Nevada High School would be good fit for Big 8 Conference (08/04/07)
Goodbye Southwest Conference. Hello. Is anyone out there listening? This is Nevada calling. Hello. And so it goes as the Nevada High School Tigers are left twisting in the breeze thanks to some underhanded treachery by the Carthage Tigers, who didn't let conference ties dating back 85 or so years with Nevada stand in their way...

Selig clueless when it comes to Golden Age (07/14/07)
According to baseball's erstwhile commissioner, Bud Selig, the game is currently in its golden age. Selig bases his theory on two factors. Not the least of which is the fact that it is Selig himself, in Selig's mind, who is responsible for the current attendance boom, which is the main basis in the commissioner's theory...

Clete Boyer was one of three brothers to reach the majors (07/07/07)
It is always a shock to pick up a newspaper or hear a TV or radio report on the death of another retired ballplayer who somehow got old on me when I wasn't looking. And so it went when I read on June 5 that Clete Boyer had died. What shocked me more than anything else was the fact that he was 70 years old...

The 1960s were a great decade to be young in (02/18/07)
I suppose if I had a choice I would pick the 1960s as the perfect time to be young. In those days, we really had the best of everything. As I look back at that decade, I see a time of sweeping changes and momentous events. It's the decade that began with Richard Nixon as vice president and ended with him in the White House after he had been beaten in his initial bid for the presidency. I don't know if there was a face aside from Nixon's that figured prominently in both 1960 and 1969...

This curmudgeon has a reason for his rhyme (02/11/07)
I admit, it had been a long time since I'd seen it in print. Curmudgeon! It was my brother's favorite word. It's what he called his best friend, Larry Kerr. He and Larry are both gone, lo these many years, and now I'm officially what I used to picture as a gnarled old man, an official curmudgeon according to Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News as reported in a Kansas City Star story by Sam Mellinger...

Watching games on television no longer entertaining (02/04/07)
I'm having a difficult time ascertaining just which, the players or the commentators, have taken the enjoyment from me that I used to get from viewing televised football games. It almost gets to be a bidding war in the crowded television booths where the announcers find it necessary to prattle incessantly while the actual game takes a back seat to their chatter. ...

Kansas City was a player in the Federal League (01/28/07)
They called it the Federal League. The recent death of Lamar Hunt got me to thinking about so-called outlaw leagues, and one that has held a long time fascination for me has been the ill-fated baseball Federal League of 1914-15. I'm certain there are readers among you who are right now going, "Huh?" Let me enumerate for you the eight teams that challenged the National League and American League way back in 1914. ...

Where is global warming when you need it? (01/21/07)
This column is exceedingly difficult to write, what with my teeth chattering and my fingers trembling. Oh, wait a minute. I can't be cold because Algore says so, and he's the guru of global warming. I sometimes wonder what globe he has reference to...

How did such a great pitcher get lost in time? (12/24/06)
No one can doubt that it was long ago -- May 4, 1871 to be exact -- on a baseball field at Fort Wayne, Ind., where a team known as the Kekiongas played host to the Cleveland Forest Citys. The pitcher for Fort Wayne was a 19-year-old right-hander named Bobby Mathews, who faced Deacon White, a future Hall of Famer, to open the game...

The man who brought football to Kansas City (12/17/06)
Late on the night of Dec. 13, 2006, the founder of the "Foolish Club," the man who challenged the supremacy of the National Football League, passed forever into the pages of history. Lamar Hunt is dead. One thing about the Grim Reaper. When he knocks on your door, you answer...

Looking for the ultimate championship rush (12/03/06)
They say people get addicted to drugs and alcohol for the same reason they follow sports, and I suppose they are correct. With drugs and sports, the pursuit is not so much for the high as it is the rush. The first time I ever thought about it came a good many years ago when Jack Netherton resigned as Nevada High School head basketball coach. ...

Amoros has the real World Series saving catch (11/19/06)
He played in only 517 big league games, but a Cuban named Sandy Amoros made what is undeniably the most important catch in World Series history. Now, I wonder how many of you out there under the age of 40 are asking yourselves, "Who?" The reason I picked this time of year for a baseball column is any time of year is a good time for baseball...

