Tag: Sports

Member Post

Jeff Ditzler
Jeff Ditzler
45
 

BRISTOL, Conn.- March Madness has been rocked to its core as Dick Vitale was indicted on charges of misusing ESPN funds.  According to Manhattan district attorney Melvin Benning, who has jurisdiction over the case for some reason, Vitale is accused of withdrawing hush money from ESPN’s accounts and giving it to the mother of former […]
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Member Post

HeavyWater
HeavyWater
228308
 

Would you shake the hand of someone representing a country that invaded your country? Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many sports leagues excluded Russian teams from competition.  In the sport of tennis, however, this had not happened because tennis is viewed as an individual sport.  Russian tennis players have continued to play […]
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Boys to Men

Henry Racette
Henry Racette
57121152
 

I logged in tonight because I wanted to write a post about boys and men. Then I saw this extraordinary post by Ole Summers, and I realized that nothing I had to say needed to be said.

But I’ll say it anyway, because I thought it and wanted to say it and the mood to write so rarely strikes anymore in the hurly-burly of life as it has been this past year or two.

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RIP, Gaylord Perry

tigerlily
tigerlily
226
 

Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry passed away on December 1, 2022, at the age of 84.

Gaylord Jackson Perry was born on September 15, 1938, to Evan and Rubi Perry in Williamston, North Carolina. Perry had two siblings a younger sister Carolyn and an older brother Jim. The family farmed a small plot and their father, who pitched semi-pro baseball, passed along his sports knowledge to his athletic sons. Both sons took the same general path with Gaylord following Jim by two or three years – starring in basketball and baseball in high school (both brothers turned down college basketball scholarship offers), both attended a local college for a year or so pitching for the baseball team before signing professional baseball contracts as pitchers and making their way to the majors within several years.

Gaylord signed a professional contract with the San Francisco Giants in June 1958. He started out in the low minors and worked his way up the minor league ladder to the parent club in 1962. He bounced up and down between the majors and Triple A for a couple of years before sticking for good in 1964. Coincidently or not, 1964 was also when he learned how to throw a spitter from journeyman pitcher Bob Shaw. More about that a bit later.

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Men Sweep Prize Money In NYC Marathon’s Non-Binary Category

David Deeble
David Deeble
40103979
 

In the annals of innovating new ways for male athletes to crowd-out female athletes from earning prize money, one can hardly do better than the New York Road Runners. As organizers of the famed New York City Marathon, the NYRR has demonstrated its own ambivalence about female athletes by creating a cash cow for male athletes competing in the so-called “non-binary” category. 

It will surprise no one that the prize money in the non-binary category was swept by – forgive the term – biological men. An irony-free celebration of the winners is available at RunnersWorld.com, itself an institution taken over by woke ideologues offering such fitness tips as Be A Champion For Black Runners By Becoming A Disruptor.

According to reporting from ESPN.com, NYRR CEO Kerin Hempel issued a press release stating, “We are so proud that the TCS New York City Marathon attracts such a diverse and global community of runners, and we are deeply focused on ensuring all of our athletes feel welcome and included at NYRR.” The same press release announced the marathon had become the first sporting event declared a “Safe Space” by the Stonewall Inn – whatever that is – in recognition of its inclusivity efforts for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Sean’s Golf Shop a Snapshot of American Spirit

Front Seat Cat
Front Seat Cat
74
 

A few of our new neighbors invited my husband to have breakfast and go to a golf course practice range to “hit a few.”  I suspect the guys just wanted a nice, big, homemade breakfast. I can confirm this theory because my husband gushed about the breakfast more than the practice range. It also was discovered that after three years of sitting in storage, his glove disintegrated into a hundred dandruff-looking white flakes, and the handle to his putter followed suit. The driver was also not up to par – no pun intended. Time for a new driver, putter, and glove, I asked.

He launched into a search that produced a place called “Sean’s Golf Shop – New and Used Golf Clubs – Golf Repair Services.”

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Three Martini Lunch

Transparency on Transgender Athletes, Gannett Cuts Columns, Pregnancy Centers Bombed

12
Hosted by Greg Corombos
With guest Scot Bertram

Scot Bertram of Hillsdale College and the “Political Beats” podcast is in for Jim. Scot and Greg break down a new poll showing Americans solidly opposed to biological males competing in women’s sports. They also chronicle the decision of Gannett and other newspaper publishers to scale back on opinion pages. And they hammer most of the media for ignoring violence against crisis pregnancy centers while CNN covers it disingenuously.

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A Bad Decade Last Week in Tampa

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
14101459
 

Vladimir Lenin, of Soviet Union infamy, once observed that “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” Both Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays and the Washington Post newsroom experienced this firsthand last week. We’ll save the Washington Post for another day since that is still playing out. What a newsroom that is.

Let’s start with the national pastime. It began when the Florida sports franchise felt compelled to express its moral indignation over the May 24th massacre at Uvalde’s Ross Elementary School. The Rays organization announced a $50,000 grant, not to victims’ families or to improve school safety but to the anti-gun advocacy group, “Everytown for Gun Safety.” They advocate for banning undefined “assault rifles,” opposing state laws that allow teachers and schools to arm themselves to protect children, and getting rid of most concealed carry permit laws, especially reciprocity between states. And much more.

