Of all the father-and-son bonds spawned by sports, I often think of the ones in auto racing first. Sometimes there is tragedy when it comes to fathers and sons at speed. And so it is these relationships that seem more profound.
Ron Kantowski
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
U.S. 93 is the main thoroughfare linking Las Vegas to the sleepy Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Ariz. If you drive it, you will see lots of Saguaro cacti and Joshua trees, and, if you get off the beaten path, perhaps even a rattlesnake or two.
Bob Welch, the ballplayer, who won 27 games during the 1990 baseball season and battled alcoholism, was just 57 years old.
When NCAA schools were jumping conferences almost daily for a little wider sliver of NCAA pie a couple of years ago, I recall speaking to then-UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood about it.
I recently received an email from Sig Rogich regarding the NFL Draft. Sig has abundant communication skills and has been known to help make kings, so I figured he might have something interesting to say about football, too.
The triple crowns people get most worked up about are in horse racing.
A year after being drafted No. 2 overall by the Chicago Cubs, Kris Bryant is ripping up Double-A. The former Bonanza High slugger is leading the Southern League in nine offensive categories.
The Kings-Blackhawks series wasn’t the Hanson brothers putting on the foil. It wasn’t Ned Braden stripping down to his athletic supporter, either. It would have been fun to watch, even had the organist played “Lady of Spain” between every period.
The old American Legion baseball field in Crown Point, Ind., did not have a right-field wall, or even a fence made of chain link. It had a corn field.
Last Sunday was Christmas for gearheads: The Monaco Grand Prix, Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600, all on the same day. I found a camshaft in my stocking. When I woke up, Bobby Unser already had come down the chimney to polish off the Valvoline and cookies.
There’s a scene in the iconic stock-car movie “Days of Thunder” that takes place the night before the big race — the Daytona 500, if memory serves — in which Robert Duvall talks to Tom Cruise’s car. Duvall was cast as crusty crew chief Harry Hogge; Cruise as brash young driver Cole Trickle.
“If we don’t do this, the sport is dead,” Asher said when asked what brings him here, and so it can be assumed that he is not entirely optimistic about where bowling is headed since ABC stopped showing it on TV.
A guy from Indianapolis, a Butler grad named Ed Carpenter, on Sunday earned his second consecutive pole position start for the Indianapolis 500 with an asphalt-blistering four-lap average speed of 231.067 mph.
About a year ago at this time, Lateef Omidiji Jr. was standing in the dock at Southampton. He wasn’t trying to get to Holland or France. That was John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the “Ballad of John and Yoko.”
It has been eight days since the Clinton LumberKings rallied from a 17-1 sixth-inning deficit to defeat Burlington 20-17 in a Class A Midwest League game. It happened it Iowa, where time has been known to stand still. So it’s like it happened yesterday.
LISTEN TO THE TOP FIVE HERE