center, of course, and just like that, His Airness had the 34,999th and 35,000th points of his storied career. Even…
How about those catcalls raining down from the cheap seats–okay, the $15 seats–every time Pedro Astacio blows another lead or Mike Lansing takes a called third strike with the bases loaded? Strange sounds, no? The public mood, once mild and appreciative, is getting understandably nasty up there. And neither Mike…
