Hometown Heroes: The Best Athletes from White Plains

Former Washington Redskin and Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Art Monk is the best athlete ever to come out of White Plains.
I was born and raised in White Plains, New York, 27 miles north of midtown Manhattan, the county seat of Westchester, famous for a Revolutionary War skirmish against the British in 1776. [...]

Sorry T.S., April Is The Best Month for Sports

T.S. Eliot knew how to write, but sports wasn’t his strong suit.
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. “
– T.S Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922
Thomas Stearns (T.S.) Eliot, the American-British poet, playwright and critic, may have been a member of the Literature Hall [...]

The Top 10 Championship Games in Final Four History

North Carolina’s Michael Jordan shoots down Georgetown for 1982 NCAA title.
Since the NCAA basketball tournament began in 1939, there have been great dynasties like UCLA, which won 10 titles in 12 years beginning in 1964. There have been great players like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, Lew Alcindor and Bill [...]

The Endangered Art of Sportswriting

From the time I was a little kid, I dreamed of being a sportswriter. I remember reading the New York papers my father brought home, especially the sports section, catching up on the exploits of my favorite ballplayers.
I recall the evening papers, like the New York Journal American and the World-Telegram & Sun,  with the [...]

The SportsLifer Top 10

It was a tough call, but in the end Bucky Dent won out. The SportsLifer’s top 50 memorable sports events attended came down to a pair of decisive baseball games between the Red Sox and Yankees 25 years apart.
Bucky Dent’s decisive three-run homer against the Red Sox in the 1978 American League East playoff game [...]

The SportsLifer Top 50 Countdown

The old Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th streets, scene of many NBA doubleheaders in the 1950s and 60s.
The SportsLifer is a lucky man. Throughout his life, he’s been to World Series, Super Bowls, Stanley Cup playoffs and Final Fours. He’s seen the Olympics, Triple Crown horse racing, major golf tournaments, [...]

The Ring-Leaders: Champions of Championships

Do the math. The Boston Celtics have won 16 NBA titles, the Los Angeles (nee Minneapolis) Lakers 14. When the 62nd NBA Finals are completed in a few weeks, the Celtics and the Lakers will have combined for 31 titles, exactly half of the 62 championships. This is their 11th meeting in the finals, another [...]

The Numbers Game

Guess I should have listened to my math teacher.
A group of number crunchers at George Tech used two mathematical processes to correctly pick this year’s Final Four….and 30 of the 36 Final Four teams in the past nine years, according to InfoWorld. Those results are more accurate than the tournament seeding system and polls, which [...]

Crashing and Burning

As the North Carolina Tar Heels crashed and burned Saturday night, so did my chances of finishing in the money in Comms Before the Storm, that famous NCAA pool. No consolation points for leading going into the final weekend of the tournament.
How could a team as talented as UNC fall behind 40-12 in the first [...]

Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Have North Carolina in The Finals….

Well, next exactly. I have the Tar Heels to win it all. I have three of the Final Four. I am leading my NCAA pool after 60 games. But none of that is good enough.
Even if the Tar Heels win the national championship, I’m losing my pool to the winner of the Memphis-UCLA game. If [...]