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 [...]

Cardinals Rule: Louisville Picked to Win NCAA Tournament

It says here, sometime around midnight on Monday night, April 6, Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals will be celebrating a win over the Oklahoma Sooners and cutting down the nets in the Motor City.
Pitino is due to join a select group of coaches whose teams have won at least two NCAA championships. And if Louisville wins, [...]

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, [...]

Home, Sweet Home, Killing NBA Playoffs

If you like watching paint dry, you’ll love watching the NBA playoffs.
Once known for fast action, terrific player match-ups and fantastic finishes, this year’s playoffs have become as predictable as Hillary Clinton’s never-say-die mantra or the next full moon.
The home team wins all the time. The visitors don’t stand a chance. Sometimes the games are [...]

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 [...]

It’s All Right with Lefty O’Doul

Had a turkey sandwich at Lefty O’Douls Restaurant near Union Square in San Francisco today. Had to check out his career stats. T
he San Francisco native broke in as a pitcher with the Yankees and later Red Sox, developed a sore arm, finished 1-1 for his career, and was essentially done by the age [...]

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 [...]

Survive And Advance

March Madness….survive and advance….laying it all on the line, agonizing over a turnover, exulting after a long three. Sweating it out until the final buzzer.
College basketball players? Heck no, we’re talking about the pool players in NCAA tournament brackets.
It’s all about survive and advance at this point of the year, where one loss can turn [...]