John Cantalupi

Sports

Hoyas halt slide

Georgetown baseball snapped a four-game losing streak yesterday afternoon, continuing its streak of success against Navy with a 6-2 win. The Hoyas have won only two of their last 10 games, but both of those victories came against the Midshipmen.

By April 17, 2008

Sports

MVP candidates

As March Madness minus Georgetown rolls on and the NBA makes a mad dash to the finish line, one columnist has basketball on his mind. But because I can’t bring myself to revisit the tragedy of Black Easter, it seems like a good moment to take a look at an exciting end to the pro-circuit’s season and its ultra-tight MVP race.

By March 27, 2008

Sports

What Rocks

After leaving the West Virginia Coliseum with a win, something only three teams had done in the previous two and a half years, all eyes were on Patrick Ewing Jr.

By January 31, 2008

Sports

What Rocks

Jaleesa Butler, the 6’0” sophomore forward out of St. Louis, Missouri, decidedly increased in her productivity this year and earned her first double-double at Georgetown in a hard fought 67-57 win last Thursday over Towson. Butler’s 10 point, 12 rebound stat-sheet-filling performance came not long after a win over Gardner-Webb in which Butler notched 10 points and 9 rebounds, making each of her first five shots in the game’s opening nine minutes.

By December 6, 2007

Sports

Title Defense

A long-awaited return to the Final Four, the first 30-win season since 1985, and the first Big East Tournament Championship since 1989. If last year was any indication, John Thompson III’s Georgetown basketball reclamation project has been a success, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to the current Hoya coaches or players. Last year is right where it should be: in the past.

By November 6, 2007

Sports

Switch Hitting: a weekly take on sports

There is no such thing as a moral victory in sports. Clear-cut wins and losses are the primary indicators for success and anyone who tells you otherwise is flapping their gums, hoping to mask larger problems of inefficiency and incompetence.

By October 25, 2007

Sports

Switch Hitting: a weekly take on sports

Of all the great races that characterized the playoff push in the National League—the battle in the east between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets and the seventh one-game playoff in Major League history to decide the Wild Card between the San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockiesshy;—the MVP race is the best of all. The coveted award could easily go to any one of four young stars, all of whom were involved in the frantic pennant race: David Wright, Prince Fielder, Matt Holliday and Jimmy Rollins.

By October 4, 2007

Sports

Switch Hitting: a weekly take on sports

In the winner-take-all world of professional sports a number of people live by the adage, “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.”

By September 13, 2007

Sports

Switch Hitting: A weekly take on sports

“Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game.” So goes the tagline for Barry Levinson’s iconic 1984 cinematic adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s baseball novel, The Natural, the story of Roy Hobbs’ journey from young pitching phenom to middle-aged outfield hero. Fast-forward 23 years, subtract the magical bat, add some perseverance and determination, and this fictional feel-good story about overcoming adversity takes on a very real dimension in the form of St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Rick Ankiel.

By August 24, 2007

Sports

Big pimpin’, spendin’ cheese

Coming from the West Coast, I have long hated the overblown Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Each of the teams’ 19 regular-season match-ups are analyzed and hyped like each is game seven of the World Series. Meanwhile, the rest of the baseball world is held hostage to this spectacle and largely ignored. Call me crazy or call me jealous. I don’t care.

By November 16, 2006