By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Not sayin’, just sayin’! Plus: International House of Soccer; The White Sox Are Still Playing – And Not Totally Badly; And With The 7th Pick, The Bulls Select . . . ; and Schweinsteiger!
Posted on June 15, 2018
World Cup Politics: Fixed Matches, Fascism & FIFA
By Roy Hay/The Conversation
There is an old tradition in England that sport and politics do not mix. This carried over into FIFA when it was established in 1904, sought to take control of the Olympic soccer competition and then organized its own professional World Cup.
Yet, as Bill Murray, my co-author on The History of Soccer in Australia: A Tale of Two Halves, has pointed out, it was the British home nations (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales) who brought politics into soccer when they refused to play Germany, Austria and Hungary in the aftermath of the first world war. They expected everyone in FIFA to follow suit, and when this didn’t happen, they temporarily withdrew from the organization.
Since then, politics have regularly intruded into the soccer world, including recently with the controversial selections of Russia and Qatar to host the next two World Cups. As one of the most politically charged World Cups gets set to kick off in Moscow today, we look back at five other moments in history when politics did mix with soccer internationally.
Posted on June 14, 2018
SportsMonday: Bullpen Beware, Maddon At Work
By Jim Coffman
Let’s sink our teeth into this week’s Cubs intrigue shall we?
We are coming up on three-and-a-half seasons into the CCC Era, i.e., the one featuring Consistent Cubs Contention. And this team continues to almost never disappoint as far as dramas unfolding on top of dramas.
This past week was another successful one on the diamond, although it was ridiculously tenuous. But for Jason Heyward coming up with a two-strike, two-out, ninth-inning grand slam to save the Cubs from what looked like sure defeat (a 5-3 deficit going into that pitch), the Cubs go 3-3 against the mediocre Phillies and Pirates at home. In other words, they disappoint. Instead they went 4-2 and picked up ground on the division-leading Brewers (who they trail by a half-game after Sunday’s action).
The biggest development of the weekend has not been fully explored.
Posted on June 11, 2018
Ricky’s Boys Run
By Roger Wallenstein
Two innings last week provided as good an indication as any why the White Sox have won six of their 10 games in the month of June.
The first came on Wednesday against the Twins in the top of the sixth inning as the Sox turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 advantage in a game they eventually won by the same score. Speed, execution, and a little help from the opposition were the keys.
Posted on June 11, 2018
TrackNotes: Justified
By Thomas Chambers
Justify, commanding winner of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes and with it American Thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown, will forever have moons of numbers orbiting his planetary
achievement.
The son of the late Scat Daddy, out of Stage Magic, a daughter of the you-should-have-seen-him fast Ghostzapper, won the 150th Belmont Stakes to become the 13th Triple Crown Champion, the second in three years after 2015’s American Pharoah. He’s the second undefeated horse to take the Crown, after 1977’s Seattle Slew, and the first horse ever to win it without racing at two-years-old.
Bob Baffert is the second trainer to sweep the Triple Crown, after Jim “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons, who did it with 1930’s Gallant Fox and 1935’s Omaha. The trainers both did their Crowns consecutively.
As post time approached, the obvious shouted as super trainer Bob Baffert, who also trained ‘Pharoah, seemed to have a certain calm about him, and Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith might have been floating off the floor when he said he couldn’t wait to get the race started.
As it turned out, it was a perfect storm of breeding, training and riding.
Posted on June 10, 2018
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #204: George McClownsky And His Media Acolytes
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
That’s a clown column, bro. Plus: Crazy Uncle Joe’s Overmanaging Like It’s Going Out Of Style; The Capitals’ Blackhawk; Warriors Came Out To Play; White Sox Tips; TrackNotes Tips; The Unbelievable Money In eSports; Bet Delaware; Schweinsteiger! and The Minnesota Lynx Dunk On Donald Trump.
Posted on June 8, 2018
TrackNotes: Justify? Justify.
By Thomas Chambers
We’ve had the royal U.S. Army veteran Sir Barton. The dervish Whirlaway, aka “Mr. Longtail.” The imperial War Admiral, typecast as literary and celluloid antagonist decades later.
Wartime’s Count Fleet, deserving of racing’s Purple Heart if it had one. Says-it-right-here Citation, the first Million Dollar Baby. Penny Chenery’s authoritatively named Secretariat. And American Pharoah, traditional Thoroughbred zeitgeist in our new global millennium.
For the second time in three years, there’s a real chance the church ladies will have to add another square to the quilt, number 13. His name?
Justify.
Who?
Posted on June 7, 2018
Full-Scale Sports Betting Arrives in Delaware
By AP
“Less than a month after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for sports betting, Delaware has taken advantage of the rule, putting legal wagering within driving distance of three major East Coast cities.”
Posted on June 7, 2018
Video Gamers May Soon Be Paid More Than Top Pro Athletes
By Louis-Etienne Dubois and Laurel Walzak/The Conversation
Your interest in sports may have started out as a hobby when you were just a kid. You were better at it than others, and some even said you were gifted. Maybe you had a chance to develop into a professional athlete.
Colleges would soon line up to extend full scholarships. If you pushed hard enough, practiced countless hours and kept a cool head, lucrative contracts and international fame awaited.
This fantasy plays out for many kids who dream of “making it to the big leagues.”
Whether they play hockey, football or basketball, even the most remote possibility of turning their love of the game into a respected career is worth sacrificing for.
Enter video games.
Posted on June 7, 2018
Which Side Are You On? | Donald Trump And The NFL’s Rich White Owners Vs. Colin Kaepernick, African Americans And People Against Unjustified Police Killings
By Rev. Jesse Jackson
President Donald Trump is an admirer of “strong men” and dictatorships and has little regard for democracy.
Dictatorships don’t spring up overnight – they’re cultivated and marched forward in a systematic manner with a similar formula: dictators undermine society’s institutions of democracy, like constitutions, customs and mores, including the right to protest.
Dictators divide people and pit them against one another, using race, religion and class. Dictators undermine the rule of law and disregard justice, and do it all in the name of “law and order;” dictators systematically lie to their people and have no regard for facts, science or the truth; dictators systematically attack freedom of the press; and rich oligarchs do dictators’ bidding, e.g., NFL owners. Many of them gave millions of dollars to Trump’s election and inauguration.
Posted on June 5, 2018