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July 09, 2008
LIPPER: Hendrick lost Busch and future
Let me acknowledge up front that Rick Hendrick has sold a bazillion cars through his assorted dealerships, whereas I once traded in a two-year-old Fiat with a nasty habit of destroying piston rings. Furthermore, Hendrick has overseen seven NASCAR championships, while I was a dismal failure at Burnout and Need for Speed when matched against my controller-savvy son.More fun with the Rods, both A and C
The rich and famous, it seems, split up differently than the rest of us. Christie Brinkley loaded up the kids in the family private jet and flew off to Colorado in search of comfort after discovering her husband was having an affair with an 18-year-old and spending some of the family fortune on Internet porn.July 07, 2008
Brian France out front and center
The new Brian France? Well France, the stock-car racing CEO, third generation, is suddenly quite visibly engaged and taking an increasingly aggressive stance on the public-relations front during the past six weeks, in what is clearly a new higher-profile campaign for the family sport; and perhaps for France as well.July 03, 2008
COLUMN: Divorce done, Seattle looks for new love
What a sweetheart: Clay Bennett left the SuperSonics name, championship banners and 41 years of memories behind, yet couldn’t bring himself to part with even a few crocodile tears on his way out the door. Too bad — since those would have been the most appropriate souvenir of all.July 02, 2008
COLUMN: Among all the empty seats
The view from section 219, row 14 in the Metrodome wasn’t bad, though being in the middle of a long row meant a night spent pasted to the tiny seats. Minnesota nice only goes so far, so there was no chance of getting up and crawling over people to the aisle unless things got real serious. For 26 bucks each, the upper deck seats weren’t exactly a bargain, but not much is in baseball these days. I was thinking about that as I added up in my head what it cost the beleaguered older couple in the next row with four grandkids in tow to take in a Twins game.June 29, 2008
MULHERN: It’s the big teams that dominate
Summertime blues? Well, maybe in some stock-car racing camps, as team owners try to please corporate sponsors increasingly worried about their NASCAR return on investment. With as much as $30 million a team at stake, this is a legitimate concern, particularly with the sport dominated by a Big Four: Hendrick, Roush, Gibbs and Childress.
June 28, 2008
MULHERN: Gilliland energized by Sonoma showing
In his second season on the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour, David Gilliland has become a solid driver, despite all the financial problems facing new team owner Doug Yates.
June 27, 2008
LIPPER: NBA flaunts flawed system
The NBA draft was held in Madison Square Garden’s day-care center Thursday night, with milk and cookies for all the diaper dandies and with David Stern on hand to give each of the kids a handshake and a copy of “Goodnight Moon.”
June 24, 2008
SACCO: The best parting shot of them all
Jim Critzer got the best of both worlds.
He resigned with class and, by doing so, thumbed his nose at all the haters that filled those boxes of negativity he still keeps at the old homestead.
June 13, 2008
LIPPER: Is either side worth trusting?
This pretty much comes down to one thing: Whom do you trust? Tim Donaghy? Or David Stern?June 12, 2008
SACCO: Good ol’ boys win this round
The problem with good ol’ boys is, well, exactly that. They’re boys. Not men.
Men fight their own fights, they throw their own punches, they kick their own butts when need be. They don’t depend on other men to do their dirty work.
If a few former coaches at Fort Defiance are to be believed, the Reservation outside of Verona is a good ol’ boys club straight out of the movie “Diggstown.”
June 07, 2008
DAHLBERG: Is this a great sport?
I’ve been trying not to write much about boxing lately because people keep telling me it’s a dying sport and not nearly as much fun as watching guys kick and choke each other. Indeed, it was great sport when mixed martial arts made its first prime time national television appearance last week with a spectacle complete with one grotesque cauliflower ear, a bunch of scantily clad women and a main event that looked suspiciously like it had been plotted by the network folks who also bring you CSI.June 06, 2008
STATE EXTRA: SACCO: The coach cried too
PULASKI
Jimmy Eavers’ tears were telling of what the Waynesboro baseball squad was. Some would call them a “team.” They called themselves a “family.”
So when Eavers, a freshman call-up from JV that spent most of his time in the dugout cheering on the guys that accepted him into the purple and gold familia, couldn’t keep from crying as the Little Giants readied to walk out of Calfee Park in Pulaski, it was clear who he was crying for.
June 05, 2008
STATE EXTRA SISK: The story goes full circle
The sun set in left field at Baltimore Park in Powhatan one-year ago today while Waynesboro celebrated in the dugout.
“How many miracles do you want?” Waynesboro coach Jim Critzer asked.
The Little Giants had just knocked off the Indians in a 2-1 thriller that walked a thin line of infringing on the copyright of a Disney movie.
June 04, 2008
GIANTS EXTRA SACCO: Craig breaks his funk
What were you planning on thinking? Something along the lines of David Blaine, done proving to the world how big of a tool he is by taking six hours to lick himself out of a block of frozen salsa, decided to come to the River City, wave his hands and make Josh Craig’s bat go “poof” and disappear into thin air?
What? Did you imagine some mad-as-all-get-up Southern Valley coach, still holding a grudge over the senior’s timely hitting during the regular season and district tournament, overnighted his Little Giants’ first baseman voodoo doll to Region III?
