Sports Commentary

The biggest mystery of the baseball season may soon be resolved.

Many people don’t realize that the Canadian Open is the third longest running tournament in the world. It began in 1881, not long after the very first U.S. Championships were held in Newport, Rhode Island, that same year.

A putt, even from two inches, counts the same as a booming 300-yard drive. The easiest area of our game (and score) to improve upon is putting.

MLB ballparks are about to become safer for fans.

There are hundreds of tournaments run on a professional basis for both men and women held on every continent around the world that lend to year-round tennis excitement, beginning in January and ending in December.

Alas, biking in to work in Spring Valley from Cordes Jct. along a portion of Big Bug Creek, the flow of water has finally dried up. This is so typical in Arizona. The stream beds are mostly intermittent.

NFL brass have made a proposal that will turn the league into a facsimile of the recently expired Alliance of American Football: short on talent and bereft of credibility.

Every now and then you are thrown an opportunity that you don’t see coming, and when Jack Smith, now former-county supervisor/district 5, stepped down from that position and someone who lived in that area would be appointed, I thought, “Why not me?”

We discussed playing in the wind and now we are in our monsoon season, which means playing in soft, wet conditions. I will share some things that I think are important to playing your best during this time of year.

To get what it wants, the NCAA resorts to threats and intimidation.

Probably 90% of the people watching the men’s final of Wimbledon around the world were rooting for the great 37-year-old Roger Federer. The crowd at Wimbledon were definitely having a love fest for Roger, and No. 1 seed Novak Djkovic knew that would be the case.

Last summer I said, “I’d rather hike in a refrigerator than an oven.” Then I focused on higher elevation summits. This year, now that summer has arrived (sort of), I will do what all desert rats do, hike smarter not hotter.

We have reached a new nadir in the era of political correctness. A number of NBA players insist that team owners no longer refer to themselves as “owners” because the word is racially insensitive and offends them.

Coco Gauff the fifteen year old tennis phenom, going into the 2nd week at Wimbledon, the fourth round to be exact, had the run most players only dream of.

Two stadiums in two countries, playing half a season in one and half in the other. Sound strange? Improbable? Impossible?

With money tight, my choice of activities to do with my son came down to choosing either the batting cage or the trailhead. We were on our way to a birthday dinner but had a few minutes to enjoy a little time outdoors.

“There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.” Joe DiMaggio.

Being a student of the game of tennis, I’ve read about practically every tennis player in the history books since the humble beginnings of modern tennis started in 1874.

Any time officials are the main topic of conversation after an athletic event, it’s not a good look for the sport. Unfortunately, that was the case throughout the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Tennis is an athletic game taught and made up of many repeated sayings. Repeated because the same mistakes are frequently made and it seems saying it just once or twice to a student makes little headway.

As I have aged and continue to hike solo, I have become a little anxious about crossing paths with a bear somewhere off the beaten path. My concerns may be unfounded but I feel like I am due.

Major League Baseball instituted a reverse-order draft in 1965, severely limiting the negotiating leverage of amateur players. That may soon change.

Tennis in Prescott would be stagnant if it weren’t for the likes of a few very important volunteers working with and some for the Prescott Area Tennis Association and some on their own.

Watching the NCAA Golf Championships (Men & Women) as well as the PGA and LPGA Tours’ events, it is mind-boggling how slow the governing entities allow their players to play golf.

Major League Baseball’s total revenue has been steadily rising since the strike year of 1994 and until three years ago, the same was true of the league’s attendance. That may no longer be the case.