Vince Grippi

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Anything noteworthy happen Monday? I broke a nail. Does that count? No? OK, then, let’s focus on the world of sports. As in the World Cup. Or the World of Litigation. Both billion-dollar enterprises. And the dominating forces as the week began.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The Ides of June hold something the more famous ones of March do not. If you answered a worse publicist, there would be no argument here. But our point is simpler. Today holds a deadline that happens four times a year, though only self-employed or retired folks – hey, it’s weird but I can check off both of those boxes – know what it is.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Short and Sweet. That’s what follows in this space today.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It seems mandatory. National pride is at stake. Un-American if ignored. After all, a 4-1 win to open a home World Cup is about as well as United States men’s soccer has done on the international stage in, I don’t know, 96 years. Or so.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • And so it begins, Part Deux. The hot shots for the United States Men’s National Team take the pitch tonight for the first of three World Cup group stage matches. Against Paraguay, which I’m pretty sure about 43% of U.S. citizens would struggle to find on a map.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • And so it begins. The 2026 World Cup. North America’s cup. The first match is today. In Mexico City. El Tri, as Mexico’s national team is affectionally called, facing off with South Africa. Then, for the next month or so, a dominating presence on the continent’s sports scene. But enough about that. How about those Knicks, huh?

A GRIP ON SPORTS • One thing about the Harry Potter books and movies. Their ubiquitous presence in libraries and on TV helped all of us who love to make references to once-obscure mythological figures. Like the phoenix. No, not the city. The bird. My preference is to highlight how it rises, reborn, from the ashes. Not how it carried Dumbledore away from trouble. Then again, both probably work as a Pac-12 analogy this month.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The sun broke through for a short while this morning, not only serving as nature’s alarm clock but supplying a column idea. If you wondered where they came from, that’s a peek behind the curtain. When the bedroom curtains are open.