Continuing with Mike Kelly, 64, volunteer coordinator and conservation chair at Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve. Friends focuses on Peñasquitos Canyon, leading interpretive walks, maintaining trails, helping out, and, when called upon, tracking wildlife, …
I ask, “How do you track and what do you track?” “You track by sign. The easiest sign is a print, whether it’s a bird on the ground or a coyote or bobcat. A lot …
Strange, what you take away from a baseball game. I watched the Tampa Bay/Boston contest into Saturday night (Sunday morning on the East Coast). It was a five-hour, 27-minute, 11-inning heart-clutching duel. The Rays won …
There is no I or, in this instance, no finger in “team.” As you’ve heard by now, Trevor Wikre, a 6-foot-3, 280-pound offensive right guard for the Mesa State College Mavericks, snagged his little finger …
The Dalles, Oregon, is found on the south bank of the Columbia River, 85 miles upstream from Portland. Today’s population of 12,000 is about what it was 20 years ago. They grow cereal grains, sweet …
Sal Convento is chief instructor and owner of the United States Karate Academy in Point Loma (uskasandiego.com). He’s single, 36 years old, a third-degree black belt, and world champion. I don’t find any of that …
I pick up the phone and hear a grunt, ambient department-store music, bar noise, and slot machines. I know the grunt. “Larry, where are you?” “Harrah’s. Laughlin.” “Why?” “Wanted a drink.” Larry Gibbons and I …
An erratic NFL Week 1. Tom Brady’s gone. After 111 consecutive starts, the New England quarterback left Sunday’s KC game in the first quarter. Knee injury. The Patriots were an ordinary football team after that, …
Unlike some nattering nabobs of negativism in the local press, I thought our San Diego State Aztecs played with skill and enterprise against those beasts from upstate San Luis Obispo. Hell, if the game ended …
The NFL regular season goes off in one week. Players who make the cut get a shot at millions of dollars and what goes with it, while their brothers are thrown into the hell of …
While watching the NBC Olympics on television, quietly enjoying the 105th consecutive evening of women’s beach volleyball, I had a sad thought: This is going to end someday. Then, like the morning sun rising over …
One of the more downhearted groups in the world must be the 2012 London Olympics organizers after watching Beijing's opening ceremony. China's big show had astounding scale, precision, balance, intimacy, and surprise. It was an …
Communism has taken a hit in recent years. At one time or another, 31 countries were self-declared communist states, including such sleepers as Ethiopia, Benin, Congo, and Grenada. (France and California are omitted for technical …
This may be the last hours of sporting life as we’ve known it. Soon, very soon, a 500-foot-high Summer Olympic Games tsunami, now rocketing across the Pacific, will SLAM into San Diego, taking out newspaper …
Monday, July 21, 2008, will be remembered as the day activist federal judges decided it was okay to force-feed pornography into the minds of elementary school children. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out …
‘You’re still boxing, right?” “Yeah,” K.J. Noons says. “I’ve got two contracts: Gary [Gary Shaw Productions], with his boxing, and then EliteXC [Elite Xtreme Combat], CBS, and all that stuff.” Noons is the EliteXC Lightweight …
It’s been a busy sports morning, checking the Internet for news about A-Rod and Madonna, Cynthia (Mrs. A-Rod), and Lenny (Mrs. A-Rod’s special friend). Inevitably one is drawn into the topic of cashing in. Cynthia …
Letter from John Adams to his daughter Abigail “Nabby” Adams: Philadelphia, July 5th, 1777 My dear Daughter, Yesterday, being the anniversary of American Independence, was celebrated here with a festivity and ceremony becoming the occasion. …
I am at a table in a Chinese restaurant, inside a Chinese shopping center. Both entities are crowded with Chinese shoppers. Opposite is Todd Anderson, gnawing on a pork rib. Todd says, “This is a …
Greg Budney is curator at Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds (Cornell University). Among birders, this is authentic fame, as good as it gets. He’s been working at the library since 1980. Budney’s job is like …
‘Actually, I’m walking the golf course right now. Give me a call around 7:00 or 7:30 tonight.” That’s Craig Barlow, professional golfer, scouting Torrey Pines GC, preparing for today’s U.S. Open. I found him by …
Bottom line, David Stern got the finals he needed — Lakers vs. Celtics — and people are watching. Mediaweek reports fat times in NBA World, Playoffs Subcontinent. ESPN ratings are up 35 percent, TNT ratings …
Unlike corporate sportswriters, the Box owns its preseason baseball predictions and is unafraid to review them in the public square. Kindly stay behind the yellow line and step this way. Follows is from the April …
Wrapping up farewell visit to Fairbanks, Alaska, my hometown for 25 years. I have coffee and this morning’s Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in hand. There’s an ad about a football game in the sports section. Professional …
