Bob Dunn – Distant Replay

When I was on the football beat in Montreal, one of the head coaches I encountered was Al Bruno, whenever his Hamilton Tiger-Cats were in town. I thought he was gruff, mildly co-operative and looking like a man who wished he could be anywhere but talking to football reporters. It […]

There can be a misconception about being a sports writer — that you must be a sports expert. If you cover football, it’s understood that at a glance you can see the difference between man-to-man and zone defences. A hockey writer surely knows which goaltending techniques are effective and which […]

The sun was setting in Glendale, Arizona. We’d been at a spring training game with friends. My buddy was wearing a shirt that read “Giants.” I wore one that read “White Sox.” These were the teams of our distant youth…and, while I’ve always avoided wearing team signage, my granddaughter had […]

Despite a lifetime of hype and seamy associates, boxing was once a sport with universal appeal, admired for its macho honour and respected skill. There was only one “heavyweight champion of the world” and CTE might have been considered a typo or an acronym for a college degree nobody knew. […]

And then there was the super star who was responsible for turning a sports writer into the owner of a Corvette. Willie Mays, and me. No, Willie did not buy me a flashy sports car, although that would’ve been even nicer. In fact, Willie and I have never met, officially. […]

Flashback: A sideline reporter’s job is to interview out-of-breath football players on the sidelines as they prepare for the next series of plays. This is new to radio (or TV) broadcasts. Also new to this is the reporter, who is told by a broadcast higher-up he now has a half-time […]

My three grown children may — to use a famous baseball quote — say it ain’t so, but their father is not old enough to remember Babe Ruth. The first time I heard of Ruth was when my father showed me a picture he had of the Famous Sultan of […]

And then there was the time that a CFL All-Star saved my life…okay, it’s a stretch, but that’s what it felt like. I was covering the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ training camp and writing about a new running back, Amos Van Pelt, who was to partner backfield star Dave Raimey. Van […]

For many Canadians, the Summer of 69 was a hit song by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams. For Montrealers, it was the start of a love affair between a city and a baseball team, one that lasted until 2004. Until the Expos, baseball fans had never seen a major-league game outside […]

The unexpected withdrawals from the Olympic events by the greatest gymnast ever, Simone Biles, brought back some ugly memories of Canada’s past. Elaine Tanner, who may have been this country’s greatest swimmer ever, made her Olympic debut in the 100-metre backstroke, at Mexico City’s 50-metre pool, and she had the […]

One of the hockey fans in our family refuses to leave a game if there’s more than 21 seconds on the clock and one team is winning by three goals or less. He calls it his “Billy Mosienko Rule.” It was this month in 1994 when it became official: The […]

Ted Turner is the only person besides Connie Mack to own and manage a major-league baseball team. His solitary game as a big-league manager (a loss) was seven days before I sat in his office — just the two of us — in 1977. A couple of months later he […]