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Senior golfer cashes in on greatest mulligan

By Doug Ferguson The Associated Press Steven Alker knows all about the lean times. He started at home in New Zealand in 1989 and over the next three decades played 556 times on six tours that received world ranking points. Only three seasons were spent on the PGA Tour. He had two full years in Europe. His most financially rewarding year was in 2014 when he earned $261,901 on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour. Alker has been around so long he played the developmental circuit under five names, starting with the Nike Tour. His most consistent golf? That would have been on the ...

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MLB needs to embrace technology behind plate I’m sitting here watching Sunday Night Baseball (April 24). What an embarrassment to the game this home plate umpire, Angel Hernandez, is. It’s interesting, amazing and unbelievable that Major League Baseball continues to permit the ineptness of incompetent umpires to call balls and strikes. It is clearly obvious that some umpires are unable to accurately call balls and strikes. Factually, these umpires literally make their own strike zones. Why does this continue to be acceptable to the league? As I said in an ...

Sauce and sizzle at NFL draft

By Tim Dahlberg The Associated Press LAS VEGAS — The NFL draft served up some special Sauce to go along with Roger Goodell’s usual array of hugs. On the first day of the draft, Las Vegas stepped up to provide the sizzle. In a scene that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, the city delivered just when needed most. If a draft top loaded with defensive players and offensive linemen wasn’t exactly must-see TV, the stunning backdrops on the Las Vegas Strip surely were. And who will ever forget Goodell introducing Ice Cube to kick off the whole show. No, the ...

Keeping their memories alive

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press There’s been a lot of talk about the mental health struggles that many young athletes face, the pressures and expectations that can seem overwhelming — especially to those who feel compelled to shield their pain from the outside world. Let’s keep the conversation going. There’s so many more to reach, so many more who need to know they’re not alone. Sadly, it won’t come soon enough to help three female college athletes who took their own lives in the past two months, leaving behind unbearable grief for their family and friends ...

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Giger’s story takes Altoona back in time I have never written about anything, but I wanted to commend Cory Giger for the great article in Thursday’s Mirror on the Mountain City’s professional baseball team in the late 1880s. I am 71 and have lived in Blair County all my life but never heard of them. I love to hear about and celebrate people that helped shape our area. I encourage more of these segments. Dave Helsel Altoona Shorter spring training showing its effects I watched the Los Angeles Dodgers lose their eight-game winning streak to the Atlanta Braves, 3-1, the ...

Ukraine’s athletes deserve support

By Jim Caltagirone For the Mirror Despite the well-intentioned missions of the United Nations and International Olympic Committee, the innocents who are still sheltering in Ukraine awake every morning not knowing if they will live to see another dawn. Among them are 26 members of the country’s men’s national soccer team, which clings to the hope of qualifying for the World Cup in November. Russia’s invasion forced a postponement of Ukraine’s playoff qualifier against Scotland in Glasgow on March 24. That match has been rescheduled for June. The 11 other members of ...