Run N Gun/Catching Up

Behold the Blasters from the past

Harrison Hill doesn't think a lot about the youth baseball team he played on, the Blasters, that won a national championship in 1991. He doesn't have to. For Hill and many of his Blasters teammates, the success they enjoyed beyond their adolescent years far outweighs an achievement as youth athletes.

Nebraska has been good to Pete

Playing football was a violent way to make your way in the world. Lawrence Pete understood that from a very young age.

So long, Atlanta. You won't be missed.

Somewhere in Atlanta, a lifelong hockey fan is crushed.

Catching Up: Delmott was first of many runners

Let's make it clear, Dennis Delmott remembers very little of winning the first River Run in 1977.

Winner of this epic battle? The Falcons

Steve Clark has never stepped foot inside Kansas.

Wichita can augment its reputation as a sports town

Every once in a while, we Wichita sports fans have mini-referendums on ourselves.

• Volunteers young and old make NCAA women's regional run smoothly
• Northern Iowa-Michigan State notebook
• Arkansas-Little Rock--Wisconsin-Green Bay notebook
• Panthers, Spartans get details down at point guard
• Arkansas-Little Rock's success built by senior trio

'Letting go' is the top seed in this region

On Selection Sunday, one of the high holy days on the sports calendar, let me offer a blasphemous suggestion:

There's always work to be done

It appears that NFL owners and players are digging their heels deeper into the dirt, preparing for a labor battle that could last months. I'm still holding out hope that they will come to a resolution before August.

Insert your team's colors here

Thanks to rapper Wiz Khalifa, we have the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song "Black and Yellow" — and more importantly, we have a seemingly unstoppable proliferation of remixes of said song.

That's a microphone, not a uniform

Most of us mellow as we get older, so my "fingernails on a chalkboard" list has narrowed over the years:

Football the way it was meant to be

The Super Bowl is more than a football game. It's the most-watched television show of the year, and that doesn't happen solely because it's the last NFL game of the season.

There's nothing All-Pro about this

Welcome to Super Bowl Sunday.

It's wild, but it's Herschel Walker ...

When Herschel Walker comes up with a wild idea, there's a good chance he's serious about it... no matter how unlikely the idea might seem to others.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose

Lost," "The Sopranos," "The Office," "24," "Entourage," "Boardwalk Empire," "The League," "Sons of Anarchy," "The Shield," "Prison Break," "How I Met Your Mother," "Arrested Development," "Supernatural," "The Wire," "The OC," "Chappelle's Show," "True Blood," "Chuck," "Fringe," "Dexter," "Freaks and Geeks," "Rome," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The caravan is on its way ... to Pittsburg

The Kansas City Royals don't love us anymore.

Sometimes it's better to forget the past

How're you holding up, Chiefs fans? This playoff thing feel a little strange to you? Understandable. It's been a while... and a lot longer since the final score was satisfying.

There's losing, and then there's the Pinstripe Bowl

Kansas State fans, I'm sorry for your Pinstripe Bowl loss.

If it seems too good to be true...

Kansas State basketball players Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly are serving suspensions for receiving impermissible benefits on the purchase of clothing at a Manhattan department store.

The U we loved and hated ... well, hated

ESPN hit a home run with its "30 for 30" series — 30 sports documentaries to commemorate 30 years as a network.

The hidden value of bowl games?

I don't often talk to my computer, but the words of Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock in a USA Today op-ed piece last week had me mumbling.

We're dealing with emotional stuff

Stuck in a post-Thanksgiving malaise? Catch one of the 37 illnesses floating around Kansas? Already so overwhelmed by the coming holidays that you haven't had a spare minute for sports?

We like our schools smug and egoistic

Congratulations, big boys, you're almost there.

Reality could trump fantasy boxing

It's time to play the "What If" game. It's every boxing fan's ultimate fantasy league: We transport fighters — at the peak of their careers — through time and space to match them up in megabouts almost too big to dream up.

Ten reasons this man is smiling

Sometimes, athletes leave Wichita and we lose track of them.

Once, twice, three times a champion

The photo above is how I remember Bruce Bochy 18 years ago. Leaning on the batting cage at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium on a hot summer day, running his hand over day-old whiskers and not speaking unless spoken to.

Seriously, man, that has to hurt

I'm losing my stomach for the NFL. It wasn't a single event that turned the tide for me; it's been building for some time. The game's violence bothers me more than it used to.

NFL: It's a (legal, non-malicious) hit!

If you're a football fan — and I'll go out on a very short limb and say you are — it's been a strange week.

It's a fine line between follicles, folly

It's all about the hair.

A brief history of the human brain

I've been knocked out, cold, five times.

WSU crash not a generational story

To Wichitans younger than 40, from a 43-year-old graduate of Wichita State University and sports editor of a newspaper that knows the importance of WSU athletics in this community:

• Former Utah State player still feels linked to Shockers
• Daughter of WSU plane crash victim never knew her 'Da-da'

Don't hold back now, Chiefs fans

Even today, it's not easy being a Chiefs fan.

Where's the drama, Gamecast?

Roughly 15 years into the Internet's reign as the general public's medium of choice, I have determined its greatest contribution to our lives.

Sometimes the best guy actually wins

Has there ever been a more unappealing Heisman Trophy winner than Reggie Bush?

Coming soon to a computer near you

I'm picturing a mix of "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interruption" with a dash of "Sports Reporters." The good parts of all those, of course. No Woody Paige, no Mike Lupica.

How can we miss you if you won't leave?

Have you watched a Royals game recently and become nostalgic about the final days of the Wichita Wranglers?

Around here, Barry Sanders is still the one

Watching the buildup to this year's Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the attention centered, understandably, on Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith.

Just line up and give them the ball

I'll let you in on a little secret: There's somewhere Bryce Brown can get a scholarship this season even without his release from Tennessee, and it's somewhere that produces NFL running backs on an almost-yearly basis.

Sometimes it's better to remain quiet

A few years ago, someone from the Wichita State athletic department invited me to speak to a group of freshman athletes about the relationship between sportswriters and the people we interview.

Ah, stick decorum in your ear

We're more than halfway through the baseball season. It's been a good season — a bunch of tight pennant races are developing, starting pitching has been tremendous, and I didn't watch the Home Run Derby.

LeBronathon: Television's finest hour

Let's be honest.