Letters

Only A Game listeners fall into two categories: those who think we don't pay enough attention to football, baseball, and basketball, and those who think we should feature a story on the Bluegrass Classic Stockdog Trial, which involves dogs, sheep, obstacles, and a time limit. Peter Cook of Lexington, Kentucky is in the latter camp. Peter, thanks very much for your suggestion.

Another Kentucky listener, Ernie Henninger, who hears the program on WUKY, has suggested a change in the name of the show. "Every Saturday I tune in," he wrote, "and after the latest installment featuring sand castles, a book review, a court case discussion that lasted longer than the court case, and buffalo chips, I wonder if the program intends to change from Only A Game to 'It's Not Even A Game?'"

Uh, no.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked with Charley Rosen, the author of a book titled Crazy Basketball. Some of what Mr. Rosen said about various incidents that had occurred during his coaching career in the Continental Basketball Association irked Tereneh Mosley. She e-mailed to say Mr. Rosen's reference to an "inner-city looking guy" whom he did not sign had her asking "How many people of color have had to deal with that issue?" Interestingly enough, Regan Truesdale, the guy Coach Rosen didn't want to drop from his roster in order to sign the "inner-city looking guy," is black, but Ms. Mosley couldn't have known that, and the phrase "inner-city looking guy" set off alarms elsewhere, too, such as between my ears.

Sarah Stewart e-mailed to comment on the same interview and wondered why I didn't ask Charley Rosen whether the player he elected to keep was white.

Last week I spoke with the authors of The Swinger, a novel based in part on the misadventures of Tiger Woods, and that conversation prompted David Kukelhan to e-mail as follows: "I heard one of the authors say the central character was created 'from whole cloth.' The rest of the interview was about Tiger Woods as much as it was about the fictional golfer. That would seem to indicate that my understanding of 'whole cloth' is in error. It sounded like the fictional character was a patchwork of various aspects of Tiger Woods' personality, and each of those patches had a Nike logo on it."

If you'd like to comment on something you've heard on the program, visit our website, Only A Game dot org. You can also leave a message on the listener line, 617-353-1860, you can write us at Only A Game, WBUR, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, and you can also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.