Owen Good's discussions

My sophomore year at State the the state high school singles championships were at our rickety tennis courts (nothing like today’s complex) and I was sent there to cover them for Dad’s paper on a Friday. Well, Fridays were “Brown Bag Days” when my fraternity and I would walk to class with 40s in brown bags. I showed… Read more

I come from a very small town that has unusually good tennis infrastructure. I had no patience or technique for the sport but damn if our municipal parks (and there was a country club with a clay surface) weren’t pro quality (and they were. A low level USTA circuit event played here about 30 years ago). Much of this… Read more

Oh yeah, that’s a pro’s shot for sure. Every time I see it happen I have to stop and ask, just to be sure, that the point is over if it touches anyone in play. It’s the kind of thing that I’m surprised I don’t see more often, but as I’m not a player I’ve never been sure that I should see more often. Read more

Oh, I got millions of these.

“For the past 15 years, a succession of ownership groups and the league have tried everything imaginable to make the Glendale location financially sustainable.” Read more

I have got to think that having the name “War Machine” is the equivalent of face tattoos before a jury. I just can’t imagine that plays well. Or, at least, I hope it does not. Read more

This is a true story: Read more

An all-time great from the golden age of televised tennis. There’s never been a bogeyman quite like Lendl since then. Cold War feelings had a lot to do with it. Just a great time to watch the sport. Read more

Well, yeah, I’m not Rain Man, I can’t count the number of pins down by the sound of the collision Read more

I’m gonna go wth Bowling Strike as a personal No. 1. The roll of the ball leading up is like a drumroll and then it breaks clean through, no other sound like it anywhere. Plus, of all the sounds on this list, it’s the best one that an average person can replicate (basketball swish No. 2, but nowhere near as cathartic). Read more

Columbia views journalism as an applied science, not an art. Faculty be weird and shit. Read more

For me, ESPN simply isn’t a distinctive channel anymore. It’s a partner of the NFL or the NBA or the southern collegiate football leagues whose networks it also produces. The majority of what ESPN does is either supportive of or subordinate to things like NBA.tv, NFL Network, the SEC, or MLBAM. It makes sense that… Read more

Baseball has a ton of dead time though. It’s like being in a conversation where no one’s talking and someone feels compelled to fill the air. Read more

I see both sides but as a fan, I like the silence. Once upon a time people went to a basketball game (or baseball, or whatever) and watched professionals do their work and admired it without being goaded into some kind of reaction. I never lived in that era, so throwbacks like this are a nice touch. Read more

Why was McDonald’s chasing VC for a tech startup? iMac is already trademarked. Read more

Nice try, Russia! Read more

Sad! Read more

SHIT Read more