HENRY RONO AND MO FARAH I remember Henry Rono when he was young. I was young then, too. Today, Henry Rono is 70. In the 1970s, during running’s boom years, it was a ‘Catch-22’ scenario for him. Hamstrung, stymied and then stifled by Kenyan boycotts of the 1976 and 1980…

LARRY STORCH AND TONY SIRICO I can still hear Forrest Tucker, playing the manipulative Sergeant Morgan O’Rourke, bellowing, “Agarn!” As in Corporal Randolph Agarn, his bumbling second-in-command on F Troop. The satirical American TV Western about US soldiers and Native Americans in the 1860s Wild West, aired on ABC for…

NICK KYRGIOS Nick Kyrgios is a very lucky man. Not because Friday’s (July 8) Center Court Wimbledon scheduled Semi-final against Rafa Nadal has been officially designated a ‘Walkover.’ Seems that Nadal tore an abdominal muscle, forcing him to withdraw from the legendary All England Club’s Strawberries and Cream gala. The…

THE ANGELOS FAMILY AND THE BALTIMORE ORIOLES At last glance, the Baltimore Orioles sat at 38–44; .463; 20.5 GB–the now familiar cellar-dweller of the American League East. Six games under .500 after 82 games is pretty good for them these days, however. An improvement. Wasn’t always that way. Not at…

LENNIE ROSENBLUTH Lennie Rosenbluth played in only eight high school basketball games. In the NBA, he played in 82 games over two seasons (1957; 1958) for the Philadelphia Warriors, who drafted him in the first round. He was the 6th overall pick. Not much there, right? Wrong. Lennie Rosenbluth, who…

DENNIS ECKERSLEY The Eck. A throwback in the truest sense. Shoulder-length hair. Full mustache. Deep manufactured tan. Seemingly fit. Expansive baseball understanding. First Ballot Hall-of-Famer. A language all his own. A self-avowed full-throttle whack job. Way back when. Even now. And “it’s a beautiful thing.” “Walk-off piece.” “Cheese.” “Educated Cheese.” …

MARK FIDRYCH AND DENNIS ECKERSLEY “The Bird”…Eck’s pal… Two more unlikely friends would be hard to find. Not exactly two peas in a pod. But they did share a couple of commonalities. Each could pitch, and both were nuts — as in, batshit crazy. The Eck is in the Hall…

MILLAR AND THE ECK Last week I watched Kevin Millar remotely from Austin, TX., join the broadcasting duo of Dave O’Brien and Dennis Eckersley from Fenway Park, during the Red Sox 6–1 victory over the visiting Oakland A’s. What a pleasure!!! Immediate chemistry and lots of fun. Lots of laughs. …

ADONIS LATTIMORE It is agonizingly difficult to look around, and be grateful for what you have, when your focus is squarely on what you don’t. What you don’t have… Even if your attention is diverted, and you think too much about what’s lost, and not enough about what’s to be…