Column Archive

Portland, the Paulsons, and Bye Bye Baseball

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Se In Portland, Oregon, professional baseball has become the latest casualty in a two-year-long battle with the local sports franchise bosses over whether the Rose City would become the latest locale to pay for a massive, publicly funded stadium. The people said no so the owners shamefully sold the minor league Portland Beavers to an out of state buyer. Greed may have killed baseball in Portland. But these aren’t just any ordinary owners. They’re Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his 30-something son Merritt.

Giants vs. Rangers: A World Series Beyond Blue and Red

There is a tempting political spin to impose on the 2010 World Series: it’s the ultimate red-state/blue-state showdown. But the truth is more complicated.

Boo Ya: United Workers Aim for ESPN Zone

When the ESPN Zone restaurant-chain shuttered most of its doors last June, eyebrows were raised in the business press. It was work for their workers. Now they're fighting back and fighting mad.

In the NFL, the Violence Comes to a Head

With each passing week, I hear from football fans saying that it's getting harder to like the game they love. They've spent years reveling in the intense competition and violent collisions so central to the sport, but this is the first time these NFL diehards feel conscious about what happens to players when they become unconscious.

Brett Favre Beware: The NFL Is Thinking Pink

You may have noticed an abundance of pink on the fields of the National Football League this month. Between the pink sneakers, pink mouth guards and pink wristbands, one would be excused for wondering how the machismo-drenched league became so fabulous overnight. Welcome to the NFL’s celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness month]. But there are reasons beyond the altruistic for the league’s sudden concern with women’s health. In September the league launched a $10 million public relations effort to woo female fans, which included the marketing of NFL jeans, sandals and yoga mats. The thirty-three men that run the NFL have determined that this explosion of pink is just another way to say, “We care about our female fans—from their yoga to their tumors.”

The Randy Moss Trade in All Its Idiocy

The Patriots trade of superstar wide receiver Randy Moss to the Minnesota Vikings for a third-round draft pick represents everything I despise about NFL "conventional wisdom," the New England Patriots organization and their dyspeptic toad of a head coach, Bill Belichick.

Lebron James and the Perils of Walking the Fence

The uproar around NBA star Lebron James's recent comments about race and racism highlight the fact that you don't raise such concerns without paying a price.

Linda McMahon's Body Count

Linda McMahon says she is running for the US Senate from Connecticut because she wants to "put people first." Those people clearly don't include the people who made her a billionaire; the wrestlers of World Wrestling Entertainment.

The Collapsing of the Commonwealth Games

Injury. Death. Destruction. Despair. Deficits. None of these things have stopped the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. But risk to the health of the athletes? Strike up the concern.

World Cup Hangover Hits South Africa

The 2010 World Cup was without question a major sporting success for South Africa. The gleaming fields opened on schedule, new airports welcomed scores of visitors and disparate groups of South Africans who usually self-segregate exalted together in public. But the party's over. The country was recently hit with massive strikes involving 1.3 million public sector workers, including the teachers, civil service workers and health workers. The public sector strike contained a series of particularly shocking moments for South Africans and international observers. This included scenes of striking workers marching through a police line while sounding the World Cup’s iconic vuvuzela, only to be shot by the police officers' rubber bullets.