When they asked Ozzie Smith last week about the best plays of his career, it was a little like having Picasso pick out a couple of favorite pictures. Where do you start? Still, the slickest-fielding shortstop in the history of the game obliged his questioners. * On April 20, 1978,…
In the age of MTV and the no-attention span, most Americans demand their spectator sports stuffed with flash, crash and bang–along with the occasional three-color dye job. Graying Cadillac owners still watch golf on the boob tube, but the silent beauty of man or woman gliding swiftly over a course…
On June 24 the good people of Quebec will celebrate the feast of Saint Jean, commemorating the good works and the martyrdom of John the Baptist. Those conversant with the New Testament, or–failing that–who’ve seen a couple of Cecil B. DeMille movies, know that Jesus Christ began his public life…
Jerry Storm, the Colorado Wildcats’ No. 1 fan, has been going to games for five years now, so he’s seen it all. He’s watched women get into fights in the stands. He saw the Cats’ Thomas Stubblefield rush for 2,000 yards in 1994. He once saw an opposing player belt…
Wonder if Timothy McVeigh has one of those $240 Colorado Avalanche jerseys yet? Everyone else within fifty miles of McNichols Arena now wears one, and to hear people talk, they’ve all been dedicated hockey fans since the Eskimos made the first ice cube and Gordie Howe was in diapers. In…
Evidently, there are no limits on baseball’s current charms. Volatile Cleveland Indians outfielder Albert Belle, long a wrecker of locker rooms and teammates’ psyches, throws a baseball at a magazine photographer who has the temerity to take his picture, and American League president Gene Budig orders him to counseling. Self-absorbed…
Imagine the Colorado Springs Sky Sox and the Toledo Mud Hens in the World Series. Or a field of $15,000 claimers running for the roses at the Kentucky Derby. Or a pair of unknown club pros playing the final at Wimbledon. That’s what this year’s Indianapolis 500 is going to…
It could be worse. This could be Boston. Or Cincinnati. Or Detroit. Or Kansas City. As it is, Denver, the Rocky Mountain West and assorted cornfields in Nebraska probably now have the ballclub they expected to have long before they got it. A club whose two most talented and expensive…
To hear Ernie Paragallo tell it, he owns the fastest three-year-old on the face of the earth–maybe in the history of the universe. “I don’t think he’ll be beaten again,” Ernie boasted last week. “Ever?” a reporter asked. “Ever,” the owner said. Now, if you’d like to take that to…
It’s July. You return to the office after a little vacation. Well, not a vacation, exactly–more like another trip to the welding shop. They cemented fourteen new bones into your body and bolted an Erector Set to your right elbow. Without making a big fuss about it, they also fulfilled…
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,…
