May 27, 2020
For almost 40 years, the Kings have feasted on a narrative that portrays the basketball team as a public treasure rather than a business. The story is fantasy. The Kings are a business. Their goal is to make money for their owners. It’s been this way since 1983, when a Sacramento group bought the team. And it’s true today.
When the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the NBA season and shuttered Golden 1 Center, the Kings, like any business, faced a crisis. Their cash-flow generator was gone overnight. But the Kings found a side hustle. They became hospital landlords.
Apr 28, 2020
Ken Anthony wasn’t among the global airline, hotel and casino companies that instantly lined up for taxpayer handouts when the coronavirus struck. He was too busy trying to keep his small business alive.
Anthony owns Device Brewing Company, which runs three taprooms in Sacramento, including a new restaurant in Pocket’s Promenade Shopping Center. Like countless small business operators, his life collapsed in mid-March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento County health officials closed public gathering places to slow the pandemic.
Apr 28, 2020
Like many baseball fans, Walt Yost enjoys poking around the cobwebbed cellars of baseball history. He’s a member of the Dusty Baker Sacramento chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, a global fraternity of historians and statisticians united in their devotion to baseball. He loves old baseball stories.
Now he’s told one. His new book, “A Glove and A Prayer,” is a novel that imagines the life of a 1890s baseball vagabond named August Yost. It’s the perfect diversion for baseball fans anchored in the doldrums of sports cancellations caused by coronavirus.
Apr 20, 2020
Sacramento has a gift for growing smart, experienced local political leaders. Mayor Darrell Steinberg served at the highest levels of California governance. County Board of Supervisors Chair Phil Serna was raised in a home led by two educators, one of whom was mayor.
But somehow, local leaders are struck dumb by homelessness.