Three o’clock in the morning. Looking out a second-story bedroom window. This is the Charlie Simmons/Sheree Dohner once-abandoned barn, now, after more work than I care to think about, transformed into an honest-to-God estate, 15 …
I began tai chi lessons in February 2004. Since there is nothing in my past that would foreshadow an interest in tai chi as opposed to, say, an interest in small-town bars, I decided this …
For those who do not follow horse racing, and that’s 98 percent of the population, I should explain that Derbytime refers to the Kentucky Derby and especially the money-making festivities leading up to it. Horse …
I got a call Saturday night from a man whose name I didn’t remember, but someone who remembered me and had the kindness to telephone with the sad news that Robert Mitchell died. Heart attack, …
I figured it was a George Bush thing, his idea of public service. No matter how sordid your disgrace is, how incompetent you are, no matter what your crime may be, or how completely you …
Occasionally, the Box offers a sports movie review. Leatherheads opened Friday and this time I invited a genuine movie reviewer along. The idea is to see the film together, she writes a review, I write …
The Box, seeking a measured tone, likes to have opening-day jitters out of the way before offering season predictions. All right then, listen up. One team. One thing. Possibly two things. No more than five …
People fall in love. They fall in love with other people, with their pets, with the city they live in (or the city they don’t live in), with books, entertainers, crystals, artichokes, and, ranking near …
This column is for once-a-year college-basketball consumers. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is going to run for the next 18 days, and it’s possible to enjoy it this time around. Here’s a suggestion: give yourself …
My connection to gymnastics is watching a 14-year-old Bulgarian girl do backflips once every four years. Turns out, I’m not the only one. I found this on the CBS College Sports Web page: “In 1969 …
We were talking about Michelle Wie, who was The Next Big Thing in women’s golf at the age of 10, and now, at 18, is a has-been making $19 million a year (according to Forbes). …
I wrote this in October 2005: “The thing about the future is, nobody knows what will happen. So, we don’t know what will happen to Michelle Wie. Still, not knowing never stopped anyone from making …
Annoying clock buzz. It’s 3:30 a.m. and hunting-trip dark outside. Get up, shower, make lunch, make coffee for the thermos, pack gear. This is my second birding trip. Regulars will recall last November’s jaunt to …
NASCAR revs up on Sunday ($89 for a DirecTV season sub) with their biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500. And you know what that means… Surf’s up! At least, according to surfline.com. Here …
This morning I mailed a Valentine’s Day card to a woman I haven’t seen or talked to in 40 years. I added a personalized inscription, “Do you remember where I put the car keys?” The …
The AP headline reads, “Super Bowl a magnet for prostitutes.” Phoenix police sergeant Joel Tranter explains that Phoenix PD and FBI “are going to go undercover to stop prostitution.” On one hand, early reports do …
Time to get your seat on the bandwagon, and I would claim mine, except I don’t see why this New England/New York Giants Super Bowl game should be any different than the December 29th New …
…destroy their perfection, thereby establishing athletic dominion over the continent, AFC-wise, and, at the same time, crush the hopes of little boys and girls living in Eastern Europe. The Bolts will win for the simple …
This started with Brian McNamee saying he injected Roger Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone from 1998 to 2001. Fast forward to Monday, the Clemens press conference, and a secretly recorded telephone conversation. As …
The Box is nothing if not forward thinking. Who cares about “Sports Year in Review” rehash stories? Not me. Not you. Stories about the past bore forward thinkers. Anybody can write about what happened; the …
The Box would like to award its Sportsman of the Year trophy. Regulars will recall that the trophy is a handsome bronze statue depicting a solitary professional athlete standing in an Iowa cornfield, weathered cap …
Some leaves have fallen off some trees, temperatures have sunk below 50 degrees, and Fashion Valley Mall is open an extra hour in the evenings. This means it's Christmastime, people. I'm getting a fast start …
Here's the setup... I played duplicate bridge in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1966. Games were played in the Tiki Cove, otherwise known as the basement of the Mecca Bar. There were 20 to 30 regulars seething, …
It's given that anyone who takes the Chargers head-coach job assures himself of temporary employment and a downhill NFL career path. Go back 20 years and except for Marty Schottenheimer (now doing piece work for …
At the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Willows. Sound comes at you from the sunset, underneath the dome of an aqua-blue sky, the blue banded on its low end by a smaller band of …
Small-college sports don't get enough press, fans, or money. This is probably a good thing; relative poverty is a powerful tool for keeping sports as a lesser part of what a university education was meant …