Trump, locker rooms and the ‘authenticity’ of the moment

October 12, 2016

When Donald Trump excused his lewd, explosive conversation with Billy Bush from 2005 as “locker room talk,” my ears pricked up and not just because the gender wars he’s engendered have been such excellent fodder for a blog titled “The Games Men Play.”

In my forthcoming novel “The Penalty for Holding” (Less Than Three Press, 2017), about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for identity, acceptance, success and love in the NFL, I have a couple of locker room moments in which women are discussed and even confronted in a less than respectful manner. ...

America’s son – Peyton Manning

March 6, 2016

When I was a child, I used to envy star athletes. They would retire young – having already accrued a lifetime of fame, wealth and accomplishment – and life would now be an open road on which they could do whatever they wished, being rich enough to do it and young enough to enjoy it.

But what if the open road were a vast wasteland? Who knows if athletes see delicious anticipation and opportunity or dread in retirement?

We can only imagine what’s going through Peyton Manning’s mind as he prepares to call it a day after 18 years of throwing a football with commanding accuracy. ...

Of deflated balls, exposed appendages and concealed identities

March 6, 2016

It’s been a great week for news – sporting and otherwise – of the games men play.

First, it’s ba-aaack – Deflategate that is. You will recall that last September, federal court Judge Richard M. Berman ruled that the NFL had overstepped its bounds in its arbitration of Tom Brady’s four-game suspension for allegedly masterminding the deflation of footballs in the New England Patriots’ 2015 A.F.C. Championship win over the Indianapolis Colts.

Now a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, has said, Not so fast. Taking a view similar to my own from the start of this delicious story, the panel seems less interested in the NFL’s triple role as judge, enforcer of punishments and arbitrator of appeals – a strange trifecta that would automatically make the league vulnerable to the charge of overstepping by the Players’ Union – than it is in the cover-up that always trips you up. To wit: What of Brady’s destroyed cell phone that might’ve contained incriminating information about his altered balls? ...

Super Bowl 50 – Defense! Defense!

February 8, 2016

Good pitching, baseball fans always say, stops good hitting. A good defense stops a good offense.

And so the Denver Broncos’ vaunted defense stopped Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers’ electric running game, 24-10 in Super Bowl 50.

It was perhaps the last hurrah for Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning, who at 39 became the oldest quarterback to pilot a Super Bowl team and may join his boss John Elway as the only quarterback to retire after winning a Super Bowl. ...

Can the Broncos stop Cam Newton, er, the Panthers?

January 25, 2016

A good defense stops a good offense like good pitching stops good hitting – or so running quarterback Quinn Novak wonders in my forthcoming novel, “The Penalty for Holding.”

Anyone who thinks that, he reasons, has never considered Alexander the Great taking it to the Persians in 331 B.C.

And indeed, while the Denver Broncos’ defense surely stopped Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the American Football Conference Championship, that defense is going to be hard-pressed to stop the Carolina Panthers’ electrifying running game as encapsulated by their QB Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50 Feb. 7. ...

Rafa and Tebow – out of sight but not out of mind

September 8, 2015

Well, Rafael Nadal is out of the US Open (again) and Tim Tebow is out of the NFL (again). As a fan of both, I’m sorry to see them go but not surprised.

Rafa was up to two sets and 3-1 in the third against Fabio Fognini (yes, I know, Who?) in the third round of the Open Friday night into Saturday morning when, depending on your viewpoint, Rafa lost it or Fabio staged a fab comeback. ...

Is Tom Brady going down?

July 24, 2015

Tom Brady has apparently made the NFL an offer it can refuse.

The NFL Players Association, on behalf of the Deflategator, has offered to have Tommy Boy pay a big fine in lieu of a four-game suspension. The overture has “met with silence” in the office of commish Roger Goodell, who heard Brady’s appeal June 23. The New England Patriots’ quarterback is prepared to make a federal case out of this should he be suspended for probably having knowledge of subordinates deflating footballs in the A.F.C. Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts earlier this year. But the fact that the Players Association has put out an offer seems like the moment in a crime show when the defense looks to plea bargain. And that suggests a certain guilt ...

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