Stan Hochman is a sports columnist for the Daily News.
  Email Stan at hochmas@phillynews.com
Posted 03/04/2010
FLOWERS WILT. Candles melt. Pastel portraits blur in the wind and the rain and the tears. Memories last. Some memories outlast granite. On Jackie Robinson's tombstone it says, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
 
Bill Conlin: Bunning far from perfect on this hill
 
Paul Hagen: Secret to spring training
 
Temple overcomes tough Saint Louis defense for win
Posted 02/23/2010
NFL PLAYERS, NFL owners, armed and dangerous. Pistols cocked, well-shod feet in the cross hairs. The scenario seems set in stone, matching the material above the eyebrows on both sides, a year without a salary cap followed by a lockout in 2011 until the union capitulates. No raggedy scab teams this time. Just padlocked stadiums, cobwebs on those fancy Las Vegas sports books, fans hungering for pro football. On any given Sunday will domestic-abuse numbers skyrocket?
 
Eagletarian: Birds release Westbrook
 
MTC: Defending McNabb; LT a fit for the Eagles?
Poll: Should the Eagles sign LaDanian Tomlinson?
FINISH STRONG! Finish strong, that's Dan Green's slogan, whether he's sitting behind his desk, or behind the steering wheel of a race car, or peering through a pair of boxing gloves at a sparring partner.
THE HORSE in the hotel lobby. How many memorial services inside the century-old First Presbyterian Church in Ardmore, before someone told a story about a horse in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel?
REMATCH IN A dinky hockey rink in Lewiston, Maine. Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston in the first round. Knocks him out with a short, swift punch that is so short, so swift, so lethal that the cynics looked at the slo-mo replay over and over and over, the way they scanned the Zapruder film frame-by-frame. And even then they weren't sure of what they hadn't seen.
'TAKE AWAY gambling from the National Football League and you've got soccer," Arnie Wexler grumbles, knowing he's got your attention now, without resorting to a 2-by-4 upside your head.
THE PLAYERS voted unanimously to give Michael Vick the Ed Block Award for Courage (does that mean that Vick abstained), and the controversy raged, pro, and you should excuse the expression, con.
DOES BILL SIMMONS know that Red Auerbach used to ban the distribution of postgame box scores in the Boston locker room? "Statistics are for losers," Auerbach would grumble on his way to another NBA championship.
BERT BELL talked out of the side of his mouth, like a guy spitting out a silver spoon. Had a raspy, buzz-saw voice that could peel the paper off the Vesper Club dining room walls. Back in the day, when the National Football League needed a hands-on commissioner, Bert Bell had his fingerprints on everything, including the broadcasters' throats.