Taylor's illness brings to light his Hall credentials (11/05/06)
Sometimes you learn things you wish you had never known. And so it was, when I picked up the Oct. 1 issue of Chiefs Extra and read the feature story headlined, Catching Otis. In the story by Joe Posnanski, I learned that Otis Taylor is suffering from Parkinson's Disease to the extent that he can barely get out of bed, you can't understand what he says and his memory fades in and out...

The head coach must develop community ties (10/29/06)
I sat in the Logan Field press box on Sept. 22, just as I had for the past 31 seasons, surveying the sizable crowd, dismayed that a program I have so loyally followed since 1956 had fallen to this. I suppose a lot of this dates back to that cold 1979 night at Clinton when the Nevada Tigers lost that infamous shot after the buzzer district semifinal basketball game to Warrensburg. ...

Mazeroski's shot signaled changing of the times (10/22/06)
They so enjoy talking of those times in which my generation came of age, beginning and usually ending with the assassination of JFK in 1963. Another time came to mind recently with the release of the movie Hollywoodland about the death of George Reeves. Youth of today might find it hard to understand, but most of my generation idolized Reeves. He was and will always be the real Superman to us...

Yes, I knew Buck O'Neil (10/15/06)
In the week just gone, I suppose 50 or so persons have asked me if I knew Buck O'Neil. To them, I was pleased to answer, "Yes, I knew Buck." In fact, I first met Buck long before he became a national celebrity after being discovered by Ken Burns, who did a nine-part series on baseball that included several interviews with O'Neil...

Revisiting the 1966 Tigers one more time (10/08/06)
It was as if Chuck Shelton had stepped out of H.G. Wells' time machine when he strolled into what used to be known as the Nevada High School cafeteria on Sept. 1, and sat down at a table with John McKinley and me. Looking around the room you could see most of his former players from that 1966 championship team he coached. ...

Why decide between baseball and fried chicken? (10/01/06)
This is for all the people who think you can't have your cake and eat it too. There used to be a saying that if it rained on Easter, it would also rain the following seven Sundays, or something like that. For that reason, none of the three of us were surprised when the skies opened up over Municipal Stadium on May 7, 1967, just as the first game of an afternoon doubleheader between the A's and New York Yankees wound to a close...

Colavito brought charm and a rocket arm to K.C. (09/24/06)
In the early 1980s, the Kansas City Royals coaching staff read like a who's who for the Kansas City Athletics. The first of them to wear the uniform of Kansas City was Webb Citian Cloyd Boyer, who had been sent to St. Louis' Triple A affiliate Rochester, and was claimed on waivers prior to the 1955 season, the first for the A's in K.C...

Kids are never as clever as they think they are (09/17/06)
Even though we haven't seen one another in five years, a 40-plus years friendship between Tim Ephland and I has never dimmed. And, thanks to the inventiveness of one Alexander Graham Bell, we cover the distance bewteen Nevada and Fort Worth relatively easily...

Kauffman upgrades have nothing to do with the game (09/10/06)
Does it bother you as much as it does me that some people find it difficult, maybe impossible, to tell the truth? My truthfulness column today deals with Kansas City's plans to renovate the two stadiums and the recent story concerning their plans for Kauffman Stadium. The lies I speak of are dressed up in the flowery prose surrounding their plans "for the fans." Ah, yes, for the fans...

For the first time in years, football isn't exciting (09/03/06)
While there was no way I could have known it at the time, June 9, 1966, might have been the most significant date for me in the past 40 years. Let me explain. It was another lazy, hot late-spring day in Rector, Ark, where I was visiting my grandparents. ...

Call me old school, but this guy's not right (08/20/06)
Man, what a season it was. I hope it wasn't my last one. When Jack McDonald asked me to throw out the first pitch of the 2006 Nevada Griffons baseball season, little did I know that the team was about to embark upon its worst journey ever in a 22-year existence. I think my pitch, which bounced about half way from the pitcher's mound to the plate, was a harbinger of things to come...

Lefty should not be left out of the Hall of Fame (08/13/06)
He began his professional baseball career way back in 1917, but it was 1956 and Vancouver Mounties' manager Frank "Lefty" O'Doul thought he still had something left and sent himself up to pinch-hit at age 59. This was not the majors, mind you. O'Doul was a Triple A icon in the Pacific Coast League, mostly with the San Francisco Seals. ...

