Mostly Sports

Champions League Semifinals: Dortmund and Real Madrid prevail, move to final

POSTED MAY 9. 2o24

The Champions Leagues' all-time leader will play the semifinals underdog for the title by way of their victories over Bayern Munich and Pari Saint-Germain.  Real Madrid hold the record for the most victories, having won the competition fourteen times, including the inaugural edition. They have also won the competition the most consecutive times, with five straight titles from 1956 to 1960.  Dortmund, which has one Champions League title, will be making its third appearance.  The Final will be held at Wembley Stadium in London on June 1. CBS will broadcast the match at 3pm.

Links clockwise from the top left: highlights of the Dortmund-PSG second leg; Bayern-Real second leg; UEFA's "meet the teams"; CBS Sports post on Dortmund as "the most unlikely Champion's League finalist ever".

Champions League Semifinals: First Leg

POSTED MAY 2, 2024

Bayern and Real Madrid battled to a 2-2 draw and Dortmund defeated PSG 1-0 in the first leg of the Champions League Semifinals.  The second half of Dortmund-PSG match was one of the most exciting halves of soccer I've ever seen - even though neither team scored a goal.  End to end action with numerous shots on goal...both teams putting in a spectacular effort, leaving it all on the field...Dortmund, the "surprise" semifinalist, comes out on top. [Full disclosure: I am rooting for Dortmund. Not only are they the underdogs in the semifinals, I have a German friend who is a Dortmund fan.]

Highlights below.

The second leg matches, which will determine the finalists, are broadcast on CBS next Tuesday and Wednesday 3pm Eastern time.  Meet the final four teams in this post on the UEFA website.

Real Madrid, Bayern, Dortmund, and Paris St. Germain in Champions League Semifinals

POSTED APRIL 18, 2024

The second leg matches of the Champions League Quarterfinals are complete.  Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Paris St. Germain moved on the Semifinals with victories over Manchester City, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona, respectively.   

Real Madrid played Manchester City to a draw in the second leg of their matchup and then won the aggregate on penalty kicks. The past two Champions League victors settled things in a penalty shootout after playing to a 1-1 draw. There Real Madrid scored a 4-3 shootout victory to stun the reigning Champions League victors.  With the shootout tied at 3-3 after two saves by Real goalkeeper Andriy Lunin and a save by Man City's Ederson Moraes, the fate of the match rested on the leg of Real's Antonio Rüdiger. He sent the ball to the left side of the net past Ederson to secure victory.  The loss also snapped a remarkable stretch of home dominance for Man City, which last lost at Etihad Stadium in Champions League play on Sept. 18, 2018, to Lyons. Until Wednesday, it had since gone 27-0-2 at home in Champions league matches.  [below left]

In the other quarterfinal Wednesday, Bayern Munich advanced past Arsenal with a 1-0 victory. The two sides entered Wednesday tied in the aggregate score after a 2-2 draw in the first leg last week in London. [below left]

In Tuesday's games

• Borussia Dortmund stormed into the Champions League semi-finals with a 4-2 home win over Atlético Madrid that saw them fight back from a 2-1 defeat in the first leg to win the tie 5-4 on aggregate. [highlights below right]

• Barcelona's wait for a first Champions League semifinal appearance since 2019 goes on after Xavi Hernández's side imploded against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday following Ronald Araújo's first half sending off at the Olympic Stadium.  Barça were leading 1-0 on the night, 4-2 on aggregate after last week's first leg win in Paris, when Araujo lightly bundled Bradley Barcola down just outside the area in the 29th minute. The referee quickly branded a red card, and with it Barça's hopes of reaching the last four disappeared as quickly as Barcola had dropped to the deck, with the game ending 6-4 on aggregate.

The Semifinal matches:

First leg: Bayern at Real Madrid April 30    Dortmund at Paris May 1

Second leg: Paris at Dortmund May 7           Real Madrid at Bayern  May 8

All matches kickoff at 3 PM Eastern Time.

South Carolina wins Women's Title; U Conn repeats as Men's Champion

POSTED APRIL 9, 2024

March Madness is over and the two #1 overall seeds in both the Men's and Women's Tournament have come away with their respective national championships.  

For the second time in two seasons, an SEC team stopped Iowa in the Women's championship game.  Last year, LSU pasted a 17 point, 102 - 85 defeat, on Caitlin Clarke and the Hawkeyes.  This year, South Carolina handed Iowa a 12 point, 87-75 loss, and denied Clarke, the best player in women's college basketball, the national title. South Carolina finished its incredible season 37-0.  Three takeaways from  the game are below left.

In the Men's Tournament U Conn repeated as national champions, the first time that's happened since 2007 when Florida did it. U Conn finished with a 37-3 record after a contest featuring two seven-footers as the marquee attraction. For the Huskies, that meant 7-foot-2-inch Donovan Clingan, a two-way terror for UConn who imposes himself at both ends of the court.  For Purdue, that meant 7-foot-4-inch Zach Edey, a back-to-back winner of the Naismith Men's Player of the Year Award, the first player to do so since former Virginia star Ralph Sampson in the early 1980s. Postgame analysis from Fox Sports is below right.

The NCAA Tournaments' Final Fours are set

POSTED APRIL 2, 2024

The Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight weekend is over, and the Final Four matchups are set.  

• Two #1 seeds in both the Men's (U Conn and Purdue) and Women's tournaments (South Carolina and Iowa) made it through to their Final Fours.  This sets up the possibility of two number 1 seeds meeting in the title game for the first time since 2021 , in the Men's Tournament (Baylor 86, Gonzaga 70); and for the first time since 2019 (Baylor 82, Notre Dame 81)in the Women's Tournament.

• Both NC State teams, a #11 men's seed and a #3 women's seed, made it to their respective Final Fours.  Both U Conn teams, a #1 men's seed and a #3 women's seed, it to their respective Final Fours. This is the first time that two schools have both teams in the Final Four in the same season. In other words, it's possible that NC State or U Conn will win both titles.

• In the Women's Tournament, South Carolina's 4 point victory over Indiana  in the Sweet 16 kept the Gamecocks, the #1 overall seed, alive.  In a rematch of last year's title game, # 1 seed Iowa came away with a 7 point victory over LSU. The score was knotted at 45 at the half before the unstoppable Caitlin Clarke erupted to seal the victory. [highlights below right] The Final Four in the Women's Tournament has NC State playing 36-0 South Carolina and U Conn playing Iowa.

• In the Men's Tournament, #1 seed Purdue came away with a 6 point victory over  #2 seed Tennessee in an epic battle between two great teams.  #1 seed U Conn sailed through its bracket with victories of 39, 17, 30 and 25 points. The Final Four in the Men's Tournament will see Purdue playing NC State and 35-3 U Conn playing Alabama.

