When did everyone else have to like everything we like? And why does every person, place or thing have to be “polarizing?” I’m inspired to ask these questions almost every day, unfortunately, but they’re at the forefront this summer as we all develop our personal physical and emotional reactions to World Cup fever. The world’s […]
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The Hot Corner: Pointless debate cramping NBA’s style
LeBron James: Malingering, pampered star, or victim of the silent, pervasive racism that prevails in America each day? Well, that escalated quickly. Somebody turns up the heat in an arena to brick pizza oven levels, a guy gets a cramp that won’t quit, and suddenly he’s poster man for everything in the world that’s soft, […]
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The Hot Corner: Track achieving favored status
We hear the question in press boxes, on sidelines, in classrooms and in casual conversations at the grocery store, when we weren’t savvy enough to put on a disguise before leaving the house. “So, what’s your favorite sport to cover?” I give the copout answer most of the time. “Whatever’s in season.” It’s a legitimate […]
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The Hot Corner: As Sox deficit widens, patience grows thin
Like any fan whose connection to the team existed when the only hat choices were red and blue, my relationship with the Boston Red Sox is marked by lies and denial. I pretend to have sold my soul for the first world championship. My party line is that anybody who had a piece of that […]
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The Hot Corner: Theriault’s turn Maine-ly worth your appreciation
A well-known, Maine-raised basketball coach once told me that natives of our state have an “inherent inferiority complex.” Being an ideal candidate and guilty as charged, I recoiled in horror at first, or at least rolled my eyes and furrowed my brow in objection. Then I realized it was said out of deep affection. That […]
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The Hot Corner: Frustrations with mound trends too many to count
Pitch counts are killing baseball. Well, in fairness, statistical hyper-analysis is killing baseball, but the two are intimately interwoven. It all leads to my indisputable hypothesis that Tony LaRussa and Billy Beane are the Antichrist and Dr. Frankenstein of the national pastime, respectively. It’s all their fault that we can’t watch a major league game […]
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The Hot Corner: Don’t condemn whole city, fan base for this stupidity
Another week in sports, another uncomfortable national conversation about race. Only this one hit a little too close to home, didn’t it? Sadly, the social media fallout from P.K. Subban’s double-overtime, game-winning goal for the Montreal Canadiens against the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their Stanley Cup conference semifinal series was predictable. And yes, […]
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The Hot Corner: Outrage is justified, but doesn’t solve much
Yet again, a wealthy, privileged white American male has crossed the line of what, thankfully, a vast majority consider acceptable speech and thought. And we are outraged. Rightfully, but predictably outraged. We do outrage well in this country, albeit selectively. Thanks in part to the 24-hour news cycle and a generation or two of evolved […]
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The Hot Corner: They run, and we all win
The bad guys lost. That’s what today — the past year, really — is about in Boston. In New England. In America. On the continuum of responding to tragedy, specifically the finish-line bombings at the 2013 marathon, I stand tiptoeing the edge closest to David Ortiz’s defiance and lean away from the rest of the […]
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The Hot Corner: And a child shall lead us, but where?
More than ever, this life and career I chose for myself are a young man’s game. And no, that isn’t merely a reflection of my being old enough to be their dad or holler at them to vacate my lawn before I call the authorities. Excellence, greatness, even immortality, are no longer the exclusive domain […]