College basketball bubble teams find out their fate on Sunday and Monday when the brackets are announced for the NCAA tournament. But, Only A Game’s Bill Littlefield’s favorite basketball moment has already come and gone.

Major League Soccer gets its season underway on March 25. If all goes according to plan, the opener will pit the league’s new club, the Philadelphia Union, against last year’s expansion team, Seattle Sounders FC. But according to Bill Littlefield, there is some suspense regarding whether these clubs and the 14 other teams that comprise MLS will begin playing on time this spring.

In the 1980 Winter Olympics, the U.S. Hockey Team defeated the Soviet Union in an upset still known as the Miracle on Ice. All the same, Dave Silk, who played for the Americans, has never been comfortable with that title. He shares his thoughts on “the miracle thing” and how he’d like the game to be remembered.

Figure skating, snowboarding, and ski jumping are just a few of the sports where judges can determine the outcome of the event. Some have argued that sports like football and basketball are more pure because they’re not so subjective. Bill Littlefield thinks those fans should think again.

The Winter Olympics present millions of people with the opportunity to pay rapt attention to figure skating and bobsledding, not to mention luge, skeleton, cross-country skiing, and biathlon. All, of course, are sports…or are they? Bill Littlefield hopes you won’t accuse him of skating around that question.

Highlight has followed highlight as the Winter Olympics have progressed. Millions of people are tuning in each night for the spectacle, Bill Littlefield among them…though he has begun to wonder if that’s such a good idea.

The Winter Olympics get underway Friday in Vancouver. Bill Littlefield is already prepared to discuss some of the athletes who will be coming out in the black whether or not they win gold.

It’s been a long two-week break between the NFL’s Conference Championships and the Super Bowl, and Bill Littlefield has grown tired of waiting. He shares his thoughts on the buildup to the big game, and recalls a few forgettable interviews from media week.

As Super Bowl Sunday nears, there has been a lot of discussion of a commercial scheduled to air on that commercial day of days. The ad features Heisman Trophy-winning, University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, and it is sponsored by Focus on the Family, an organization that opposes abortion. Objections to the commercial notwithstanding, commentator Bill Littlefield is not convinced that it is likely to constitute anything new.

It’s still a week and a half away, but the Super Bowl has already claimed the attention of various fans and lots of writers, broadcasters, and commentators…among them Bill Littlefield.

Over the past few weeks, numbers of coaches making lots of money at one university have moved on to make more money at other universities or in the professional ranks. For some reason, the annual shuffling of high profile coaches has commentator Bill Littlefield thinking of a low profile coach who was also something of a magician.

On Monday, Mark McGwire acknowledged his steroid use while he was hitting all those home runs in the ‘90’s. Like the Mark McGwire who told a congressional committee almost five years ago that he wasn’t there to talk about the past, Bill Littlefield is focusing on the present and the future.

The Gilbert Arenas / Javaris Crittenton incident has fueled a lot of a headlines … and opinions. In addition to the legal troubles both men might face, the NBA and the Washington Wizards are still sorting out the on-court ramifications for the players. After a wild week of news, Bill looks at the NBA locker room dispute in a larger context.

In the wake of the reports that Washinton Wizard Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton may or may not have drawn guns on each other in the locker room late last month, the president of the New York Knicks has reminded his players that guns are illegal in New York city. Bill Littlefield thinks that’s probably not a bad idea…

The end of the year offers us the opportunity to look back, and Bill Littlefield is among those taking advantage of that opportunity…though he’s only looking back a week or so.

Lots of football fans will tell you that there’s nothing better than gathering in a group of seventy or eighty thousand to support your team. In a bookstore he first visited two decades ago, Bill has found an argument against that contention.

As President Obama works to achieve consensus on such difficult issues as universal health care and the attempt to encourage the economy while presiding over two wars, he needs all the friends he can get. But, as Bill points out, Mr. Obama may feel he’s been saddled with one he could do without.

Last week’s story on the Lingerie Football League featured on Only A Game inspired many responses from listeners across the country. While understanding many listeners’ concerns, Bill says that the story served only stress the complexities of women’s sports in today’s crowded sporting landscape.

He’s the best golfer in the world. He’s the richest athlete of all time. He’s a global superstar. But all of Tiger Woods’ honors, sponsorship deals, and athletic awards mean nothing in his personal life.

While some are giving thanks for the comfort and support of their families and friends, football fans in New England started celebrating Thanksgiving early, when the Patriots routed the New York Jets, 31-14 on Sunday. According to Bill, this was more than an ordinary win…for it gave fans evidence of genius restored.

On Sunday, Major League Soccer will determine their champion, when the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake face each other in Seattle. According to Bill, the league is delighted with the presence of at least one of the teams in the championship game.

The NFL’s head-honchos would have you believe that anything can happen on any given Sunday. But many fans of teams in the bottom-half of the league have already left their teams for dead. Bill asks, “Where’s the parity we hear so much about?”

The 2009 World Series cannot end before early November…a circumstance which has many complaining that the baseball season is too long. Bill thinks Major League Baseball can quiet that criticism and win new fans as well by taking advantage of the fact that there will be a game on Halloween night.

Despite the Boston Globe’s celebration of this week as the fifth anniversary of the victory of the Red Sox in the World Series of 2004, the headline news is that in New York, the Yankees will host the Philadelphia Phillies for the first two games of the 2009 World Series. Wednesday, mere hours before the Series began, Bill wrote about why we will watch the World Series.

As we wait to see which two teams will meet in the fall classic beginning next week, Bill has found himself thinking about a time when the World Series had fewer neighbors.

In various cities fans are coming to terms with the disappearance of their baseball teams from the playoffs. According to Bill, for some of those fans, there’s solace in other games…for others, not so much.

For at least one eight-year old, Don Larson’s perfect game in the World Series was, in fact, perfect. Was.

A recently published study indicates that former NFL players have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia much more frequently than their counterparts in the population at large. Bill tries to put those findings and their consequences in perspective.

Lots of colleges and universities have established athletic halls of fame. An upcoming induction at one of them appeals to Bill for several reasons.

The most thoroughly discussed event in the recently-completed U.S Open Tennis Tournament was the tirade which Serena Williams directed at the linesperson who penalized her for a foot fault, while Williams was losing to Kim Clijsters in the women’s final. As far as commentator Bill Littlefield is concerned, the question now is how Williams will endeavor to rehabilitate her image following the episode.