By now you’re probably familiar with my borderline courageous but ill-advised and futile tradition of trying to forecast the Oxford 250 winner each summer. As I prepare to attack this year’s assignment, however, there’s less sense of urgency to concoct a scenario in which Driver A or Driver B can win than to visualize some […]
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Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: 'Looking Back,' for good reason
The “Looking Back” series is easily my favorite Sun Journal project that I didn’t have to be involved in. Those of you who have a passing familiarity with my personal philosophy get the joke. I love long-term projects, long as they don’t interfere with covering the current local athletes whose families read the paper in […]
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Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Slicer’s point shouldn’t be lost in American Legion controversy
Yes, I was 1,000 miles away from the Maine American Legion baseball championship round Wednesday at Husson University. The too-obvious joke is that Bessey Motors coach Shane Slicer’s view of the semifinals from over the left field fence after his one-pitch ejection wasn’t much closer. Maybe it was a slow sports day in Central Kentucky […]
Posted inNational Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: NASCAR must return to its roots
Rain ravaged Sunday’s scheduled starting time at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The whims of the weather ensured that everyone’s dreaded the-sky-is-falling symptom — empty seats by the tens of thousands – dominated the margins on national television when NASCAR officials finally waved the green flag over the weekend’s 301-lap main event. New Hampshire was a test […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: A tip of the cap to coaches on Father's Day
Spent all week trying not to be That Guy and acquiesce to the suddenly rampant-on-social-media conviction that there is some sort of “war” on Father’s Day. I’ve found rumors of such attacks against other holidays to be overstated and borderline paranoid. Then I awoke Sunday morning to no less an authority than the Chicago Tribune […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Harriman was the hero Bates football needed
Winning percentage doesn’t always tell the whole story. I know that’s contrary to the sporting world’s economy. Players are evaluated through results-oriented goggles, and coaches are hired to be fired if they don’t perform up to the expectations of the most vocal and influential in the fan base. Try living in the belly of the […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Stevens' coaching the difference for Celtics
We can argue all day long about whether or not the NBA is “what it used to be.” Athletes evolve. Styles of play and behavior change. And most of us profess a preference for the sports, music, television, politics, etc., with which we grew up. To wit, I watched more professional hoop when I was […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web, Varsity Maine
The Hot Corner: Don't judge lopsided games by their final scores
What’s the right lesson to teach our kids? We re-evaluate the answer to that question more frequently than ever. It’s the reason we’ve wound up with new math, a new grading system, new frequency and urgency of social protest, and new ways for old-fashioned and newfangled folks to ridicule one another. That clash of values […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Odds and ends as winter never ends
A few random Monday morning thoughts while we gaze out our respective windows, 1,100 miles apart, and wonder what nearly the entire continental United States did to infuriate Mother Nature this time around: • No matter how the other elements of the game change — players getting artificially blown up like the Michelin Man, baseballs being juiced, […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Maybe UMaine will one day reach NCAA tournament
Few people have provided the University of Maine athletic program with more bulletin board material than yours truly. I’ve called frequent attention to the Black Bears’ slow, steady, across-the-board decline over the past two decades, some it for circumstances beyond their control. And no program has been an easier target than men’s basketball. It’s a […]