Remembering Yogi Berra: Eight things to know about his life

Here is a wonderful CBS Sport article by David Brown about Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra.

Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra, one of the most popular Yankees ballplayers of any era, has died at age 90. The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, N.J., near Berra's residences for many of the past several years, reported the news Tuesday night.

Also legendary in popular culture for his myriad "Yogi-isms" -- "unwittingly witty" sayings, the New York Times calls them -- Berra parlayed a funny and likable personality into a lifetime of goodwill.

Here are eight things to know about Berra (he wore uniform No. 8), who played for the Yankees for parts of 19 seasons, from 1946-1963, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972.

Football Time

The American football season is upon us, in fact, college football have already enjoyed the first round. I have, like everyone, my favorites and those teams I can't stand. So here, up front, I list my preferences for the 2015-2016 season.

College:

• My Dream: The Utah Utes to win the national championship.
• Reality: The Ohio State Buckeyes win the national championship.
• Wants: (1) A Texas team (Baylor, TCU, Texas A&M, or Texas) to make it to the Top Four and (2) for Florida State to crash and burn

NFL:

• My Dream: The Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl.
• Reality: The Broncos, Seahawks, or the Packers win the Super Bowl
• Wants: (1) The Kansas City Chiefs to make a deep run into the playoffs, (2) for the New England Patriots to not make it past the first round of the playoffs, (3) for the Cowboys, the Giants and the Saints to be huge flops, (4) For Peyton Manning to go out on a high, (5) Forty-Niners Aussie running back Jarryd Hayne to have a huge season, (6) for Alex Smith to have the best QB rating in the league.

Where have the traditional European names all gone?

Here you have two wonderful athletes who's names sound like they are English or American, the Two Tony's. But one is French (Tony Parker) and the other is German (Tony Martin). How are we supposed to tell where people are from if they keep choosing homogeneous names? Come on lads, go natural; what about Antoine Parquere or Anton Marten, or something else European sounding. Give us a fair go, huh. Besides, these names are far too easy for sports commentators. You have to have something unforgettable like Eddie Merxx or Zlatan Ibrahimovich.

The Power of Zlatan: How Ibrahimovic Became the Real King of Sweden

It's hard to think of an athlete in any sport in the world who divides opinion as sharply as Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill once called him the most overrated football player in the world, while Jose Mourinho, in 2014, described him as one of the world's top three. Laurent Blanc, his current coach at Paris Saint-Germain, has hailed him as one of the team's leaders, yet his career has been littered with spats and fights with team-mates and managers.

Zlatan has won 12 league titles with six different clubs, yet some maintain he merely dominates weaker opponents and falls short at the very highest level. He is Sweden's captain and one of his nation's instantly recognisable national icons, yet there are still people in Sweden who would argue he isn't really Swedish. It seems that even after 15 years in the spotlight, the world still doesn't quite know what to make of Zlatan. To understand this most complex and contradictory of characters, you have to start at the beginning.

Rune Smith cuts a dapper figure in the lobby of a hotel in central Malmo. Now retired, Smith was the first journalist who saw Ibrahimovic causing havoc on the training ground of Malmo FF, the city's hugely popular local team.

"Hasse Borg called me and said I had to come down to training because he had never seen anything like it. It was magical," he told Bleacher Report.

Borg was the club's sporting director at the time, and he was dumbstruck by what the lanky teenager was doing against seasoned professionals in training. For Smith, it was a special moment. Most local journalists will cover their patch for a lifetime without ever seeing the kind of raw talent that the teenaged Ibrahimovic was displaying.

"He was fantastic," Smith remembers. "He dominated training sessions. All the older players were furious because they couldn't get the ball off him. I used to call him The Hulk. But even though he was 1.92 (metres tall, being 6'3"), he also had technique. Such quick feet and such technique, and with that size...It shouldn't be possible."

This is an absolutely wonderful article about the incomparable Zlatan Ibrahimovic, written by Lars Sivertsen for the Bleacher Report. To read the rest, please click here.

2015 Six Nations Rugby All-Star Tournament Team

As a follow-up to my FIFA World Cup Team, here are my selections for the recently completed RBS 6-Nations Rugby Tournament. In my selections I try to spread the love and select from as many teams as possible. In this case only Italy missed out and they has two contenders in Luke McLean and Sergio Parisse their stalwart caption. Many positions were very difficult to choose an outright leader; for example fullback, where Scotland's Stuart Hogg eventually emerged as winner, as all six fullbacks were exceptional. The Player of the Tournament for me was Ireland's amazing captain Paul O'Connell. The last day of play produced some of the craziest and scintillating results ever, it was mesmerizing. So here they are... again no apologies... it's my team.

My 2014 FIFA World Cup All-Star Team

I meant to put this up after the World Cup was finished, but things just got in the way. So here is my personal 2014 FIFA World Cup All-Star Tournament Team. No apologies for who I selected, after all it is MY team. I don't ever select players I personally dislike, so Luis Suarez (serial biter) and Arjen Robben (serial whiner) aren't even considered. Enjoy.