Month: July 2013

This fascinating interview of Tino Martinez by Kenny Rosenthal reminds me again that I planned years ago to write a book called “Moneyball.” Obviously it was going to be nothing at all like Michael Lewis’ classic. The idea was to write about the late 1990s Kansas City Royals and their, um, rather awkward efforts to…

I am asked to keep it short. Fewer than 100 words. On Muhammad Ali? I wrote a book on him, 128,000 words. I can do this. Best athlete I ever saw, ever will see. Smartest man in every room, couldn’t spell. Cruel when his game demanded he be cruel, kind every day of his life….

One thing that becomes more and more clear is that it’s HARD to get 75% in any kind of poll. Obviously that’s much higher than a majority, higher even then a supermajority. If the BR voting for the Hall of Fame was like a vote for class president, Pete Rose and Barry Bonds would have…

Julius Erving. When he took off — usually a quarter-mile from the basket — nobody in the building, including him, knew what was about to happen. — Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, multi-platinum selling author (if such a thing existed), basis for a TV show, just a player in a rock ‘n…

Drungo LaRue Hazewood – and we always used all three names – was a baseball legend when I came to Charlotte in 1981. The name had a lot to do with it, of course. What a name. Say those three names together. Poetry. But it wasn’t only the name. It was also that he had…