Every time MLB moves away from its history, tradition and nostalgia, the game doesn’t improve a little, it dies a little
Baseball is a significantly different sport than football, basketball and hockey. It’s that uniqueness, and the tradition that comes from the fact that baseball has changed very little over the years, that accounts for a lot of its popularity. “There’s no crying in baseball!” said Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) in the movie A…
Analytical detail determines winners and losers. So why do coaches insist on winging it at crucial moments?
I’m reading Ted Barris’s book The Dam Busters, about the epic 1943 raid by Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force flyers on the Möhne and Eder dams. The raid was famous for its risk – 53 men were killed, 18 of them Canadian – and for the new technologies used by the bombers…
With billions now being bet legally on sports, the simple outcome of the Super Bowl game will no longer be the only story
It’s late in Super Bowl LIII this Sunday. The driving New England Patriots, favoured by a field goal, have a three-point lead in the game. Hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide ride on whether the Los Angeles Rams can keep them out of the end zone or whether quarterback Tom Brady will push it in…
The NFL’s officiating video review system needs to be fixed. And overtime comes down to who wins the coin toss. How is that fair?
I don’t know why some people aren’t sports fans but I’m certainly glad I am. Sunday’s National Football League games reinforced that feeling. What great drama and entertainment the NFL gave us with the conference championship games. Elite athleticism and clutch performances were on exhibit by players from each of the four teams. Sadly, the…
The organization that oversees college athletics broke the $1-billion mark in annual revenue for 2017. And it's considered a non-profit
The College Football Playoff (CFP) championship game recently generated millions of dollars for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, the universities involved and their media partners. The players who put on a great show of athleticism? Well, they probably got a nice steak dinner. Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Notre Dame made…
Commissioner Gary Bettman never backed up or hinted the NHL might have had a problem related to head injuries to players
It used to be a staple of TV game shows. The grinning host on the stage. The dishevelled contestant looking dazed before him. “Do you want the $100 I’m holding in my hand … or would you like what’s behind the curtain up on stage?” Music, cheering, pandemonium. Maybe it was a new set of…
The terrible degenerative disease is claiming more and more victims who played football at all levels
As a sports policy analyst, I’ve learned a lot more about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in athletes than I ever expected to. Actually, at this point, I’ve learned more than I really want to know. CTE is a terrible degenerative disease, and it takes an immense toll on those who are stricken, as well as…
The NFL and other pro sports leagues don't celebrate the military as gestures of patriotism. The only motivating factor is money
America’s major professional sports leagues – most notably the National Football League – have increasingly teamed with the military and corporations to serve up ugly forms of paid and forced patriotism. “The melding of sports and the military should be seen as inappropriate, if not insidious,” says William Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant-colonel…
For as long as the lens has followed sports, broadcasters have denied fans the language, noise and strategy of the game – until now
It’s the next frontier of TV sports broadcasting. Naturally, the Canadian Football League is leading the way. What? The CFL schooling all the big boys on cutting-edge audio technology? Yup. The final frontier of live broadcasting is going inside the audio of the game. Since TSN and the league gave it the go-ahead, we’ve had…
James Hinchcliffe, Robbie Wickens and Zachary Claman De Melo are all vying to bring Toronto a Canadian winner
The first time I attended the Honda Indy race in Toronto, my friend Scot Cameron, a former race car driver, told me to stand at the wall of the track at the straightaway and look directly across as a car goes past. “All you’ll see is a blur,” he said. “You’ll know it went past,…
Baseball is a significantly different sport than football, basketball and hockey. It’s that uniqueness, and the tradition that comes from the fact that baseball has changed very little over the years, that accounts for a lot of its popularity. “There’s no crying in baseball!” said Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks) in the movie A…
