“Matt McCarthy, a graduate of Yale and of Harvard Medical School now working as an intern in the residency program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in New York, has gained national attention in recent weeks for “Odd Man Out,” his salacious memoir of his summer as an obscure minor league pitcher. He writes about playing with racist, [...]
Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Say It Ain’t So!: Truth Strikes Out in Baseball Memoir “Odd Man Out”
Posted in Baseball, Book Reviews, Books, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Sports, Writers & Writing on March 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Say It Ain’t So!: Are Mastro Auctions & The Sports Collectibles Industry on the Ropes?
Posted in Baseball, Business, Collectors & Collecting, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Economy, Ephemera, Popular Culture, Sports, Sports Memorabilia on March 3, 2009 | 1 Comment »
“The sports collectibles industry looks like it is going to take a big hit because of the souring economy, and there’s lots of speculation that the hobby’s biggest auction house, Mastro Auctions, won’t be around much longer. The Illinois company – the nation’s largest sports memorabilia auction house – is the target of a federal [...]
Joseph O’Neill’s “Netherland” Wins Pen/Faulkner Fiction Award
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Brooklyn, Literature, New York City, Sports, U.S. Travel, Writers & Writing on February 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Joseph O’Neill’s novel ‘Netherland’ was named the winner of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation said on Wednesday. The honor for ‘Netherland,’ about a Dutch-born equities analyst, his British wife and their son, who live in New York during the Sept. 11 attack and its aftermath, is something of a comeback for Mr. O’Neill. [...]
What Recession?: NBC Sells Out Super Bowl Ads for Record $206M
Posted in Business, Economy, Sports on February 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As former NFL head coach Jim Mora might ask, “Recession? Recession? Are you kidding me? Recession?” NBC Sells Out Super Bowl Ads for Record $206M (via NY Times)
R.I.P. – Ingemar Johansson (1932-2009)
Posted in Obituaries, Sports on January 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Ingemar Johansson, the Swede who stunned the boxing world by knocking out Floyd Patterson to win the heavyweight title in 1959, has died. Johansson was 76.” (via ESPN) [Sometimes a person, or an event, sticks in your head in ways you don't necessarily appreciate until much later, perhaps not until the person dies or the event [...]
Happy 90th Birthday, Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)
Posted in Baseball, Birthdays, Obama, Race, Sports on January 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Jackie Robinson was my boyhood hero and with every passing year I have a richer appreciation of what he went through and how he made this world a better place with his courage and grace.” (Tom Brokaw) Earlier this week in New York, in advance of what would have been his 90th birthday tomorrow, Robinson’s [...]
R.I.P. – John Updike (1932–2009)
Posted in Baseball, Books, Literature, Obituaries, Sports, Writers & Writing on January 27, 2009 | 2 Comments »
“My subject is the American Protestant small town middle class,” Mr. Updike told Jane Howard in a 1966 interview for Life magazine. “I like middles,” he continued. “It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.” [My first encounter with Updike’s writings was during the summer of 1970 when I was required to [...]
