Free Republic

Some years ago, about 1900, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions -- especially his traps -- and drove south. Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. It was a Saturday morning -- a lazy day -- when he walked into the general store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town's local citizens. The traveler spoke. "Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee Swamp?" Some of the oldtimers looked at him like he...

<p>Chris Matthews said something frighteningly stupid the other night on "Hardball." While debating whether we should spend $87 billion to rebuild Iraq, Matthews said something like "there are plenty of dying cities in this country that could use that kind of federal money."</p> <p>Wrong, Christopher. Very wrong.</p>

Strike 4The baseball deal will either make the game worse for fans or it'll be a sham that won't hold salaries down. The owners came close to wrecking the season for this? - - - - - - - - - - - -By Allen BarraAug. 30, 2002  | Let's start with the short form. The crisis was phony, the issues were a crock and the deal is a sham. Well, it's about 50-50 that it will turn out to be a sham. No matter what anyone says, it has yet to be proven that the basic agreement worked out between...

Baseball's "Labour Trouble": Overdraft at the Memory Bank? by Jeff Kallman A rather splendid New York Yankee pitcher, Ed Lopat, grew up to become a rather splendid Minnesota Twins scout. It would have been rather more splendid if only his employer at the time hadn't been the bottom-feeding Kansas City Athletics. Scouting a wiry Cuban outfielder, Lopat was singularly unimpressed. "This kid," he reported to the Athletics, "will never hit in the big leagues."Until that kid's knees betrayed him about a decade later, a Rookie of the Year award, three American League batting championships, one American League pennant, and a...

Bud Selig's buddiesEven good writers are doing bad stories on the issues behind the looming baseball strike. Why is the media peddling the owners' line? - - - - - - - - - - - -By Allen BarraJuly 18, 2002  | I've been covering sports business -- which by definition means mostly baseball business -- for 22 years now. There have been times when I've been amused, surprised, peeved and angered by the coverage of labor problems in the sports press, but 2002 is the first time I've ever felt disgusted. A collective insanity seems to have spread into nearly...

Only 35 years old, the new owner of the Brewers, living a dream come true, Allan H. (Bud) Selig went to New York in April 1970 to attend his first owners' meeting. "I was excited," he says, especially when the commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, seated him between two of the game's old lions, the Cubs' Phil Wrigley and the Cardinals' Gussie Busch. "Now, that was heady stuff for a kid from Milwaukee," Selig says. Then the meeting started. "It was all about labor." Uh-oh. "Mr. Busch was slamming a cane down on the floor. He was very angry. Mr. Wrigley was...