Ballgame’s Points

Anyone who doesn’t pay for Showtime is sleeping on — hands down — the best football show out there: Inside the NFL. Each week James Brown hosts (and mediates) a forum of Phil Simms, Chris Collinsworth and the inimitable Warren Sapp. The show, formerly of HBO, accomplishes everything NFL fans are looking for on a [Read More...]

Anyone who watched Kobe Bryant get thoroughly handled by Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals knew the other shoe would drop soon enough. The guy has never been able to stomach losing — from growing up in Italy challenging his dad’s teammates to games of one-on-one as a tyke to rounding [Read More...]

National pride is a sensation that — for most of us — rarely manifests itself in a profound way. As Americans, the concept of nationalism is more or less implicit. We’re intrinsically proud to be American (with caveats) but rarely wake up with a burning desire to be closer to Uncle Sam. It’s for [Read More...]

I received a text from a friend the night before the trade deadline when it looked like Manny Ramirez was headed to South Florida to join the Marlins. The text read: “Worried yet?” My response: “They won’t do it. Not with a dynasty on the line.” (One of the great sports debates is what constitutes [Read More...]

With another MLB trade deadline upon us and most fantasy deadlines looming soon thereafter, it’s time to start dealing. Now is it always imperative to make a move just because some predetermined date in time says you must? No, I’ve never been a proponent of dealing for the sake of dealing. However… Unless your team [Read More...]

Look, I love the All-Star break. Watching the Howards and Brauns of the world take aim at Tim Wakefieldesque fastballs in the Home Run Derby while the Mannys and Chippers soak it all in with camcorders in one hand and tykes in the other, that’s always cool. Seeing the AL and NL band [Read More...]

Something funny happened last weekend. The Red Sox and Yankees played a pretty darned good split four-game series, yet nobody seemed to notice. Of course the talking heads will cite how the Yankees aren’t that good (they aren’t) and how the whole Sox-Yanks thing has become totally watered down (it has). Fact is, the [Read More...]

It’s Cinco de Mayo. 30 games are in the books. You know what that means. Time to begin critically evaluating your fantasy team. What is your injury situation? Who has underperformed? Who has exceeded expectations? Do you have good balance between offense and pitching? What’s the greater makeup of the league [Read More...]

The journey begins at an upscale condominium complex in North Jersey. Dick Kaner is already standing outside, ready to roll, ready to embark on his 37th consecutive trek down the Atlantic coast for the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament (PIT). Like many in his profession of professional basketball scouting and representation, Kaner has just returned from the Final [Read More...]

The NCAA tournament field begins with 65 teams, and in the span of four days, is whittled down to 16. Transpiring more like a continuous strike of lightning than 48 separate basketball games, the first two rounds of the Big Dance make it impossible to do anything else for the better part of 80 [Read More...]