Women's Final Four

Preview NCAA Women’s Final Four preview and predictions: Iowa vs. UConn, South Carolina vs. NC State - The Athletic 

 7:00 pm Friday April 5: NC State v South Carolina (ESPN) 

9:30 pm Friday April 5: Iowa v U Conn at 9:30 pm (ESPN)

3:00 pm Sunday April 7: Title Game (ABC)

Men's Final Four

Preview Men's Final Four 2024: Full Breakdown, Predictions and Stars to Watch - Bleacher Report 

6:09 pm Saturday April 6: NC State v Purdue (TBS)

8:49 pm Saturday April 6: Alabama v U Conn (TBS)

9:20 pm Monday April 8: Title Game (TBS)

NCAA Tournaments' Sweet Sixteen match-ups are set

POSTED MARCH 26, 2024

The Men's Sweet Sixteen games were finalized Sunday.  The first round saw all four # 1 seeds (U Conn, Houston, UNC, Purdue) move on.  Blowouts were the order of the day for the top seeds, with only Houston having even a slight scare in its 100-95 victory over Texas A&M. [highlights below left].  Lowest seed still alive is #11 NC State.  Biggest upset of the opening week was #14 Oakland's 4 point victory over #3 seed Kentucky.

The field for the Women's Sweet Sixteen was completed Monday.  The four #1 seeds (South Carolina, Iowa, USC and Texas) all went through with little difficulty.  Lowest seed still in the dance is #7 seed Duke, who rallied from a 16 point early first half deficit to upset #2 seed Ohio State 75-63. [recap below right]

Champions League moves to quarterfinals

POSTED MARCH 14, 2024

The UEFA Champions League pits the best soccer clubs in Europe against each other annually.  Some of the best play you will ever see happens during the tournament because, unlike the national teams, these teams have been playing together all season and often for several seasons.  The 2023-2024 Champions League is now going to the quarterfinals.

Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester City, Paris, Real Madrid, Dortmund, and Atletico Madrid have secured their places in the last eight of this season's  Champion's League competition.  The quarter-finals will be played across two legs on April 9/10 and April 16/17. After that, the semi-finals will be played across two legs on April 30/May 1 and May 7/8.

Recaps and analyses from Tuesday's and Wednesday's matches are below.

• 16-year-old Lamine Yamal and 17-year-old Pau Cubarsí made history for Barcelona as they were the first side in Champions League history to start two players ages 17 or under in a knockout round match. The gamble paid off with a 3-1 victory over Napoli.

• Supporters and pundits were asking some questions when Arsenal signed David Raya this summer. Consider them answered.  The Arsenal goalkeeper stopped two shots in the penalty shootout, propelling his team into the quarterfinals.

• The last Italian team still standing was eliminated in overtime. Up 2-0 after the first leg, Inter Milan fell to Atletico in the second leg shootout that featured an outstanding performance by keeper Atletico Jan Oblak. 

• Jadon Sancho and Marco Reus scored goals as Borussia Dortmund secured a  2-0 win against PSV Eindhoven and a Champions League quarterfinals place for the first time in three years with a 3-1 aggregate victory.  

Chiefs Defeat Forty-Niners in OT, Repeat as Super Bowl Champions

POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2024

A half dozen post-Super Bowl musings:

1.  Patrick Mahomes is one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game.  On Sunday, Mahomes, who was the game's MVP, became the third QB in NFL history to notch 15-plus playoff wins and just the fifth ever to win three Super Bowls.  He's just 28 years old.

2.  The San Francisco Forty-Niners had another disappointing Super Bowl loss.  A punt that bounced off the foot of a San Francisco player, a blocked PAT, and a call for holding in overtime with the ball 2nd and 2 at the KC 18 sealed their fate.  Had any one of these not happened, Patrick Mahomes might not have had a chance at that game-winning drive in OT.

3. Am I the only one who got really tired of seeing Taylor Swift's reactions to the game and really lost trying to follow Tony Romo's play explanations? Maybe I'm just getting old.

4. The Chiefs have earned the right to the "Dynasty" designation. (link below left)

5. Usher gave us a spectacular half-time show.

6. My favorite commercials were "Like a Good Neighbaaa" and the Clydesdales.  (No. 1 and No. 8 on the USA Today list linked below right.)

Conference Championships: KC v Baltimore, SF v Detroit

POSTED JANUARY 23, 2024

Divisional Round Highlights

This Sunday, the NFL's Conference Championships will be decided.  In the AFC, Kansas City by virtue of a 24-21 victory over Buffalo visits Baltimore, who defeated Houston 34-10.  In the NFC, San Francisco by virtue of a 24-21 victory over Green Bay hosts Detroit who defeated Tampa Bay  31-23.  Highlights from the Kansas City - Buffalo game are below left; from the San Francisco - Green Bay game are below right.

Underdogs' Keys to Victory

Baltimore (-3.5) and San Francisco (-7) are favored to win.  

Bookmakers Review [link below left] point to 3 keys for the underdog Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Baltimore Ravens.

1. Survive the first 35 minutes.

2. Contain Baltimore's running game.

3. Limit mistakes and don't allow the Ravens to get great field position.

As for the other underdog, the Lions need to [link below right]

1. Have a massive game from QB Jared Goff and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

2. Wake up their defense to stop a potent 49er offense.

3. Use their energy and enthusiasm to overcome the 49ers  edge in playoff experience.

Michigan overpowers Washington to capture college football's national championship

POSTED JANUARY 9, 2024

Michigan defeated Washington 34-13 to capture its first national title since 1997.  Michigan dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage, amassing an historic 303 rushing yards while holding Washington to just 46 yards on the ground.  Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards led the way for Michigan with 134 and 106 yards, respectively, and quarterback J. J. McCarthy finished his college career with a 27-1 record as a starter.  

One of the most talented Michigan teams in decades overcame a 3-game suspension of head coach Jim Harbaugh earlier this season, and "Michigan Against Everybody" became a rallying cry for the team and their fans.  It was Harbaugh's first national championship and he joked, "I can now sit at the big person's table in the family".  Dad Jack Harbaugh led Western Kentucky to an NCAA Division I Football Championship in 2002, and brother John Harbaugh led the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl win in the 2013 Super Bowl.

Highlights and analysis from CBS Sports are below left.  ESPN analysis and recap can be found here.  Full game video highlights from the  ESPN broadcast are below right.

Washington to play Michigan for the College Football National Championship

POSTED JANUARY 3, 2024

The last year of the 4 team format of the College Football Playoffs ended with a flourish with two down-to-the-final-whistle matches between four great teams.  

The Rose Bowl matchup between Michigan and Alabama went to overtime after J. J. McCarthy led his team down the field for the tying touchdown with 94 seconds left in regulation.  Michigan scored in OT, 'Bama didn't.  Michigan 27, Alabama 20.  Highlights below left.

In the Sugar Bowl, Texas, trailing by 6, marched down the field in the last minute and had a first down at the Washington 12 with 15 ticks left on the clock.  Washington held on four straight passing plays including a sensational breakup in the end zone as time ran out. Highlights below right.

The rest of the Bowl games featured some spectacular blowouts but little excitement.  Just 3 of the 22 other Bowl games of the past week were decided by less than one touchdown - Wyoming 16, Toledo 15; Clemson 38, Kentucky 35; LSU 35, Wisconsin 31.  (Click on the links for highlights of these games.)

