Eddie Gossage thinks I’m an April Fool. Texas Motor Speedway’s president told me so—in no uncertain terms—when I trial-ballooned my thesis that NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes. “You’ve lost your mind,” Gossage retorted from his office overlooking TMS, home to this weekend’s Samsung 500 out in Fort Worth. “That’s the dumbest…
About a month ago in this cover story Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told me his team didn’t fear a first-round NBA Playoff matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers. “The Lakers don’t intimidate us at all,” Cuban maintains. “In the West it’s going to come down to whoever stays the healthiest…
Sad – and surprising – that your Dallas Mavericks are reduced to trying to hold on to 8th place in the Western Conference over their final nine games over two weeks. But with that gut-gouging home loss to the Denver Nuggets last Friday night, I think they fumbled away any…
I play sports because I love them. But I watch sports because I love to see done what I can’t do. I watch Tiger Woods because I can’t hit a 7-iron 210 yards. I watch Andy Roddick because I can’t hit a serve 149 mph. I watch Kobe Bryant because I…
This is not the time to talk politics. It’s the time to talk baseball. I’ll put my liberal left leaning on hold today because the Texas Rangers have announced – no surprise – that former Prez and former co-owner George W. Bush will throw out the first pitch before next…
My March Madness bracket has long been in shambles. But my pick to win it all – UConn – is alive, well and poised to win the title next weekend in Detroit. If you called Michigan State over Louisville, kudos. If you predicted UConn, Villanova, North Carolina and the Spartans as…
The NBA is a bunch of nit-twitts. Over the weekend the league fined Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $25,000 for his “criticism” of officials via Twitter, the real-time social network that allows schmucks like you and me to be flies on the walls of the rich, famous and exhibitionistic. Or…
Earlier today, the National Basketball Association lifted $25,000 from Mark Cuban’s pocket for comments Twittered after Friday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets. Tweeted the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, “how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground?”…
Went out and toured “new” Rangers Ballpark last month. Well, not exactly new, but how about refurbished? New video scoreboard in left field. Information ribbons wrapping the place. A fashion-forward brick wall behind home plate. My thumbs-up review is here. With a heralded youth movement playing in a spit-shined stadium, there’s…
First, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says quarterback Tony Romo is untouchable. “I wouldn’t trade Tony for anybody.” Now head coach Wade Phillips – who never addressed his team after last season and has been publicly silent since 2008 – says he hasn’t talked just because, um, he hasn’t wanted to…
Texas Rangers fans attending games in Arlington this season will do something for the first time since their ballpark opened in 1994. Sorry, it has nothing to do with winning. Or does it? Thanks to a $4 million facelift, every fan in every seat at Rangers Ballpark will be able…
So says the Texas Tech athletics Web site this afternoon, as the Red Raiders make it official: Tech and Baylor are moving their next two games up to North Texas sooner than later. As in: This year, on November 28, the Red Raiders and Bears won’t play in Waco, as…
Since I rip Ken Hamlin’s birthday parties and Martellus Bennett’s rap videos, guess I should lay into Leonard Davis’ band as well. Wait, Leonard Davis is in a rock band? I saw Dallas Cowboys’ offensive lineman Marc Columbo at a Godsmack concert at the Palladium in 2006 and wondered what he’d…
A little radio industry birdie just chirped to me that the Dallas Mavericks and 103.3 ESPN have reached an agreement keeping the team in place through 2013. The Mavs would’ve become radio free agents after the current deal expired on April 1, but the sides finalized a new four-year contract on Monday…
More good news for Cowboys fans this morning comes courtesy of Julius Jones and Jacques Reeves. Remember them? Because the former Cowboys left via free agency and played kinda decent, the NFL has awarded Dallas compensatory picks in the fifth and sixth rounds in next month’s draft. The Cowboys, thanks…
The Dallas Cowboys and their new $1 billion stadium don’t have a corporate naming partner. (My idea looks better by the day.) Or, for that matter, an exclusive date with a TV network for the sparkling joint’s NFL debut. To which I say, fantastic! Let me repeat the off-season mantra I’ve encouraged…
Give the Dallas Stars credit for being spunky and resilient and stubbornly fun to watch. But the season’s over, right? To me it ended Saturday in San Jose. Not just with the 5-2 loss to the Sharks, but more so with another major injury. This one to Brad Richards, who…
Shockingly, this one isn’t on No. 76. In fact, it’s a good thing. At least I think it is. You tell me. The Cowboys last week mailed letters to all 2009 season-ticket holders, informing them that their dues for tickets and parking is surprisingly being delayed. Originally due April 1, customers…
A bestest Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention to Peter King’s Monday Morning QB column filed from the annual NFL meetings in Dana Point, California. A the bottom we discover that the Sports Business Journal may have had it wrong earlier this month — as in, AT&T isn’t buying…
What happened to the madness in March? Instead of dramatic buzzer-beaters and Cinderellas and Bryce Drew, the first weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament brought us the Greg Gumbel Invitational – about as goose-bumpy as a piece of white bread laying on a chunk of cardboard. A year after all…
In case you haven’t noticed, the Dallas Mavericks’ new head coach is Prick Carlisle. His weekly radio shows with The Ticket’s Norm Hitzges have gotten progressively less insightful and decreasingly courteous. And last night he turned down right surly with ESPN Radio’s Chuck Cooperstein. For no reason. On the Mavs’ pre-game…
Instead of watching college basketball yesterday, I decided to get out the sticks for the first time this spring. Cue the Guinness guys: Brilliant! While one of my upsets delivered (Western Kentucky over Illinois) and one of my Final Four teams inexplicably pratfalled (Clemson?!), I carded a fresh 76 at…
