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Glanville's first book, The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer's Inside View, was published in 2010.
Two years ago, LeBron James split the nation with his public announcement that he would be taking his services to Miami. His hometown city of Cleveland became the jilted lover, and Miami, with an already talented duo in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, would now be perennial contenders for the title. He left a place [...]
As a long time player rep for the MLB Players Association, I got involved in some tough cases. Strikes or near strikes, grievances, drug policies. We thought collectively, but every once in a while, a player took matters into his own hands for a variety of reasons. Delmon Young, who was recently suspended for seven games [...]
Sports dynasties are great for telling stories. They take us back to our high school basketball team that was undefeated, or that track star who always won the race. But when it comes to leaving a lasting legacy, being a dominant winner or a consistent champion year in and year out over a significant period [...]
Until April 15, 1947, blacks in America had been paying taxes, fighting in wars and voting for decades. But they had not yet stepped into the arena of one of the most American of institutions: Major League Baseball. On that day, Jackie Robinson crossed the color line to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in their [...]
Baseball season is around the corner. But now, what goes hand in hand with the umpire yelling “play ball” in the first official game that will take place in Japan between Oakland and Seattle on Wednesday is the wave of six million plus fantasy baseball players who spend, on average, three hours per week managing [...]
Organized youth sports are the way our young people connect the dots between a passion and the construct of a support system, a team. It is widely noted that youth sports have their problems, from the obsession with results to premature specialization. However, economics are at the heart of these problems, and what often gets left unsaid [...]
The Florida State Seminole men’s basketball team knocked off not one, but two of the colleges that claim they are the only true blue in the Carolinas. I live in the “Triangle” in North Carolina, and the region was shell-shocked to witness FSU beating Duke in the semi-finals of the ACC tournament, then UNC-Chapel Hill [...]
We know how peer pressure can poison a high-schoolers social life. Rash decisions, keeping up with the Jones, being cool for that crush. But it doesn’t stop in high school and, as a recent scandal with the New Orleans Saints shows, it also permeates professional sports. (MORE: Pay For Pain: Why The Saints’ Bounty Scandal [...]
I recently enjoyed seeing my former teammate’s Curt Schilling’s debut into the gaming world. Years ago, he formed a company which released its first video game earlier this month. All along his eight year journey, he was executing an idea, a dream for his next masterpiece. Schilling was the rare bird that from day one knew [...]
Jeremy Lin is on a streak. He had an unprecedented week of games, making his NBA opponents look like they were playing in slow motion. But, like any athlete, he has weaknesses, and like any athlete, he knows that. But being on a streak is an alternate reality; it is divine. As my colleague once told [...]
During our 2003 playoff run when I was on the Chicago Cubs we had theme music. Most, if not all of it, was decided by our resident star outfielder and boom-box hog, Sammy Sosa. I must confess that it was my fault that the speakers had blared Whitney Houston during every waking moment that the [...]
There is no doubt that being a spouse of a top athlete is tough. If you want to spend a lot of time with him or her, you most likely have to put whatever personal goals you have for yourself aside to be available in those rare moments when he or she has true downtime. [...]
I imagine Archie Manning, father of super quarterbacks, New York Giants’ Eli and Indianapolis Colts’s Peyton, is having that parental moment. The one that makes you want to shout from the mountaintop in pride for about 90% of it, while the other 10% creates a sense of dread as you wonder if Eli’s success — [...]
If there ever was a ride into the sunset that would incite jealousy in Hollywood script writers, it was the one that lay in front of Joe Paterno. He had the legacy of all legacies in place. The storied football program, the near impossible ability to be a coach and survive regime change after regime [...]
It was fairly common that when I went to eat at Villa Gallace restaurant during spring training in Clearwater, Fla., I would run into Bill Conlin, the baseball columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Long before I joined the Philadelphia Phillies as a player with a team he covered very closely, I would know his [...]
Just before the midnight strike of 2011, I heard the news that a former teammate of mine, Rosman Garcia, had been killed in a car accident at the age of 32. I didn’t play with him for long, but I remember his happy spirit. As a member of the pro athlete club, these shocks force [...]
When a professional athlete is in the thick of his or her career, thinking about a legacy is not the first order of business. The game demands myopic focus, like a patient star-gazer honing in on a comet. Rare is the career of the physically gifted, even rarer are those that can be so good [...]
Of all the four-letter words that are taboo, nothing damages the reputation of an athlete like the word quit. Sure there are fancy ways to say it, like “ask for my release,” but once it leaves your lips and is set in the first person, it can’t come back. This creates an instant fork in [...]
When I had to sit out during the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-5, I knew there were some hot button issues to resolve. Free agent rights, pension plans, revenue sharing, arbitration rules. I also knew that solidarity was important and however long it took, I would wait until there were no other options. Well, waiting [...]
When Michael Vick declared bankruptcy, it raised our eyebrows. Sure, we knew his legal defense against dogfighting charges would have cost a lot of money, but not THAT much money. He, like a host of other visible athletes, made bad investments and hired a fraudulent money manager. His new $100 million contract from the Eagles [...]
