Most of America didn’t want Jackie Robinson to reach Daytona Beach, much less Brooklyn. In February 1946–half a century ago–Robinson and his new bride, Rachel, began one of the most important journeys in the nation’s sports and social history by boarding an airplane in Los Angeles. Everything went well until…
Regular starting catcher Jayhawk Owens struggled to pull on his pants, his sprained left thumb encased in a wad of Ace bandage big enough to gift-wrap a Cadillac. Most of the prematurely weary relief pitchers had their shoulders packed in ice, like flounder headed for market. Roger Bailey, who sprained…
At first glance, the morning mail holds few surprises. Two spring seed catalogues. The April issue of American Assassin. Hefty bills from the fishmonger, the liquor store and our regular supplier of badminton birdies. There’s a postcard from Elvis (vacationing in Grand Forks this week), a Republican flier recommending the…
Now that America’s TV sets have had a few days to cool down and spouses everywhere are finally off the phone with their divorce lawyers, we can pause to consider what we’ve learned from the first two rounds of this year’s Big Dance: 1. Earl Boykins, the tiny point guard…
If you’ve never been to Atlanta, Georgia, in July, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s like walking around in a huge kettle of boiling soup with your ski clothes on. Then the sun comes up. In case you haven’t heard, they’re going to stage the Summer Olympic Games in…
Hey, Pat. Pat Bowlen. Why not save yourself some trouble? Before the bunco squad picks you up for extortion on this stadium thing, take some advice, willya? You’re not the only game in town anymore, fella, and there are quite a few of us who won’t give a rat’s eyeball…
Charles O. Finley’s Oakland A’s once took a vote on the team plane to determine whether they would throw their boss out the emergency door. He was spared, one of the resident physicists later reported, out of fear that the cabin might depressurize and disturb the players’ card games. At…
On a good night in south Florida you can still catch pieces of games from all over the island–from Santa Clara and Havana and Pinar del Ro and Cienfuegos, which is home to the Elephants. The late innings breeze northward over the waves via Rebel Radio. Even if your Spanish…
Not many baseball fans have heard of George Bone, but that’s no surprise. In 1901 George played twelve games at shortstop for last-place Milwaukee, hit a very respectable .302 and promptly dropped off the face of the earth–or went back to New Haven. So there’s not much reason to remember…
He looked like a beer truck rumbling down the floor at the Fabulous Forum, and by the fourth quarter he was out of gas. But Magic Johnson returned gloriously last week to the game that once cast him out, and the effects are bound to be wide-ranging. At least they…
While all American eyes were on Tempe, Arizona, and the Super Bowl last weekend, Monica Seles swept through the field at the Australian Open tennis tournament to win her ninth career Grand Slam title. In beating Anke Huber 6-4, 6-1, Seles extended her Australian Open match record to a perfect…
Folks in blue-collar western Pennsylvania have loved football since Joe Namath weighed nine pounds and had both kneecaps. But they don’t have their heads in the clouds about it. Truth be told, there probably aren’t three Pittsburgh Steelers fans in ten who actually believe their club can upset the cocky,…
Why not journey up to lovely Cooperstown, New York, this summer and take in the sights? Babe Ruth’s bat. Norman Rockwell’s watercolor depicting a crew of umpires with their eyes turned upward and palms outstretched to a sky full of sprinkles, weighing the merits of a rain delay. The ball…
On race day, it is always the same. Aaron Harrison hangs Unruly Thomas’s muzzle over his crate, where he can see it, and talks soothingly to his charge in a voice dripping the rhythms of Muskogee, Oklahoma. At these signs, Thomas begins to get excited. And when Harrison shorts his…
Ever had the living daylights beaten out of you by an eleven-year-old? It’s not that bad if the eleven-year-old doing the beating is a kid as nice as Tab Habon and the damned fool grownup learns something in the process. Watch out, though: You may still have to eat 139…
All right, so where were you when O.J. walked? How about when Cigar ran? Or when the Big Cat struck out against Mark Wohlers? To say that 1995 was an astonishing year in sports is to understate the case. Consider. Tennis great Monica Seles emerged from a traumatic two-year retirement…
All right, dyed-in-the-wool college football fans. Here’s the get-a-life test. On the evening of December 30, which game are you going to watch? The Carquest Bowl, featuring North Carolina’s mighty Tarheels? Or the Peach Bowl, starring the tenacious Georgia Bulldogs? Please keep in mind that although intercollegiate football is an…
Like a lot of people living up here in Bronco Village, I used to be able to fit everything I knew about hockey on the top of an ice cube. One that had been sitting out in the July sun for a while. Listen, I’d long been trying to understand…
I don’t know what kind of pictures you’ve pasted into your book of golden memories in recent months, but you’re welcome to rest a while and look at mine: Here’s Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Greg Lloyd trying to decapitate quarterback Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers. Here’s Greg Lloyd with…
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Larry King Live. I’m Larry King. But you already know that. You know it, Portland, Oregon. You know it, Bellevue, Washington. And you know it, Dunedin, Florida. You know that there’s nobody quite as important as Larry King. And that’s me. Larry…
It is 7 p.m., tail end of the rush hour, and a cold, hard rain is falling on Atlanta, Georgia. All along Peachtree Street you can make out fugitive figures with umbrellas unfurled and wind-bent, ducking into doorways, dodging out of the paths of their fellows in the nick of…
In the dead of winters to come, you can bet that John Elway’s long-battered knees will ache and that Dan Marino’s torn Achilles tendon–an injury some ironic classicist must have picked out for him–will start to act up. In winters to come, Warren Moon’s shoulder will surely pain him again…
