Ferdinand Cesarano

Or the other option was Christian Hackenberg. Oh, snap!

Since when does Major League Baseball prohibit white pants on the road? In addition to the A's, other teams who have worn white pants on the road were the Astros, the Braves (Aaron/feather uniforms), the White Sox (collared shirt uniform), the Padres (most notably in the 1984 World Series) and, most recently, the Cubs. The only limiting factor is that this would not be appropriate for most uniforms. Of the teams mentioned above, the Cubs and Padres would have looked better with grey pants; it was kind of ridiculous that all games in the 1984 NLCS featured both teams in white pants. The A's, Astros, Braves, and Sox all had designs that were sufficiently attractive to justify the use of white pants on the road.

That was true for all the teams using powder blue, and for most of the teams using pullovers. But the 1970s marked the best period for the A's (that is, when they weren't wearing coloured pants) as well as for the Pirates, the only two teams that looked good in pullover jerseys and beltless pants.

The only important point is that Perez was fun to watch in the AAF (just as was his teammate Trent Richardson, despite similarly underwhelming statistics). And, as noted, whoever makes decisions for XFL teams also clearly found his play worthwhile.

I don't know about that. Neither team should really have to give up its identity on account of this merger. College games of the sort of "Wildcats vs. Wildcats" happen, and it harms nothing. Then we have frequent soccer matches between two teams both called "United". And let's not forget the CFL's old Roughriders / Rough Riders situation, which is exactly analogous to this, in that it resulted from the merger of two leagues.

It all has to do with his backstory, that he didn't play football in high school. That makes him fascinating. Also, there was the tantalising glimpse of him in the AAF, in which he started the season strong. Despite the fact that he eventually tailed off and was even replaced at Birmingham, he remains a player whom people are interested to see, and in whom coaches evidently see some quality.

Oy.

All yellow was used for the road uniform in the set the A's wore up through 1971. In the uniforms adopted in 1972, yellow pants and green pants were included, even if they were rarely used. The one time that the yellow pants made an appearance on a very prominent stage was during the 1975 All-Star Game, when Vida Blue wore them. But, with a few rare exceptions, the A's wore white pants for all games from 1972 through 1980, probably because that set's yellow pants and green pants looked ridiculous.

They walk to Las Vegas?

I know all about that drunken sot, whose racist comments about "the ethnic vote" (which was a slap not only at Jews, but also at Italians and people of other ethnicities) after the loss in the 1995 referendum led to his ouster as PQ leader and Quebec premier. No movement should be judged by its worst distorters. In fact the Quebecois identity is broad and pluralistic, embracng francophones of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. By the way, if Montreal could not support a Major League team, it might be a good location for a Blue Jays minor league affilliate. The Jays' fit with AAA Buffalo is too perfect to mess with. But a AA team named the Montreal Expos and owned outright by the Blue Jays would have a much lower bar for success.

Williamson looks strange wearing number 1, a guard's number. It seems to me that he should be wearing something like 32 or 33 or 44. I suppose I'll get used to it if he keeps that number. But right now it is like seeing a pitcher with a single-digit number.

I am not defending national territorial integrity; I am noting the reason for the Chinese obsession with it, and for the tremendous offence that they take about it. Except the Hong Kong protesters are not "fighting oppression". What they are fighting is China's legitimate use of its governmental authority to adjudicate a criminal case. While the Chinese government's response to the protests has certainly been excessive, its original exercise of authority in the extradition was not. I'm for that. Of course, the two are now to some extent intertwined. The league has already stated that it won't police the expressions of opinions of its employees. And that does not please China. This is why the two viewpoints are incompatible. The NBA is trying to have it both ways: to defend individuals' freedom of speech while at the same time appeasing China. In my view it should give up on appeasing China, and should concentrate on places like Spain. In so doing, the league would make a lot less money in the short term; but there would be no more walking on eggshells to avoid offending Chinese sensibilities, as the sailing would be smoother on account of the lack of serious cultural clashes. This is correct. While major pro sports in play a positive role in general in the world, the large companies that run them must not be allowed to masquerade as charitable organisations. Also, we should remember that an employee can get in trouble for knocking a corporate partner, whether that partiner is a foreign government or a private company. For instance, if an NBA team's employee were to tweet a criticism of Nike's manufacturing process, or were to express support of someone who had been suspended by Turner Sports, that employee would be called on the carpet for jeopardising these relationships, and arguments about freedom of speech would not be raised. The China thing is this, writ large.

If I were ever able to get in touch with the Chinese consulate, I would denounce their government for its counter-revolutionary policies, from the treacherous snake Deng through to the cult leader Xi. But if they want to give me money, you can have some.

What is scandalous is the desire to make neo-colonialists into fighters for "freedom". Britain seized Hong Kong at gunpoint during the Opium Wars of the 1840s in order to continue the commerce of that drug, which China had banned. China's inability to stop the influx of British-produced opium, and later its forced cession of Hong Kong to Britain, are regarded by nearly all Chinese as humiliations, and by every student of history as acts of imperial domination. The end of British rule in 1997 corrected this historic wrong. The process entailed a 50-year transition period during which Hong Kong would be allowed a limited degree of autonomy, so as to manage its local affairs. This temporary autonomy was certainly not meant as a broad exemption from the laws of China, the ahistorical position that the protesters have taken up by objecting to China's act of extraditing a person who is accused of (and who has in fact admitted to) murder. This is the appropriate context through which to view the attempts on the part of separatists to roll back the clock and to return to the bad old days of British rule. No one should be defending that, least of all by dishonestly deploying terms such as "freedom" (as in Morey's boneheaded tweet) or "pro-democracy". This is not pro-democracy; it's pro-colonialism. Still, the brutality of the response by the Chinese government has been excessive. In light of that, and, more fundamentally, in recognition of the unbridgeable gap between different sets of cultural values that this crisis has highlighted, the NBA should halt its association with China, and should focus its international efforts on Europe instead.