College Football Playoffs are set

POSTED DECEMBER 6, 2023

The CFP Selection Committee announced its decision on Sunday, tapping Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama as the four contenders for the national championship.  Notably missing was Florida State, the first undefeated Power Five conference champion to be denied a place in the CFP playoffs.  The apparent "thinking" was that since Florida State's star quarterback was injured and not available, FSU would not be playing as well as the selected teams.  SI's Dan Gartland notes that the four-team Playoff era ended with the most controversial decision the committee has ever made. (link below left)

Florida State gets to play Georgia in the Orange Bowl on December 30 in what might have been the playoff matchup had Georgia not been defeated by Alabama in the SEC conference championship.  Other top "must see" non-playoff bowls are defensive powerhouse Penn State against offensive powerhouse "Ole Miss" (Peach Bowl, Dec 30), and Ohio State v Missouri (Cotton Bowl, Dec 29).  (link below center)

You may not see lead Heisman Trophy candidate Jayden Daniels play in LSU's matchup against unranked Wisconsin, but below right is a highlight "reel" of his record setting season.  

Texas Rangers Crowned World Champions for First Time in Franchise History

POSTED NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Entering this season, the Rangers' five-year winning percentage (.417, or 67.5 wins per 162 games) was the franchise's worst since 1974, its third season after the move from Washington.  In its combined 63 years in Washington D.C. and Arlington (20 miles from Dallas), they had never won a World Series.  An aggressive free agent acquisition spree over the past two winters took them from a paltry 68-94 in 2022 to a first place tie with the dynasty-in-the-making Houston Astros in the AL West. 

On Wednesday night, the Rangers' long wait to be crowned World Champions ended with a fifth game 5-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.  It was a game that might have ended differently had the Diamondbacks converted oppotunities into runs in the early innings.  Arizona left nine men on base through five innings and went 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position.  

Game 5 highlights are below left.

Corey Seager was named World Series MVP, becoming just the fourth player to win that honor multiple times [link below right], and winning pitcher, left-handed reliever Will Smith, became the first player in MLB history to win three World Series in a row with three different teams. 

The World Series

POSTED OCTOBER 25, 2023

The Arizona Diamondbacks will face the Texas Rangers in the 2023 World Series.  Both leagues' Championship Series went the distance with the Rangers trouncing the Astros 11-4 in Game 7 of the ALCS and the Diamondbacks eking out a 4-2 victory over the Phillies in the NLCS Game 7.  [links below]

The Diamondbacks left Arizona down 3 games to 2 and had to win the final two games in Philadelphia.  It marks their first appearance in the World Series since 2001, which they won for their only WS title.  

The Rangers likewise had to win Games 6 and 7 at their opponent's ballpark, traveling to Houston after a bench-clearing brawl in Game 5 in Dallas.  In the 62 years of the franchise's existence, which includes 11 seasons as the Washington Senators before their move to Dallas, the Rangers have never won a World Series.  Their last appearance was in 2011 where they were one strike away from the title before a St. Louis Cardinals Game 6 rally crushed their hopes.

What does each team need to do to win?

POSTED OCTOBER 27, 2023

ESPN's analysis is linked below left.  News5 in Dallas and the bookmakers have the Rangers as early favorites [link below right] in spite of this season's head-to-head's - Arizona won 3 of the 4 games.

MLB Postseason

POSTED OCTOBER 15, 2023

The American League Championship Series begins today with interstate rivals Texas Rangers and Houston Astros playing at Houston.  The NLCS starts Monday with the Phillies hosting the Diamondbacks.  Bleacher Report (link below) gives us its take on biggest surprises and disappointments of the postseason, which they've dubbed "The Postseason of the Rookie." 

POSTED OCTOBER 19, 2023

The ALCS and NLCS just got tighter and we are in for two good series.  Thursday night, Arizona came back with a 2-1 win over Philadelphia to pick up their first victory in the NLCS.  Dynasty-in-the-making Houston trounced Texas 10-3 to even the ALCS at 2 games apiece. [links below]

POSTED OCTOBER 21, 2023

On Friday, baseball fans were treated to two thrilling games both decided in the last at-bats of the victors.  

A three-run homer in the top of the ninth lifted Houston over Texas 5-4.  Jose Altuve has the second-most postseason home runs in MLB history, and he delivered one of his biggest yet with ALCS Game 5 on the line. The Astros trailed the Rangers by two entering the final frame, but a three-run blast from Altuve put Houston ahead 5-4. Houston now leads the series 3 games to 2.  [link below left]

Rallying from a three-run deficit, the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Philadelphia Phillies.  Alek Thomas hit a tying, two-run homer in a three-run eighth inning, Gabriel Moreno followed with a go-ahead single,  and the Arizona Diamondbacks stunned the Philadelphia Phillies with a 6-5 victory on Friday night that tied the NL Championship Series at two games apiece. [link below right]

Women's World Cup

Spain Defeats England 1-0 for Women's World Cup Championship

POSTED AUGUST 20, 2023

Spain bested England 1-0 to take home the 2023 Women's World Cup.  Spain survived 13 minutes of stoppage time to secure the victory. A left-footed strike from fullback Olga Carmona in the 29th minute was part of a dominant first half for Spain that proved to be just enough to hold off England. (Fox Sports)  Spain became the first country to win both the Men's and Women's World Cups.

Highlights are in the link below left.  The tournament's Golden Ball, Boot and Glove winners are featured in the link below right.

Finals preview

Lauren James, England's top scorer, returns after being suspended for two matches as England takes on Spain and its teenage phenom Salma Paralluelo. (Link below left)  Fox Sports will broadcast the championship game starting at 6 a.m. on Sunday August 20.  Oddsmakers give Spain a slight edge (-110 to -106) but London's Evening Standard is predicting a 2-0 victory for their nation's womend's team.

Semifinals

On Tuesday, Spain defeated Sweden 2-1 with all three goals coming in the last 10 minutes of play - two of them in the last 3 minutes.  On Wednesday, England defeated an overmatched Australia 3-1.  The victors will play for the World Cup on Sunday, and Sweden will face Australia in the game for third place on Saturday.  Highlights and recaps below.  

Quarterfinals

The USWNT has already exited, and the knockout rounds proceed without the pre-tournament presumptive favorite.  

Meet the last 8 teams in the running for the Women's World Cup (NPR, Aug 9)

Meet the breakout stars of the 2023 Women's World Cup (Fox Sports, Aug 10)

Recaps of the quarterfinal matches and highlights of England's 2-1 comeback victory over Colombia.  Spain takes on Sweden and England faces Australia in the semifinals. 

Goliath defeats David 1-0 in Champion's League final

POSTED JUNE 12, 2023

Heavily-favored Manchester City, the world's third highest salaried soccer squad, defeated Inter Milan, whose financial struggles continue despite their run in the Champions League.  A 68th minute goal by midfielder Rodri, who was named Champion League Player of the Season, put Man City up 1-0.    Man City goal keeper Ederson turned away a barrage of Inter shots in the closing minutes of regular time and extra time, to preserve the win.  By virtue of their victory, Man City became just the second English club to win Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League titles in the same season, joining Manchester United, which accomplished the treble in 1999.