Finley left and the Royals showed him (08/06/06)
I suppose by the time Charles Oscar Finley drew his last breath on Feb. 19, 1996, three days short of his 78th birthday, he'd had plenty of time to ponder what a great mistake he'd made in fleeing the city he'd termed too small to support major league baseball...

Royals aren't even the best at being the worst (07/16/06)
The only possible way to salvage some good of mostly bad is to be the worst. If you're the worst, at least you're No. 1 at something. That, my friends, is why I pity the Kansas City Royals. They don't stand a chance of being the worst ever, especially after their recent hot streak...

Softball sure is missed here in Nevada (07/09/06)
It took some time, but I finally figured out what became of softball in good old Nevada, Mo. I know there are undoubtedly hundreds of young, sports minded folks around here who are mindfully unaware of just how big softball was in the administrative transition from Nixon to Ford to Carter years. I can't remember for sure, but it seems to me that softball began to die out in this area at about the time Reagan took his oath of office...

Preakness brought back memories from my youth (07/02/06)
It was so predictable. If you're anything like me, you probably were in front of a television in the late afternoon hours of May 20, settled in to watch the Preakness with the thought of just how Barbaro would perform in the second of three races that make up what is known as racing's triple crown...

Opening Day can't be beat (04/23/06)
Opening Day. Used in one context, it is a proper noun. Sure, all sports have their openers. But in only one sport do you have an official Opening Day. I think the reason Opening Day is so special in baseball is because it is the unofficial start of spring. It is a real stretch to link the beginning of spring with the equinox on March 20. As often as not, it's still cold and we are still in winter's icy grasp...

Why not hire a Mizzou coach from Missouri? (04/16/06)
Now that all the furor and hoopla surrounding the Missouri basketball fiasco has subsided, I suppose we are left with what we all knew deep down, we would be left with. That is, of course, a coach that meets the necessary criteria at Missouri. Someone who is acceptable to the Kroenkes and Lauries. And don't think for a minute that those two families are unfamiliar with Mike Anderson's history...

Why not hire a Mizzou coach from Missouri? (04/16/06)
Now that all the furor and hoopla surrounding the Missouri basketball fiasco has subsided, I suppose we are left with what we all knew deep down, we would be left with. That is, of course, a coach that meets the necessary criteria at Missouri. Someone who is acceptable to the Kroenkes and Lauries. And don't think for a minute that those two families are unfamiliar with Mike Anderson's history...

Kansas City as a minor league team? Nothing new (04/09/06)
One recent day I was visiting Chris Cluck at All Around Entertainment on the Square when he remarked about something he read about the Kansas City Athletics on a Web site. It was a story about those 13 lamentable seasons in KC in which, for the most part, they kept the faith of their American Association predecessor Blues by remaining for all practical purposes, a farm team for the New York Yankees...

My cap obsession leaves me looking for the A's (04/02/06)
When does a quest become an obsession? I suppose anyone who knows me is aware I have this penchant for baseball caps. After all, a lot of people wear baseball caps. My dad had quite a collection of caps, but none of them represented a baseball team. When he died nearly four years ago, I gathered up his collection of about 200 and gave them to Corey, his oldest grandson, who now has them on display in his Independence home...

Kansas City needs to show it wants pro sports (03/26/06)
Another day. Another era. I guess it's time for me to come to grips with the undeniable fact that the Kansas City I once loved is the Kansas City of my mind and memory. It is gone, never to return. I find it a pity that an entire generation has grown up with no knowledge of how it used to be...

A trip to see 'The Splendid Splinter' changed my life (03/12/06)
It's been 50 years now. Half a century. And I think my friend John Cater of Kansas City was the first to ask, "Do you remember when you first began to like baseball?" If you read this column much you are aware that, I've loved baseball a long time now. Through thick and thin I've tried to shake it. I'll get mad, but I'll always come back. Hoping, I suppose, to once again recapture the magic the game had before dollar signs changed its face forever...

Spring training marks the end of the long winter (03/05/06)
It wasn't that long ago I once again read those four words that I love so much. Those four words have a definite way of telling me it looks as though I have beaten Old Man Winter once more and the Grim Reaper must wait a while longer to claim me. Those four words are: pitchers and catchers report...

