Damien Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers is back with another song and video:
If anyone hasn’t heard by now about the fantastically good year Stephen Curry has had so far, this video will satisfy all curiosity. The sequence is very instructive, if only to show how many shots Curry makes in traffic, sometimes while being knocked to the floor. If there was ever a reason to unload your …
Sometimes a town is a soccer town. Sometimes a town is a basketball town. Some towns are even hockey towns (though, admittedly, most of those are in Canada). What many people don’t realize is that even if your town doesn’t have a professional team, it is still also very much a football town. In spite …
In our NFL-focused society, it can be easy to forget that the NBA season actually starts in November. For those who haven’t paid attention, there already have been some interesting developments, including a fired coach (Kevin McHale of the Houston Rockets) and a Golden State Warriors team that has somehow convinced itself that it has …
I’m not claiming to be a fan of the UFC, but this fight was amazing. The conditioning, quickness, and strategy I witnessed during Rousey vs. Holm was breathtaking. This is violence. This is brain damage. This is capitalism. You could see Rhonda Rousey’s market value and aura of invincibility hit the canvas harder than her …
When ESPN shut down Grantland on October 30, I was surprised at its abruptness, but not that it happened; after Bill Simmons’s acrimonious departure from ESPN, it was realistically only a matter of time. Grantland was Simmons’s creation, and without him, ESPN had no institutional incentive to maintain it. As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in …
Wrigleyville and Wrigley Field were deathly quiet when I arrived at Game Four with the Mets leading 4-0, no surprise. Then the Mets’ hero of the Divisional Series, Daniel Murphy, turned to a goat in the World Series (pun intended). Now that the Royals have won the World Series, I’d like readers to digest some …
During last night’s World Series Game 5 broadcast, there was some criticism of Mets manager Terry Collins’s decision to leave Matt Harvey in the game to pitch not only to the first batter of the ninth inning but the next one as well. Second guessing is part of the fun of baseball, but I remember …
One of the charms of major league baseball is that on rare occasions, people can not only play but thrive in the league despite a non-athletic body if they have the right skills. We were reminded of this when Bartolo Colon came in to pitch for the Mets last night in the 12th inning of …
Back in the day I used to emulate Willie Stargell’s pre-pitch warmup during kid pick-up games in the empty lot behind my house. The Pittsburgh Pirates were my favorite NL team during the Dave “Cobra” Parker, Kent Tekulve, Rennie Stennett, Manny Sanguillen, et. al. era. I rooted for the Pirates in the 2015 NL wild …
Today former Mets and Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra claims to have blackmailed umpires during his career for favorable calls on balls and strikes at the plate. Seems rather outrageous, but anyone interested in Dykstra’s playing career should pick up Keith Hernandez’s Pure Baseball, which featured Dykstra prominently in his pitch-by-pitch analysis of two MLB games …
Nice interview with Bill Murray on ESPN at Wrigley. Still funny as ever. http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=13934932 No need to give up on the Cubs yet. Lots of parallels to the 2004 Red Sox: 1. Theo Epstein 2. Down 3-0 at home against a New York team 3. A prospective World Series opponent from Missouri Everything is all …
After the Chicago Cubs dispatched the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS, a friend of mine commented that we were now in an alternative universe. I had to correct him; the Cubs would need to reach the World Series for that to apply. As of now, there is still the possibility that the Cubs could …
Great piece from Charles Pierce on the Cubs win last night. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/beatdown-the-cubs-keelhaul-the-bucs-in-pittsburgh/ Pierce appears to have made a regular assignment of covering Wild Card playoff games in Pittsburgh. This is the one he wrote last year when the Giants paid their visit. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/baseball-playoffs-mlb-roger-goodells/ Even as they suffered their second year of one-and-done disappointment, last night’s …
New article in Grantland by Charles Pierce: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/peytons-place-why-the-broncos-quarterback-should-retire/ Very thoughtful on the current state of Peyton Manning’s career and the physical toll it has taken on him. The NFL season has just begun, and conversation already seems to be more about casualties than the games. It makes me wonder if football may decline, like boxing, …
