Last week, Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder and reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun became the first player to have the 50-game suspension for a positive drug test overturned by a strange arbitrator. Major League Baseball was upset with the ruling; the Players’ Union lauded the call. You could almost hear them saying “Yippee – all you […]

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I have followed professional football for almost all of my life, and at least since I wrote for The Sportswriters, I have advocated research on the injuries players accrue playing the game; reviewing the long-term implications on athletes’ health; and better equipment to protect the athletes. And this was before we learned the existence of […]

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I didn’t write anything last Fall when Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder and reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun was assessed a 50-game suspension for a positive drug test. I don’t have much of an opinion on Mr. Braun, except that he is a terrific player for the Brewers and had a fantastic season, but when Braun’s […]

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I am happy to see Knicks guard Jeremy Lin doing so well. The Harvard graduate is shattering stereotypes all over the place: Asians can play basketball; Harvard now fields a good basketball team (recently ranked in the Top 25 for the first time in history. As the father of two Chinese/African-American girls, I am very […]

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In a bit of a surprise, the Chicago White Sox added a left-handed bat to their outfield mix, former Cub Kosuke Fukudome. To their credit, they are paying a lot less than their North Shore counterparts did. Fukudome will make only $1 million guaranteed, half of that coming this season. If he proves himself more […]

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It was no surprise to me last week when Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd said that he used cocaine before many of the games he played in during his career. Boyd, who spent some time late in his career with the White Sox, told a Fort Myers, Florida radio station that he snorted up everywhere. “Oh […]

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One of the most alarming books I’ve ever read about the pro tennis tour was “Hard Courts: Real Life on the Professional Tennis Tours” by John Feinstein. In that book (1992), he detailed how tennis parents dominated the player’s life; and in effect becoming the young person’s employees, but with guardian powers over money. The […]

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