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A Team Redeemed
The U.S. national basketball team, dubbed the Redeem Team, won the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics with a 118-107 win over Spain—very late—Saturday night. It was the culmination of a three-year program to rebuild the national team and restore American primacy in basketball. However, the gold medal isn’t the end of a long, arduous…
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The Rays’ Cinderella Season
Nearly every year, some baseball team has a Cinderella season, rising from the depths of many losing or mediocre seasons and jostling among the perennial contenders for first place. But no team fits the metaphor as well as this year’s edition of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays, who changed their name from Devil Rays…
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The Yummy Sound of Earfood
Trumpeter Roy Hargrove has beaten the odds. Hargrove hit the New York City jazz scene in the late ’80s amid of a blaze of hype calling him the new trumpet star. Blazes of hype were somewhat common in the jazz world then, as a succession of young, good-looking musicians seemed to take turns being flavor…
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Brett’s a Jet
This week’s trade of legendary Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets should make Packer fans happy and the NFL brass must be elated. But, how do the Jets fare? The fans in Packer land should be delighted for several reasons. Favre, the team’s all-time leader in many passing categories, as well…
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Pro-Football by the Book
For decades, I was a big football fan, the kind of guy who knew the situational specialists for every team. Five months a year, I had a six day week; Sunday belonged to the NFL. Then, about five years ago I got heavily into advanced statistics (once a geek, always a geek). Rather than focus…
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Insider Trading
In a span of 24 hours this week, three sure-fire, absolute-lock, no-doubt-about-it future Hall of Famers, Manny Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, were traded. That may not be a record, but it gives baseball chatterheads a lot to talk about. However, once everybody settles down, they may notice that all this activity…
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The Eclectic Slide
Thirty years ago this summer, I made my escape from deep in the heart of Texas, where far too many people seemed to think my name was “Uncle Tom” because of my musical tastes. My freedom train left Dallas and stopped at an Ivy League college in New York City; I figured this would be…
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Unpacking It In
I wish Brett Favre would go away. I don’t mean that in a bad way. He’s my mother’s favorite player. And as a Chicago Bears fan, I can say that beating the Packers won’t be as much fun without No. 4 to chase out of the pocket. I mean I wish Favre would go away…
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The All-Star Jam
Baseball’s All-Star game is this week, but I regard the mid-season break in the action as more significant than the game itself. Now that we have dozens of interleague games crowding the schedule, the All-Star game itself feels kind of unnecessary. Yes, it determines home field advantage in the World Series, but the last World…
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A Legendary Revival
Certain birthdays are special for almost all jazz fans. On April 7, the mental iPod almost always lands on Billie Holiday classics in honor of Lady Day’s birthday. Ditto April 29 for Duke Ellington, May 26 for Miles Davis, September 23 for John Coltrane, March 9 for Ornette Coleman and October 10 for Thelonious Monk.…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
