Excessive Celebration, Ego are Tides to be Turned in Professional Sports
Tom Laverty ties excessive celebration in football and ego management in baseball to something simple, immaturity, and asks athletes to take a cue from classy players.
Up from the Dirt: A Modest Proposal, or On What to Do with the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull
Tiger Stadium no longer rises up on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. The land itself where Tiger legends like Cobb and Kaline owned Detroit’s most infamous corner house has been left to go (for the past ten seasons) to weed.
An Open Letter to Prince Fielder
It’s no secret that there are a lot of pissed off fans in Detroit right now. We’re pissed off because, in a blue-collar town like ours, when we don’t show up for our jobs we often don’t have a job to show up to. I know you don’t have to worry about that.
Blowing Smoke for Jim Leyland
Fiction author Peter Markus gives a final salute to Tigers manager Jim Leyland as he retires after his eighth season as Detroit’s manager.
My Swim with Great White Sharks – An XN Sports Special
Tony Consiglio recounts his journey swimming with great white sharks.
Boston Marathon Bombing: Bridging Daily Diversions and Reality
At certain points, the real world butts into our daily sports lives. It shakes us from our diversion and makes us ask real questions, and come up with some very tough answers. Today, that happened, when the bombs went off at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Eddie Waitkus Was No Roy Hobbs, Just a Good First Baseman
Ruth Ann Steinhagen, the Cubs fanatic who shot Eddie Waitkus in 1949, died late last year. While that’s not much of a story in itself, some baseball writers have used her death to point out the similarities and differences between Waitkus and Roy Hobbs, the character he inspired in Bernard Malamud’s baseball epic, The Natural. In […]
Ray Lewis Ironic Lecture on ‘Tricks of the Devil’
SI.com broke the news of Lewis’ use of what may or may not be an effective performance-enhancing alternative to steroids, but that’s not the real story. The real story is that the mainstream media refuses to take Lewis down from his pedestal. They refuse to paint him the way he should be painted, and they […]