Column Archive

The NFL Draft: From Fantasy to Farce

For fans, the pigskin meat market is mindless fun, but for young players, their lives picked apart and judged by people – both the experts on television and the soothsayers in the GM suites – the experience is somewhat less than a fantasy.

Can the Warriors Help Save Oakland?

The Golden State Warriors are part of a program called Silence the Violence in Oakland High Schools. But they shouldn’t do this work in high schools alone.

Shedding Light on the Torch

China and it’s cronies in the International Olympic Committee are bemoaning the way the running of the Olympic torch has turned into a site for international protest. But anyone who knows the tradition of the Olympic torch, would find protests all too appropriate.

Common Bond for Uncommon Men: Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King

As we remember the 40th anniversary of that dark day, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, it's worth recalling the reaction – and the reasons behind the reaction - by Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star Roberto Clemente.

Washington DC's Sporting Shock Doctrine

Sunday saw the opening of a taxpayer funded, $600 million stadium in Washington DC. Whatever your feelings on baseball, the new ballpark is yet more shock treatment to a city twitching from constant gentrification.

China's Brutal Olympic Echo

China’s brutal crackdown in Tibet has revealed that Western leaders are more interested in covering for China than standing for human rights. It also reveals that pre-Olympic repression is as much of a tradition as the lighting of the torch.

Brett Favre: The Restricted Archetype

Brett Favre had an undeniably brilliant career. But his flaws have been airbrushed out of existence, his every flaw a beauty mark. They are flaws that could only be ignored on a Caucasian quarterback.

Why the Wire

Yes, this is a blog about the collision of sports and politics. But sometimes the world stops, as it did last night when the finest television program in human history went off the air.

The Senator from Comcast?: Arlen Specter and SpyGate

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is taking the NFL to task for the scandal known as SpyGate. But there may be more to Specter's motives than have been revealed. Some of his top contributors have more than a passing interest in seeing the NFL knocked down a notch.

Can't Knock the Hassle: Chavez Challenges Baseball

When Hugo Chávez struck out in his December referendum aimed at overhauling the Venezuelan political system, a small group of overfed men raised their glasses in triumph: the assorted owners of Major League Baseball.