Corporal Punishment at Dallas Lickin’ High School

I’m 44. But I’m about to sound 84. It was a better world when paddling was a part of school. A safer world when “licks” between a teacher and student were punishment rather than perverted pleasure. Hear me out: I’m not condoning the 21 “licks” allegedly applied to the backside…

New-Look Rangers!

Okay, now I’m intrigued. For all the Texas Rangers’ promise of a better future, yesterday they made moves geared at providing fans an improved today. I squawked last week about the Rangers not being serious – much less serious contenders – if they trotted out really average re-runs like Frank Catalanotto and…

How the Dallas Mavericks Can Avoid the Lakers

About a month ago in this cover story Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told me his team didn’t fear a first-round NBA Playoff matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers. “The Lakers don’t intimidate us at all,” Cuban maintains. “In the West it’s going to come down to whoever stays the healthiest…

Don’t Rush Josh

Sad – and surprising – that your Dallas Mavericks are reduced to trying to hold on to 8th place in the Western Conference over their final nine games over two weeks. But with that gut-gouging home loss to the Denver Nuggets last Friday night, I think they fumbled away any…

Title Nein!

I play sports because I love them. But I watch sports because I love to see done what I can’t do. I watch Tiger Woods because I can’t hit a 7-iron 210 yards. I watch Andy Roddick because I can’t hit a serve 149 mph. I watch Kobe Bryant because I…

The 2009 Starting Pitcher for Your Texas Rangers: Dubya

  This is not the time to talk politics. It’s the time to talk baseball. I’ll put my liberal left leaning on hold today because the Texas Rangers have announced – no surprise – that former Prez and former co-owner George W. Bush will throw out the first pitch before next…

What a Dick

My March Madness bracket has long been in shambles. But my pick to win it all – UConn – is alive, well and poised to win the title next weekend in Detroit. If you called Michigan State over Louisville, kudos. If you predicted UConn, Villanova, North Carolina and the Spartans as…

NBA Fines Mark Cuban $25,000. Why Bother?

The NBA is a bunch of nit-twitts. Over the weekend the league fined Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $25,000 for his “criticism” of officials via Twitter, the real-time social network that allows schmucks like you and me to be flies on the walls of the rich, famous and exhibitionistic. Or…

New Park. Old Rangers?

Went out and toured “new” Rangers Ballpark last month. Well, not exactly new, but how about refurbished? New video scoreboard in left field. Information ribbons wrapping the place. A fashion-forward brick wall behind home plate. My thumbs-up review is here. With a heralded youth movement playing in a spit-shined stadium, there’s…

Look (and Cringe at) Who’s Talking

First, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says quarterback Tony Romo is untouchable. “I wouldn’t trade Tony for anybody.” Now head coach Wade Phillips – who never addressed his team after last season and has been publicly silent since 2008 – says he hasn’t talked just because, um, he hasn’t wanted to…

Baylor, Texas Tech Are Raiding North Texas!

So says the Texas Tech athletics Web site this afternoon, as the Red Raiders make it official: Tech and Baylor are moving their next two games up to North Texas sooner than later. As in: This year, on November 28, the Red Raiders and Bears won’t play in Waco, as…

Rock Out With Your Block Out

Since I rip Ken Hamlin’s birthday parties and Martellus Bennett’s rap videos, guess I should lay into Leonard Davis’ band as well. Wait, Leonard Davis is in a rock band? I saw Dallas Cowboys’ offensive lineman Marc Columbo at a Godsmack concert at the Palladium in 2006 and wondered what he’d…

BREAKING NEWS: Mavs Staying on ESPN Radio Through 2013

A little radio industry birdie just chirped to me that the Dallas Mavericks and 103.3 ESPN have reached an agreement keeping the team in place through 2013. The Mavs would’ve become radio free agents after the current deal expired on April 1, but the sides finalized a new four-year contract on Monday…

Cowboys’ Draft Haul Up to 11 Picks

More good news for Cowboys fans this morning comes courtesy of Julius Jones and Jacques Reeves. Remember them? Because the former Cowboys left via free agency and played kinda decent, the NFL has awarded Dallas compensatory picks in the fifth and sixth rounds in next month’s draft. The Cowboys, thanks…

From America’s Team to Anonymity’s Team

The Dallas Cowboys and their new $1 billion stadium don’t have a corporate naming partner. (My idea looks better by the day.) Or, for that matter, an exclusive date with a TV network for the sparkling joint’s NFL debut. To which I say, fantastic! Let me repeat the off-season mantra I’ve encouraged…

The Dallas Stars: Rest In Pieces

Give the Dallas Stars credit for being spunky and resilient and stubbornly fun to watch. But the season’s over, right? To me it ended Saturday in San Jose. Not just with the 5-2 loss to the Sharks, but more so with another major injury. This one to Brad Richards, who…

Delay of Game … Dallas Cowboys

Shockingly, this one isn’t on No. 76. In fact, it’s a good thing. At least I think it is. You tell me. The Cowboys last week mailed letters to all 2009 season-ticket holders, informing them that their dues for tickets and parking is surprisingly being delayed. Originally due April 1, customers…

Spring Sanity?!

What happened to the madness in March? Instead of dramatic buzzer-beaters and Cinderellas and Bryce Drew, the first weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament brought us the Greg Gumbel Invitational – about as goose-bumpy as a piece of white bread laying on a chunk of cardboard. A year after all…