A fastball is a young man’s pitch. Arrogant and overpowering. An exercise in green strength and the flexibility of young bones and tendons. Oh, older pitchers can sometimes throw the high-velocity things, barreling toward the plate at more than 90 miles an hour. Even in his last seasons, a forty-year-old man playing in the early […]
The way Willie Bloomquist sees it, he’s living an impossible dream. Of all the players who try to make it to the major leagues, only a relative few actually get there. Bloomquist is one of those few, but he doesn’t attribute this to his own skills. The 34-year-old Port Orchard, Wash., native says he’s not […]
If you ask Jack Hannahan what he’s thankful for, be prepared to listen for a while. Hannahan, 32, has plenty to appreciate, starting with the realization of his dream of playing in the major leagues. In 2001, he was named Big Ten Player of the Year at the University of Minnesota and was drafted in […]
Rich Donnelly has a baseball story that is out of this world. Donnelly’s daughter Amy had passed away four years before his trip to the World Series in 1997 with the Florida Marlins, but her presence was felt keenly at the end of the seventh game. The coach has recounted the story to thousands of […]
I grew up in Denver and am admittedly biased. I’m a Denver Broncos fanatic. In the Mile High City, the Broncos are more than just a football team; they’re an institution. Everybody loves a comeback. Former Broncos quarterback John Elway — one of the greatest QBs in NFL history — had comebacks in his DNA. […]
If you follow professional sports, and especially if you are a football or hockey fan, you undoubtedly are aware of the rash of concussions that have rendered players unfit to play. Now there’s a rash of lawsuits being filed against the National Football League, the latest of which includes a group of 106 retired football […]
“Physician, heal thyself.” (Luke 4:23) As a fitness expert, I practice what I preach, exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet. Yet, like most people, I occasionally find that life gets too busy and the workouts and healthy habits temporarily fall by the wayside. My clothes start to feel a bit snug and the number […]
I did most of my growing up in Springville, New York, a small town boasting about 4,200 citizens in the southtowns of Western New York. The nearest big city is Buffalo, which boasts several verypopular sports teams. Buffalo is a sports town, despite a complete lack of national championships in any of them (though the […]
Tim Tebow haters finally scored on Sunday, when the 23-year-old novice quarterback for the Denver Broncos succumbed to defeat at the hands of 34-year-old Super Bowl veteran and New England Patriots powerhouse Tom Brady. Prior to that 41-23 loss, Tebow had been on an improbable six-game winning streak, pulling off one miraculous fourth-quarter finish after […]
Tim Tebow has sure made the sports headlines as of late. The popular quarterback of the Denver Broncos, known for being unapologetic about his Christian faith (something I applaud, of course), has perplexed not a few sports commentators by his seemingly miraculous comeback-victories after struggling through three-and-a-half quarters of a game. I asked, via email, […]
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.” —Terence Mann (played by James Earl Jones), Field of Dreams For over 100 years, baseball has been a cultural reference point for millions of Americans. Just as certain songs are associated with special times in our lives, so many of us remember our past […]
For more than a century baseball has been called America’s national pastime, and Major League Baseball is flourishing today. However, in recent decades, football—college and professional—has surpassed baseball in popularity and prominence. For many men and some women, fall weekends and football are synonymous. Both the National Football League and major colleges attract huge audiences […]
Among last week’s troubling headlines: ” ‘Jersey Shore’ scores most-watched season premiere ever: Opener drew 8.8 million total viewers.” Apparently, last Thursday night, overcome with news of our economic woes, millions of us sank into the sofa to escape to Italy with Snooki, the Situation, D.J. Paulie D and the rest of the gang from […]
? Ryan Lefebvre is hopeful that [this] Major League Baseball season[…] will be a winning one — but his hopes extend far beyond the diamond. Lefebvre, the television announcer for the Kansas City Royals, began a broadcasting career during his freshman year at the University of Minnesota in 1992 when he called football games on […]
Whether you are a gifted athlete, a weekend warrior, or one who simply enjoys reading the Sunday Sports section, you will enjoy Spirituality of Sport: Balancing Body and Soul (St. Anthony Messenger Press, January 2004, paperback, 137 pages) by Dr. Susan Saint Sing. Saint Sing, a gifted athlete and inspirational coach, shares her own story […]