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The Learning Curve #75

ESPN Senior Writer Howard Bryant on Race in Boston & American Sports

00
Hosted by Gerard Robinson
With guest Howard Bryant

This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-host Gerard Robinson and guest co-host Kerry McDonald talk with Howard Bryant, a senior writer for ESPN and the author of nine books, including Full Dissidence: Notes From an Uneven Playing Field and The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism. Bryant shares how his experiences as a student, baseball fan, and sportswriter growing up in 1970s-era Boston have shaped his understanding of race relations and sports. He discusses celebrated American athletes who have broken barriers, from Jackie Robinson and Celtics legend Bill Russell to the Williams sisters and Tiger Woods. Bryant describes how these pioneering athletes were treated, and how they handled their celebrity status. He also offers thoughts on how the multi-billion-dollar professional sports industry is addressing larger racial disparities.

Stories of the Week: In San Francisco, a recall election ousted three members of the Board of Education, after a period of remote learning challenges, controversial school renaming process, admissions policy changes, and other issues. Democratic strategists are raising concerns about their party’s weak positioning on education issues, which will likely continue to play a major role in this election cycle.

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Federalist Radio Hour

The Cincinnati Bengals’ Unbelievable Ascent To The Super Bowl

21
Hosted by John Davidson
With guest Colby Hall

On this episode of “The Federalist Radio Hour,” Cincinnati Bengals superfan Colby Hall joins Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson to discuss his favorite NFL team’s unbelievable ascent to Super Bowl LVI.

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Three Martini Lunch

Three Martinis with Bob Costas

23
Hosted by Greg Corombos & Jim Geraghty

Jim and Greg welcome hall of fame broadcaster Bob Costas as their first-ever guest on the podcast. Costas joins us to clarify his positions on issues we have scrutinized in the past and explain why he believes he has been unfairly painted as a progressive over his comments on guns and his call years ago for the Washington Redskins to drop their mascot – which they did in 2020.

They also discuss comments Costas made in calling out the International Olympic Committee for cozying up to China for the upcoming Winter Olympics and the problem of groupthink in the sports world, where only one position is often considered acceptable.

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Member Post

Jacob Christner
Jacob Christner
11211
 

For two years, I told Bears fans to shut their emotion faucet off for a second and wait for Mitch Trubisky to be replaced properly. Said it at sports bars, said it on social media, said it on the street. He wasn’t ever going to be a hall of famer, but they won with him […]
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Member Post

Jacob Christner
Jacob Christner
01239
 

Since March of 2020, there have been so many lockdown stories, whether good or bad. People went nuts, or thrived. They read a billion books or got hooked on TikTok. The pandemic definitely showed us who we were, whether it was anxiety ridden or adaptable. Here’s my “lockdown” story. I say “lockdown” because I never […]
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Member Post

Jacob Christner
Jacob Christner
67273
 

As I write this, I am watching “Petty Blue”, a documentary narrated by Kevin Costner. I’m currently on the part where he was in his last race, and after a wreck, the team, and Richard himself, willed that car to race the final lap for the farewell to the fans. It was the perfect goodbye. […]
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Member Post

Jacob Christner
Jacob Christner
46221
 

Did you know Dr. J was an Atlanta Hawk for two preseason games? It’s true. Long story short, the Milwaukee Bucks picked him in the 1972 draft after one year in the ABA, which would have put him with Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar(So much for there not being super-teams back then). He ended up […]
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Member Post

Jacob Christner
Jacob Christner
23227
 

I really shouldn’t be writing this. I shouldn’t be writing this because it’s 2021. Last Chance U exists, Outside The Lines, or OTL, has been doing investigative journalism on ESPN since 1990. This isn’t the old days of Mike Royko lifting the veil off of corruption in Chicago, and making fun of his beloved Cubs […]
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Bad Guy Loses: NBA edition

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
126836
 

king james scotland crownI have never been a big NBA fan. I remember the cocaine era. I cheered the wildly inconsistent Seattle Supersonics in that era. I appreciated the magic of the Chicago Bulls with star-whisperer Phil Jackson, Michael Jordon, Scotty Pippen, and “The Worm” Dennis Rodman. I admired “the admiral” David Robinson‘s career as a leader with the San Antonio Spurs, along with Tim Duncan, back when they were a distinctly locker-room-disciplined team. And yet, I remember the cocaine era, the referee point-shaving era, the radical leftist ChiCom kowtowing, America-trashing ongoing era, most notoriously embodied in LeBron James.

So, the enemy of my enemy gets my provisional, limited, and temporary rooting interest. The Phoenix [“The Valley?”] Suns apparently managed the second-best record in a self-created asterisk-laden 2020-2021 season. They proceeded to eject the megalomaniacally self-titled “King” LeBron James, and his current star vehicle, the Los Angeles Lakers (a formerly great team), from the playoffs for the first time in Pawn James’ career.

After embarrassing the Lakers in Phoenix with a lopsided 115-85 win on 1 June 2021, the Suns went to L.A. and defended MJ’s legacy. Stuffing LeBron’s playoff run in the first round for the first time ever, the Suns denied a poorly aging LeBron the chance to even get a sniff at Air Jordon’s stratospheric record of six NBA championship rings. LeBron James’s pursuit of MJ’s record led him to Los Angeles because it was supposed to be a team with deep-pocketed owners who would buy a couple of championships in the hottest, coolest global media spotlight. He has only four championship rings, leaving him stuck on the third tier.

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Member Post

Kelly D Johnston
Kelly D Johnston
225
 

Even if you’re not a hockey fan, there are two (three, actually) valuable lessons here, whether in sports, politics, or business. They emanate from a two-game set this week between the NHL’s Washington Capitals (I am a 43-year fan) and the New York Rangers. I’m still a proud hockey dad. The first game featured a […]
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