Every time I see Duane Forde on the TV screen during a CFL game, I think of George Dixon. When I see the panel of experts — Milt Stegall, Davis Sanchez, and before them Jock Climie, Henry Burris, Les Browne — I think of George Dixon. All ex-football players. All […]
Bob Dunn – Distant Replay
How being in the sports media gave one writer & broadcaster the opportunity to interview sports personalities he never imagined he’d even meet in places he never imagined he’d be. These will be his stories about their stories — or just about them — from the pages of his past, while working out of Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver in the 60s and 70s.
The reminiscing is underway. It will continue until the 28th of this month, at least. It’s the 50th anniversary of the historic Canada-Russia hockey series, an event that altered the game’s history forever. There will be flashbacks in newspapers and on television across the country — CBC has launched a […]
The day I heard Bill Lee had suffered a “cardiac event” that could have ended his life, in the midst of a ball game, my first thought was if any ballplayer was ever destined to die on a baseball field, it would be him. Lee is the only former major-leaguer […]
Julie & Cal. A comedy act? Partners in music? The couple next door? How about perhaps the most unusual friends in Canadian sports? Julie was Julian Klymkiw and Cal was Cal Murphy. I once knew them both, but it was only after Julie passed away a couple of weeks ago […]
Ah, Pete Rose. Like Donald Trump and the pandemic, just when you think they’re gone, here they come again. Rose’s latest headlines are like so many others: accompanied by an aroma that’s unbecoming his surname. Yes, they smell. At a celebration of Philadelphia’s 1980 World Series, which Rose helped the […]
Of the approximately two dozen football coaches I met, the two smartest are Bud Grant and Marv Levy. That doesn’t mean they’re the two best coaches in Canadian history, of course, nor does it mean they aren’t. They were cerebral, in an era when being cerebral had nothing to do […]
Baseball’s home run ghosts are starting to emerge from the shadows and they’ll likely be around until the season ends in October. So get ready for Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa…names that pop up occasionally, but seldom in unison. That is changing, because of Aaron […]
The Waldorf Astoria is in New York’s Midtown Manhattan, at 47 stories the tallest hotel in the world for three decades, and it retains its stature today — if not physically, then cosmetically. I would never have slept there except that’s where the Montreal Expos stayed when I was the […]
The best interview I never did was with Greg Norman. Several years ago, I was a golf magazine editor, and Norman was an appropriate subject for a feature. The interview never took place, in person, because Norman’s “people” said he would only answer submitted questions, in writing. To say I […]
Baseball all-star games and I go back a long way. One of them was my first date…but don’t tell my wife. I was 11. For whatever reason, a neighbourhood girl of the same age agreed to accompany me (and my chaperoning uncle) to a game so thrilling that the only […]
Lou Brock was somewhere in St. Louis. I was in a hotel room in Houston, on deadline, sweating over writing a story about him for Maclean’s Magazine. At the 11th hour, he returned my call. Stop the press. Brock was hard to catch in those days, by pitchers and catchers […]
In the early weeks of the Canadian football season, much attention is being given — and rightly so – to the new quarterback for the B.C. Lions. He happens to be a “Canadian quarterback,” a species that for decades was almost as rare as the snow leopard. The CFL’s new […]