This recent post in Grantland is a nice take on the news that Tim Lincecum may have thrown his last pitch for the San Francisco Giants due to his recent injuries. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-tim-lincecum-san-francisco-giants-career/ I would add that somehow the Giants should find a way to get him out onto the field at AT&T Park one more …
My brother, who works in San Francisco, got an invitation to see the Giants play the Chicago Cubs Tuesday night from a luxury skybox. The accommodations were nice: no standing in line for bathrooms or concessions here. The play on the field, at least for Giants fans, was not. Pitcher Matt Cain didn’t have his …
This post was a nice surprise. Not just that someone would have had the presence of mind to mention Freddy Exley, but that apparently Gifford and Exley came to know each other after A Fan’s Notes, and that Gifford even hosted a party for Exley when his last book came out. http://news.yahoo.com/frank-gifford-death-fred-exley-a-fans-notes-220404916.html One of the …
Triple-A baseball produces a lot of “Where are they now?” moments. In a recent Sacramento River Cats game, I saw a player, Brooks Conrad, who played a brief but important part in the San Francisco Giants’ recent history. Currently a member of the Las Vegas 51s, he was with the Atlanta Braves when they played …
How did Seattle Sounders FC lose their mojo the season they looked poised to finally seize the MLS Cup? Forget the injuries and attrition from national team callups. With an appalling 3-0 loss at home Saturday to the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Sounders looked as clueless and toothless as they’ve ever looked. Clint Dempsey was back, …
One sick jam from charismatic Portland Trailblazers point guard Damien Lillard aka Dame Dolla:
At the end of last season, the baseball Triple-A Sacramento River Cats changed their major league affiliate from the Oakland A’s to the San Francisco Giants. Naturally, this enhanced their appeal greatly for me, so I paid them a visit. Raley Field, a 10,000-seat ballpark, gets good online reviews, and I rated it just a …
One of the benefits of arriving early at the ballpark is that sometimes you get treated to a little extra entertainment for the price of your ticket. Yesterday was Madison Bumgarner’s between-starts throwing day. There weren’t many fans in the park yet, but most of those who were crowded near the Giants bullpen to see …
Lately, the San Francisco Giants have followed their usual script of good pitching and weak hitting, as illustrated by the last three starts by Madison Bumgarner, losses by scores of 2-0, 1-0, and 3-2. They are doing much better in the standings than they should, mostly because they have owned the NL West-leading Los Angeles …
On first glance, the above title requires a suspension of disbelief. Though the San Francisco Giants endured a longer journey in the wilderness than the Golden State Warriors, the Warriors were an even less likely prospect to arrive in the promised land. The Giants at least teased their fans occasionally with the possibility of a …
I’ve referenced articles from Charles Pierce before. This one, with the quote below, is another reason to admire him as perhaps the most insightful and entertaining writer on sports today: And what we also have learned is that FIFA’s corruption wasn’t in the least covert. It was lying out there, like a mackerel in the …
Within the last decade or so major league baseball stadiums have piped in player-selected songs when the batter approaches the batters box. The practice then spread to the high school level. When my son played varsity ball as a junior I noticed to my chagrin that all but two of the players chose a song …
The Memphis Grizzlies made the series far too interesting, but last night the Golden State Warriors closed it out and reached the NBA Western Conference Finals for the first time since Rick Barry shot granny-style at the foul line. As to how the Warriors managed it, this video of Stephen Curry’s 62-ft basket last night …
After the Blazer-Warrior game I attended back in March, I spent some time in the hallway outside the Warrior locker room with Steph Curry and some of his friends, just being a fly on the wall and listening to their conversation. One of the comments I remember was one of Curry’s friends telling him, “Good …
SEATTLE – Obafemi Martins may not wear a cape, but he is most certainly a superhero for the Seattle Sounders FC. The Nigerian striker can snare long passes on his feet and juke defenders into submission. Bringing peace to his troubled homeland might be a stretch, but Oba racks up goals and assists that astound. …