Today's Sports

Wondering how you might be able to stay connected to a sport you love beyond lying on the couch while watching Baseball Night on ESPN? Feel you’re not quite ready to go all-in for beer-league softball?

Perhaps umpiring is the ticket.

“I would like to have more umpires,” stated Harry “H Tee” Thompson, who is in charge of athletic programming for Bedford City Parks and Recreation. “You cannot have too many of them.”

Are you having as hard a time getting excited about the upcoming summer Olympics as I am? What’s worse, I doubt that when the games kick off on August 8, I will have shed my cloak of disinterest.

If you’re in the same boat as I am, I’d like to share with you the three reasons for my Olympic-sized doldrums.

First, there is no villain here to root against. Many of you recall the good old days of cheering against the Russians or, as they were known back then, the Soviets.

Just because schools are out doesn't mean learning has to come to an end.

Area youth converged on sports camps last week in an effort to fortify their knowledge, skills and abilities by picking the brains of local coaches and high school players. Baseball, basketball and soccer camps had folks hopping all week.

One of the Minutemen coaching the lads was Aaron Lafon, Liberty's catcher. "I want to help the little kids get better and get better myself," said Lafon, himself an attendee at the same camp many years ago.

2008 will be the Year of the Cub.

This is the year that will end the century-long misery affair that Cubs fans have had with the North Siders.

Many, many times over the past forty years, I've been joined by millions of Cub rooters in having our hearts broken.

My wife, having sat through the Cubs? meltdown in the 2003 NLCS (some call it the Bartman series, though he only merits scant blame), remarked, "I don't see how you can stand it. It gives me agita."

Naturally, fans that have endured such disappointments tend to grasp at straws.