Highlights are below left; analysis, below right.

Inter Milan takes on Manchester City in Champion's League final this Saturday

POSTED JUNE 6, 2023

The Champions League season draws to a close this coming Saturday as Inter Milan takes on Manchester City. The final will be played on Saturday June 10 in Istanbul's Ataturk Olympic Stadium at 3 pm Eastern time.  CBS Sports will broadcast the match.

Newly-crowned Premier League champions Manchester City are unbeaten in this season's UEFA Champions League, winning seven of their 12 contests on the way to Istanbul and knocking out Bayern München and last season's title holders Real Madrid. They could become the eighth side to lift the trophy without losing a game in the UEFA Champions League era.

Inter, the 2022/23 Coppa Italia winners but currently in third place in Serie A, have suffered two defeats on their way to this final, both against Bayern at the start and end of their group stage campaign. They have won four of their six knockout games, keeping five clean sheets.

Links below from the left: the UEFA web page on the Champions League final, the Manchester Evening News' "Man City FC" web page, and Corriere Della Sera's Champions League page.  On the last: it's in Italian.  You will have to use your browser's translator to read it in English.

Source: UEFA

Jim Brown, Malcolm Brogdon, and Vinícius Júnior

POSTED MAY 25, 2023

Recent news and reflections on the life and times of the "greatest football player ever", the NBA's Sixth Man Award winner, and an international superstar's encounter with racism.

Jim Brown

“I crave only the rights I’m entitled to as a human being. The acceptance of the Negro in sports is really an insignificant development that warms the heart of the Negro less than it does that of the white man. … The problem is a little bigger than a ball game.” - Jim Brown

The great Jim Brown passed away last week at age 87.  A first-round draft pick out of Syracuse, Brown played nine seasons for the Cleveland Browns (1957-65) and led the league in rushing eight of those years. He rushed for 12,312 yards and averaged 5.2 yards per carry over his career. Many consider him the greatest running back of all-time.  Patriots' head coach Bill Belichik went further, calling Brown "the greatest football player ever".  

Jim Brown's football career spanned the Civil Rights Era,  and he was among the first athletes to use his talent and fame to advance racial justice.  When he entered Syracuse as a freshmen in 1953, schools were still segregated.  Brown lived in a separate dorm and ate on a different meal plan from the rest of the team.  When he retired from professional football, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had become laws of the land.  During his career and in retirement he was a tireless advocate for racial justice.  A Sports Illustrated article from 1994 noted: 

"He has lived in the same house, driven the same car, had the same telephone number since 1968. That was the spring when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. A framed portrait of King hangs in Brown's foyer. But nowhere on display in the house is a single personal memento of Brown's own varied careers -- as a football superstar, as a film actor, as an activist in what he calls 'the movement for dignity, equality and justice.'

Among his formidable accomplishments off the field

• Brown helped start the Negro Industrial Economic Union (later renamed the Black Economic Union), which would provide financial assistance to more than 400 Black businesses. 

• He launched a movie career in ’64 that would span five decades and 43 movies, and help expand the breadth of roles offered to Black actors. 

• In the early ’90s, dispirited by gang violence in the inner cities, Brown founded the Amer-I-Can program, whose fundamental purpose was teaching life management skills to young Black men, both on the street and in prisons.  Reflecting on his own remarkable life, Jim Brown is "paying it forward." Without the support of the many adults who helped him in his youth, "...it would've been impossible...These people actually saved my life, man. I would never, ever have been anything without them. And it was so pure. If kids can see honesty and interest from people of that age, that's what builds, man...You wanna see what goodness is? I look at those people. I know what love is. I know what patience is. I know what consistency is. I know what honesty is.'' 

Jim Brown embraced his role as a champion of civil rights, a role that would define much of his adult life.  "When Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army in ’65, Brown was among the athletes who organized a civil rights summit in Cleveland. At a historic press conference, Brown sat next to Ali, flanked by Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Brown became a strident voice on race in America, a powerful presence that often made white audiences uncomfortable, which is exactly how Brown would have it." [link below left]

Malcolm Brogdon

"All of us have elders and ancestors that have been marching for us and for our people for hundreds of years.  They laid the groundwork for us." - Malcolm Brogdon

Boston Celtics guard Malcolm Brogdon won the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award* this season.   TNT's interview with the unassuming point guard shortly after he won the award is linked below center. In it, Brogdon talks about his transition from a starter at Indiana to the sixth man at Boston, how he "checked his ego at the door" when he came to Boston and how he came to understand the role he was being asked to play.  Prompted by Charles Barkley, he also speaks about his nonprofit that for several years has been building wells in Tanzania and Kenya and will soon expand to other parts of Africa.  

Family service trips to Ghana and Malawi during his youth had sparked an interest in clean-water projects and began a dedication to public service that goes back generations.  His great-grandfather helped launch the first civil rights organization in segregated South Carolina in the 1920's.  In the 1950's his grandfather, then President of Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas backed student sit-ins and in the 1960's, as a bishop in the AME church  marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Named for Malcolm X, Brogdon was more influenced on a daily basis during his childhood by MLK, like Brogdon a native of Atlanta and whose Center for Nonviolent Social Change was within walking distance of Malcolm's childhood home.  Quiet and a private person by nature, Malcolm Brogdon nonetheless will speak out about the things that he is passionate about as he has on mass incarceration, which he calls "the new slavery...the new Jim Crow," and on the killing of George Floyd.

Vinicius Jr.

“Today has been a sad day..., where a group of fans have shown their worst version. It is time to stop talking and act forcefully. Racism has no place in football or in society. NO TO RACISM ANYWHERE.” - Carlo Ancelotti, manager of Real Madrid

Twenty-two year old Brazilian Vinícius Júnior is one of the best soccer players in the world.  Signed by Real Madrid as a 17-year-old, his speed, dribbling abilities and playmaking skills make him a scoring threat every time he touches the ball.  But life in La Liga, Spain's top tier league, has not been simple for Vini Jr. who is black.  Last weekend, he was again the target of racist chants - this time from a group of Valencia fans.  

The Spanish league had previously lodged complaints of racist chanting or insults against Vinícius Júnior, the latest of which was a claim before a court in Mallorca after fans were filmed racially abusing the forward. Spanish police are also investigating a possible hate crime against him after a mannequin wearing his No 20 shirt was hung from a bridge outside Real Madrid’s training ground in January.

The latest incident prompted a massive outpouring of support from around the world and from his teammates.  The lights of the Christ the Redeemer statue, which overlooks Rio de Janeiro, were turned off for an hour “in solidarity with the player and with all who suffer prejudice around the world.”  At this Wednesday's match, his Real Madrid teammates walked onto the pitch wearing his number 20 shirt in a show of solidarity.  Sports giant Nike also posted an image of Vinícius on Instagram alongside the words: “Stop looking the other way.”

