South of the border

photo (3)I realize I haven’t been seen around these parts very much, but overall, I think that’s a very positive thing.

When my friend Terry and I relaunched SportsAngle five years ago, it served primarily as a place for me to talk about actual sports; several years later, I’ve found I have continually less patience for that.

As such, the site has become more and more a repository for obscure jerseys, high school basketball, Halloween mixtapes and whatever other random nonsense I’m into. And I couldn’t be happier about having that creative outlet, unencumbered by page views, editors or common sense. (Unless you count my wife, who has no qualms about telling me when something simply doesn’t work. And I love her for it.)

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Street dreams

One mic

I’ve always been fascinated how hearing a song can bring you directly back to how things were during a particular time in your life. When Nas performed “One Mic” to finish out his set at the MLB Fan Cave last Wednesday, I was brought back to January 2005: It was 11:30 at night, I had just woken up, and I was listening to Nas in the living room of my new apartment while mentally gearing up to get on the 12:30 a.m. bus from New Jersey to New York City.

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Mail call: Keep the 9 on me, a la Iguodala

Merry Kicksmas

One thing I’ve learned after about a year of using Twitter is that it’s a refuge for people with way too much knowledge about stuff that nobody else cares very much about. As such, I’ve felt right at home sharing my views on St. Patrick high school basketball and Yelawolf mixtapes with a perfectly non-captive audience.

But every once in a while, the nonsense I know pays off — like a little while back, when I ended up somewhat randomly with an autographed jersey of Andre Iguodala.

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Kings of New York? Jay-Z the wrong choice for Yanks’ pregame anthem

Jay keeping it gangsta with his sweater and Kate HudsonIf you’ve been reading, you know SportsAngle is largely in tune with the hip-hop community. (As recently as this month, I shook hands with the great Ghostface Killah) So I watched with keen interest as the Yankees announced that Jay-Z – who has carved out more and more of a presence in sports lately as part-owner of the Nets and celebrity friend of LeBron James – would perform his new song, Empire State of Mind, at Game 1 of the World Series.

And I’m here to tell you the Yankees made a lousy pick.

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