Author Archives: Mike Menitove

Most teams don’t have to make their last stand during their first conference game, but that’s exactly what the Yale men’s basketball team has to do in Saturday night’s Ivy League home-opener against Brown. Over the last two seasons, the Bulldogs have collapsed under the weight of lofty preseason expectations and had their NCAA tournament »

This is the exact opposite of last year. In an offseason that’s made no sense to me, several MLB teams have managed to empty their bank accounts without impacting the handicapping for next year’s World Series champion. The one exception may be Randy Johnson. With the Big Unit, the Yankees finally acquired the dominant starter »

So, THIS is rebuilding. As a New York sports fan, I always wondered what that word really meant. Seriously, rebuilding is something that New York franchises generally avoid. And not always with the best results. Last season, the Knicks traded away their future, burdening the team with huge contracts just so they could be a »

Yale football is on the verge of making history — but not the good kind. In arguably the most storied college football rivalry, a Yale class has not been swept by Harvard in over 80 years. Now, coming off three consecutive defeats to the Cantabs, the Bulldogs enter next Saturday’s match-up as huge underdogs. At »

On paper, the Princeton-Yale rivalry should mean more. After all, with 126 games played since 1873, this matchup is the second-oldest in all of college football, even predating Harvard-Yale. But despite this, we all know the truth. Look around: It’s really all in the t-shirts — “Princeton doesn’t matter.” The standard issue HYP shirt will »

The NFL always catches me off-guard. After baseball’s postseason and the necessary weeklong (maybe longer this year) recovery period, suddenly we’re mid-way through the football season. And really, that’s pretty exciting. Until you realize that the Giants could be 7-1 if they had managed to win home games against the Lions and Bears. Last Sunday’s »

On the surface, the end of “The Curse” still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m going to try to avoid getting too judgmental again, but championship baseball teams are usually not built like this. For example, you might want your ace pitcher to be a three-time Cy Young Award winner and the best hurler »

The Yale football team’s 17-7 loss to Penn Saturday was arguably the most frustrating Yale sporting event I have ever attended. And that’s saying something. Entering the 2004 campaign, Yale was returning most of its starters from a record-setting offense that averaged 35.4 points a game a year ago. Even with the loss of Nate »

Boston 10, New York 3. This is a nightmare. At any moment, I’m hoping to wake up and discover that it’s Sunday morning and the Yankees lead the ALCS 3-0. If I have ever had a worse moment than this, I can’t remember it. But, I’m beginning to get the distinct impression that it’s not »

Baseball makes people do desperate things, especially in the playoffs. That’s really all I can say to explain how I found myself clinging to my cell phone in an attempt to listen to the conclusion of Game Four of the Yankees-Twins series. It’s not really the same with other sports. Because of the length of »

We might never see a postseason like this again. At least I hope not. Only a year removed from baseball’s best October in a long time, this year’s playoffs figure to be bizarre. And the reason is that this year’s playoff teams combine for the weakest collection of starting pitching I’ve ever seen. In what »

The Wild Card just doesn’t do it for me. It takes the juice out of division races by creating a safety-net for second place teams, and it brings competitive imbalances into play. Last weekend, the Giants entered their three-game set against the Dodgers only 1 1/2 games behind their archrivals. The series looked pretty good, »