Six weeks ago I wrote a column about the Indianapolis Colts deliberately losing their games in order to guarantee owning the number 1 pick in April’s NFL draft. Said pick to be used to acquire …

I’m assuming you’ve heard about the Green Bay Packers’ stock sale that began Tuesday. The defending Super Bowl champion and only publicly owned nonprofit franchise in SportsWorld, USA division, is offering 250,000 Green Bay Packers, …

We have a sporting pause before the NFL playoffs and college conference football tournaments begin, before NCAA basketball is cranked up to speed, and well before the NBA resumes its struggle to make you give …

I’m at table with Ms. Abby in the tea room of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. My current girlfriend has dressed me with care (Harris Tweed sports coat, matching slacks, shoes, and tie), …

There is a continental stench coming out of Penn State. Step back, consider yourself a neutral observer with no stake in the scandal. Let’s say you knew there was an eyewitness to the (alleged) rape …

And what in the fuck is it with me that I can’t roll a straight joint? Todd snorts. “The one from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. The one that’s gonna hire 20,000 people. The one that’s …

Remembering that even this bastard is presumed innocent, it’s a quick transformation between a breaking news story and a corporate media storyline about said breaking news story. This is how torture becomes enhanced interrogation. You …

Chapter 1 I found my first year-round job at the age of 45. Birthday boy was broke, living in a downtown Oakland, California, apartment, and 23 days from eviction. Normally, this would not be a …

On the phone with a friend I’ll call Henry Hill. He’s a family man, casino consultant, degenerate gambler, and believer in conspiracy theories. Henry thinks the Indianapolis Colts are tanking the season. Conspiracy theories are …

On Sunday, Ted Turner and 14 others were inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame at the San Diego Yacht Club. As long as you aren’t married to him or work for him, Ted …

Mountain West, Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Conference USA, Mid-America, et al. College conference realignment reminds me of the good old days, circa 2007, when Goldman Sachs sold worthless collateralized debt obligations …

So, I’m standing atop Hawk Hill, a 940-foot rise located on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge and lookout point for the largest known raptor migration path on the West Coast. This is …

The first moment: at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Willows. Sound comes at you from the sunset, which is happening underneath the dome of an aqua-blue sky, banded on its low end by …

Thanks to Jim Behrie who writes “Football Picks Haikus” for theawl.com. Follows are two of his NFL Week 3 haikus: At Cincinnati -2.5 San Francisco Bengals aren’t doormats The 49ers play tough But I still …

It is rare for a sports movie to be something more than a gritty underdog team or underdog person, who, against all odds, in the final seconds of the contest, wins the race or game …

On the phone with an old friend and Poway resident who I’ll call David Becker. I’m listening to David vs. the Power Outage. He’s saying, “It seems strange, after ten years and spending a billion …

There is an ancient Division 1 athletic department tradition about opening the football season against certified wimps. The idea is to make sure you win the first game no matter how degrading it is to …

How did this start? The first thing I remember is reading an ESPN.com item on Kobe Bryant questioning whether or not he’ll play in China this year. Which led to an article on another website, …

Last week, my iMac’s hard drive died by way of self-immolation. I’ve had computers die before, saying goodbye with a blue screen of death. One laptop emitted puffs of smoke from underneath its keyboard. But, …

Well, Blair Cannon, 40, finished his 21-mile Catalina to mainland swim. He shoved off from Catalina Friday midnight, 8 hours and 17 minutes later washed ashore at Palos Verdes, finishing with the third-fastest time ever …

Next week, the Box will report what happened with Blair Cannon’s August 5 midnight swim from Catalina Island to the mainland and provide an update on Monarch School and what they plan to do with …

So, last week, the Box introduced Monarch School, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade public/private school (don’t ask) for homeless children and children affected by homelessness, located in downtown San Diego. This is the outfit Blair Cannon, aka swimmer …

It’s going to take a little while to get there — “there” being the sports side of things. But, on the happy side of the street, we’re already two sentences closer. I’ll begin with Joel …

“My first race was at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. I was 15 and it was Legends cars.” El Cajon’s Chase Catania, now 20 years old, is talking into a tinny cell phone from …

As Tiger Woods will tell you, it doesn’t take long before nobody cares. Retired Boston/Toronto/Yankees/Houston/Yankees MLB pitcher “Rocket” Roger Clemens reached his scandal shelf life long ago, but his Washington DC baseball/steroids/lying trial begins Wednesday …

