To all of my faithful readers from the The Weekly Recorder, Sports Beat is back after a summer hiatus. This column, now solely a blog, was shelved after our former owner/editor decided to sell the aforementioned publication. I left along with him because we were in it together and we left together. However, a writer never stops working and I needed some time to recollect my competitive juices. This is the last month of the calendar year. NFL playoff races are heating up, the college bowl season has just been announced, hockey is in full swing, and we all know what has been going on at Penn State and Syracuse. So, if you have been missing your weekly dose of sports news and thoughts, fret not. Sports Beat is back with regular and semi-regular posts throughout the remainder of the year and the beginning of 2012. To those of you who read Sports Beat in the previous publication, welcome back! To those of you new to my prose, welcome aboard!

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