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Eastern Uprising
For much of this decade, the Eastern Conference of the NBA has been called the Leastern Conference, due to the rather severe inferiority of eastern teams when compared with their Western Conference counterparts. It wasn’t a myth. From 1999-2003, the Eastern Conference representatives managed just six wins in losing five straight finals to either the…
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Go Long…Please!
Baseball fans outside of the fan bases of the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies should have an intense rooting interest in the World Series that starts tonight. They should be rooting for a long series. Six- and seven-game series are the ones in which both teams can envision victory, and it is where…
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The New West Order
For the last few years, all you needed to know about the NBA West was that the San Antonio Spurs, the Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns were the best teams and that a slew of other good teams were stuck behind them trying very hard to move up. Then last year Change! came to…
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Love the Player, Hate the GM
Sometime in the late ’90s—memory can’t pinpoint when—I was sitting around with a few pals discussing the state of African Americans in the executive suites of sports teams. Certainly progress was being made since Al Campanis’ racist remarks on Nightline, but it seemed that the sporting world was no different than the real world in…
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Kind of Blue at 50
Miles Davis made many great records like Nefertiti, Walkin’ and A Tribute to Jack Johnson. He also made landmark records like Sketches of Spain, Birth of the Cool and Bitches Brew. But Kind of Blue remains in a class by itself. The recording’s unique and elegantly subdued sound, probing improvisations and extraordinary musicianship make it…
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A Knicks State of Mind
Growing up in Chicago then Dallas in the ’60s and ’70s, I always wondered why New Yorkers felt some sort of “claim” on basketball. Yes, the New York Knicks won the title in ’70 and ’73 with a rare display of savvy and teamwork, but even as an adolescent I knew that the sport was…
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A Whole New Ball Game
From April to September, it is pretty easy to see what creates a good baseball team. While wins and losses fluctuate over the course of the 162-game marathon, teams with good on-base percentages (yes, teams down with OBP) have the best offenses and teams whose pitching staffs minimize walks and home runs have the best…
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Chicago Hope
Cross-town rivalries are an essential part of baseball lore. During the ’50s, the World Series often came down to a matchup between the Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants and the New York Yankees. The Bay area has had its two teams, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s battle in the World Series in…
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NFL Shorthand
The start of the NFL season brings thousands of previews. This isn’t unusual, but no league is easier to forecast at the top nor harder to forecast in the middle and bottom. Here’s a very concise look at the NFL. New England is the best team. Indianapolis is second and those two are followed by…
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Serena at Center Stage
Great athletic careers typically come in three acts. In act one, a player bursts onto the scene, possessing skills that immediately put them in the elite of their game and exuding charisma that make them media friendly and accessible. In other words, they are the sports version of a star is born. In act two,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
