Last Thursday night, the wet flags on the high rim of the stadium flapped at half mast for the dead in Oklahoma. A chill wind whistled through the lower box seats, and periodic drizzle slanted down onto players, clots of fans and the guys struggling to sell cold beer. You…
Image is not everything. That’s a lesson the world’s best tennis player has learned the hard way. On the slick grass rectangle that is Wimbledon’s storied center court–a mystical place where he feared even to tread for three years–he learned in 1987 that you can smash flashy, Kevlar-powered rocket shots…
Among thousands of celebrants, the happiest man in baseball this week has to be American League president Gene Budig. Had the divisive players’ strike lasted just two more days, after all, Budig might have faced the sticky task of breaking Cal Ripken Jr.’s historic date with the Iron Horse. Unless…
The DNA tests are back from the lab, and those were not major-leaguers who christened Coors Field Friday afternoon. Before 47,563 polite witnesses, a group of strangers wearing Colorado Rockies pinstripes defeated a band of aliens in New York Yankee road grays 4-1, in the first game at Denver’s graceful…
Bring your pets inside and hide the children in the cellar. The Thing That Cannot Play is about to be set loose. You know the one. The many-footed monster that has prowled the swamps of Florida and the deserts of Arizona since mid-February. The scourge that put Sparky Anderson to…
In the original, which goes back to 1941, Robert Montgomery played a prizefighter who’s accidentally spirited off to heaven before his time, then forced to return to Earth in a different, far less efficient body. When they remade the thing in 1978, complete with a new title, Warren Beatty was…
Don’t let this get around, but any foreign power still interested in invading the United States would do well to try it, say, this Saturday. Half the nation is already catatonic from watching the O.J. Simpson trial, and by Saturday night the other half will be in college-basketball-induced shell shock…
Behold the joys of spring. Tulips in bloom. A fragrance of love on the soft breeze of evening. Arrival of the, uh, new Michael Jordan-model baseball bat. And the spectacle of the grand old game’s canny geniuses trying to replace everything they can replace without closing the place. To begin…
A lot of people think the angriest man in America is Newt Gingrich. My money’s on Mike Tyson. Poor Mike. Invite a girl up to the room for a couple of smoked-salmon canapes and a nice discussion of the Lake poets, and look what they do to you. Three years…
At the five-eighths pole, Cigar and the big gray colt, Holy Bull, were dueling for the lead when rider Mike Smith felt a thump, like a car tire going flat. Jerry Bailey, on Cigar, said he heard a loud pop. “Oh no!” Smitty cried out–and just like that, Holy Bull…
Okay, let’s hear it for Fat Billy Maharg. Whaddya mean you never heard of him? Spring training opens today, doesn’t it? Just about the time many of you see this, the boys of summer will be cantering onto emerald outfields in camps from Kissimmee to Tucson, feeling their spikes grab…
Now that Mike the Messiah has descended into Dove Valley, robes abulge with cash, is it too early to start dreaming of heaven? Nah. Take that orange hairshirt off this instant and try the future on for size. But remember, patience is still a virtue. Dallas and San Francisco weren’t…
In Baltimore, them baseball fans what still exist are getting ready this week for Babe Ruth’s 100th birthday party. There will be celebrations in other cities, too, but Baltimoreans are puffed up with the pride of authorship: The Bambino was born in a humble row house in their town on…
When last we checked, Fisher DeBerry was tucked safely in his bunk at the Air Force Academy with two armed sentries standing over him, and Don Baylor was hitting fungoes to a group of outpatients in Tucson, whipping them into shape for Opening Day. Of course, things may have changed…
In order to reach Cooperstown, New York, from the north, you drive south on winding, tree-shaded Route 28 through the villages of Dennison Corners, Richfield Springs and Schuyler Lake, whereupon the lovely shore of Lake Otsego springs into view, then the picturesque town beyond. From the south, stay on 28…
Once upon a time–which is to say early September–some pro football pundits were predicting a Super Bowl rematch between the San Francisco 49ers and the, uh, Denver Broncos. Fans at Mile High Stadium, this particular piece of wisdom held, would need pocket calculators to keep track of the points on…
Have you heard? Somebody shot the archduke. That means war, of course. As they straighten their crimson plumes, mount white horses and gallop off to the front, both sides still believe they will be home in three or four weeks, flushed with glory. But the dark skeptics think otherwise. This…
This was the most tumultuous year in American sports history–O.J. Accused! Nuggets Beat Seattle! World Series Canceled!–but behind the screaming headlines lay a core of sheer absurdity. Just two weeks ago, for instance, newspapers reported that June 17, 1994, the evening that fugitive O.J. Simpson led three dozen police cars…
We had Cuban sandwiches, oxtail stew and cold beer in a place on Southwest Eighth Street. Then we drove out to Calder in Martinez’s new Coupe de Ville. “Nice car, Henry,” I said. “It’s okay.” He shrugged. “Blessings of America. Who you like today?” I opened my fresh copy of…
Baseball’s problems have grown bigger than Babe Ruth, what with the possibility that the clubs may not step to the plate next year, either. Do you sense a little corporate fright out there? In Kansas City, the Royals have cut general-admission ticket prices by a dollar in an attempt to…
If, in the past two weeks or so, you’ve been watching the jock-sniffer segments on the TV news or plowing through the daily sports sections, you know now what deep thinkers like Copernicus and Bill McCartney and O.J. Simpson have known for ages: The earth revolves around the Heisman Trophy…
In the years that we’ve known and loved Bill McCartney, one absolute has been clearly established: Nothing the man does should come as a surprise. Yet when McCartney announced his resignation following the Buffs’ regular-season-ending victory over Iowa State, it was as if Newt Gingrich had thrown his support behind…
