This week on Only A Game, former American men’s tennis champions explore why the U.S. doesn’t turn out number one ranked male players anymore, and a trip to a boot camp where recruits must ante up, bluff, push, call and go all in.

Whoever thought golf was just a straightforward game of hitting a ball in a hole 18 times will be sorely mistaken after reading Franz Lidz’s Fairway To Hell. This collection of essays will expose the apparent strange and wacky world of golf and will have you laughing the whole way through.

The NBA playoffs and the regular seasons of Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer have been giving us lots of games to watch. In the breif intervals between them, Bill Littlefield has assembled some thoughts about the attractions of those games.

Will Danica Patrick drink milk on Sunday? And will the tortoises come out of their shells to finish their race? This week on Only A Game, an Indy 500 preview. Also, Helen Keller’s alma matter hosts a national track and field event.

On Tuesday, the National Football League notified the players that the league will opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement…a decision which makes possible a lockout in 2011.
Bill Littlefield, who doesn’t think it will come to that, wishes to inform the players of the opportunity they’ve been handed.

Growing up and playing sports in the United States seem to go hand in hand. From little league to youth soccer, children are expected to learn from an early age the meaning of teamwork and good sportsmanship. However, do all children get equal chances on the playing field? Tom Farrey’s book, Game On: The All [...]

Horse racing under the microscope after Eight Belles’ breakdown at the Kentucky Derby. This week on Only A Game, the anticipation and apprehension leading up to this weekend’s Preakness. Also, the cyclists of Team Slipstream promise to race cleanly, but can they deliver?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says that he’s officially closed the books on "Spygate," but why won’t the scandal go away?  Bill offers a few thoughts…

This week two exceptional champions announced their retirements — a circumstance that provoked commentator Bill Littlefield to think about what it must be like to quit while you are way ahead, and then have to figure out what to do next.

In baseball there is beauty. There is also pathos, and there is withering disappointment. There is stupidity, too, and sex, and even death. Sarah Freligh, who used to be a sportswriter, explores many of these elements of the game in her new collection titled Sort of Gone.