In The Arena: Ruminations About Competition

What sports talk should be: No fluff, no rumors, no nonsense--just the best sports analysis and commentary

Monday, June 30, 2025

Dave Parker Passes Away Less Than One Month Before His Baseball Hall of Fame Induction

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Dave Parker--two-time World Series champion (1979, 1989), 1978 NL MVP, and two-time NL batting champion (1977-78)--passed away on June 28, 2...
Tuesday, June 10, 2025

George Foster's Hitting Powered the Big Red Machine

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When remembering the glory days of the Big Red Machine, the first names that come to mind are  Pete Rose , Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Pe...
Monday, March 31, 2025

Journey to the National Master Title, Part 13

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I scored 2/4 in the January 4, 2025 Columbus Plus Score tournament. I lost 16 rating points to drop to 1997. This is the eighth time I hav...
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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Boris Spassky's Chess Legacy is Greater Than Just Being Bobby Fischer's Most Famous Opponent

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Boris Spassky, who reigned as World Chess Champion from 1969-72, passed away today at the age of 88. He is perhaps best known for losing the...
Thursday, January 16, 2025

Bob Uecker Brought Smiles to Countless Faces

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Bob Uecker passed away earlier today, just 10 days before his 91st birthday. Uecker hit just .200 during his six year MLB career, but he mad...
Friday, January 3, 2025

Journey to the National Master Title, Part 12

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I started the fourth quarter of 2024 with a packed chess weekend. Unfortunately, it was packed with painful losses! I scored 2/4 in the Octo...
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Saturday, December 21, 2024

Rickey Henderson: Leadoff Hitter Extraordinaire and Greatest Base Stealer of All-Time

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Rickey Henderson, MLB's career leader in stolen bases and runs scored who is widely considered the greatest leadoff hitter in MLB histor...
Thursday, December 12, 2024

Gukesh Dommeraju Becomes the 18th World Chess Champion After Capitalizing on Ding Liren's Game 14 Blunder

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"I might smile, but I ain't no joke."--Dilated Peoples, "Kindness for Weakness"  By defeating Ding Liren in game 14 ...
Monday, December 9, 2024

Dick Allen and Dave Parker Receive Long-Overdue Hall of Fame Recognition

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A toxic combination of PED cheating destroying MLB's once-hallowed record book and "stat gurus" preaching "analytics...
Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Remembering Fernando Valenzuela and the Summer of 1981 When "Fernandomania" Swept the Baseball World

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Fernando Valenzuela, who was just 63 years old when he passed away yesterday, is one of the most memorable athletes from my childhood. He ha...
3 comments:
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David Friedman
United States
"A work of art contains its verification in itself: artificial, strained concepts do not withstand the test of being turned into images; they fall to pieces, turn out to be sickly and pale, convince no one. Works which draw on truth and present it to us in live and concentrated form grip us, compellingly involve us, and no one ever, not even ages hence, will come forth to refute them."--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Nobel Lecture)

"The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--Edgar Allan Poe

"In chess what counts is what you know, not whom you know. It's the way life is supposed to be, democratic and just."--Grandmaster Larry Evans

"It's not nuclear physics. You always remember that. But if you write about sports long enough, you're constantly coming back to the point that something buoys people; something makes you feel better for having been there. Something of value is at work there...Something is hallowed here. I think that something is excellence."--Tom Callahan
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