NOW LET’S GET something clear before you read any further. I’m no sports enthusiast. I was once a baseball fan, but that was a long time ago, before the Red Sox offered up their final disappointment to me in 1986, a disappointment I vowed never to forgive, and indeed, I have kept that vow. And […]
Sports
Posted inEducation
Senator invites Duxbury football team to meet with him
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE ON THE SAME DAY Duxbury High School fired its head football coach, state Sen. Barry Finegold invited the varsity team to meet with him, as someone who is both Jewish and played football, after players used Holocaust-related terminology to call out plays on the field during a recent game. Finegold played […]
Posted inEducation
How pro should college athletes go?
WHEN CHRIS WEBBER was a top basketball player for the University of Michigan in the early 1990s, paraphernalia with his name was being sold nationwide, but Webber could not receive a cent. Webber was forced to end his career after a scandal in which he accepted money from a local booster, which is illegal under […]
Posted inEducation
UMass football thrown for big losses
WHEN THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS opted to enter major college football in 2012, officials pitched the idea that the program would pay for itself over time, even bolstering non-revenue sports at the school through national television appearances, bowl invitations, and sold-out games at home with brand-name teams visiting on glorious fall weekends in New England. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Celtics star hounded by Erdogan fans
This story has been updated to reflect that Bijan Rafiekian’s conviction was recently overturned. ENES KANTER was just trying to pray, but supporters of Turkey’s authoritarian leader found him on a sidewalk in Cambridge and turned a visit to a mosque into something darker. The new center for the Boston Celtics was leaving the Islamic Society […]
Posted inThe Download
Celtics star hounded by Erdogan fans
This story has been updated to reflect that Bijan Rafiekian’s conviction was recently overturned. Enes Kanter was just trying to pray, but supporters of Turkey’s authoritarian leader found him on a sidewalk in Cambridge and turned a visit to a mosque into something darker. The new center for the Boston Celtics was leaving the Islamic […]
Posted inOpinion
A revolutionary idea for a Boston soccer venue
BOSTON, we have a soccer problem. We don’t have a home team. Our club in spirit—the pioneering and resurgent New England Revolution—still reside in the de facto exile of Gillette Stadium. As if playing The Beautiful Game on an artificial pitch tailored for gladiators weren’t indignity enough, the Revs do so in front of roughly 48,000 empty […]
Posted inThe Download
Worcester hires Zimbalist, Mullan
Worcester’s hush-hush courtship of the Pawtucket Red Sox just got a bit more interesting. The Telegram & Gazette reported that the city hired Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist and former Massachusetts secretary of transportation Jeffrey Mullan to work as consultants on the project. Zimbalist is generally regarded as a skeptic when it comes to public […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Why Boston drove Ali fight out of town
HE CALLED HIMSELF Muhammad Ali because his given name, he said, was “a slave’s name, and I’m no longer a slave.” In 1965 he was still called Cassius Clay, his father’s name, a name he would willingly give up as he made his own way in life as a boxer of global renown. He was that […]
Posted inThe Download
Football heading for trouble
Looking to stop the flow of tears falling into area beers, NECN’s Broadside host Sue O’Connell offered this on-the-bright-side tweet on Sunday night: “Hey #PatriotsNation, the good news is your fav players will now have a slightly lower chance of brain injury resulting in CTE. #concussion” Her timing couldn’t have been better, as today brings […]