Soccer's racism problem is not confined to Spain., and one must wonder what is it about the game that, here in the 21st century, brings out racial slurs not heard in professional American stadiums since the 1940's and 1950's.  According to Raúl Martínez-Corcuera, a professor who researches hate speech in the media at Spain’s University of Vic, racism in sports, especially soccer, “is a reflection” of society. “In the Spanish case, we have been criticizing for a long time the fact that football has normalized hate speech,” including racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Other academics have long recognized soccer “as a space for heteronormative white men, and everything that does not respond to these characteristics is attacked," adding that hate speech and other forms of prejudice are acts that are rarely censored or sanctioned by sports institutions or the media.”

*The trophy honors Celtics Hall of Famer John Havlicek, who excelled off the bench like no player before him. Havlicek came off the bench for the first seven seasons of his career and was an All-Star in four of those seasons. 

Sources: ESPN, Sports Illustrated - 1, Sports Illustrated - 2, Andscape, Sports Illustrated-3 ("The Education of Malcom Brogdon", Sports Illustrated, April 2021 issue), Washington Post, Clutch Points

Champions League: Inter and Man City going to the Final after defeating Milan and Real

POSTED MAY 18, 2023

Inter Milan is going to the Champions League Final for the first time in more than a decade after defeating its intracity rival AC Milan 1-0 on Tuesday (3-0 aggregate).  Manchester City continued its phenomenal home streak in international play trouncing Real Madrid 4-0 on Wednesday (5-1 aggregate).  Man City returns to the Champions League Final after a one season absence.  They are still seeking their first ever title. In 2021, they lost to Chelsea 1-0 in an all-English Final.  

The Final will be played on Saturday June 10 in Istanbul's Ataturk Olympic Stadium at 3 pm Eastern time.  Posts on the two teams along with highlights of the second leg matches are below.

Champions League Semifinals: Real and Man City tie, Inter defeats Milan in first leg

POSTED MAY 10, 2023

Inter Milan took a commanding 2-0 lead over AC Milan while Real Madrid and Manchester City played to a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the Champions League Semifinals.  Real has its work cut out for them when they visit Man City next week.  Man City's last defeat in a European match at their Etihad Stadium came way back in September 2018, when Lyon were the visitors for a group stage fixture.  Since then, they have won 23 and drawn two of their Champions League games in Manchester.

Game highlights and analyses are linked below.

Champions League Semifinals begin next week

POSTED MAY 3, 2023

The first leg of the UEFA Champions League Semifinals begins next week with Manchester City taking on Madrid and Inter Milan taking on AC Milan.  CBS will broadcast the first leg games at 3pm Eastern on May 9 (Real Madrid- Man City) and May 10 (Milan-Inter).

A half-dozen interesting facts about the teams, managers and players who will be bringing us the best that the world of soccer has to offer along with UEFA's "all you need to know" post [link below right] and ESPN's key player match ups and predictions. [link below left]:

1. The Champions League began life as the European Cup in 1955 with 16 sides taking part. It changed into the Champions League in 1992.  

2. The 2022/23 Champions League began play last September with a group stage of 32 sides in 8 groups.  The UEFA Champions League final will take place at Istanbul's Atatürk Olympic Stadium on Saturday June 10. 

3. The teams meeting in the semifinals have brought home the championship 24 times with Real Madrid winning 14 times, more than any other club.  AC Milan has won 7 finals (they are #2 on the all-time list), and Inter Milan has won 3. Manchester City, which has won four English Premier League titles over the last 5 seasons, is looking to take home its first Champions League title.

4. As do all top tier European clubs, the four remaining contenders feature an international cast of players and managers.  At least 24 nations have players competing in the Semifinals. "Pep" Guardiola, the manager of Manchester City, is from Spain, and Carlo Ancelotti, the manager of Real Madrid, is from Italy. 

5. The oldest of the clubs is Manchester City, founded in 1880 as St. Marks (West Groton).  AC Milan was founded by a British expat in 1899 as the Milan Foot-ball and Cricket Club.  Inter Milan was founded in 1908 as Football Club Internazionale following a split with AC Milan.  Real Madrid was founded in 1902.

6. The 2022-2023 regular season is drawing to a close in May.  With about 85% of the matches played, the only one of the four teams with a chance at a title in its nation's top league is Manchester City, currently 2 points behind Arsenal in the English Premier League.

Real Madrid, Milan, Man City, and Inter advance to Champions League Semifinals

POSTED APRIL 20, 2023

Real Madrid, Milan, Man City, and Inter advanced to the Champions League Semifinals this week after their two-leg victories over Chelsea (4-0 aggregate), Napoli (2-1 aggregate), Bayern (4-1 aggregate), and Benfica Lisbon (5-3 aggregate), respectively. The first leg of the semifinals sees Manchester City at Madrid on May 9 and Inter at their crosstown rivals Milan on May 10. The games are being broadcast on CBS at 3 pm Eastern.  

Highlights and analysis of the second leg match between Napoli and AC Milan are below left; extended highlights of Inter Milan v Benfica, below right.

Champions: LSU and UConn sit atop the college basketball world

POSTED APRIL 4, 2023

After closely contested games and upset-filled runs in the earlier rounds, March Madness ended with two seventeen-point blowouts.  On Sunday, LSU defeated Iowa 102-85 to take home the Women's Tournament trophy for the first time. On Monday, UConn picked up its 5th national title, overwhelming San Diego State 76-59.

LSU 102 - Iowa 85

UConn 76 - San Diego State 59

Super Bowl LVII was one of the best ever

POSTED FEBRUARY 13. 2023

On Sunday night, we football fans were treated to an instantly classic Super Bowl.  The two best teams in the NFL met, and the resulting game ranks easily in the top 5 ever.  The epic contest ended with a flourish as fans saw:

• Kansas City rally from a 10 point halftime deficit to take an 8 point lead with 9:22 left in the game on a touchdown set up by Kadarius Toney's 65 yard punt return

• The Eagles respond with a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the game at the 5:15 mark, 

• And Patrick Mahomes take the Chiefs the length of the field for a game-winning field goal with 8 seconds left.  

Both Mahomes, the game MVP, and Hurts had stellar performances with QBR's of 131.8 and 103.4, respectively.  Hurts also had 3 rushing TD's and a 2 point conversion.  Game recap video can be found here.

Rihanna delivered a dynamic half-time performance, which "required the participation of some 800 people, from camera operators to stage crews, to Rihanna and her 80 dancers and seven band members. The most technically-advanced Super Bowl halftime show that’s ever been done."  You can find her full performance here.

As for the best and worst commercials, it's all  a matter of taste as the two competing lists linked below show [athletic.com's link left; NPR link right].  My personal favorites were the Binky Dad (#13 in athletic.com's list), the Rock Star (under Mehsville in athletic.com), the Dave Grohl thanks Canada (#7b in athletic.com's list), and the Premature Electrification (#8 in athletic.com's list).