June 01, 2008
WOODY: Scientific conclusion needed on bats’ safety
The debate on the safety of aluminum bats always simmers just under the surface, then bubbles to the top every few years. This year, the catalyst for the debate not just bubbling to the top but spewing over the sides is the lawsuit filed by the family of Steve Domalweski. Domalweski was a 12-year-old pitcher in Wayne, N.J., when, in June 2006, a ball struck by an aluminum bat hit him in the chest. His heart stopped, his brain was deprived of oxygen for between 15 and 20 minutes, despite the quick administration of CPR, and Domalweski now is severely disabled.May 31, 2008
DAHLBERG: BALCO scandal is down to Bonds
The BALCO scandal has finally come down to just Barry Bonds, and for that most will be grateful. Not necessarily because they want to see Bonds behind bars, though undoubtedly there are a lot of people who do. That probably includes some in San Francisco, who no longer feel compelled to offer up excuses for Bonds now that he is out of baseball and no longer useful to their team.May 30, 2008
Of bubble gum, brotherhood and baseball
SOMEWHERE IN NELSON COUNTY The conversation on the vomit-inducing bus ride spans the globe. They talk about Little League games, Josh Craig played on the Reds, Jeremy Hahn shows off his Mariners’ love. They talk about winning an AAU championship game by forfeit, after being down 8-0 and how the opposing team’s coach, after hearing he would have to give up his victory, chucked the second-place trophy down the third-base line.May 29, 2008
SACCO: DeMoss, your table is ready
AMHERST
No goading. No Barbara Walters hand-on-the-knee question asking.
Heck, all you had to do was come out and ask Waynesboro freshman pitcher Drew DeMoss if he was nervous when skipper Jim Critzer, after watching senior starter Jeremy Hahn get into a sixth-inning funk, motioned toward the pen to bring the 15-year-old in.
May 28, 2008
SACCO: She’s right, Gladiators have nothing to be sorry for
She opened her red fold-up chair, placed her white tote down and got comfortable.
She waited until the game started to take out her case and put the glasses on.
And she cheered. When Ken Cox called your name over the slapped-together PA system at the Riverheads pitch, she clapped with you. She mouthed Kristen Moody’s name. She rubbed her daughter Elizabeth’s leg when Cox’s voice echoed, “And number 4.”
May 25, 2008
LITKE: Greatest spectacle just ends sloppy
INDIANAPOLIS Getting all the best drivers in open-wheel racing on the same track turned out to be a lot easier than keeping them there. The story of this year’s Indianapolis 500 was supposed to be a feel-good tale about the end of a decade-long civil war that split the sport into rival leagues and so damaged both that they wound up sucking on the fumes of NASCAR as it zoomed past in popularity and prize money. Instead, the 92nd running of what was once called “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” turned out to be one of the sloppiest.May 24, 2008
DAHLBERG: Taylor shouldn’t quit his day job
Bill Parcells just doesn’t get it. He’s mad at Jason Taylor, so mad that it’s likely the best player on the woeful Miami Dolphins won’t be a Dolphin much longer. So mad that he watched game film instead of watching Taylor in the finals of “Dancing With the Stars.”May 22, 2008
SACCO: Fort, Spotts win with handshake and smile
Forget Turner Ashby and those other baseball teams up north that decided to jump ship, form their own district and give it a cool name.
Forget those days, they’re gone. Close your eyes tight and wish with all your might. They ain’t ever coming back. There’s a new heated rivalry in town that doesn’t involve Knights, male turkeys or those who blaze new trails into the Shenandoah Valley.
Good bye streaks of blue.
May 12, 2008
SACCO: Injustice of split is lack of equality
When reporters surrounded Ken Tilley during halftime of the Hidden Valley-Greensville County Group AA girls basketball semifinal in March, the VHSL’s executive director knew what was coming.
May 06, 2008
SACCO: Lucas’ long road to a win at TA
It didn’t hit Joseph Lucas until the Little Giants shook hands with the Knights after Monday’s game. That’s when it slapped him in the face like a hot shot back to the mound. That’s when he let out a sigh and realized what he and the Little Giants had done. “We were walking down to have our [post game] meeting and it hit me,” the 16-year-old said Tuesday before practice. “We just beat Turner Ashby.”May 03, 2008
SACCO: The way to wrap up a season
How would you end your star-crossed senior season? Would you be able to suffer through too many matches saddled to the bench, nursing a broken ankle, taking on a new and unfamiliar role of being another coach from the sidelines, all the while knowing that, man, this is it? Is this how it’s going to end? Would you, after your return, suffer through a shoulder injury during your third match back? Then go out and play back-to-back games two days later?May 02, 2008
COLUMN: Dad’s save sets stage for sweep
The biggest save on an ultra-rare girls, boys Friday night soccer doubleheader at Waynesboro came before the center judge even blew his whistle. And, no surprise, here, it came from a Garber. John Garber, that is.April 30, 2008
SACCO: You’ve got to be kidding
All this slack-jawed sports columnist wanted to do was point out that, yeah, soccer is big and the local high schools that haven’t seen those dividends paid just yet soon will. The youth of Wilson Memorial captured my eye and I decided to head out there and chat it up with coach Scott Crist and a few of the young girls on a freshman- and sophomore-laden team. Sorry, but it’s a fact that the Hornets have raised eyebrows in the Shenandoah District thanks to keeping pace with the always tough Holmes Tehrani-led Gladiators in a 2-2 tie. Holding their own against a just-as-good Buffalo Gap squad and losing 1-0 only added to the excitement in Fishersville.April 24, 2008
Redskins should skip on Johnson
Memo to the Washington Redskins regarding a trade for Chad Johnson: Don’t do it. Johnson is an extremely talented wide receiver. He’s also trouble. He signed a contract extension worth $35.6 million in 2006, and he’s already unhappy with the deal. Even if the Redskins acquire him and give him all the money he wants, he will be unhappy again as soon as another wide receiver signs a better deal. And somebody always signs a better deal.April 20, 2008
