by gordie | Nov 10, 2023 | NBA
In an interesting bit of full-circle-ness, Robert Covington departed the 76ers in the trade that brought Jimmy Butler from Minnesota five years ago, and returned to Philadelphia in the trade that sent James Harden to the Clippers nine days ago. “I’m glad I’m...
by gordie | Oct 28, 2023 | NFL
For a decade he made his living crashing into NFL linebackers, which has left him at age 46 with aching joints, a surgically repaired neck and a firm understanding of the Faustian bargain players strike with the game. That bargain being this: Yeah, it can be fun to...
by gordie | Oct 21, 2023 | Journalism
Some 40 years after the fact, I can still remember the substance of the note, if not the exact wording. It was written out on paper – no email or online reader comments then – and came from Ron Lauretti, whose son Scott was a Carlisle High School football player....
by gordie | Sep 16, 2023 | NFL
At the Green Bay Packers’ annual owners meeting in late July, team president Mark Murphy stood at a lectern on the 50-yard line in Lambeau Field and informed myself and about 8,000 of my fellow shareholders (many of whom are pictured above) that the team would retire...
by gordie | Aug 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
The woman, a minister by trade, was standoffish: What were we doing in the graveyard adjacent to her church? Five of us stood there that day in the spring of 2022 – myself, my wife and another couple, as well as a tour guide, who tried to talk the woman down. They...
by gordie | Aug 4, 2023 | MLB
Orioles closer Felix Bautista stands 6-8, weighs 285 and routinely throws 100. Dubbed “The Mountain,” he looks like Shaq when he’s out there on the mound, or at least an NFL edge rusher. (And dare it be said that he’s now on the short list of great mountains, along...
by gordie | Jul 5, 2023 | MLB
Decades before Ted Lasso hung that iconic sign over his office door, another Hollywood venture into the sporting world taught us the value of belief. Again and again in Bull Durham, director Ron Shelton’s 1988 ode to minor league baseball, the characters invest...
by gordie | Jun 4, 2023 | NBA
Tyler Smith once played basketball at Penn State, and as a pro seemingly everywhere else. Gives him a wider worldview, one that is particularly valuable now, given the fact that a certain crew-cutted Serbian has turned the NBA playoffs into his own personal showcase....
by gordie | May 13, 2023 | NBA
Well, the Golden State Warriors were fun while they lasted. But Friday night’s series-deciding loss to the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals feels like a crossroads moment. In a basketball sense, it feels like the Day the Music Died. A pity, because for the...
by gordie | May 12, 2023 | NBA
The mind goes back 41 years ago to another Sixers-Celtics Game Six, on another May night in another Philadelphia arena – the Spectrum, which used to sit across the parking lot from the Sixers’ current home, the Wells Fargo Center, but now is a parking lot. Then, as...