Super Bowl LVII Weekend

POSTED FEBRUARY 9, 2023

America's most watched sporting event takes place this coming weekend. Of course, the game is the focus but there are plenty of other things to enjoy in this annual spectacle.  Super Bowl LVII pits AFC's #1 seed, the Kansas City Chiefs, against the NFC's #1 seed. the Philadelphia Eagles.  They meet in Arizona on Sunday at 6:30 pm Eastern Time.  The game is broadcast on Fox.

They have two of the top three offenses, two of the top three defenses, and their quarterbacks are two of the three finalists for NFL MVP.  So Super Bowl LVII has all the ingredients to be a classic.  There have been some incredible Super Bowls over the past 57 years [link below], and the Chiefs-Eagles matchup will hopefully be just as entertaining.

The Game

The last time the Eagles were the top seed in the NFC, they won the Super Bowl in the 2017 season. The Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl LII. This also marked the last time two No. 1 seeds faced off in the NFL's championship game. This will be the fourth Super Bowl appearance for the Eagles - with previous appearances in 1981, 2005, and 2018. Their only victory came in Super Bowl LII.

This will be the fifth appearance for the Kansas City Chiefs.  The Chiefs appeared in Super Bowl I, losing to Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers.  Their record in Super Bowls is 2-2 with their last victory being against the San Francisco 49ers in 2020 (Super Bowl LIV)

According to the oddsmakers, the Eagles are a 1.5 point favorite to win this year. 

Jason Burgos at Sportsnaut gives us three reasons why the Eagles to win (below left) and Ben Arthur at Fox Sports gives us three keys to victory for the Chiefs (below right).  

The Commercials

Newly released commercials have been a part of Super Bowl Sunday for decades.  Opinions as to what are the best of all-time vary according to personal taste, although there are several that are on everybody's favorites list.  My personal favorite is still the "Mean Joe" Coke commercial from 1979 [link left].  Yardbarker's list of the top 25, posted today is in the link right.

This year, a Super Bowl advertiser will pay $6-7 million for a 30 second commercial.  Brands that have already released teasers for their Super Bowl 2023 commercials include Bud Light, Budweiser, Booking.com, Doritos, General Motors, Heineken, Hellmann’s, Kia, Michelob ULTRA, Mars’ M&Ms, Oikos, Pepsi, Planters, Pringles, PopCorners, Rémy Martin, Tubi, Uber, and Workday, just to name a few.  Some of those teasers are in the link below left and some full Super Bowl LVII commercials are in the link below right.

The Halftime Show

The Halftime Show is another part of the spectacle.  The greatest names in entertainment go on stage for a viewing audience of 100 million.  As with the commercials, "best-of" lists vary according to personal taste.  NBC Sports put together a list before Super Bowl LVI in link left. And wouldn't you know it - the 2022 halftime show makes the Yahoo! Sports list for 2023 [link right]  Spoiler alert: my favorite, Prince's 2007 set, is at the top of both lists.

This year's headliner is Rihanna, who turned down an invite to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl after the outrage following the NFL's blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick.  You can find Time's list of Rihanna's 10 best live performances here and USA Today's take on what to expect in the halftime show here. 

Georgia demolishes TCU 65-7 as SEC continues domination of the BCS/CFP era

POSTED JANUARY 10, 2023

Georgia won its second consecutive national championship, demolishing TCU 65-7 last night at Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium.  Recap of the game is linked below left.

As has been the case since the start of the BCS and CFP eras, the best teams in the SEC just play at an entirely different level than most of college football.  

• Nine of the sixteen BCS championship games were won by teams from the SEC.  

• Six of the nine CFP championship games, including the last four. 

• This year, ranked SEC teams went 6-1 against their opponents in their bowl games, outscoring them 303-144- an average margin of victory of more than 3 touchdowns.

Why is the SEC so dominant?  Sportswriters have been asking that question for more than a decade.  Bleacher Report's analyses from 2012 and from 2013 list a number of factors.  They are just as relevant today as they were then.

• Recruiting ("the SEC has led the nation in recruiting since 2002"), aided by the SEC's big and loud stadiums ("When recruits visit colleges in the fall to see the big games, they are many times drawn to the bigger, louder and crazier stadium atmospheres"), the greater potential for being drafted into the NFL (nearly 20% of the active players in NFL are from SEC schools), and the SEC's winning tradition

• Coaching (SEC's top money attracts the nation's top coaches)

• Defense - SEC consistently leads other conferences in lowest points allowed per game

• BCS era bias (BCS computers and human voters like the SEC better and they believe, wholeheartedly, in the theory of the SEC’s strength of schedule carrying the highest level of difficulty)

• Geography ("Most of the top recruits in the country come from the South.  The weather is more conducive to the sport, and the focus on football is greater in the Deep South than it is anywhere else in the country...Not to mention, if you were an elite recruit, would you rather spend a recruiting visit in October in Nebraska, Minnesota or Maryland, or in sunny Florida or Louisiana?)   

• The Money - ("The SEC makes up six of the top eight programs that are spending the most on recruiting in the entire country.
  Furthermore, seven of the top 11 most profitable football programs in the nation reside in the Southeastern Conference.
  That money gives the SEC programs the ability to build things like impressive weight rooms, better locker rooms, luxury recruiting centers and big fancy recruiting weekends.") 

And the SEC's dominance will be getting even greater over the next few years.

• Texas and Oklahoma are about to leave the Big 12 for the SEC. Today, 10 of the 20 biggest revenue producers in college athletics come from the SEC. When Texas and Oklahoma join, it'll be 12 of 20. 

• The Conference signed a $300 million deal with ESPN to broadcast all their games starting in 2024.

Does this dominance really matter? SEC haters will say yes, but the college experience is much more than football.  And for die-hard college football fans, there will always be a conference championship to aspire to and talented athletes doing amazing things to watch every Saturday.

Georgia takes on TCU for the College Football Championship

POSTED JANUARY 6, 2023

In two of the most exciting games since the four-team CFP format was instituted, Georgia and TCU defeated Ohio State and Michigan [highlights below right and left] to reach the championship game, which will be played at 7:30 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.  

In spite of the Horned Frogs' 51-45 victory over favored #2 Michigan, TCU enters as a 12.5 point underdog against the Georgia Bulldogs.  Most analysts don't give TCU a chance to win, and much of the discussion is whether you should bet Georgia to cover or not.  Topping the nonsense off: ESPN's computer ranking of the post Bowl Game Top 25 incredibly slotted the Horned Frogs at the No. 11 position !

But consider this: Georgia beat Ohio State by just 1 point while Michigan, who lost to TCU by 6, beat Ohio State by 22 points.   And before you count TCU out, take a look at Saturday Down South's post "10 things you need to know about the Horned Frogs" [link below center]  Maybe they won't win - especially given the "questionable" status of star running back Kendre Miller who sat out the second half against Michigan with an injury.  But TCU takes a 13-1 record into the Championship Game and certainly deserve some respect.

