A kick ass American weekend

The first time that I ever felt any national pride over a sporting event was the Miracle on Ice hockey team at the 1980 Winter Olympics. I was 11 years old, and giddy at the prospect of beating the big, bad Soviets at what appeared to be their own game. Flash forward 35 years, to

Doing my part for hockey

Baseball is always going to come first for me, in terms of sports interest. Other sports may get a momentary interest as well–as the NBA did in the Bird/Magic/Jordan era, but they’ll never be the game of my youth, or the sport I can talk to my family about. But since the off season still

One week to go

It’s Friday night, and at this time next week Bruce Springsteen will be onstage at Wrigley Field. September once seemed far away, and now it’s almost here. It promises to be a rockin’ good time. Earlier this week I had a piece published on ChicagoSideSports about how Springsteen will be the first artist to play

I was never a Deadhead, but….

Today would have been Jerry Garcia’s 70th birthday. Would have been, had he not been indulgent in the excesses available to a rock star. But he was a central figure in a highly successful band, and he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, so what’s it to me or anyone else

Madlock took it away

1976 was the first full year that I considered myself a Cubs fan. Watching the games on WGN every afternoon was something of an elixir for the eight-year old that I was at the time. The games were always in the sunshine at Wrigley Field, and the away games must have happened, but they were