SPORT
Adam Underhill
SUPER BOWL XL: Preview from a Steely Fan
01.30.06
Adam Underhill looks back in reverie on the Steelers' past Super success and predicts that Jerome Bettis will come home to Detroit to go out in style. That is if he doesn't fumble again. Photos by Dave Fulmer
Benjamin Strong
Cheap Shot: Notes on Donald Rumsfeld and the Game of Squash
09.28.06
Donald Rumsfeld wants you! To challenge him to a game of hardball squash. Actually, he probably wants you to enlist as well, but that's not the point of this column by squash veteran Benjamin Strong. Strong wrangles through the mixed metaphors assigned to the Secretary of Defense's recreation, and finds they may not be as astute as their writers believe.
Casey McKinney
Oldies Among The Eight: World Cup Sonnet 1
07.01.06
Well this will be old news after today, as Brazil plays France, and one of the legends (Ronaldo or Zidane) will be knocked out. And as I write this blurb, England and Portugal look like they will be going to penalty kicks, and Beckham's out with an injury. Maybe I'll write more.
Dallas Hudgens
The Final Four Finally: The Phenom of George Mason
03.30.06
There are those schools that nobody ever hears about because, well, even if they have a sports team, they have never made it to any of the big dances. George Mason Alumnus Dallas Hudgens writes about the wild ride it has been for The Patriots this season, making it to the Final Four of the NCAA Championship, a feat that has put this rather unkown school on the map.
Gail Hosking Gilberg
Benny and The Mets
09.20.09
Both of New York's MLB teams played in new stadiums this year. While the Yankees are 9 games up as this blurb is written, the Mets, with 64 wins & 85 losses, have looked less than amazing, have already been eliminated from postseason play, and don't seem quite as cozy in their snazzy new home. For longtime Mets fans (and baseball fans in general), forget about this season for a moment and take a gander back in time, as Gail Hosking Gilberg takes us back here through the eyes of her Mets loving son. Art by Danny Jock.
Grant Weber
Take One For The Zine
11.18.05
Grant Weber, like most good journalists, approaches his sources completely clueless about his subject matter. In his first column he talks to his friend Amir about everything (and nothing) sports related.
Jason Jude Chan
A Two-Week Disney Waltz: Thoughts on the 2009 NBA Finals Between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic
06.04.09
In our preview, the line was Lakers in 6, they got it in 5. We didn't see the LeBron James and Kobe Bryant matchup that some were hoping for. No, while James, perhaps Cleveland's highest figuring GDP, was couching it for the 2009 NBA final series, before the first tip off Jason Jude Chan imagined what may happen over the next couple weeks as a largely favored Los Angeles Lakers took on a somewhat less formidable Orlando Magic. Art by Danny Jock.
Joe Jock
The Abysmal Nature of College Football's Postseason System
01.07.09
In college football, as in hardly any other sport, many teams fight a long season only to be cheated from a chance to prove themselves as number 1. Joe Jock here proposes a solution where everyone wins, even the damn sponsors. Brother Dan draws.
John Russell
The West Ham Football Report
01.13.06
John Russell meanders his way through a Birmingham and West Ham match while expounding on the missing links of American (rock) history, why the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about American football, and Frodo Baggins as a neophyte soccer... err football hooligan.
Jon Weissberg
Tom Brady Is Handsome
01.20.08
It's the the last day of football before the superbowl. Chargers play the Pats and Bret Favre and crew take on New York's Giants. Last week, Jon Weissberg and friends finally noticed that not only can Tom Brady execute some pretty fine work in under two minutes, but that he's also, admitedly (in the most objective terms), pretty fine. Let's see if Jon's predictions hold up over the next few hours. Read fast! Undefeated Tom drawing by Danny Jock.
Michael Louie
Hockey Night: an occasional column
04.17.08
Procrastination be damned! Mike Louie is an unabashed Philadelphia Flyers fan and this column is one in an occasional series he will write on sports, particularly the NHL Playoffs, which have been underway for about a week now. This time he responds to the Washington Post’s Mike Wise, who, in a bad attempt to imitate one of Louie’s favorite writers, ended up looking foolish across the Internet by scribbling not the best informed column about the Flyers-Capitals game Tuesday night.
Pete Hausler
Zen Betting The Roses: A Kentucky Derby Preview for Beginning Betters
05.03.08
It's Derby Day, been Derby Week. Have you picked out your best hat yet? Or for that matter the horses you're betting on? Could study the hell out of the program, uhh...racing forms that is, try to get the scientific scoop on trainers, jockeys or the health status of the horses and whatnot, or try what Pete does, and what a lot of gamblers often do - use your best illusion. Art by Danny Jock.
Richard Parks
Strawberry Jamming: Darryl's Dodger Days, Memories of a Young Fan
06.22.09
Richard Parks grew up across the highway from one of the rougher hoods in Los Angeles, Crenshaw (as this editor knows, I used to teach there), and Crenshaw High is where Darryl Strawberry honed his talent on the baseball diamond before jaunting back and forth to New York as both a Met, a Yankee, and an interim return stint as a Los Angeles Dodger, a period that would also introduce him to his arch nemesis, crack cocaine. It was during Straw's Dodger days that Parks, aged 9, first fell in love with the old American pastime (too young for Nirvana yet), and Strawberry was his first hero. A couple of newish books chart Strawberry's checkered, storied career involving drug use, redemption, fall and redemption again. Loosely referencing those texts, Parks here mostly recalls his memories as a young fan and the changing city he knew at the time.
Robyn Weisman
Big Horses: A Triple Crown Report
07.06.07
Mid-summer, and the big three are over, and again no Triple Crown. Robyn Weisman looks back at some of horse racing's bigger names, from the 70's packed with Trip winners, to this year's strong filly Rags To Riches
Tom Flynn
The Big Hit
06.23.08
Wimbledon 2008 is in the books, and a couple of weeks prior, Tom Flynn had predicted another classic Nadal/Federer rematch, wondering if Nadal's "big hit" forearm would overcome the Swiss on grass, or if the clay king would need a little more of that old Tracy Austin finesse - and less of the Peter Fleming kill shots - Flynn recalled from the tennis heros of his youth... (Well after 5 long sets and a little rain, the Spaniard used a little bit of everything to end Federer's reign at Wimbledom, stopping him shy of 6 titles in a row). Art by Danny Jock.
Wendy Marech
Take Me Out
06.25.07
As befitting a magazine called Fanzine, our authors often show a strong bent of enthusiasm in their articles— specifically, the zealotry and irrational devotion shared by aficionados of [blank]. Now, Wendy Marech explains how she copes living with one of these people.