Sports Saturday Mistah Steinbrenner—he dead. So I imagine T. S. Eliot announcing the death of the legendary Yankee owner this past week. That’s because, if one goes by Eliot’s famous 1925 poem “The Hollow Men,” one could not say that “the Boss” was “Shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion.” In fact, an […]
Tag Archives: Sports
George Steinbrenner, Not a Hollow Man
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hollow Men", Baseball, George Steinbrenner, T. S. Eliot Comments closed
The Poetry of Spanish Soccer
The incomparable Xavi Sports Saturday Spanish sports is having a great year. First of all, Spanish forward Pau Gasol was a major reason why the Los Angeles Lakers won their 16th championship in an archetypal series against the Boston Celtics. Then we were officially ushered from the Age of Federer into the Age of Nadal […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Netherland, Soccer, Spain, World Cup Comments closed
A Poem for Heroes and Mass Murderers
Since the World Cup is underway in South Africa, I watched Clint Eastwood’s Invictus last week, about the 1995 World Cup Rugby Tournament held in South Africa. Based on a true story, the film notes that, while in prison, Nelson Mandela, like many black South Africans, would root against the South African rugby team, beloved […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Invictus", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Apartheid, Clint Eastwood, Faisal Shahzad, John Milton, Nelson Mandela, Paradise Lost, politics, Timothy McVeigh, Ulysses, William Ernest Henley Comments closed
Poetry at Wimbledon
Sports Saturday I’m still trying to process the Ghana and Brazil defeats and will write about the World Cup in the next two Friday posts. For the moment, I’ll take a breather and turn to tennis. Trust Wimbledon, the classiest of the tennis tournaments, to work poetry into the occasion. I wrote last year about […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "more than a lawn", Matt Harvey, tennis, Wimbledon Comments closed
Soccer Highs and Lows and a Tennis Epic
John Isner Sports Saturday – “It’s incredible! You could not write a script like this!” So proclaimed the announcer in the U. S. – Algeria World Cup match when Landon Donovan netted a stoppage time goal to avoid elimination and send the Americans forward to the next round. In other words, a sports announcer’s ultimate […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bernard Malamud, Bruce Cohen, France, Iowa Baseball Confederacy, Isner-Malmut match, Jean Paul Sartre, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Nausea, Soccer, Sports film, tennis, the Natural, Voyage to the End of the Night, W. P. Kinsella, Wimbledon, World Cup Comments closed
Soccer, an Un-American Sport?
Landon Donovan, man of the match Sports Saturday Years ago I read (I think in The Washington Post) a humorous article about why Americans are not great soccer enthusiasts. The article said that Americans have problems with a game where a two-goal lead is practically insurmountable. Robert Frost would have something to say about that. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Oven Bird", Road Not Taken, Robert Frost, Soccer Comments closed
The Perfect Game that Wasn’t
Armando Galarraga Sports Saturday Even as we stand on the precipice of the World Cup—tragically I will be traveling cross country today when the U.S. is playing England—something has been happening in the world of baseball that invites comment. Perfect games are breaking out all over. A pitcher pitches a perfect game if no runner […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Luxury Boxes", Baseball, Bruce Cohen, Great American Novel, Perfection, Philip Roth, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Comments closed
The Prizefighter vs. the Yokel
Sports Saturday So my tennis idol, Roger Federer, is out of the French Open. Before the semi-finals. Federer’s astounding streak of 23 straight appearances in Grand Slam semi-final matches is one of the great streaks in sports and will never be approached. (To get a sense of its magnitude, consider that Rod Laver and Ivan […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Invisible Man, Rafael Nadal, Ralph Ellison, Roger Federer, tennis Comments closed
