Sports
August 4, 2020 — John Hinderaker
My friend Clark Griffith was involved for many years in major league baseball. His family owned the Washington Senators, then the Minnesota Twins, for close to a century. Clark at one time more or less ran the Twins, and he played a major role in marketing Major League Baseball as well. Some say that the concept of standardizing team logos and making money by putting them on hats, shirts and
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August 3, 2020 — John Hinderaker
I never understood why pro sports leagues thought that buying into a far-left, anti-American narrative would ingratiate them with their fans. At the moment, it looks like my skepticism (shared by many, of course) was justified. Breitbart reports: “Ratings crash for NBA, MLB after protest-filled debuts.” As the NBA and MLB return from their coronavirus-imposed hiatus, it appears TV viewers are not interested in what the increasingly woke leagues have
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July 27, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Positive coronavirus test results are disrupting the major league baseball season, but there is good news from the National Hockey League. The NHL administered 4,256 tests to more than 800 players last week. None came back positive. During training camps, there were just two positive tests. During an earlier phase of the restart, dating back to June 8, the league reported 43 positive test results. All told, there have been
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July 23, 2020 — John Hinderaker
For the 2020-21 season, the Washington Redskins will be called the Washington Football Team. This is actually not a joke: The Washington football team will simply compete as the Washington Football Team for the upcoming season, sources informed NBC Sports Washington on Thursday. That decision allows the organization to continue to work towards a new name and gather input from fans, alumni as well as figure out a plan to
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July 8, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
As I discussed here, the NBA will allow its players to replace the names on the back of their jerseys with political messages. I guess it’s a good thing DeSean Jackson plays in the NFL, rather than the NBA. Recently, this luminary issued an anti-Semitic statement on Instagram, based on a Hitler quote (apparently fake). Jackson soon issued a less than fully satisfactory apology. However, as Ed Morrissey points out,
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June 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The German Bundesliga completed its regular soccer season this weekend. The last nine match weeks were played in almost entirely empty stadiums. Fans weren’t permitted entry. (If you heard crowd noise on television, it was solely for the telecast. The noise wasn’t heard by the players.) How did home teams fare without their fans? Poorly. The home team won 26 matches; the away team won 38 matches; and there were
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June 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this year, Idaho enacted the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. It goes into effect next month. The Act contains two main provisions. First, covered athletic teams shall be expressly designated as one of the following based on biological sex: (a) Males, men, or boys; (b) Females, women, or girls; or (c) Coed or mixed. Second, “[a]thletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open
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June 4, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In 1969, during an era that’s becoming more relevant by the day, Richard Nixon introduced the term “silent majority” into political discourse. The silent majority consisted of normal people who were disgusted by the behavior of rioters and radicals (like John and me). Today in America, we have the “silenced majority.” It consists of normal people who are disgusted by the behavior of rioters and radicals. Members of the silent
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June 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
When people ask me to name my favorite athlete of all time, I give two names: Wes Unseld and Sonny Jurgensen. If pressed, I go with Big Wes because he delivered a championship to Washington, D.C. and because of what he meant to the community off the court. Unseld died today at the age of 74. The cause of death was “complications from pneumonia.” You have to be really old
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May 27, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the National Hockey League presented to the public its plan, approved by the players, for completing the season. The NHL intends to go straight to a 24 team playoff to be held in two venues (not selected yet). It’s not certain that the NHL will be able to pull this off, but at least it has a plan in place. The National Basketball Association wants to complete its season
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March 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in a case challenging a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy that enables biological males to compete against biological females. Attorney General Barr explained: In our pluralistic society we generally try to accommodate how individuals desire to live their lives up to the point where those desires impinge on the other people’s rights. Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports
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March 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
For a while, it looked like major sports leagues and tournaments would proceed despite the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, but with no fans admitted. This plan ended when players, coaches, and referees were found to have been infected by the virus. I did watch one German soccer match played without fans. It was a Rhine derby between arch rivals Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Köln (Cologne). Fans called this a “ghost match”
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February 16, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
For me, the word “thug” brings to mind Richard Widmark in “Kiss of Death” and Jack Lambert in “The Killers” — both of them extremely white. However, African-American race mongers have decided that “thug” is a modern-day racial epithet. This isn’t what one would call self-flattery, but I guess it’s good for the grievance business. The latest such grievance is with West Virginia’s governor, Jim Justice. He coaches girls’ basketball
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February 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
I haven’t thought about Hunter Thompson or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in a long time, but I thought about both while watching the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday. I was thinking of this quote from Thompson’s classic: “The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich. The ground floor is full of
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January 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Margaret Court is the greatest Australian female tennis player ever. In fact, she’s one of the very best female tennis players ever from any country, having won more Grand Slam singles titles than any other woman. Fifty years ago, Court accomplished one the most remarkable feats ever in women’s tennis — a calendar year “grand slam.” In other words, she won the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the
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January 19, 2020 — Steven Hayward
While we await the start of today’s conference championship games, I came across a story from a few months back that just makes you want to stand up and salute our armed forces even more than usual: US troops drink Iceland capital’s entire beer supply in one weekend More than 6,000 soldiers were in Reykjavik for four days participating in the Trident Juncture 18 – a NATO-led military exercise. After their drills, the
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January 14, 2020 — Scott Johnson
President and Mrs. Trump attended the LSU-Clemson national championship football game at the Superdome in New Orleans last night. LSU prevailed 42-25 to complete its historic season. The crowd roared when President and Mrs. Trump were announced. White House social media director Dan Scavino tweeted the video below. President Trump and First Lady Melania attend the #NationalChampionship at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana…. pic.twitter.com/zsS8ofdhNi — Dan Scavino (@DanScavino)
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