Joe Posnanski

You know the Mel Brooks quote about the difference between comedy and tragedy. At its simplest: Tragedy is me hurting my finger. Comedy is you falling in a manhole -- what do I care? I think you can use the same technique to describe the difference between interesting and boring. Interesting is my fantasy football team. Boring is YOUR fantasy football team. Interesting is my best golf round ever. Boring is YOUR best golf round ever. Interesting is my minor celebrity sighting. Boring is YOUR ... Read More

A lot of people seem to think the Olympics are over. I say this because I’ve been getting a bunch of emails the last couple of days with subject lines like “Welcome home!” and “Finally, you’re back!” and “Go back to China” and “Business proposition from Uganda, PLEASE RESPOND.” I can only guess that many people figured the Olympics ended precisely when Michael Phelps touched the wall for the last time. That’s when it would have ended had the Olympics been a ... Read More

I've written this before, but let me say it again: The following post is personal and, I imagine, of absolutely no interest to anyone except immediate family -- and even a couple of them probably don't have interest. I'm just warning you in advance. You can skip this one. We'll get back to sports, I promise. I write often about Cleveland here because, at heart, I see myself as a Cleveland guy. I was born in Cleveland, raised in Cleveland, saw my first ... Read More

Let me tell you a story about Manesh. He was a kid on our high school tennis team. Sometimes in my memory, events tend to get exaggerated but I’m pretty certain that Manesh was 4-foot 3, and he weighed 47 pounds. It was a physical test for him to actually pick up a tennis racket. Now, this is not to say I was some sort of physical specimen -- back then I probably weighed no more than 120 pounds myself. But I ... Read More

OK, so here’s the deal. My flight is scheduled to land in Kansas City at 6:10 p.m. on Sunday. If it does actually land on time, no given, I will land after about 23 hours of flying and layovers. That will be after three unsteady weeks of the Olympics -- the insane schedules, the constant writing, the short nights on a hard bed, the sporadic dizzy spells, the constant fog of smog, the fatherly despair of missing my daughter’s first day of ... Read More

News from America comes in slowly and hazily, in part because of the time difference, but also because of the irritable and ever-changing nature of the Chinese Internet. It’s funny now, you will click on a Web site. Say Fire Joe Morgan. Well, at first, when we first arrived, the Fire Joe Morgan Internet page would immediately crash because, of course, the Chinese government famously loves Joe Morgan. Big Red Machine indeed. Well, now it’s different. Now, you will type in the Web ... Read More

So, here's what happened: We went to Tiananmen Square. We took a cab there, a winding 40-minute drive with plenty of fun near-death experiences, a thrill-ride that cost us 34 yuan, or five bucks, or roughly one-sixth of what it normally will cost you to take a cab from the terminal at the Denver Airport to the exit of the Denver Airport. We had to go through a security line to get through to the Square, a line that offered an ... Read More

Sure, I had heard the news that the subversive Web site firejoemorgan.com was banned here in China. I understood that. I mean, seriously, you cannot openly inflame the minds and hearts of more than a billion people by just allowing them free and clear access to Dusty Baker's strategic mind and also various sportswriter slanders. The situation here is too volatile, the stakes too high to take any chances. The idle brain is the devil's playground! What I did not know until I ... Read More