Sports Saturday This past week my novelist friend Rachel Kranz was visiting after having busted out of the World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas. She made it to Day 4 (out of 9), which was pretty good considering that she has only been playing for three years. Still she was upset, as good […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
