Brendan McGair

Most teenage girls have a Christmas wish list that likely includes the latest fashions or electronics. The Christmas of 2017, Madison Alves received a present from her uncle Jimmy that foreshadowed her entrance Cranston West High School as a ninth grader the following fall. Uncle Jim gave his niece a football kicking stand. If you know anything...

In North Kingstown, you have last year's Division II Super Bowl winner: hungry to prove itself in Division I. In Bishop Hendricken, you have a team that's held a monopoly on the D-I landscape for quite some time, winning seven of the past eight state titles. The lone exception came last year when the Hawks'...

Bring it on. That's the overwhelming sentiment within the North Kingstown camp after realignment metrics used by the Rhode Island Interscholastic League deemed the Skippers a Division I participant for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The bump up to the state's top tier for high school football also tapped the brakes on North Kingstown's bid to...

There's a time-tested saying in the McCoy Stadium press box – the actual games might seem long, but the season always tends to fly by. They'll be some nights at the local Triple-A ballpark where the game passes the three-hour mark even when it's not a slugfest. Before you know it, Labor Day is upon...

The first day of training camp was in the books and Xavier Truss was completely soaked. Rain fell throughout the nighttime practice at Bishop Hendricken, yet another factor for the drenched appearance was the variety of drills the coaches were putting the players through that included sprinting the length of the football field. As he...

There's no game taking place, yet there's a very good reason why the scoreboard at Dennis P. Hayden Stadium, located on the Bishop Hendricken campus, is turned on. In the left-hand column appears the number 22. The number 21 appears in right column. That was the final score of the 2017 State Championship Super Bowl...

There's always a risk involved when taking a flyer on a proven major league ballplayer who's armed with the belief that he can still contribute in the face of Father Time's looming presence. In veteran second baseman Brandon Phillips, it didn't take long for the alleged “risk” to fall by wayside. The 37-year-old has been...

Under sunny skies and with even sunnier dispositions among the 200 kids who were on hand, the Pawtucket Red Sox staged their annual Challenger Division clinic prior to last Saturday's game against Durham. First pitch wasn't scheduled for another few hours, yet McCoy Stadium's infield surface was the picture of timely hitting and enthusiastic base...

Hike up your stirrups, throw on your fitted jersey, and stroll down memory lane to a carefree time when the distance from home plate to the center-field fence was 200 feet and the pressure wasn't nearly as mounting as it is now. It's time to talk Little League, an appropriate topic since the Little League...

As part of her duties as ESPN's news editor for the morning edition of the popular “SportsCenter" program, Sarah Hart keeps her ear to the ground for intriguing minor-league promotions. “I love minor-league baseball so I reach out to all the teams and tell them to send me their best stuff," Hart said. Each week, one...