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Shooting (SF) Giants: A photo essay by Stephanie Lim
But once a month, the fourth-year Harvard men’s basketball coach adds a different element to his routine.
On these days, Amaker pays a visit to Harvard Square restaurant Henrietta’s Table. It is there that Amaker meets with nearly a dozen predominately African-American scholars, doctors, and businessmen from the Boston area for a monthly breakfast that provides an opportunity for the group to share in conversation, laughter, and good-natured trash talking.
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t you forget about me.
What became known as Fernandomania began with an opening-day shutout by Mexican rookie Fernando Valenzuela 30 years ago, reports Dylan Hernandez:
He said he didn’t notice more Latinos in the seats at Dodger Stadium. Or that he was helping ease long-standing ethnic and cultural tensions in the city. Or that he was drawing the attention of businesses to the growing Latino market. Or that because of him teams were increasingly looking outside the country for players.
“The impact he made not only in Southern California but in all of the country, it was really great for the game,” said Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball.
Photo: Valenzuela salutes the crowd after pitching a three-hit shutout for his eighth consecutive victory to start the 1981 season. More photos on Framework. Credit: Rob Brown / Herald Examiner Collection
There was something in the air that night…
(Source: Los Angeles Times)
Oregon State University basketball coach Craig Robinson is featured in the latest issue of Business Week for choosing basketball over business.
People wouldn’t know Craig Robinson if I wasn’t the brother-in-law of the President. It gives me a little bit of brand recognition and helps with recruiting. I tell my players that everybody’s watching what they do. It brings more pressure, but that’s life. I also tell my players what my parents told me: Don’t pick your career on the amount of money you make. When I got a chance to buy all the stuff I wanted, I discovered it didn’t mean a thing.
The wonderful guys over at Pitchers & Poets asked me to contribute to their blog for Scorekeeping Week, so I gave them a story about my intense desire to ruin those nice, neat scorebooks.
There are routines for before and after naps. Tyson Chandler of the Dallas Mavericks gets a massage, Ronny Turiaf of the Knicks seeks bread pudding and Antawn Jamison of the Cleveland Cavaliers carefully irons and lays out his clothes before shutting it down.
Henry Abbott’s post about race and the NBA is definitely worth checking out:
The NBA has been eager to declare victory, on the topic of race, and then move on. That almost seems to imply that some kind of spell was cast — and since then all that racism we know existed was wiped away for good.
But of course it was painstaking and slow progress, born of hard conversations, hard-won respect, and hard-earned trust. It’s in degrees of gradation, and it’s in a much better place now. It did not evaporate, though.
The climate for disagreement in the political arena has become so overheated, so mean-spirited, that it’s entirely possible a Congresswoman lies in a hospital right now, fighting for her life, because of a difference in philosophy, an intolerance of disagreement. Maybe, then, the sports arena, with a greater capacity for disagreement, is the more welcome place for the difficult conversations, regardless of the topic. The sports world, once the holiday games have come to an end, can indeed celebrate Dr. King’s spirit by engaging people, by using its athletes’ popularity to bring folks into the tent for examinations beyond the playing of the games, for in-depth looks at race, gender, the economy, opportunities for advancement, for pursuing dreams.
via Mike Wilbon’s latest column. Click the link and read the whole thing.
Handoffs
Handoffs is a weekly roundup of sports stories and blog posts gathered from around the interwebs that we find interesting, informative, and entertaining.
Here’s a fun and informative headline from The Spoiler: Burmese Dictator Wanted to Buy Manchester United.
Bernard Gilkey hasn’t played for the Diamondbacks in nine years, but they’ll be paying him until 2017.
Interesting story from The New York Times about athletes trying to trademark their names and catchphrases.
A pair of 10-year-old boys are reaching out to former Negro League baseball players.
Michael Wilbon’s final column for the Washington Post is right here, and it’s a good one. It’s a reminder that before he became the Pardon the Interruption talking head, he used to be a really, really good writer.
Handoffs
Activity is moving slowly here on There’s No “I” in Blog for the time being because we’re still in the process of packing up and moving to a site with less coding issues, but I promise we’ll be back in full force in the very near future. For now, here’s another weekly dose of Handoffs.
Handoffs is a weekly roundup of sports stories and blog posts gathered from around the interwebs that we find interesting, informative, and entertaining.
This is two weeks old but still noteworthy: friend of TNIB Jason Clinkscales talks with Sports Media Watch about, you guessed it, sports and media.
Some members of the University of Colorado community don’t want the school to rehire Bill McCartney because of anti-homosexual comments he’s made (with an update at the bottom of the post)—via Outsports.
Travis Hughes of Broad Street Hockey discusses the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media.
The New York Times has an update about a method of detecting concussions and brain injuries in athletes.
The December issue of Norman Einstein’s is out as well. This one is all about the Heisman Trophy. Go read it.
Themed by Hunson and Five Gorillas
