Reality TV shows based on news-making families cannot be all goodness and light. Some weird stuff going on? Some family tension? That helps feed interest in shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians, which has been runnnig since 2007. And, also, about the Balls and their much more recent reality debut. LiAngelo Ball’s run-in with […]

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Los Angeles Lakers fans presumably saw the stat line from the NBA debut of savior/point guard Lonzo Ball. It was scary. The headline espn.com ran on the Associated Press report began like this: “Deflated Ball”. Couldn’t argue with that. Lonzo was unable to escape the enthusiastic defense of Clippers guard Patrick Beverley and the rookie […]

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Most observers would say the NBA is better than ever. I would say it is worse. Than ever. Certainly, in terms of competitive balance and number of clubs with a shot at winning a championship. Because stars are clustering in a half-dozen teams. Because several NBA teams have little hope of reaching the playoffs and […]

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By population, the city of San Diego ranks No. 8 in the country, with approximately 1.4 million residents. By professional sports teams, however, San Diego now ranks perhaps No. 40 in the U.S. It has baseball’s San Diego Padres … and we are done talking about Big Four U.S. sports teams based in one of […]

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Oh, for the comparatively sane salaries of American sports! The NFL gives out big contracts but rarely means it — most of the money is not guaranteed and often is not paid out. The NBA spends enormous sums on players but 1) the league has a salary cap, which taxes big-spending clubs and 2) its […]

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We will never forget Shaquille O’Neal. Even six years after his playing career ended. How could we, when the Big Pitch Man is appearing on television all the time? I count at least three advertising campaigns he is leading — for The General insurance company, for Icy Hot pain-killing lidocaine cream and patches (10 years […]

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Lonzo Ball’s first game with the Lakers, in an NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas last night, was a disaster. The stuff of nightmares. The No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft, the “next Magic Johnson”, stunk it up. Two-for-15 shooting from the field. One-for-11 from three. Welcome to the league, Lonzo. Or the […]

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This depresses me — the notion of legal betting on sports in most, if not all, U.S. states. It could happen, perhaps as soon as next year. The Supreme Court this week decided to hear the state of New Jersey’s appeal on legalized sports gambling — which Jersey, always a leader in taste and good […]

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I first traveled to Barcelona in the summer of 1992 to help cover the Summer Olympics for Gannett News Service. I was very impressed with the place. It had charm. It had class. It organized a very fine Olympics. It seemed like a city people would want to see, if they knew about it. And […]

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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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