Old Series tapes bring America's Pastime back to life (02/26/06)
I have viewed them over and over and plan to keep watching them until either my eyes fall out or I croak. Of what I am writing is my library of "real" World Series videos. I placed real in parenthesis for an important reason. You see, to my ofttimes archaic way of thinking, the last real World Series occurred in 1968 and pitted the St. Louis Cardinals against the Detroit Tigers...

National title game may have restored my faith in football (02/19/06)
My vow to never watch another football game after the Chiefs ended their season on Jan. 1, lasted until Jan. 2, when at least a few of the once-traditional New Year's Day bowls were played. It was enjoyable to watch the two old coaches battle it out in the Orange Bowl where this surely must have been the last hurrah for 79-year old Joe Paterno...

The last trip to the prestigious Joplin tournament (02/12/06)
It was with mixed emotions that I made what I knew would be my final trip to watch the Nevada Lady Tigers compete in December's basketball tournament at Joplin High School. As most of us are aware, the Tigers won't be returning to the competition next year after having been a part of it since the beginning. ...

For the first time, winter couldn't come soon enough (02/05/06)
As I look back at autumn 2005, I have to consider it the most consistently frustrating season I've experienced for -- maybe ever. By season, I mean like spring, summer, autumn and winter. You know, the four seasons. What I'm referring to is one particular NFL team known as the Kansas City Chiefs. For the first time in my life disappointment was replaced by the thought that I, and all Chiefs fans for that matter, were cheated. Cheated!...

'Glory Road' is worth traveling, but don't forget reality (01/29/06)
Even though what was presented as fact certainly contained some fiction, "Glory Road" was as good a basketball movie as I have seen in quite some time. The movie was about the improbable 1966 NCAA champion Texas Western Miners. Texas Western is known as the University of Texas at El Paso these days, or more commonly UTEP...

A Kansas City loss last month brought tough defeats to mind (01/22/06)
After the Chiefs lost that agonizing Dec. 11 game at Dallas, I thought -- after kicking nearly everything in sight and screaming every vile curse and oath ever invented at the top of my lungs -- that it couldn't get worse. Then, my memory kicked in...

Hall of Fame perspectives - Goose is next (01/15/06)
It no longer matters how many times I asked myself the question, "Is Bruce Sutter a Hall of Famer?" The point is, as they say, moot. For 16 years now, I have been among the members (a record 520 this time cast ballots) of the Baseball Writers Association of America who have been entrusted with the responsibility of voting former baseball players out of or into the Hall of Fame...

The rolling roof was supposed to come with the stadiums (01/08/06)
"Pie in the sky," that's what they call it these days, but it's exactly what Jackson Countians voted for way back in 1968, before the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex even had a name. The Kansas City Royals, to the best of my memory, were still known as Kansas City's new expansion franchise when voters were asked if they wanted two new stadiums, one for baseball, the other for football, with a sliding roof between the two. ...

Boxing has been lost as a favorite American sport (01/01/06)
A while back, when I started reading the biography "Rocky Marciano, The Rock of his Times," it suddenly dawned on me that for the first time in my life I had no idea who is heavyweight champion. For the first time I really began to wonder what ever became of boxing, possibly the world's oldest true sport...

Memories of an old favorite -- Municipal Stadium (12/25/05)
Gosh, it doesn't seem like 34 years ago, a whole lifetime. My home is more or less a tribute to things long past. In the living room I have that large picture with the poetic title of 21st & Lehigh. It is a painting of Connie Mack Stadium (Shibe Park) in Philadelphia, and used to grace the wall behind my desk at the Nevada Daily Mail. ...

Hatred of the Raiders is part of being a Kansas City fan (12/11/05)
You know, I can't say when I first began to hate the Oakland Raiders. Suffice to say, it was a long time ago. Loathing for the Raiders is part and parcel of being a Chiefs' fan. There is simply no way you can say, "I'm a Chiefs fan but I also like the Raiders." The two teams are the antithesis of each other and when I think of the Oakland image I conjure up the visage of Darth Vader, the personification of evil...

Broeg was a fan of classic baseball through and through (12/04/05)
This routine is becoming such a drag. I lost another friend after the World Series when Bob Broeg died at 87, of pneumonia, the same thing that killed my dad at 86. Broeg is the Hall of Fame former sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I first became acquainted with the name Broeg from reading his column "Broeg on Baseball" in The Sporting News, beginning in the 1960s...

