Craig Tyson Adams

  When the Los Angeles Lakers acquired Russell Westbrook a year ago, I was hoping for the best. Westbrook is a singular talent. He’s a type that excels at aspects of offence all himself. A player that handles the ball up and down the court. Westbrook averages what the league statisticians call a triple-double. He averages double figures in points, assists and rebounds. The dominant player that can be a one-man team. If he was in show business, he’d be the writer, director and star of his own production. The Lakers won a championship in 2020. They were beating the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns in the playoffs when disaster struck. Their superstar duo, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, went down injured and they lost the series and their season was over. James isn’t getting any younger, so the Lakers went out and got another future hall-of-famer to give James a break. The three NBA greats got together and agreed to change their way of playing to fit into a system that

My feet are cold. I tried to pull them back under the covers. But, no matter how much I try, I can’t get them covered. This is weird. The sun is up and glaring through the windows, so I throw the sheets back and twist myself to put my feet on the floor. As my eyes adjust, my knees are eye level. “What the hell is going on?” I stand up and look down. The bed looks like a postage stamp. My dog usually gets up at the same time. He’s awake, but instead of smiling and wagging his tail, he cocked his ears up and he’s looking at me sideways like the RCA dog. Still disoriented, I head to the bathroom and forget to duck until the last second. Did the house shrink? I enter the bathroom and look in the mirror. “Holy shit! I’m Kevin Durant !” I stand up straight to look at myself in the mirror. I’m so tall all I can see is my torso. I put my arms out and flex and realize I am now an adonis! Cool! What to do? Imagining the possibilities is sensory overload. First things first. I have to find someth

Rickey Henderson is the greatest base stealing artist of all-time. Nobody is close and nobody will ever challenge Rickey. When it comes to baseball, Rickey is like Madonna or Elvis or Ali. He’s known by one name. Rickey’s last name is superfluous. Just Google the name Rickey. It will auto fill his last name automatically. There is no more meaningful justification today than that. In baseball, the most meaningful act is to score runs.  Rickey has accomplished the baseball equivalent of the prime directive more than any player in history. It’s another of Rickey’s records that will be unchallenged. Rickey is Major League Baseball’s greatest leadoff hitter. It’s a position that is traditionally meant for a speedster with a premier ability to get on base. Rickey had an eye for the strike zone like an owl has an eye for prey. In 24 seasons, Rickey got on-base over 40% of the time. Rickey wasn’t just a base stealer and on-base machine. Rickey hit almost 300 home runs in Rickey’s career. 81

Mike Davis took ball four from Dennis Eckersley and made his way to first. Eck got the first two batters out easily. Walking Davis was an uncharacteristic move, but they were teammates the year before with the Athletics and Davis had a good year with 24 home runs. Tony La Russa, the manager of the A’s, decided whoever the Los Angeles Dodgers had on the bench was less dangerous. I was in the cheap seats. The upper of the upper deck on the third base side. We jammed the place. We were all standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder. It seemed like we were all breathing together synchronistically. When Davis walked, we all knew he was the potential tying run and we simultaneously let out a roar. Now the question was, who was going to pinch hit? Mike Davis had pinch hit for the light hitting shortstop, Alfredo Griffin, in the 8th hole. The pitcher’s number 9 slot in the batting order was due next. Kirk Gibson was the Dodgers’ most valuable player in 1988. He had come over to the club that

It's obvious that some problems in this country need an innovative American solution. These problems have existed for decades and have only reached stalemate whenever the question comes to our domestic federal leadership.  The leadership in the individual states has their own answers. But none of them can find any consistency. No common ground, as it were.  The two main issues at the moment are what to do with a fetus and what to do about guns. At first glance, the two subjects appear to be completely separate. That is what the standard thought is. To tackle these two seemingly different issues, a new train of thought needs to be considered. Something truly out of the box, as it were.  There is a belief that some people have that a fetus is a person. A living being that should be afforded all rights and privileges of a living, breathing American granted by our United States Constitution.  One amendment, the 2nd amendment, protects the rights of all Americans to bear arms, meaning

Just when you think you've found a suitable restaurant, antisocial hospitality reveals itself. We went out to a restaurant recently. It’s momentous for us because, usually, it all turns out to be a disappointment. The food is usually lacking. It’s too salty or too dry. It’s overcooked to the point of being burnt or undercooked, to the point of being almost raw.  Sometimes, I like raw food. Sashimi is good. Steak Tartare, although it sounds wrong, is also a treat. But not if I bite into a chicken and it’s pink. That’s just not right. Steak can be pink and be perfect. Not chicken or pork.  The point to all of this is that going out to eat is always a gamble. When it has nothing to do with the food, it’s the presentation. And when I say presentation, I am talking about not only the look of the plate when it’s served, but the people that make up the restaurant staff.  Servers and waitresses have a demanding job. It’s way more difficult than it should be. Working with the public can b

Son, meet baseball . My old friend.  I was thinking back to the favorite sports conversation we had a few days ago, and I thought that spelling out my love for baseball would help you understand more than just telling it. When I was 8 years old, my grandfather called me into the house where he was watching a game. He sat me down and said, ‘I want you to watch this next hitter. His name is Willie Mays. He’s the greatest player I ever saw. I want you to tell your children that you saw him play.’ That was the beginning of my romance with baseball.  Baseball is unlike other sports for my generation because baseball is truly generational. My father took me to my first baseball game, just like his father took him.  I had the pleasure of attending a game with them both, which gave us a commonality, something of a reference that led to bonding unlike anything else. It was a shared experience that we could relate to.  I played baseball with my friends. The game would take place in an abandoned