Our 2013 Best of Dallas award winner, and Observer writer, Michael “Grubes” Gruber, is renowned for nicknaming Rangers players. In fact, if you follow him on Twitter (@tweetgrubes) like thousands of other people do, then his Diamond Tweets covering the Rangers games are largely incomprehensible without extensive knowledge of the…
Pop quiz: A young high school athlete isn’t getting much playing time. As a parent, do you a) Encourage your teenager to buckle down and work harder; b) Have a few choice words with the coach; or c) Suggest that, you know, maybe academic decathlon might be a better fit…
When Eddie Gossage last week unveiled the “Big Hoss TV” — a 12-story, 20,633-square-foot video screen — it wasn’t just a coup for Texas Motor Speedway, it was a win for the entire state. Having North Carolina claim the country’s largest jumbotron is something no self-respecting Texan should be willing…
O Baseball Jesus, why hast thou forsaken us? Just since yesterday, we have learned that Jurickson Profar will be out 10-12 weeks, Geovany Soto will be out 10-12 weeks and Yu Darvish, the projected Opening Day starter … might not be available Opening Day…
Mark Cuban has always been part prophet, part crazy person. His early entry into online radio proved to be prophetic. The Benefactor, his short-lived reality show, was not. So when Cuban predicts that, within 10 years, the NFL will go the way of Toygaroo, it’s hard to tell whether Cuban…
Going into Sunday, most experts considered SMU a lock to make its first NCAA tournament in 20 years, even after losing to a mediocre University of Houston team in the opening round American Athletic Conference tourney. They beat four Top 25 teams, including a season sweep of UConn. They went…
When Allen ISD announced two weeks ago that its brand-new, $60 million high school football stadium had developed cracks in the concourse, it was clear that someone had screwed up in epic fashion. One doesn’t shut something down, disrupt graduation ceremonies, and call every reporter in earshot to a press…
Demarcus Ware, seven-time Pro Bowler, the Cowboys’ all-time sacks leader and all-around beast, will wear the blue star no longer. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Clarence Hill Jr. reports that Dallas released Ware today. Ware has been a Cowboy since they drafted him with the 11th pick in 2005, a rare…
When Fox Sports Southwest canned him last September after a single appearance, Craig James came out with guns blazing. Fox Sports had canned him because of his sincerely held and constitutionally protected religious beliefs (i.e. that gays are “going to have to answer to the Lord for their actions.”). He…
There may have been a few Rangers fans who mourned when the club traded longtime second-baseman Ian Kinsler, but for most, his unreliable glove and mediocre performance at the plate far outweighed whatever goodwill his boyish good looks might inspire. Plus, we got Prince Fielder. But while Rangers fans may…
This story originally appeared on Deadspin. Last week, we got word that the Fritz Pollard Alliance, chaired by ex-NFL player John Wooten, was pushing a rule change in the league that would penalize players for the use of the word “nigger” on the football field. The proposal involves a 15-yard…
At least six people were injured by blocks of ice and snow sliding off the roof of Cowboys Stadium during Super Bowl Week in 2011. But in the aftermath, Arlington officials suggested that the guy who suffered the worst injuries had only himself to blame. In emails released by the…
In sports, as in life, it’s best to avoid unforced errors. Don’t fumble the snap. Don’t foul the three-point shooter. Don’t walk in the winning run. And for the love of God don’t, 15 years after the fact, piss on the graves of a dozen college kids who died in…
It may have been mostly a publicity stunt — see the press release and accompanying bicep-flexing, lipstick-wearing photo — but Jen Welter and the Texas Revolution made history in Allen on Saturday. Welter, a 36-year-old veteran of the Women’s Football Alliance, became the first-ever woman to play running back in…
There’s a formula — there has to be — that every sports columnist is taught during his or her days as a cub reporter that goes something like famous professional athlete + baseless speculation that he’ll land on local sports team = diamond-encrusted gold! That’s OK. When properly executed and…
In retrospect, the Dallas Country Club’s reluctance to admit then-Texas Ranger Alex Rodriguez seems less an expression of racial exclusivity than an act of justifiable caution regarding a man who would in short order become one of the most universally loathed figures in professional sports. That doesn’t make it any…
On Saturday night, SMU’s men’s basketball team beat a Top 10 opponent for the first time in 27 years, and it wasn’t even close. The Mustangs jumped to a 14-point halftime lead over Cincinnati and never looked back, ultimately winning by 21. It was the team’s biggest statement yet, proof…
Last week, University of North Texas grad Johnny Quinn was an unknown, just another one of the 1,200 or so Americans competing in the Winter Olympics America has never heard of. Then, the McKinney-raised bobsledder escaped a Sochi bathroom by busting Kool-Aid Man-style through the door…
There’s always been something pleasantly nostalgic about the name of the Texas Rangers’ stadium. The Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, like its red-brick facade, harkens back to simpler times, back before corporations plastered their names on every possible piece of sports-related real estate. Never mind that this peanut-and-Cracker Jack simplicity hasn’t…
Any creature can predict the winner of the Super Bowl. Those who have correctly done so include: an ape, a porcupine, a horde of puppies, a manatee, a seal, a panda, an octopus and a bunny. Add to that list the elusive “teen mystifier,” a 17-year-old Dallas magician named John…
It’s late in the morning, New Year’s Eve, and most of Dallas is still reeling from another of the Cowboys’ trademark December meltdowns, their team sent home early yet another year. For the city’s vast army of professional sports yappers, Christmas has come again. Inside the Central Expressway studios of…
ESPN Dallas’ Jean-Jacques Taylor has a glowing profile of SMU men’s basketball coach Larry Brown. Brown, Taylor explains, has built a recruiting pipeline that’s already funneling top local talent (Kimball’s Keith Frazier, Prime Prep’s Emmanuel Mudiay) to the Mustangs. He’s helped score a TV contract with ESPN. He’s put together…