Who would you pay to watch? (11/27/05)
We used to come up with all manner of things to do to pass the many hours we spent in the press box at what was then known as Royals Stadium. One night, Rick Gosselin, who now writes for a Dallas newspaper, came up with a question that was a pretty good for those in our chosen profession. "Who would you pay to watch?," he asked...

The phenomenon of the two-franchise sports town (11/20/05)
You know, I've often wondered what it would be like to live in a city with two single-sports franchises. In the world of professional sports there are very few of them left while there used to be many, especially in baseball. The NFL has two teams in New Jersey with the name New York affixed to both. ...

The playoffs have less meaning than they used to (11/13/05)
Every so often when watching professional sports these days I get a nostalgic twinge for the days when sports were the fans' game, which they haven't been for quite some time now. Basketball has been getting worse all the time. In fact, I often wonder why they bother to have a regular season in the first place instead of a massive, six-month tournament that would eventually get so convoluted that no one could possibly fathom what was going on until presto, two teams would emerge and play each other in a best four of seven for the championship. ...

Last visit to Busch II, much like the first (11/06/05)
I tried. Honest to goodness, I really did. Let me explain. If you read this column very often, you might have read my several weeks ago love-fest for my elysian fields. I therefore accepted the offer of a chance to see the Oct. 1 game at Busch Stadium II. ...

New Orleans, I fell in love with the city at first sight (09/04/05)
It was late morning on Jan. 15, 1968, when first the No Smoking, then the Fasten Seat Belts signs flashed aboard the Delta Airlines jet as it began its descent prepatory to landing. Suddenly, we seemed to be amid the moss covered trees and I gulped. Then, the plane gently landed on the very lip of the swamp and as we rolled down the runway the large sign on the terminal came into view. "Welcome to New Orleans," it read...

Poker might be competitive and fun, but it's not a sport (08/28/05)
And now they call poker a sport. You know, every time someone comes up with something so utterly preposterous that you think it can never be topped, someone comes up with something like this and tops it. There is no way on this green earth of God's that any reasonable human being can actually think like this. It's all marketing and just another way to milk money from a gullible public. But you don't have to call it a sport...

Most people don't remember the other pitching Dean (08/21/05)
While channel surfing one late July afternoon, I came across the movie "The Pride of St. Louis," about Dizzy Dean. Now, whenever there is a baseball move on television I'll watch it, especially the older ones filmed in the vintage stadiums, but this isn't about ballparks or even solely Dizzy Dean, really...

Stirrups look so much better than pajamas (08/14/05)
Jack McDonald probably said it best of all. I was doing my usual griping and complaining about how today's baseball players have no respect for either tradition or themselves by degrading and eschewing the most traditional portion of the uniform -- between the knees and shins...

Stram signified the glory days (08/07/05)
As the calendar continues its inexorable march toward another football season, something will be missing this fall for the first time since 1922 and will remain ever thus. Hank Stram is gone. Sure, it has been a long time since Hall of Famer Stram prowled the sideline at Municipal Stadium and finally Arrowhead as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. But those of us who thrilled to the victories of the late 1960s and into 1970, will recall those days as forever the highlight of our fandom...

Maybe it's time to start rooting for the White Sox (07/31/05)
I think I'll become a White Sox fan. Now folks, let me assure you, this is a decision which I do not take lightly and quite possibly could have been 30 years in the making. OK, that's enough. I'm not deaf and could easily hear all those shouts out there of "front-runner." But front-running had little to do with it and a decision as serious as this one might have been at least hastened by the fact that the White Sox are having a spectacular season, but was not brought about by it. ...

What the Missouri Tigers need is Larry Brown (07/17/05)
If you have been a fan of Missouri Tiger basketball for very long there is a pretty good chance you recall that old feeling. You know, the feeling that has seemed to have taken a hike in recent years. After Norm Stewart painstakingly dragged the MU basketball program out of that dreary old bat cave named Brewer Fieldhouse and into the sparkling new Hearnes Arena, the Tigers were ranked among the top programs in the country for years. ...

