Author Archives: paulryden

The NBA season is finally drawing to a close, and it’s the time to put a bow on the interminable season behind us. If you’re a features reporter and you cover the NBA as I did in the late 80’s, this is the time of year when you take stock of the season and put […]

Top Chef Masters crowned a new champion this week, if you hadn’t noticed. The winning chef was from Africa, which starting today, is the continent hosting the World Cup, a celebration of what the world calls football (read: soccer). South Africa is expecting some 350,000 visitors to their country, all of whom will eat, sleep, […]

Hey, who’s got World Cup Fever? Neither do I. I’m more concerned about how the first-place Braves could drop two out of three to the Arizona Diamondbacks and their putrid bullpen. But that’s just me. Apparently, all the world loves the World Cup and there’s no escaping the fusillade of stories coming out of South […]

I just finished reading Pete Van Wieren’s engaging page-turner, Of Mikes and Men, his memoirs of 30-plus years as the voice of the Atlanta Braves. It reminded me, with every page, how much I had wanted to be a play-by-play announcer when I was a kid. I wanted to do play-by-play in the worst way. […]

The recent controversy over the perfect game in Detroit that wasn’t and the umpire’s missed call that caused it brought to mind just how hard it is to be an umpire. I know this because in 1988, while working for a show on TBS called “The Coors Sports Page,” I did a feature story on […]

I’ve been connected in some form or fashion to the television and video industry since 1975 so I was bound to pick up an award or two along the way. Seems like we all do. (If, after a certain number of years you haven’t won anything, I think they give you a lifetime achievement award.) […]