Sports Saturday In one of the tidiest sports weekends of the year, one sports comes to an end while another begins. March Madness holds its semi-final and final games while baseball kicks off its season. To celebrate opening day, I promise reader Carl Rosin a write-up on a baseball novel. It seems like the great baseball novels […]
Sports Saturday Once again March Madness is gripping America. Once again we see Cinderella teams upsetting the giants (Northern Iowa upsetting top-seeded Kansas, Butler upsetting mighty Syracuse) and games won or lost on remarkable shots made in the waning seconds (Murray State, Michigan State). Maryland, the team I was rooting for, made a miraculous last […]
Sports Saturday March Madness—the American college basketball play-offs—is officially underway. As is the tradition, the first round has witnessed a host of upsets, including Georgetown, a favorite in my area. (Another favorite, Maryland, won late last night.) As I scan the scores, I find myself wondering why there isn’t more good literature about basketball. In fact, […]
Sports Saturday We are entering that time of year when the country goes crazy over college basketball and March Madness. Actually, March Madness came early to my school because the small college Division III tournament begins two weeks before that of the big boys. St. Mary’s College of Maryland seldom wins conference titles in sports—it’s […]
author Jerry Gabriel Sports Saturday Saturday posts are devoted to the intersection of literature and sports. To gain access to all the posts on sports, click “sports” in the tag cloud to your right. My creative writing colleague Jerry Gabriel has just published Drowned Boy (Sarabande Books, 2010), a collection of his short stories that won […]
Sports Saturday I am adding a new feature to Better Living through Beowulf, which I am calling Sports Saturday. If you wish to see all of the website’s posts on sports and literature, click on “sports” in the tag cloud. Once again the mesmerizing spectacle of the Olympics has descended upon us as we watch […]
The Super Bowl has come and gone and, although my team lost, I appreciate the fact that the American city most in need of a boost received one. Before the football season entirely fades from memory, I want to share the story of my incursion into the sports blogosphere and how I carried the torch […]
Drew Brees, Super Bowl MVP A few years back, if I remember the article correctly, I came across two interesting statistics about life in America on Super Bowl Sunday. During the game the country’s crime drops to the lowest level of the year. Following the game, however, acts of spousal violence hit their highest levels of […]
Bread and circuses. That was the accusation of the Roman satirist Juvenal, directed against those politicians who used free bread and gladiatorial contests to divert the populace’s mind from their political responsibilities. Today our diversions continue to occur in coliseums and arenas. I plead guilty to having been so diverted. These past […]
