This is an important journalism skill outsiders rarely think about. Posing post-game questions. This is not the same as asking a question in an interview situation. At best, a one-on-one with flexible time limits. More likely something in a controlled environment, like a press conference. Asking post-game questions in a clubhouse littered with laundry and […]

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It’s time for a list. A lot of information and opinions banging around out there about the U.S. loss at Trinidad and Tobago, and subsequent failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Let’s see if we can pick out a few of the most interesting notions — and maybe introduce a few new ones.

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It wasn’t only because we found meals in Vienna to be expensive, compared to nearby cut-rate European capital cities Prague and Budapest, that we avoided Vienna’s restaurants for most of our stay in the Austrian capital. Though that was much of it. Another major factor? A chance to binge on American-made movies in VO (version […]

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Major League Baseball has designated this “Players Weekend” … which is supposed to be about the players having fun — mainly by revealing their nicknames and wearing them on their jerseys. (Players probably would prefer an extra $1,000 in their paycheck, if MLB really wanted the players to feel special.) Anyway, nicknames. This does not […]

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The draft. Whichever you want to talk about … is very much an American thing. The rest of the world, you collect players in a youth system and watch them develop. You keep a few, loan some others, release the rest. Especially the case in world soccer. In the U.S. however, talent is typically distributed […]

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The Rio 2016 Summer Olympics wrapped up today. The final few medals handed out, the typical Closing Ceremonies chaos the great migration to the airport in the morning … Here are 10 topics about these Games, the future Games, and the people involved in it all.

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If you come across one of those 10 most decisive battles in human history lists … the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, invariably will be in there. It was a victory for a coalition of forces, mostly British and Prussian, that marked the end of Napoleon’s bloody attempts to bring the whole of Europe […]

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Back in 2013 I did a list of 10 Movies I would watch today, tomorrow and next week. May of these films, thankfully, seem to be in heavy rotation among long-haul airways, so you can see them without commercial interruption if you are crossing an ocean. However, I left out one movie that has to […]

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Well, it’s good news in my view of the world, anyway. We don’t have to be negative all the time, do we? Let’s do a list to celebrate some of the uplifting or inspirational or remarkable. For one day, anyway.

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While preparing for our annual fantasy league, the strongest unexpected impression I got, from examining 30 Major League teams … was how bad so many of them are. Baseball has a half-dozen no-hope teams right out of the gate. And probably closer to a dozen. And I am not thinking of 78-84 bad. I’m thinking […]

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