A look back at the people, places and things that made for a memorable sports year in Las Vegas.
Sports Columns
With baseball’s Winter Meetings in Las Vegas last week, it seemed the right time to ask about territorial rights and crazy TV blackouts.
Bernie Carbo hit one of the biggest home runs in Boston Red Sox history, a three-run, pinch-hit shot in the bottom of the eighth inning during epic Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. In 1989, Sam McDowell saved his life.
It was 11:30 Wednesday morning when the J.T. Realmuto Baseball Winter Meetings morphed into the Scott Boras Show. The super agent held a news conference to update media on client Bryce Harper’s free-agent status.
If you arranged the things to do at baseball’s winter meetings like a batting order, the trade show on the third floor of the Mandalay Bay convention area definitely would bat cleanup.
There were no shortage of baseball people — and even a very large basketball person — willing to offer an opinion about the Avaitors’ logo during Day 2 of the winter meetings at Mandalay Bay.
Bobby Grich arrived in Las Vegas as they still were hanging banners for the Baseball Winter Meetings. The six-time All-Star wants to raise awareness in the Association of Professional Ball Players of America, a charity of which he recently became president.
One of the unofficial traditions of baseball’s winter meetings is a sports writer from the host city informing readers that trades no longer are conducted in hotel lobbies but in posh hotel suites via cellphone.