It is my most vivid childhood memory. I’m five years old. I am wearing a white cotton blouse with an eyelet ruffled neckline and turquoise and white polka dot skort. A little sprite sitting on the back of a big pale yellow hog behind a god. My braids flying behind me in the wind. My arms wrapped tight around my uncle Windy. Read the rest of this entry »
The Tour Begins
July 29, 2001The Tour de France starts Tuesday. Oh, I know you think it started a week ago today, with Stage 1. Although officially it started a week ago yesterday, with the Prologue, since the time and points from Stage 0 do count. (Already your head hurts. Don’t worry about it. There is plenty here to confuse, but much much more to entertain and even amaze.) The real race, however, between the riders who have a legitimate chance to win the whole croissant begins Tuesday, in the mountains. Read the rest of this entry »
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cycling | Tagged: Andrei Kivilev, Bobby Julich, Bonjour, Cofidis, Col du Portet d'Aspet, Credit Agrocole, Deutsche Telecomm, Fabio Casartelli, Francois Simon, Jan Ullrich, L'Alpes d'Huez, Lance Armstrong, Luz Ardiden, Stuart O'Grady, Tour de France, U.S. Postal | 
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Posted by sportsdiva
On Thin Ice
March 11, 2001“What would Brian Boitano do if he were here right now?”
(see South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | figure skating, Olympics | Permalink
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Relapse
November 7, 2000I’ve been moved to read more and more about cocaine addiction by the continuing trials and tribulations of Darryl Strawberry. I’m having a hard time finding a recidivism rate. The more I look, the more it seems likely that the rate is around 100%. The drug agencies don’t want to advertise this, because they want addicts to try to get off. But the attempt is apparently the success. Strawberry’s aftercare folks aren’t lying when they say, “We expect this.” They do. And they expect it over and over. The point seems to be not that they try to prevent relapse, but that they control the depth of the relapse and the speed of return to attempted recovery.
I guess I’m coming to the conclusion that blaming an addict for relapse is like blaming a cancer survivor for a return of their disease. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | baseball | Tagged: baseball, cocaine, darryl strawberry | Permalink
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The Future of the Game
March 28, 2000It is a marketer’s dream. A vignette of four young, talented, media savvy athletes in their prime: Three great heroes of the game hand over the reins to the next generation of superstars. And it is tragically flawed.
This picture on the pond that we were treated to before the NHL All-Star game in February was meant to show the game was in good hands. But the hands of Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr, and Pavel Bure may not be around long enough to carry more than disability checks.
Hockey is sick. And these four young men show the symptoms of the disease. The bigger, faster, stronger athletes in hockey wear harder protective gear more suited as weapon than shield and skate on ice unable to hold up under the added weight in the multipurpose arena.
Whether small and shifty like Kariya and Bure, and therefore more vulnerable to injury from bad ice and bad-tempered opponents, or big and fast and unbelievably strong like Jagr and Lindros, and therefore inadequately protected by officials who illogically determine they are big enough to take care of themselves, hockey’s star players are an endangered species.
Leave a Comment » | advertising, hockey | Tagged: Add new tag, advertising, Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr, NHL, Paul Kariya, Pavel Bure | Permalink
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