Ron Kantowski is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
rkantowski@reviewjournal.com … @ronkantowski on Twitter. 702-383-0352
It is World Cup Final Sunday, and this time Germany is playing in it, against Argentina. And the Schweinsteigers — what I like to call German soccer fans in deference to Bastian Schweinsteiger, their beloved bulwark in the midfield — are lined up around the building at Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas to watch it on TV.
What a World Cup it has been: loads of excitement, loads of drama, loads of goals (thanks Germany, Brazil back line), loads of saves by Tim Howard and his big goalie gloves. The best news of all: Hollywood is planning to remake “(Escape to) Victory” the greatest movie ever made about soccer.
When the San Diego Padres’ Alex Torres became the first big league pitcher to wear one of those new isoBLOX protective pitchers caps in a ballgame recently, bloggers wrote that he looked like one of the Super Mario Brothers.
On Monday, Bryce Harper’s first day back in the Washington Nationals’ lineup after missing 57 games with a thumb injury, a long line formed outside the ballpark for his bobblehead doll.
A lot of people forget — or have tried to forget — that George Foreman once fought five guys on the same night.
The local soccer pubs started filling up early Tuesday because the U.S. was playing Belgium in the knockout round of the World Cup. These fans appeared to be dedicated, and perhaps a little loaded. They were not, however, the most dedicated sports fans in Las Vegas.
Last year, the Canadian kid the Cleveland Cavaliers took first was Anthony Bennett from UNLV; this year it was Andrew Wiggins from Kansas. Taking Bennett first hasn’t worked out. Not yet, at least.
Brendan Gaughan was back at it, back running around in circles Friday night, in Kentucky. He finished sixth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. It was an excellent result; the announcers said the No. 62 South Point Camaro was loose going into the turns, tight coming off.
Former UNLV soccer coach Barry Barto played for the U.S. men’s national soccer team from 1972 through 1975 but never made the World Cup. It’s hard to qualify for the World Cup when some of your best players can’t make it to the qualifiers because they can’t get off work. at a time when players sometimes couldn’t get off work to play international matches. On Sunday, more than 24.7 million domestic TV viewers watched the Americans battle Portugal to a 2-2 draw Sunday in the group stage of the World Cup. In the group stage! That was more Americans, on average, than watched last year’s Wor
Game 2 of the finals at the College World Series is tonight. Virginia vs. Vanderbilt. Hopefully it’ll be a good game. Maybe it’ll even be a great game. Will it be the Greatest College Baseball Game Ever Played? Probably not. That one already is spoken for.
If we can agree the Stanley Cup is the granddaddy of all sports trophies, then the other hockey trophies are its cool cousins. They’re like The Fonz, if he was your cousin.
It was Thursday, midafternoon, and it was a little stuffy at the climate-controlled batting cages in an industrial park on McLeod Drive not far from the airport called The Dugout. It’s hard to control climate when guys toting baseball bats keep barging through an open door to take their cuts.
The Electric Daisy Carnival arrives at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend with a pulsating beat and millions of dollar signs, just like NASCAR Weekend. Is it possible the EDC disc jockeys have become bigger stars than their NASCAR counterparts?
Ghana dominated most of the game, but the United States won 2-1. To the casual fan, it was fun to watch, it was dramatic at the end, our guys won. This is how we like our sports when the rest of the world shows up to play.
I received an email the other day from Maria Elena Fernandez, not to be confused with Maria Elena Santiago, who was Buddy Holly’s wife. Marina Elena Fernandez writes the entertainment/pop culture column for the NBC News website.