Bell's hiring has been a good thing so far (07/10/05)
From the way the Kansas City Star columnists reacted back on June 1 when the Royals hired Buddy Bell as manager, you might have gotten the impression the club had taken on one of old Beelzebub's descendants. Personally, I had no problem with the hire. ...

The times are changing, not always for the better (07/03/05)
You know, in ways I really feel sorry for today's youth and adolescents for what they will never see in their lifetimes. Let's take a journey back through the mists of the past and you can see what I mean. If you are my age or older, you'll certainly know of what I write...

It's about playing the game of baseball for the right reasons (06/26/05)
A story that appeared in the Kansas City Star one morning brought to my mind the reason why I still enjoy going to Lyons Stadium and watching the Nevada Tigers or Nevada Griffons just as much -- if not more than -- going to Kansas City or St. Louis to watch a big league game...

Royals won't have the worst record of all time (06/19/05)
Jim Novak and I have based a friendship of more than 40 years on a mutual love for the game of baseball. When baseball gets you in its grip, there is no letting go short of a summons by the grim reaper. As a youth I pulled for the Kansas City Athletics (a hopeless enterprise) and the St. ...

Local baseball hero and historian will be missed (06/12/05)
And five days later four had become three. On June 2, four surviving members of the 1956 State Champion Nevada Red Sox joined on the mound to throw out the simultaneous first pitches in opening the Nevada Griffons' season at Lyons Stadium. Five days later cancer claimed one of those Red Sox, Bob Seaver, who never tired of retelling stories of those glory days of local baseball so long ago...

Everybody plays the 'what if' game now and then (06/05/05)
Over the years a lot of guys in my profession (I included) have spent a good deal of time playing the old "what if" game. The biggest what if of all is what if the Red Sox had traded Ted Williams to the New York Yankees for Joe DiMaggio. And what if Williams hadn't lost so many years to military service in two wars. In all probability, Williams would have been very close to Babe Ruth's 714 home runs when he retired...

Royals showing some similarities to old A's (05/29/05)
It seems that whenever I think of the Kansas City Royals these days, my first impulse is to quote the words of the immortal Mr. Bill, "Oh, no!" Why is that? Horrible as it may seem, the once proud franchise is swiftly becoming (gulp) the reincarnation of the Kansas City A's. "Oh, no!"...

Cancer has been too active, taking great friends (05/22/05)
One of humanity's most inhumane scourges, cancer, has been at it recently, taking the lives of three people of whom I thought a lot. Only one of those friends was an athlete, but two did have the common denominator of a love for horses. The third was a classmate and neighbor who grew up four houses north of me, Janet (Phelps) Corn. ...

The Chiefs have finally tried to address the defense (05/15/05)
Considering what he's been up to this spring, I'd have to say Chiefs' General Manager Carl Peterson has finally gotten serious about improving his team's porous defense. I know there are a lot of fans out there who are disappointed because Peterson failed to go out and sign all the available super stars. From my point of view, though, I don't think the Chiefs really needed to go out and corral that much major talent...

'The Call' legend is growing while facts are left behind (05/08/05)
It has gotten much like the words in the song Mr. Bojangles. "After 20 years he still grieves." And that's what the city of St. Louis has done over the past two decades recalling one bad call that the fans of that city erroneously feel cost them the 1985 World Series. Nothing could be further from the truth...

Barry Bonds reaps what he sows, don't feel sorry for him (05/01/05)
Funny, isn't it? It seems as though about the only person out there who feels sorry for Barry Bonds is Barry Bonds. That's the way it is as the adage goes. When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Bonds has no one to blame but himself. All the while when things were going good and Bonds was hammering home runs at a record clip, he refused to be cordial to people and chose arrogance over congeniality. Ah yes, he was sowing the wind...

Can a love for baseball be inherited? (04/24/05)
My time of year has arrived for what has now reached 50. That's because 1956 marked the first time in my life that baseball assumed a station of importance. While it's no longer nearly as much fun as it was from 1956 to 1967, I still love it. I got to thinking recently, wondering just who in my family might have been the most responsible for pointing me in that direction. Or was it inherited?...

Adams and I have a long-term basketball connection (04/17/05)
When the telephone rang for the third time on the afternoon of March 14, I was getting tired of having to get up, walk over and answer it. As much as I hate to get up while watching Law & Order in the afternoon, most of the calls I receive are important enough to warrant my undivided attention. This one was no different...

