Days before the Nets were supposed to make their Brooklyn debut at the Barclays Center, on November 1, their long-time announcer was home in New Jersey, preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy and thinking about a flight to Texas, where he was scheduled to call the Buffalo-Houston game on November 4. Ian Eagle started…
The lights dimmed, and projected on the screen at the front of the auditorium were her finest moments. Her talent was extolled, her accomplishments enumerated. A hushed, rapt crowd sat expectantly, and as the leggy brunette prepared to make her entrance, the auctioneer intoned, “Ladies and gentlemen, we present Havre de Grace.” The 5-year-old bay…
Thoroughbred owner Mike Repole is no stranger to the Kentucky Derby trail, having brought Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty to Churchill Downs to run for the roses in 2011. He’s also no stranger to Derby disappointment: Uncle Mo scratched the day before the race and Stay Thirsty finished 12th. So when his 2-year-old Overanalyze won…
If you’re a couple of rockers in your late 60’s who want to go on tour to celebrate an album about youthful disaffection, how do you make yourself not look ridiculous? I don’t know whether the Who’s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey actually considered that question as they put together the current Quadrophenia tour, in which they…
We interrupt our regularly schedule horse racing program to talk a little about music… When a friend asked me last summer if I wanted to see the Who at the Barclays Center in November, I said yes, but not without reservations. A Who fanatic through high school, college, and early adulthood, I’d seen them once…
On a summer morning in 2007, on the East Side of Saratoga near the Oklahoma training track, Ballston Spa native Andrew Wolfsont was laying brick for a summer job. He’d graduated from Ballston Spa High School the year before and attended SUNY-Oswego for a year, but, feeling aimless, he came home for the summer, looking…
The New York Racetrack Chaplaincy has continued its relief work this week, bringing supplies and food to those affected by the storms. Chaplain Humberto Chavez offers this latest update, printed below. I’ll be shopping for and bringing supplies to them tomorrow. If you’re interested in contributing, please let me know via e-mail or in the…
Beginning in May 2013, the Saratoga 150 celebration will mark the sesquicentennial of the Thoroughbred racing in my hometown. The four-day program in 1863, inaugurated by John Morrissey, was such a success that he and his partners, among them William Travers and Leonard Jerome, built Saratoga Race Course in 1864. It is the oldest sporting…
I received this letter today from Chaplain Humberto Chavez of the New York Racetrack Chaplaincy. If you’d like to help, please read. I am happy to help facilitate donations and drop-offs. If you’re nearby, I’m happy to pick up your donations and bring them to Belmont — contact me via e-mail (on the “about” page…
Jim Rome’s “clones,” as his impassioned listeners are called, often don’t take kindly to when the radio and television sports-talk host brings up his racehorses, preferring to engage in conversation about more mainstream sports. They better prepare themselves for this week, because after Rome’s Mizdirection won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Saturday…
Brooklyn Backstretch 