Argentina defeats France on PK's to win World Cup

POSTED DEC 18, 2022

In a sensational match that featured France coming back twice with minutes to play in regulation time and in overtime, Argentina won the World Cup on penalty kicks, and Lionel Messi, one of the greatest players of his generation finally got his World Cup victory.  The score at the end of overtime was 3-3, and Argentina went on to win with 4 PK's to France's 2.

Messi finished with 2 goals, and France's young superstar Killian Mbappe had a hat trick.  Mbappe won the Golden Boot with 8 goals to Messi's 7 over the course of the tournament.  Mbappe is now the highest-scoring player in World Cup final history with four, while his overall tally of 12 goals at the tournament puts him level with three-time champion Pele.  

Links to recap and highlights are below.

France to face Argentina in World Cup Final

POSTED DECEMBER 14, 2022

One day after Argentina eliminated Croatia 3-0 , France shutout Morocco 2-0.  France will be the first team to go to back-to-back finals in more than two decades.  Both France and Argentina have each won 2 World Cups.  The victors will play Sunday at 10am Eastern. 

Video highlights and recaps of the semi-final matches are below.

World Cup goes to the semi-finals

POSTED DECEMBER 10, 2022

France by virtue of a 2-1 victory over England joins Morocco, Argentina, and Croatia in the semi-finals of the World Cup.  Morocco's stunning upset over Portugal makes it the first African nation to reach the semi-final stage. On Friday, Croatia had upset World Cup favorite Brazil on penalty kicks after overtime had produced a draw, and Argentina derailed Netherlands' hope for their first world cup in similar fashion - on penalty kicks.  Argentina faces Croatia on Tuesday Dec 13 and France faces Morocco on Wednesday Dec 14.  Both games are televised by Fox at 2 PM Eastern.

Highlights from the quarterfinal matches are below.

USA reaches knockout stage in World Cup

POSTED NOVEMBER 30, 2022

For the sixth time in World Cup history, the USA national team has made it to the Round of 16.  Facing Iran in a must win match on Tuesday, the USMNT prevailed with a 1-0 victory that was tense down to the final seconds of the 9 minutes' added time.  

USA dominated the first half, and Christian Pulisic's heroic goal in the 38th minute proved enough to propel the young American squad to the knockout stage.  Turning back attack after attack in the closing minutes of the match (including a possibly fortunate no-call in the penalty area), the US squad came away with a quality win over a tenacious opponent and vindicated their #13 FIFA ranking.  They next play Netherlands in the Round of 16 (December 3, 10 am Eastern, Fox and Telemundo Deportes) with the winner advancing to the quarter-finals. 

Group Stage standings can be found here.  USA-Iran highlights are in link below left, and a brief history of US World Cup appearances is in the link below right.

World Cup kicks off in Qatar

POSTED NOVEMBER 17, 20222

The most watched sporting event in the world begins Sunday. 

In November? Well, yes, July daytime temperatures in Qatar, the host country, hover in the upper 90's. 

In Qatar? Qatar was awarded the bid in a controversial vote amidst concerns: fears over the human toll of building the infrastructure required in such a short period of time, in such a climate and in a country with such poor labor regulations.  

In Qatar?  Qatar's discriminatory laws prohibit homosexuality and curtail women's freedoms through male guardianship rules.  Some teams from the West are protesting.   Although FIFA denied the request from a group of European captains to wear rainbow armbands, national teams are finding a way to show support for the LGBTQ community.  The U.S. men's World Cup squad are showing their support for the LGBTQ community by way of a rainbow-themed team logo inside their training facility and media workroom. The Swiss FA included a clip of a gay couple holding hands in a video announcing its squad.  England’s World Cup men’s team extended their support for the LGBTQ community travelling in a plane named ‘Rain Bow’, as a gesture against Qatar’s anti-LGBT laws.

Viewers in the USA will be able to watch the World Cup live across the Fox Sports network (FOX and FS1), while games can also be watched in Spanish in Telemundo. 

ESPN tells us how the Beautiful Game has evolved through the years [link below left], Be Soccer makes its picks for the teams with the best chance to win [link below center], and Khel Now introduces the top players [link below right].

According to the oddsmakers five-time World Cup Champion Brazil is the favorite at 4-1.  The Group Stage begins Sunday with Ecuador facing Qatar.  The Groups are shown below.

Astros defeat Phillies in Game 6 to win the World Series

POSTED NOVEMBER 6, 2022

For the fourth time in six years, the Houston Astros won the American League pennant.  On Saturday, the Astros cemented their dynasty status with their second World Series championship in six years, defeating the Phillies 4-1 in the 6th game.  

Game 6 highlights are below left (top).

SI.com's coverage of the Astros victory and Dusty Baker's first World Series championship in his 25th year as a manager is linked below right (top). 

 Astros' rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña was named the World Series MVP - the ninth player to be named both League Championship Series and World Series MVP [link below left (bottom)].  

ESPN's analysis of how the resurrected Astros beat the Phillies is linked below right (b0ttom).

Series tied two games apiece as Astros pitch historic no-hitter in Game 4

POSTED NOVEMBER 3, 2022

The Houston Astros evened their World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies on the strength of a  combined no-hitter in Game 4.  The Astros made history by becoming the first team to ever throw a combined no-hitter in a playoff game. The only other no-hitter in World Series history was Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. If we include the entire playoffs, Roy Halladay's Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS no-hitter in this same ballpark is all that remains. That's it.  In the entire 119 years of post-season play, there have been just three no-hitters. Game 5 is tonight in Philadelphia.  Justin Verlander of the Astros and Noah Syndegard of the Phillies have been announced as the starters for the game.

Astros face Phillies in World Series

POSTED OCTOBER 26, 2022

The Houston Astros, the top seed in the American League,  swept the Yankees in four games to make their fourth trip to the World Series in six seasons.  They will face the Philadelphia Phillies, who rose from the sixth-seed position to win the National League Pennant.  The Series begins Friday in Houston.

Philadelphia's 330 million dollar man, slugger Bryce Harper, won the NLCS MVP, while Houston's rookie shortstop, Jeremy Peña, won the ALCS MVP.

ESPN's analysis of what each team need to do to win the Series is in the link below left.  The game schedule is below right.

Catching up with baseball as the playoff picture sharpens

POSTED AUGUST 24, 2022

The final day of MLB's regular season, October 5, is just six weeks away.  As the season winds down, it seems a good time to take a look at the playoff picture, the individual league leaders, and some of this season's best stories. 

Among MLB.com's "surprise stories" [link below]: 

• The Orioles have a winning record! "Forget a winning season record. The Orioles hadn’t had a winning month since August 2017. They hadn’t strung together consecutive winning months since April-June 2016."

• Juan Soto is on the Padres. "The ongoing sale of the franchise and the state of the farm system led the [Washington Nationals] down the road of trading a 23-year-old superstar coming off his second All-Star selection. We’ll be talking about that one for at least the next few decades."

• The AL Central race. "The Guardians have come out of nowhere with a roster younger than the average Triple-A team to also thrust themselves into the mix....This could be a fun one down the stretch."