What ever happened to plain MU? (04/10/05)
Whoa, Nellie! Methinks they have carried this Mizzou thing too far. Certainly you must be wondering, "What in the world is he talking about?" Or else, you might be nodding in agreement because you too have noticed it. Mizzou has long been the affectionate nickname for the Missouri Tigers. ...

Catching the River Dogs in South Carolina (04/03/05)
Last August I had the opportunity to watch the Charleston River Dogs baseball team in action. The experience was as rewarding as any I have ever had in my many years of watching games in sports at varying levels. Let me tell you how all this came about as I doubt there are many of you out there who are very familiar with the River Dogs and might even have the occasion to ask, Is that Charleston in West Virginia or South Carolina?...

How many know Casey gets revenge? (03/27/05)
I was maybe nine or 10 years old the first time I heard the immortal words of Ernest L. Thayer's time-honored poem, "Casey At The Bat." I say heard instead of read because it was an animated reading on television that depicted Casey going to the plate and crushing the hearts of Mudville fans by striking out to end the game he had a chance to win in the bottom of the ninth inning...

Spring cleaning includes clearing my head (03/20/05)
A few random thoughts are in order as the calendar moves ever so sluggishly toward the promise of spring. Here's one on me. I went to the state wrestling tournament at Columbia this year for the first time in order to watch the Nevada boys compete. A veteran of several state basketball tournaments, I figured mode of dress was the same, namely a coat and tie. ...

Nazis and boxing (03/13/05)
In early February the Aryan Nazi who was neither, died at the age of 99 in his native Germany. There are not that many million people still around who actually heard the radio broadcast of June 19, 1936 when Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their heavyweight championship bout in New York. ...

Remember how cold it was? (03/06/05)
One of the late Johnny Carson's great gag routines began, "Boy, it was cold today..." The audience and Ed McMahon would reply. "How cold was it?" It was so cold on January 31, 1967 in Green Bay, Wisc., that members of the Dallas Cowboys had to fight their way out of the Holiday Inn motel rooms because the wind, at -29, had frozen the doors to the jams, and that was no joke...

Half the game is 90 percent pitching (02/27/05)
It was Yogi Berra who once said, "Baseball is half 90 percent pitching." Or was it, "Ninety percent of baseball is half pitching." Yogi said a lot of things. There was a three-year period in the National League that proved Berra to be right on the mark, fractured syntax and all...

You must have a conference (02/20/05)
While a lot of conversation has taken place in recent months about the growing disparity in the size of Nevada High School compared to the remainder of the Southwest Conference institutions, not a whole lot of things can realistically be done to improve matters locally...

Always have to root for one (02/13/05)
If nothing else, the football season that recently faded into the past, is worth forgetting. Allow me to explain what I mean in order to clarify matters to some degree. I can remember with ease the first sporting event I watched on television. I was seven years old and my grandparents had purchased a TV -- something our family did the next year. ...

Celebrations make football hard to watch (02/06/05)
Thank you, Jeffrey Flanagan. Flanagan, you might be aware, is a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star. He penned a column back on Jan. 5, the morning after Southern Cal somehow humiliated Oklahoma 55-19 to win the Orange Bowl and BCS Championship, in which he struck a chord that resonated in every fiber of my being...

There's nothing wrong with Kauffman Stadium (01/30/05)
If nothing else, you have to admire their persistence. What I'm talking about is that gaggle of Kansas Citians, seemingly led by members of the media, who want a new downtown ballpark for the Royals when they have a perfectly good facility right where they have been since 1973. And they came up with this in the wake of the defeat of the Bi-State II tax proposal...

If Ron Santo is Hall of Fame worthy, so is Ken Boyer (01/23/05)
A lot has been said and written in the past couple years or so about the career of former Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo as a concerted effort has been made by citizens of Cubs Nation to get him included in the Hall of Fame. I'm relatively certain that two of the primary reasons for the move are simply that Santo is widely known as a good guy and he has undergone serious health problems due to diabetes in recent years. ...

Mizzou Arena -- is that the best they can do? (01/16/05)
They could have come up with a thousand or so new names for what was originally the Paige Arena in Columbia that would have been preferable to Mizzou Arena. That's about as silly a name as could have been suggested. Also, less offensive to anyone -- namely the Lauries...

