Last time, I bounded down the stairs into the exclusive basement of Sipango for his going-away party. “Jay-SOWN!” I crowed, an obnoxious nod to our mutual affinity for Adam Sandler’s “Cajun Man” character on Saturday Night Live. This time, I wait for an hour in a secluded conference room at…
MESA, ARIZONA — I come to you today live from HoHoKam Park, better known as Wrigley West. It’s the little ballpark here where the Chicago Cubs hibernate in the winter. The quaint joint is littered with retirees with bald heads, beer bellies and baseball scorebooks. There are as many walkers…
Last night, before the Mavs throttled the Knicks in NYC, somebody with a video cam was recording Erick Dampier taking a few warm-up shots. What they caught was something accidentally spectacular: this shot by former Mav-turned-Dallas assistant coach Popeye Jones, who’s one of four on the player development staff. In…
Is it us, or does Eric Gagne look like Seth Rogen from The 40-Year-Old Virgin? SURPRISE, ARIZONA — No, this guy didn’t show up and go dumb yesterday afternoon here at Texas Rangers spring training. But this guy went deep. Twice. Which, for a team in desperate need of some…
Maybe you saw the Mavs blow out the Knicks last night; if not, it was a typical Dallas ‘dozer, 92-77 over a catastrophucked NY team somehow still in the playoff hunt at 30-37. Which puts Your Dallas Mavericks at 55 wins for the season thus far; most NBA franchises won’t…
The Dallas Cowboys just put on their Web site plans for a memorial service in honor of Wilford “Crazy Ray” Jones — the team’s “unofficial mascot of 44 years” who died Saturday morning at the age of 76. If you’re so inclined, it will take place at 10 a.m. this…
I didn’t come here today to lament the transformation of my March Madness bracket into toilet paper, to publicly apologize to anyone I might have maimed with a well-intended string of beads during Saturday’s St. Paddy’s Parade or to rehash Monday night’s 16-10 loss by the Dallas Observer co-ed softball…
Diamond in the rough: Formerly a Rangers pitching-prospect great, Thomas Diamond will now miss the entire 2007 season. It wasn’t so long ago that Thomas Diamond, Edinson Volquez and John Danks were going to be the one-two-three punch of the Texas Rangers’ pitching rotation. They even had their own nickname:…
DallasCowboys.com As a wide-eyed kid lucky enough to hitch a ride to Dallas Cowboys games at the Cotton Bowl and later Texas Stadium atop dad’s shoulders, one of the highlights of any given Sunday was the good guy wearing the black hat. You could hear his piercing whistle — a…
In about eight minutes or so, please send UNT coach Johnny Jones your warmest wishes and prayers. He and his team will need them so. Take it from a guy who’s in 1,106,094th place in ESPN’s bracket contest, the University of North Texas has a real shot today (as in,…
I’ve been a little busy filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket you can cheat off of (long as we split the pot, cool?). But either I missed something or uncovered something, because it sure looks, feels, smells and sounds like Nellie’s Sports Bar has gone the way of Medici and…
Maybe it’s time the Mavs’ would-be MVP got his Dirk out of the box and played some friggin’ crunchtime ball. You can talk about Steve Nash’s heroics, Amare Stoudemire’s monster game or countless, game-changing, mind-boggling, heart-palpitating plays in what was undoubtedly the best NBA game of the season. But most…
Memphis hasn’t lost a basketball game since Britney Spears needed a comb and Sammy Sosa needed a contract; it has the nation’s longest winning streak at 22. North Texas toils in a conference (Sun Belt) that doubles as a fanny pack worn by Florida retirees. Memphis last year came within…
We always forget Greg Ostertag went to Duncanville. Then, we always forget Greg Ostertag. Teardrop. In December, Cedar Hill and Southlake Carroll swept the high school football championships in the state’s two largest classes. Last week Fort Worth Dunbar and Rockwall nabbed the girls’ two biggest classes in basketball. And…
Anyone seen Deadspin today — by which I mean this particular item about Texas Rangers reliever C.J. Wilson and the photo he (allegedly, since we’re so into covering our asses) posted to his pal Brandon McCarthy’s MySpace page? (It’s the February 1 posting, if you’re so inclined.) Yeah, just checking…
The only guy standing between the Mavs winning 16 straight is this little dude. Believe it. We’ve been here before. Sorta. Almost two months ago to the day, the Mavs waltzed into Lakerland with a big winning streak and got stung by somebody named Sasha Vujacic. Back then it was…
Babe Laufenberg wants back in the Cowboys broadcast booth. Brad Sham wants him there. So there, Jer. You ever tried to stop a rumor from making the rounds because, well, it shouldn’t have been a rumor in the first place? Only, by telling people the rumor wasn’t true, you somehow…
Don’t judge SMU’s basketball season by what happened on the court. Rather, go by what’s happening a couple hundred feet below it. “That hole in the ground,” says first-year coach Matt Doherty, “is the future of our program.” No, smartass, it’s not a mass grave reserved for the latest crop…
Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly goes Troutt fishing in this week’s issue. Last summer came word that local billionaire Kenny Troutt was spending a small chunk of his estimable fortune to bankroll two youth AAU basketball teams, both called the Texas Titans. (One’s made up of third-graders; the other, fifth-graders.) And…
Photo courtesy the University of North Texas The Mean Green of UNT are Sun Belt Conference champs and, go figure, headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. Like you, I didn’t win $370 million last night. But I did get to witness something that happens about…
Charles Hatley scored a weekend win over state boxing champ Jose Orozco. We’re late on this, but since we wrote about our man Charles Hatley last week in this space, we thought an update was in order. In case you’ve forgotten, Hatley is the local boxer we’ve written about before…
Yeah, we were smiling before the season too. Then Matt Doherty rolled out the rock, and that was that. In the middle of his desk at Moody Coliseum, SMU basketball coach Matt Doherty displays a large cinder block inscribed with “RTC” and signed by every member of his team and…
