You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…
Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…
Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…
You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…
You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…
This is amazing. An entire week has passed without the sports pages of the daily newspapers decrying the fact that Kevin Johnson has been snubbed by Dream Team II. It’s easy to understand why KJ gets so much favorable press. He is approachable. He is intelligent. And he is always…
:First, David Brock wrote a devastating profile of Anita Hill, the law professor who testified against Clarence Thomas. Then he took on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Calling a hatchet man like Brock a legitimate journalist is like reading Crime and Punishment and deciding that Raskolnikov really carried that ax around with…
At the Arcadia Funeral Home on 48th Street and Indian School, Dick Dozer’s casket was flanked by two large easels. Carefully attached to them were dozens of photographs of Dozer, the retired Chicago Tribune baseball writer, on various major-league playing fields. The chapel was crowded with friends who had come…
It was 10 a.m. Prosecutor Warren Granville had just concluded with the first part of his final argument. Granville had forcefully told the jury why it must find Jimmy Robison guilty. The lawyers in the crowded, 11th-floor courtroom of Judge Norman Hall nodded to each other. Granville’s argument had been…
Fear never strikes out. Now even Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson deems it acceptable to boast on public television of a newly purchased rottweiler and home security system. Johnson explains: “We had a gentleman who was crawling in and out of our windows. He broke into our personal things. When arrested,…
There has already been too much written and said about constructing a stadium for major-league baseball here in Phoenix. I suggest we stop the debate. For once, let’s get together and decide it is our civic duty to get this stadium built. I promise you, we will immediately feel better…
For years, the tall man drank alone. He would arrive before noon at the bar of his choice, with a tumbler brought from home in his hand. Placing it on the bar, he would stare down at the bartender from his six feet four inches until he caught the attention…
I still remember the day I talked to Sarah Brady about her long battle with the National Rifle Association over what has finally become known as the Brady bill. “How about Ronald Reagan? How does he feel about your campaign for gun controls?” “Well,” Mrs. Brady said haltingly, “he’s been…
The television camera gives us a tight shot of Joe Bugel. The Phoenix Cardinals coach stands on the sidelines with his hands shoved into the pockets of his Windbreaker. He watches soulfully as the football sails toward the goal post 54 yards away. If the end-over-end kick by Brad Daluiso…
We are always thrilled by the sight of armed men on horseback. The Lone Ranger. Tom Mix. Clint Eastwood. We love them all. And now just the sight of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse members at our shopping centers brings a sense of the Old West’s romanticism back into…
I am forever searching for basketball’s ultimate truths. As part of this enduring quest, I went to the Suns-Portland game last Friday night at America West Arena. Upon arriving at my assigned seat, I was surprised to see that the man in the blue blazer sitting next to me was…
I felt a tinge of sadness the other day when I read that the Chicago Bears had waived their massive defensive tackle, William “Refrigerator” Perry. Unless you lived in Chicago during the 1985 football season, you’ll probably find it hard to understand what was so special about “The Fridge,” as…
In a largely misspent life, I have spent entirely too much time in the company of football coaches. In a way, they have always both fascinated and repelled me. Finally, I have hit upon an unpleasant truth. Only the losing coaches have a chance to remain decent human beings. All…
“I have no fear of getting old,” Charles Barkley says. “I’m at peace as my skills decline.” It is an hour after an exhibition-game loss to the New York Knicks. Barkley is the only player left in the Phoenix Suns’ dressing room. The writers for the daily newspapers are over…
Notebook: Last year was fun. It was full of constant surprises. There were miraculous shots that won games. Almost every night at America West Arena was a combination of Christmas and the Fourth of July. When Charles Barkley wasn’t dominating the backboards, he was stealing balls and thundering three-quarters of…
The murder of Carle Hodge, the finest science writer I ever knew, remains a mystery. That his death would be shrouded by enigma is only fitting. Hodge himself lived a life so private that many of the pertinent details were unknown by his friends and fellow workers. Everyone liked and…
A degree of madness has enveloped us all since last year’s acquisition of Charles Barkley by the Phoenix Suns. It has now reached astonishing proportions. I need only cite the panic over a minor incident at the Suns’ training camp in Flagstaff last Saturday night. Barkley was running a wind…
