One of the abiding questions of recent times about what's happening with the business side of the Cleveland Indians revolves around the Dolans' recent sale of SportsTime Ohio.
The Dolans went to some difficulty and expense to first cancel its television broadcast contract with Fox Sports Ohio and then launch their own cable venture m 2006 with Indians games as the centerpiece. Yet just a handful of years later they abandoned the project and sold STO, ironically to Fox Sports. Did the Dolans cash in? Is that what funded this past season's free agent splurge? Hard to know in either case, but perhaps they sold for a more mundane reason: it may not have been generating the profits they thought.
Usually, it happens around the MLB All-Star break. It's mid-July, and without a regular slate of games, it's virtually a couple of days without sports. It's really some birthday present for someone like myself; I'm craving a game to watch, but the gods are telling me that I will get nothing, and I will like it. On the other hand, it gives me some time to reflect on what's happened during my time in this world. Sure, it isn't as fascinating as the story of Forrest Gump, or even a real person whose story might include more relevant occurrences than a regular kid from Cleveland, but this is my story, and the only one I can tell with such a degree of accuracy.
If I had just one wish as a sports columnist, it would be to write with the absolute clarity and sense of purpose of Jason Whitlock. He doesn't duck important issues, particularly when race is involved. He doesn't adhere to conventional wisdom or anyone's party line and doesn't write to meet anyone's expectations but his own. Time and again he'll be on the opposite side of where you'd thought he'd be on a particular issue and where you might be. When you're finished, he'll change your mind.
Now that Cleveland has once again gone viral for the wrong reasons following Scott Entsminger’s much-publicized dying wish, many of us have begun thinking about the same thing.
Of all the books written about sport, perhaps none is as definitive as “The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood,” wherein author Jane Leavy explores the heights — and depths — of one of the most acclaimed baseball stars of the 20th century.