Sports
February 3, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Otherwise stated, half of the lights have gone at the Super Bowl, being played at the Super Dome in New Orleans. The lights also went out in West London yesterday during the Fulham-Manchester United soccer match. But Fulham plays at ancient Craven Cottage, not the Super Cottage.
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January 10, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post compares the Washington Nationals’ treatment of young pitching star Stephen Strasburg with the Washington Redskins treatment of young quarterbacking sensation Robert Griffin, III. In case you have been vacationing in Mongolia, the Redskins created quite a controversy by not pulling Griffin, who was playing on a damaged knee, from their playoff game against Seatle even after he was hobbling visibly and throwing ineffectively. Eventually,
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December 31, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Like John’s Minnesota Vikings, the Washington Redskins played a game on Sunday that they had to win to make the playoffs. Like the Vikings, the Skins were facing a hated division rival — in our case, the Dallas Cowboys. Unlike the Vikings’ situation, Washington’s opponent also needed a win in order to keep its season going. Yes, it was the Redskins and the Cowboys playing for all the NFC East
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December 30, 2012 — John Hinderaker
It was Earl Warren who said, “I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records man’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.” There is a lot of truth to that, so let’s take note of one of the most remarkable sports stories of 2012: Adrian Peterson’s comeback. “All Day” came back this year from a catastrophic knee injury and made medical history, as well
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December 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, in a post about the Washington Redskins thrilling 31-28 overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens, I wrote: Baltimore, in a sense, was a victim of its own success running the ball. Washington’s pass defense is among the worst in the NFL. Any team that passes the ball only 21 times against it (as the Ravens did) is doing us a favor, regardless of how well it’s running the ball.
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December 9, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
During their long history, the Washington Redskins have achieved many heart-stopping victories in key games. Unfortunately, few of them have occurred in the past 20 years. Today, however, the Redskins won as thrilling a big game as I can recall. Victory came in overtime, 31-28, at the expense of the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens entered the game with a 9-3 record, coming off of a tough loss to Pittsburgh. They
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November 19, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The University of Maryland announced today that its sports program will leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and join the Big Ten. The move will take effect in 2014. Maryland has been part of the ACC for nearly 60 years. However, it has sound reasons for wanting to join the Big Ten. First and foremost is money. Maryland athletics have been financially strapped to the point that earlier of this year
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September 29, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The regular NFL referees are back at work, their labor dispute with the league having been resolved. Good. The replacement refs who worked the first three games of the season were poor. However, the performance of the replacements didn’t just highlight their own shortcomings. They also highlighted imperfections in the pro game itself. Consider the bitter complaints we heard so often during the past few weeks: With all the confusion
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September 26, 2012 — Steven Hayward
While we’re waiting for the American people to figure out more clearly that we have a president who is the functional equivalent of an NFL replacement ref, we might as well take time out to look at some NFL quarterback Muppet character doppelgangers, courtesy of Buzzfeed. I think my favorite is Aaron Rodgers/Chester Rat, but Tom Brady/Pepe the King Prawn is pretty good, too. They’re all worth checking out. Here’s
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September 20, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
On September 16, 1962, Bobby Mitchell became the first black player to take the field for the Washington Redskins. The NFL had long been integrated, but the Redskins hadn’t followed suit. Owner George Preston Marshall was a racist who, in addition, cultivated a southern fan base (there was no NFL team located in Dixie during the 1950s). The Redskins integrated only after Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall made doing
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September 9, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The world of boxing is in a lull at the moment. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who have dominated the sport in recent years, are still great but are on the downslopes of their careers. Who will succeed them as boxing’s top fighter? After last night, the number one contender is Andre Ward. Ward, at 28, is in his prime. He won a gold medal as a light heavyweight in
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August 12, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Having attempted the gold medal in racism and sexism, it looks like NBC did indeed follow my urging to add homophobia for the trifecta: the network made fun of racewalking! They played the Benny Hill theme during racewalk highlights, and belittled “racewalking fever.” Looks like dog-whistle homophobia to me. Close enough for the bronze medal anyway. Where’s the outrage? Coming in three, two, one . . .
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August 1, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I think it was George Will who once said that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for General Motors. This was obviously a while ago before General Motors came to resemble the Chicago Cubs more than the Yankees—after all, the Yankees still win a lot of games, while General Government Motors, not so much. Forget baseball, though. The Yankees/General Motors of the soccer world is Paul’s beloved Manchester United,
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July 28, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Reader Jason Mart writes regarding the story of the Greek triple jumper that John Hinderaker explored here: I keep waiting for someone to point out the hypocrisy that is the London Olympics and the IOC… Paraskevi Papachristou — a young and, it would seem, not very politically correct) triple jumper from Greece — is expelled for a childish and stupid re-tweet about Nile virus mosquitoes being able to acquire “homemade
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July 27, 2012 — John Hinderaker
On Saturday, Steve did a post on an early favorite for the 2016 Olympics, Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke, who actually isn’t competing this year in London. But if you haven’t already seen the video, skip the rest of this post, follow the link and check it out. If Steve was perhaps premature, I’m a little late, since Paraguayan javelin thrower Leryn Franco has already competed in the 2004 and 2008
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July 26, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We’ve written little or nothing about the Olympic Games that will begin tomorrow evening, and the story of the banned Greek triple-jumper Voula Papachristou–the first Olympian, I believe, to be cashiered for a tweet–isn’t the kind of thing we usually weigh in on. But, what the heck–why not? Miss Papachristou was summarily dropped from the Greek Olympic team, with no opportunity to be heard, because of a tweet that everyone
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July 26, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
As expected, we have received some excellent correspondence disagreeing with my friend’s take, with which I agreed, on Joe Paterno and the Freeh Report. The essence of these responses is that Paterno should have done more than he did to make sure that kids weren’t being abused by Sandusky. I agree, and so did Paterno. If I recall correctly, he said before he died that he wished he had done
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