Steroids are the Pandora's box of baseball (01/09/05)
Really, what took them so long? I can't recall the first time I more or less accused Barry Bonds of using steroids. All you have to do is take a look at the guy and it becomes apparent that his bulk doesn't look remotely natural. Yet, it was shushed up until Jason Giambi admitted to using the illegal drugs and opened what has become baseball's Pandora's box. He cracked the box before a grand jury and the whole ugly mess came oozing up like in the old movie, "The Blob."...

Are the Chiefs really worth a tax increase right now? (01/02/05)
Are the Chiefs worth all this grief? Look at what they've been doing to us and continue to do. I was among the I don't know how many people who long ago reached the conclusion that the 2003 Kansas City Chiefs were not nearly as good as their record indicated...

Results appear to be meaningless in Lathrop incident (12/19/04)
First Bobby Knight, now Bud Lathrop. I guess it no longer matters if you get results from your methods as long as some wimpy superior out there finds his or her sensibilities offended. There are similarities in the two, not the least of which is an ability to use as so many hundreds of millions of us also use, well-chosen cuss words...

Nevada football not what it used to be (12/12/04)
What used to be my favorite time of year for sports at Nevada High School has in recent years been for the most part just a shade better than a nightmare. Football was once the crown jewel of the Nevada athletic program. It had a following that was the envy of southwest Missouri. The Tigers on the road would often equal and even outdraw home crowds...

Novak finally gets Red Sox wish (12/05/04)
At the dawn of his eighth decade, Jim Novak had waited just about long enough for that elusive World Championship the Boston Red Sox finally laid at his feet last October as they did to all loyal citizens of Red Sox Nation -- even those silly enough to buy the media driven notion of some bogus curse...

Detroit incident shows what NBA has become (11/28/04)
It took an incident as ugly as what took place in Detroit on Nov. 19 for the NBA to take a long, hard look at itself and what it has become. I used to be a big NBA fan, years ago. I even attended old ABL games in Kansas City and ABA games in New Orleans. ...

Never been a real St. Louis Cardinals fan (11/21/04)
One day I awakened from a night of slumber and in the first moments of clarity came to the realization that I was never actually a St. Louis Cardinals fan. Oh yeah, I thought I was. In fact I was pretty certain of my loyalty from the late 1950s until sometime during the 1968 World Series. ...

One of the most disappointing seasons (11/14/04)
There was no way I could see this coming. No one could. As long-time readers of this column know, I am particularly fond of four football teams. My autumn weeks are governed by how these teams perform in a given weekend. This has not been a good time for me...

So called 'curse' is nothing but a hoax (11/07/04)
For the past two years, America's baseball writers have been pigging out on stories about alleged curses surrounding the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. To me, this is simply the latest example of not being able to see the forest for the trees...

Experiencing multiple Death Tours and living to tell about it (10/31/04)
As many of you are now aware, I underwent emergency surgery on Sept. 27 after an ambulance trip to KU Medical Center and am still attempting to recover enough to do simple things like writing this column after having been hospitalized until Oct. 15...

Sports Outlook (10/03/04)
USA Men did not play real basketball The last thing I would ever have thought is that a day would have come when the United States would not be playing for a gold medal in the Olympics and I wouldn't even care. Except for the track and field events, I always loved to watch Olympic basketball. ...

Sports Outlook (09/26/04)
In late August as we pulled into Washington, D.C. for a brief stop, I couldn't help but think how nice it would have been had Washington not lost one, but two major league teams and remains as the only city to have lost its big league representation and not gotten a replacement team within a short time...

Sports Outlook (09/20/04)
Would have liked to see Maddux's 300th Thanks to the television networks we all got to see Barry Bonds hit his big home run if we wanted to, but we didn't get a chance to see Greg Maddux win his 300th game. I don't recall now if they were cutting away to show Bonds when he was going for his 600th home run, or the home run he hit to pass Willie Mays because I don't pay much attention to anything that goes on in San Francisco...

Sports Outlook (09/12/04)
We were dancing on the roof of the press box after the game A recent conversation with a friend of many years evolved into a discussion of childhood's most memorable moments in various sports. Not most memorable in terms of greatest games, but most memorable in the area of association...