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Wealthy Mickelson calls PGA Tour greedy

By Jim Litke The Associated Press Phil Mickelson just ripped the PGA Tour for what he called “obnoxious greed.” Now that — pardon the expression — is rich. “I know I will be criticized,” Mickelson said earlier this week, soon after arriving in the golf-forsaken Saudi Arabian metropolis of King Abdullah Economic City — you cannot make this stuff up — to play in the Saudi International. “That’s not my concern,” Mickelson added in an interview with Golf Digest. “All that would do is dumb down one of the most intricate issues in sport.” Actually, it’s ...

Miller set a Guilfoyle standard

By John Frederick For the Mirror Being 10 years younger, I came to know of Eddie Miller in a rather unusual way. Hoping to compile a better historical record of the Bishop Guilfoyle Marauder boys basketball program, I began poring through the Altoona Mirror archives (on microfilm at the time) in 1974. Though familiar with the teams of the previous eight seasons, dating back to my sister’s senior year in 1967, much beyond that seemed like ancient history. The Mirror acted as a time machine of sorts, introducing me to the teams and stars of the fifties and sixties. It was ...

Baseball doing more damage than Bonds

By Jim Litke The Associated Press Whatever harm Barry Bonds did to baseball pales in comparison to the damage baseball inflicted on itself both at the time and since. So say what you will about the steroids era, at least the games were still worth watching. You can’t say that about baseball today, assuming it’s even available on a TV set where you live. The sport’s popularity is buckling faster than the knees of a hitter fooled by Clayton Kershaw’s curveball. The national audience for last season’s World Series — roughly 12 million viewers — was less than half what ...

Chiefs, 49ers good bets to meet again

By Barry Wilner The Associated Press Rematches can be fun, particularly with a Super Bowl berth on the line. NFL fans get a pair of them on Sunday. Most intriguing simply for its historical significance is the 49ers at the Rams. Sure, it’s a Cali kind of thing, but these are two of the proudest, most accomplished franchises in pro football history. They have met 145 times, with the 49ers taking the past six and holding a 75-67-3 mark against their downstate rivals. The Niners have won the only meeting this deep into the playoffs, 30-3 in 1989 on their way to a fourth of five ...

COVID creates an imbalance in sports world

By Jim Caltagirone For the Mirror The Covid era in sports deserves a great big asterisk in the record books. With cancellations shortening the length of seasons and health protocols sending athletes to the reserve list, team and individual records, from attendance and win totals to games played and scoring, cannot be compared to pre-pandemic years. In some venues across the country, sporting events are again being contested without fans present. At colleges and universities, teams are scrambling to fill open dates created by Covid concerns in their own program or their ...

Players from many eras built NBA

By Julius Erving For the Associated Press (Editor’s note: Hall of Famer Julius Erving, an NBA and ABA champion, is considered one of the greatest basketball players ever and one of the sport’s finest ambassadors. He is an 11-time NBA All-Star and league MVP. As part of an Associated Press series on the NBA at 75, the player known as “Dr. J” shares some of the experiences that provided him with the foundation to help lead the transformation of the league during the 1980s.) Those of us who played in the NBA in the 1980s definitely played a role in what the league has become ...