Twins Crumble
In the Yankees’ three-game playoff sweep, the Yankees displayed superior starting pitching, relief pitching, power hitting, clutch hitting, defense, baserunning, bench and managing*. The Twins excelled in…nothing I can think of. How do you explain the one-sided nature of a series between two teams that finished only one game apart over the regular season? First, […]
The Twins – Postseason and Beyond
After a surprisingly successful 94-win season in 2010, the Minnesota Twins will be facing their nemesis and mine, the New York Yankees, in the AL Division Series in two days. Just as sportswriters have to vote on player awards before the postseason begins, I should memorialize my thoughts on the state of the Twins as […]
Chicago 19 – Detroit 14
The NFL refs wasted no time getting into the national debate about bad calls (baseball) and stupid rules (golf) in sports seen on TV. The long-suffering Detroit Lions seemed to have pulled off a miraculous upset when their backup quarterback threw a Hail Mary in the game’s final minute that Calvin Johnson grabbed in the […]
Soccer: The Confounding Game
Every four years I avidly follow international soccer, a/k/a the World Cup, and conclude with a desire to watch the sport again…in four more years. While I am watching I pick a team to root for – generally based on hairstyles and uniform colors, thus putting Germany at the bottom of the pack – and […]
Instant Replay
Very shortly after the Armando Gallarage/Jim Joyce unperfect-game situation occurred, I settled on the instant-replay solution that is being more and more talked about, and it is simply this: Give each manager one challenge flag, but one flag only, that he can use at any point in the game for anything other than a ball-and-strike […]