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Ballin' Without a Budget
If you miss the days of irrational exuberance, that halcyon era of the late ’90s when otherwise sensible people spent thousands of dollars on stock in companies they knew nothing about except that their names contained the suffix “.com,” then follow the NBA for the next couple of weeks. The spending of some teams is…
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Return of the Piano Men
For decades, jazz was a horn player’s game. Since the ’80s, the jazz business has engaged in a furious search for the next trumpeter a la Wynton Marsalis, and since the ’90s, they’ve looked for the next saxophonist like Joshua Redman. The 2000s may be remembered as the decade of the pianists. Not since Humphrey…
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That Girl Can Dunk!
Women’s basketball doesn’t need dunks to be relevant and popular, but paradoxically Candace Parker’s dunks may give the WNBA just the boost it needs. Parker, the Los Angeles Sparks’ rookie forward, dunked in the waning moments of L.A.’s win over the Indiana Fever on Sunday. Then on Tuesday, she threw it down again in the…
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Shaq in the Court of King James
The Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs, the NBA finalists in 2007, both exited the post-season earlier than expected this year. This week, they made big trades that alter the balance of power in the conferences. The Cavaliers acquired future Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal from the Phoenix Suns for guard Sasha Pavlovic and…
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Summer Cheese Done Right, Please!
It may seem counterintuitive, but cheese is the perfect summer food. This information goes against the grain because of the way Americans typically employ cheese in our cuisine. All too often we relegate it to a supporting role. We slap it on burgers, put it on pizza, melt it over corn chips and of course,…
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The Ol’ Ball Game
Everyone has little mind games to occupy themselves when waiting unexpectedly; mine usually involve sports lineups in some way. The habit isn’t a holdover from my sports geek youth; it developed a few years ago when a Yankee fan at my corner bar kept announcing with great pride that proof of the Yankees greatness lies…
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Revisiting A Classic
A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into Roberto, a college classmate on the street. Since we were both class of ’82, this is a drop-everything moment: We live in the same Manhattan neighborhood, but our contact seems limited to annual chance encounters. After catching up, our dialogue turned to sports, and Roberto made a…
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Lakers in Seven
Before we delve into the very closely matched NBA finals, which start Thursday, let me offer a parallel to the LeBron James situation. The superb year and frustrating end that he and his Cleveland Cavaliers experienced are very similar to the middle phase of the career of one the NBA’s all-time greats, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In…
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Yankee Haters in Heaven
Yankee haters have had plenty of opportunities to engage in Schadenfreude in the last few years. The Bronx Bombers, a team that regards postseason success as a birthright, has become the biggest October underachiever. Since taking a three-games-to-none lead on the Boston Red Sox in 2004, the Yanks are 4-12 in the playoffs, and they…
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The NFL's Rookie Mistakes
Sometimes reporters hype the most dramatic aspect of a story as a way of rooting for it to happen. Other times the press is just clueless. I can’t figure out which scenario is more likely after taking in the coverage of the big news from the National Football League this week. The story is that…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
