Almost Werth-less: Nats’ Progress Impeded by Silent Bats

The 2011 freefall may have started for the Washington Nationals (22-29), who dropped another one Saturday, 2-1, to the even worse San Diego Padres (21-31). For the Nats, losers of 8 of their last 10 games, it was another exercise in the frustration of life as a good-pitch, lousy-hit baseball club.

The Nats are aching for respectability, and they’ve got a combative manager, Jim Riggleman, who,

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Who Killed Kenny? GroundWorks Theatre’s Fall to Earth Goes for the Maternal Jugular Just in Time for Mother’s Day

[Since my usual outlet for my theater reviews, Nashville Scene, was unable to accommodate my coverage for this week, I’ve posted this review to my wider-purpose blog.--M.B.]

So, which parent screwed YOU up the most? Sometimes that’s a pretty tough call. But in Joel Drake Johnson’s The Fall to Earth, which opened this past Friday at Groundworks Theatre, there’s little doubt that mommie dearest is

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Feet of Clay: Did Elias Make a Mistake??

Statistical geeks such as myself generally bow down to the words “Elias Sports Bureau,” since that oft-cited agency is the gold standard for statistical accuracy and omnipotence in the world of sports. This is especially true where baseball is concerned. If you want to know the last time an Oklahoma-born second basemen named Fred with shin splints and a stubbly beard hit into a force play in five

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National Obsession: Are Washington's Nats Moving Up or Down?

The Washington Nationals are off to yet another stellar start. Not. At the moment, the team shows early signs of good pitching being undermined by impotent hitting.

Of course, I don’t know why a team that ought to be building with youth added to its roster Jerry Hairston, Jr. (34), Laynce Nix (30), Alex Cora (35) and Matt Stairs (43). Sorry, but none of these guys was a star in his prime anyway

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A Pearl for a Byrd in Hand

By Henry Nichols
Special to Sports Media America

By any reasonable measure, when you subtract the emotions and moral relativity, you can’t escape the impending reality that Bruce Pearl is being weighed for the gallows this March at Tennessee.

When whispers of impropriety were first directed toward Tennessee over the past year or so, it initially looked as if a series of impermissible calls

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C-SPAN: Home of the Thinking Man’s Foxes

When you don’t have money for a big exciting TV package, you have to settle for what you can get in Comcast basic limited cable. That’s what I do, anyway.

As my career as a journalist dwindles, and as my career as a musician never takes off, I am stuck making do with many things. Hence, my brain gets addled by watching awful network TV, which occasionally redeems itself with sports programming

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Bearing Up Under NCAA Injustice: Why the “Tourney System” Sucks

It happened again on Sunday. A regular season conference winner got beat in its league end-of-season tourney, and in so doing all but scuttled its chances for a berth in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Why does this totally suck? Because Missouri State’s 25-8 record should be good enough. Because the fact that the Bears were the regular season champions of the Missouri Valley Conference (15-3

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