It’s at the point of being rare, talking to a stranger in a bar and realizing, from the start, that you’re having an interesting conversation. I’m at the Harbor Bar (that’s Pillar Point Harbor to …

We’ll start with the University of Southern California (USC) bust. You remember the school criminals: O.J. Mayo (received improper benefits) played college basketball for one year, skipped to the NBA (Memphis Grizzlies), and made $4,456,000 …

Even though we’re facing long odds, the NBA finals still have a shot at being good theater. As sports fans and drama students know, to be good theater you’ve got to have a good guy …

In our busy-busy world, one must multitask. You can be homeless or you can work two jobs and live in debt for the rest of your life. That’s about the size of it. So, one …

Radio says they’re expecting 10,000 to 15,000 people here ­— here being Livermore, a town of 80,000 known to Bike World as Stage 4 start line in this year’s Tour of California. I’d been birding …

Getting a bad feeling about how it’s going to end. People forget how long this has been going on. Follows is from a column written in December, 2009. “This morning’s count is 15 mistresses, no …

Watching the Manny Pacquiao/Shane Mosley fight on Showtime. Venue is the MGM Grand in Vegas. The camera pans the crowd and then there’s an outdoor shot of the strip. This always gets me. I lived …

It’s always little people who get screwed. Look at the Dodgers. A mighty franchise brought down to the point where a soulless drone like Bud Selig is moved to seize control. This is what happens …

When it comes to diets, you’re on your own. Step right up, sucker, the nutrition bazaar is open for business. Why not test-ride the hCG Diet? Daily female pregnancy hormone injections coupled with a generous, …

For the first time he seemed old. I mean, not old-old, like Warren Buffett, but old, noticeably older than his closest competitors. Used to be when Tiger was tied or had the lead going into …

She died five months ago, Rose, my miniature black-and-tan dachshund. Now, there’s a long story. How a big guy with a bad attitude and a 4WD pickup truck (Alaska plates, still) wound up with such …

It was one of those moments that pop out of the Daugherty space-time continuum on its own. The lead-up was as ordinary as breakfast. San Diego State had just lost their Sweet 16 game, which …

We can go all the way back to the first lifeform on Earth, which, according to the science crowd, occurred 3.8 billion years ago. Dear reader, let’s stop our busy lives, take a moment right …

There are those among us who believe every event ends with winners and losers. As to the NFL lockout, it’s too early to know if NFL Inc., or Players Inc., or CBS/TBS/TNT/TruTV Inc., will be …

Readers ask, “Why don’t we have more postseason basketball tournaments?” I understand the need lurking behind that question. And the pain. Now, it’s true, except for the Ivy League, every Division I basketball conference has …

Most happifying. I’m talking about University of San Diego’s win over St. Mary’s in the basketball — men’s side of the ball — division. It wasn’t a squeaker, it was a 74-66 beating. At the …

It’s coming on to spring. Fairbanks will see spring three months from now, Brooklyn two months, Austin one month. But, wherever you are, spring is a fine time to check out birding festivals. Put the …

The Box congratulates Green Bay. That was a good Super Bowl, solid B+. The better team won; more importantly, the better team covered. So, as we slip harbor from NFL World and set course for …

Ever wonder what it’s like to sit at a poker table with a $2,000,000 pot? Not watch the game on TV or read about it on the internet, but sit at the table under insanely …

I’m Skyping with a woman I’ll call Jessie Shaw who lives in Martha’s Vineyard. We were partners a long time ago. Our liaison ended with a clean breakup followed by a five-year cool-off. Since then …

I realize many of you were mindlessly following the sports fashion of the moment, watching the Packers and Falcons grind through another ho-hum NFL playoff game. Well, that’s too bad, especially since you could have …

Monday morning...pick up bottle caps and scoop up bean dip from living-room rug. Looking back, I had a hunch the weekend was going to go badly. There was something about Saturday ante meridiem that had …

The wait is over. We can stand down, holler at the barkeep to bring a draft of grog and be quick about it. The results are in, the results have been tabulated, they have been …

The Box has next week off, which is a good thing in oh-so-many ways, headmost being the end-of-the-year-sports-wrap-up-and-awards column will appear one week early. And when you think about it, isn’t that what we all …

Because of the boffo response to last year’s Christmas column... You remember, it was a holiday shopping guide advising readers where to go on Christmas morning for that special sportspersonhood Christmas present. I don’t think …