On the night of Saturday 16 December 2000 the crowd at the Sheffield Arena must have been stunned when Paul Ingle’s corner forced him back to the centre of the ring to be savagely crushed by his opponent Mbulelo Botile of South Africa. Even one of the commentators remarked that the decision of Ingle’s managers was shockingly unreasonable. Not unexpectedly, Ingle was carried unconscious to hospital with brain injuries. At the end of round 11 everybody, more especially Ingle’s corner, knew he had lost the bout. The question on the lips of many was why the towel was not...
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Well, over 1,000,000 homes watched the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball earlier this month, which I guess puts the steroid issue in the category of important issue. For me, this is only another controversy during spring training, which means that the regular season is just around the corner (I got my tickets already) Anyway, some of baseballs biggest stars showed up for the hearing, including 2004 World Series hero Curt Schilling, and homerun whoppers Sammy Sosa and Marc McGwire. There were of course the typical questions we all get asked at congressional hearing, have you ever taken...
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The date, October 1988. I am 12 years old and I see on TV Kirk Gibson hit the amazing pinch-hit homerun against the Oakland Athletics at Dodger Stadium to win the first game of the 1988 World Series. While I have always been a Dodger fan, I for a long time have hated Jose Canseco, who played outfield for the Oakland A’s. He was cocky and arrogant, and I couldn’t stand him. And now with his new book, I think I hate him even more. In his new book, which became a best seller on its first day of...
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The summer of 1994 saw “America’s pastime” jettisoned at mid-season. This marked a most bizarre, and even to this day, unpredictable turn of events. Compounding the confusion and bitter bewilderment of baseball fans all across America was the startling fact that both sides in the conflict — the team owners and the players — were making more money, prior to the strike, than any of their predecessors. Karl Marx would have been most amused at the spectacle of millionaires who “labor” at playing a kids games six months out of the year striking against billionaires who could spend...
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