Will Dirk Nowitzki Finish his Career as a Maverick?

It’s not exactly Calvin Watkins’ expose in Dallas’ Only Daily featuring five sources detailing the Cowboys’ anarchy at Valley Ranch, but NBA.com’s Art Garcia – formerly of your Fort Worth Star-Telegram – stirs your Mavericks’ pot a bit this morning. Garcia writes that Dirk Nowitzki hasn’t exactly “connected” with head…

Omni Hotels Takes a Bite Off Bob’s Plate

Will Dallas’s convention center hotel get a Bob’s Steak and Chop House? Fair question this morning, as Irving-based Omni Hotels — which the city council tapped to operate the convention center hotel — announced this morning that it has acquired a 50-percent stake in the brand name, with plans to…

Dallas, Both “Silly” and “Self-Confident”

Jeremy Gerard, a theater critic for The Dallas Morning News some two decades ago, is now a New York-based editor for Bloomberg News, the first media outlet to which George Steel denied he was leaving his new Dallas Opera gig for an opening in New York. This morning, Gerard weighs…

Your Sports Owner: Mark Cuban vs. Jerry Jones

Both have more money than Sri Lanka, wealthy enough to buy this blog with the change in their car’s ash tray. They are each passionate, energetic, innovative, way smarter than me and absolutely consumed, dare I say obsessed, with bringing a championship to Dallas. In the last couple years their teams coughed up No…

Have knife; will sue

Robert Wilonsky BUZZ Switch and bait: OK, before any of you fine weapons-owning people out there in Internet-land get all huffy and write in to tell Buzz that we’re an idiot, let’s be clear on one thing: Buzz knows we’re an idiot. Thank you. We say this because the last…

Easier Being Green

I”Going green” used to be considered a luxury, especially in a faltering economy. But as the Legislature convened last week amid a budget squeeze, a determined coalition of lawmakers and lobbyists acted on the premise that conserving energy is nothing less than an absolute necessity, especially in rough financial times…

Downtown Dallas at the Crossroads

It stands at the end of a short, out-of-the-way dead-end street a few blocks from City Hall: 508 Park Ave., where a man and a guitar more or less invented rock and roll 72 years ago. The building is vacant and decaying, but not alone. On a recent Saturday afternoon,…

Call Him Ishmael

“The Prodigal Son Returns,” by Jim Schutze, January 8 Call Him Ishmael It appears that Jim Schutze may be going a bit over the deep end on W’s return to Dallas, like Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. Jim, channel your good mother, breathe deeply and remember every mother’s good…

Meddling Maverick

Just when you think Mark Cuban has mellowed, he shows a pulse. And just when you think he has tired of his tribulations, he shows some heart. The Dallas Mavericks’ owner—hip-deep in stock controversy and baseball snubbing and a fresh fine from the NBA—struggles these days to give his basketball…

David “Fathead” Newman Has Died at 75

Josh Alan Friedman, who penned an amazing piece about the Texas Tenor for the paper version of Unfair Park long ago, brings sad news today: Corsicana-born, Dallas-raised sax great David “Fathead” Newman died yesterday. There’s only been one obituary, but a call to David’s wife and manager Karen offers further…

BREAKING NEWS: Mark “Friedo” Friedman Leaves The Ticket

Long-time Norm Hitzges sidekick and 1310 AM The Ticket assistant program director Mark Friedman confirms this afternoon that he has left the station to take a similar role with rival sports-talk station 103.3 FM ESPN Radio. Friedman will next week begin his new role as ESPN’s APD and producer for The…

Texas Rangers: Hot Stove or Cold Shoulder?

Give the Rangers credit. They are trying. With the Cowboys imploding and the Mavs and Stars wallowing in mediocrity, our local baseball team has a prime opportunity to earn some much-needed love this winter. Texas hasn’t done diddly-poo as far as free agency, bringing in only reliever Derek Turnbow, pitching…

With Jerry Jones, Greatness Courts Failure

A Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention to the Dallas Cowboys’ official Web site, which published a Q&A with owner and general manager Jerry Jones last night. It’s not exactly the most illuminating interview — lots of assessing and evaluating going on, which is only, what, six months too…

Dallas, Moving North Since 1945

Justin Cozart’s been busy updating the Dallas Urban History page on Flickr, and among his recent finds is this 1945 map created for the Dallas City Plan Commission (speaking, as we were earlier, of city planning). Writes Justin, it shows “areas of urbanization in the city and certain obstacles to…

Ann Margolin Has a Survey For You

Dallas City Council candidate Ann Margolin, who’s already raised something like $328 trillion as she looks to replace Mitchell Rasansky as George W. Bush’s council member, has created the niftiest little game: “Rank the Top Five Issues Facing Dallas.” Problem is, she’s already chosen the issues for you: traffic, crime,…

Didn’t Take Zach Thomas Long to Get His Fill of the Cowboys

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Zach Thomas. Unlike Brad Pitt in the movie, Zach didn’t exactly grow younger as he got older. But boy did he grow sick and tired in a hurry. This is how it was supposed to work: After a successful, yet ultimately unfulfilling career in Miami,…