During the 8 p.m. Saturday window this week, there was a cavalcade of the usual college football suspects on television. As you moved up and down the proverbial dial, there were Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and LSU all battling for touchdowns and eyeballs. Tucked in among that forest of masculinity was an unusual listing, namely the championship match of the National Women’s Soccer League. History will note that the New York/New Jersey Gotham football club won the title over the Reign team based out of Seattle 2-1. It will also note that the match marked the end of the brillia ..read more

While the sports world has been fixated on the goings on with the University of Michigan football program and the potentially explosive cheating scandal we told you about last week, the really important action has been taking place 2,000 miles away. In an Oakland, Calif. Courtroom, a judge is preparing to rule on a case that may decide nothing less than the future of American sports. As far as can be gleaned from her bio, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Claudia Wilken is neither a former athlete nor is she a sports fan. Yet, if the events of last week are an indicator, history may prove Wilke ..read more

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: There’s cheating going on in college sports and no one knows what to do about it. Actually, the situation that has arisen with the University of Michigan’s football program is still at the alleged status, as there have been no official findings and no admissions of guilt in a matter where there are accusations that the Wolverines, or people on their behalf, have been stealing signs from the opposition. For the record, the Michigan head coach, Jim Harbaugh, the brother of the Ravens’ John Harbaugh, has explicitly denied knowledge or complicity in the matter ..read more

The landscape is dotted with plenty of ways for people of a certain age to try to stay relevant, up to and including sports cars, hair plugs, Botox and tummy tucks, to name a few. But while those solutions may work for people, how do long-standing organizations stay up to date and pertinent in the public eye? Well, if you’re Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee and you lord over a movement that is becoming less and less significant, there’s just one thing to do to start trending, as the kids say. You add some sports and games that the ancient Greeks could never hav ..read more

When Brandon Hyde sat at a microphone last week and declared that he was irritated at the abrupt end to the Orioles season, he spoke for a shockingly small number of Baltimoreans. For the overwhelming bulk of Birds fans, the sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series was a not so pleasant coda to an amazing season. Thousands, if not millions, of Charm City types got reawakened to the magic of Orioles baseball, a feeling long dormant around these parts. As the season wore on and one series led to another and the wins stacked up like empty shells at a summerti ..read more

No matter what this October portends for the Orioles, the immediate and perhaps extended future appears to hold considerable promise for the franchise. Here’s hoping Baltimore baseball fans get to experience the joy of rooting for a championship-caliber team in person at Camden Yards after suffering through such a miserable past couple of decades or so. Now, you’re probably asking ‘where’s this guy been?’ More than usual, that is. Didn’t he hear that the Orioles and the state of Maryland have locked arms on a 30-year lease to keep the Birds in Baltimore deep into this century? Wasn’t that our ..read more

There’s been a collective feeling around Baltimore since the news broke that Brooks Robinson died that we now have this guardian angel above the clouds, doing what he can to make things better. And yes, in the immediate days since Brooks died, the Orioles clinched their first American League Eastern Division championship in nine years and their first 100-win season in 43 seasons. In addition, the club’s management signed a long-awaited lease extension to stay in Baltimore for the next 30 years. So, yeah, you could make the argument that the great third baseman is already working the heavenly u ..read more

We’re only a month and change into the 2023 college football season, but there’s already a dominant storyline and a central place where the story is being told, as well as a vehicle to tell the story through. The place is the University of Colorado and the story is the rebirth of the Buffalo program, And the conversion has come courtesy of new head coach Deion Sanders, who has brought a bright spotlight to the previously football-sleepy hamlet of Boulder. Could you expect anything less from a guy who was nicknamed Neon and called himself Prime Time during his Hall of Fame playing days that inc ..read more

Former baseball slugger Dick Allen once pithily said quote if a horse won’t eat it, I don’t want to play on it unquote, a reference to playing on artificial turf. It’s a sentiment that made the rounds after quarterback Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon in the New York Jets’ season opener against the Buffalo Bills. Rodgers, who went down four plays into the new season, his first with the Jets after 18 years in Green Bay, crumpled in a heap on the artificial turf of MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands. Though there’s no proof that what happened to Rodgers was caused by playing on the turf in ..read more

In a sport like football that takes itself way too seriously, there is no place more sacrosanct than the position room. It’s the place where players who play the same position and the specific coaches who lead them congregate to contemplate in the days leading up to that week’s holy war. For the Ravens, who opened their 2023 season Sunday against the Houston Texans, their quarterbacks room looked different than any other quarterbacks room in the 103-year history of the National Football League. In that room are quarterbacks coach Tee Martin, assistant quarterbacks coach Kerry Dixon and signal ..read more