Clark Booth on Sports

In the age of modern sport with its daily torrent of mindless give and take a couple of weeks on the beach can leave you fairly buried even if too much of what comes and goes is ragtime. Some artful catching-up is hence obliged.

 The NHL’s labor... Read more

Time again to round the bases and clear the decks before heading off for the annual fortnight’s fling at the beach. The slate is heavy. And if you’re looking for polished sporting tomes to lug with you to your favorite sand dune here’s a matching pair... Read more

The dominant off-season story for the Bruins—other than the fundamental issue of whether there will even be a season next season—has to do with their whimsical goaltender who is threatening to pull a “Garbo.”

Tim Thomas says he needs to escape... Read more

At last the winter games wane, which is reasonable given that we are brinking on the month of July. The NBA season might even be over by the glorious Fourth although, alas, it will be immaterial to the Celtics who – in their latest incarnation – may... Read more

All of New York is agog, and it takes a fair amount of juice to get the worldly-wise sophisticates of lofty Gotham in this much of a lather. The mayor may proclaim a five-borough holiday, once he brings the soft beverage industry to its knees. Might a... Read more

Pounding along the back stretch, Baseball approaches the first major marker. By Memorial Day, roughly a third of the season is in the books, usually enough of a sample to distinguish the contenders and pretenders, wise guys and bums. Yet, some seasons... Read more

The concept of the relief pitcher is as old as baseball itself. The originals having been introduced sometime in the early ‘80s -- that would be the 1880s, old Sport.

For a couple of generations they were just washed up starters used to mop up... Read more

Mother’s Day is ludicrously early to be proclaiming anything definitive about the baseball season let alone where teams will finish and how they’ll get there. Yet being no stranger to ridiculous premises or ill-advised ventures into the unfathomable,... Read more

We have here some stray items looking for a place to land. It’s a bit of “disa and data,” as the long-gone but unforgettable Bud Gillooly used to term the stuff back when he was the lead sports columnist for the irascible Record-American. It seems like... Read more

Bye, bye Stanley. We hardly got to know ye again. Let’s hope it’s not another four decades before we re-new acquaintances.

On the other hand, it has been well more than two score years and counting since the Maple Leafs, another once dashing... Read more

In its first salvos the Red Sox have regaled us with their “modest” observance of the 100th birthday of their “lyric little bandbox of a ballyard.” For better or worse, we are assured the hosannas have only just begun, although whatever else they... Read more

Come along, please, as we round the bases of the sporting scene by beginning in Washington D.C where the circus is returning to town although to the consternation of certain wise guys that has nothing to do with the sitting of the Congress.

... Read more

The crocuses are up, the birds are on the wing, and the voice of the bull frog is heard booming across the blooming landscape issuing the clarion call of “Play Ball!” And after everyone has played 162 ballgames in 180 days, they’ll have weeded out the... Read more

Not a pitch in anger had yet been thrown; not a game that counts played. Yet firmly, irrevocably, and indisputably, the entire season’s dominant theme and spirit was established the last week of March.

You think you’ve heard all you want or need... Read more

A year ago at this time no one—and I do mean absolutely nobody here or elsewhere ranging from the looniest, diehard, devotees to the most ruthlessly dispassionate numbers’ crunchers—was picking the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup.

That had... Read more

Pages