• Jacob deGrom missed four months, Max Scherzer missed seven weeks ... and it didn’t matter.  "...even though deGrom, betrayed by a stress fracture in his scapula, did not appear in a Major League game until Aug. 2, and Scherzer was laid up with an oblique injury for quite a while, the Mets persevered and have not relinquished first place in the NL East since taking over on April 12." 

Playoffs

This is the first year of MLB's new playoff format.  Six teams in each league, rather than five, will compete; the three division leaders get the top 3 seeds with the top two in each league getting byes in the first round; and the knockout wild card game in each league has been replaced by two three-game Wild Card Series.  

The American League race looks like this

#1 Houston Astros (West Division Leaders by 11.5 games)

#2 New York Yankees (East Division Leaders by 8.0 games)

#3 Cleveland Guardians (Central Division Leaders by 2.0 games)

#4 Tampa Bay Rays (.545 winning percentage)

#5 Toronto Blue Jays (.542 winning percentage)

#6 Seattle Mariners (.541 winning percentage)

On the bubble: Baltimore Orioles (.521), Minnesota Twins (.517 and 2 games behind Cleveland) and Chicago White Sox (.508 and 3 games behind Cleveland)

The Central Division looks like it will come down to the wire.  Just three games separate the leaders in the Central Division, and whoever wins that division will likely be its sole representative in the playoffs.  

Positioning for the No. 4 through No. 6 seeds is up for grabs with just .004 winning percentage difference between them. Since the two three-game Wild Card Series are hosted by the No. 3 and No.4 seeds, home field advantage* is at stake.

The National League 

#1 Los Angeles Dodgers (West Division Leaders by 17.5 games)

#2 New York Mets (East Division Leaders by 3.0 games)

#3 St. Louis Cardinals (Central Division Leaders by 5.0 games)

#4 Atlanta Braves (.613 and 3 GB the Mets)

#5 Philadelphia Phillies (.549)

#6 San Diego Padres (.548)

On the bubble: Milwaukee Brewers (.537 and 5 GB the Cardinals)

*For the average MLB team, this is worth about 8%, with home teams winning 54% of their games.

Individual League Leaders

Hitting (see Leaderboard below)

Aaron Judge of the Yankees, who turned down a seven-year, $213.5 million extension from the Yankees prior to the season to become a free agent, is tearing it up in the American League, placing at the top in 4 of the 6 categories and in second place on one other.  Paul Goldschmidt of the Cardinals is doing likewise in the National League - placing at the top or second spot in all of the categories.  

Goldschmidt has a realistic shot at taking the Triple Crown (leading the league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in) in the National League, just 3 home runs behind Karl Schwaber of the Phillies and just 2 RBI's behind Pet Alonso of the Mets.  No National Leaguer has won the Triple Crown in 85 years.  Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals managed to do it in 1937 with 31 homers, 154 RBI's and a batting average of .374.  

The most recent winner in the American League is Miguel Cabrera, who won the Triple Crown in 2012 with 44 home runs, 139 RBIs and a batting average of .330.  Cabrera is in what may be his last season, topping off a 20 year Hall-of-Fame career (506 home runs, 1841 RBIs and a career batting average of .306).  Another great player retiring after this season is Albert Pujols, whose pursuit of 700 career home runs has become a closely watched mythic quest.

Pitching (see Leaderboard below)

A seasoned veteran bound for the Hall of Fame and a 28-year-old in his fourth season top the pitching leaderboard.  In the American League, the Astro's Jason Verlander's return from "Tommy John" surgery has been nothing short of spectacular. He's 15-3 with an ERA of 1.95.  In the National League, the Dodgers'  Tony Gonsolin is an incredible 15-1 and, like Verlander, leading his league with an ERA of 2.12.

The Leaderboard.   Stats are through games played August  22.

How baseball and America have changed since Opening Day, 1947

Part III, 1994 - 2022

POSTED AUGUST 9, 2022

Part I of this series (1947-1965) can be found here: How baseball and Americas have changed since Opening Day, 1947 

Part II (1965-1994) can be found here: How baseball and America have changed since Opening Day, 1947

The Major Leagues continued their southward and westward expansion in the late 1990's.  After a yearlong process, on March 9, 1995, the league awarded a National League franchise to Phoenix and an American League franchise to Tampa Bay. The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (currently the Tampa Bay Rays), would subsequently begin play for the 1998 season.  

Baseball on Steroids, America on Opioids

The 1998 season is also widely considered the start of the steroid era and a pivotal year when the popularity of MLB began to decline. Of the 13 players who hit 40 or more home runs in 1998, eight have now been linked, through Major League Baseball testing, the Mitchell report or other sources, to use of such drugs.  In 2003 the last steroid-related event took place on the field as Barry Bonds broke McGwire's single season home run record of 70 by hitting 73 for the San Francisco Giants.  Pitchers too were not immune to the allure of steroid use.  Although he denied it, pitching great Roger Clemens was implicated in the steroid scandal.  Numerous ballplayers may be denied entrance to baseball's Hall of Fame because of their alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.  What is perhaps saddest about this episode in MLB history is that many or most of the players implicated would have been great even without steroids.

As baseball was dealing with steroids, opioids were becoming an epidemic.  The first wave of America's opioid epidemic began with increased prescribing of opioids in the 1990s.  In every year since the CDC began tracking (1999), overdose deaths involving prescription opioids (natural and semi-synthetic opioids and methadone) have been increasing.  While baseball has stopped its steroid use, the tragedy of opioid-related deaths continues.

Personal Computers, Data Analytics and Sabermetrics

 The personal home computer was well on its way to changing our way of life by the 1990's.  A fledgling industry that sold 48,000 computers in 1977 had placed 54 million units in American homes by 1990.  In 1991, the World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989, was opened to the public.  This valuable, easy-to-use source of information increased the market far beyond video gamers, and the users of spreadsheets and word processors.  By 2000, there were more than 160 million computers in US households, nearly every business in the nation had implemented computer systems to handle many of its daily operations, and data analytics had become a necessity for firms looking to improve their profitability.

Among those businesses making use of computers and data analytics was Major League Baseball.  Baseball has always been a sport with a fondness for statistics.  Generations of boys perused the dozens of statistics on the back of their baseball cards, which became the source of endless wrangling over who, for example, was the best centerfielder in New York City.  But those statistics on the back of those baseball cards were just the beginning.  

In 1971 the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) was founded, and the science of sabermetrics, the empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity, began. The term "sabermetrics" was coined by Bill James, who is one of its pioneers and is often considered its most prominent advocate.  In 1982, sabermetrics was  introduced to the wider public with the first mass-market publication of the Bill James Baseball Abstract. 

Statistics took a big step toward revolutionizing baseball when the science of sabermetrics met the personal computer.  Sabermetrics has affected everything from how the game is played and managed to how a player's value to his team is measured.  

The pioneers in this revolution were the 2002 Oakland Athletics and their general manager Billy Beane.  Faced with a limited budget and the loss of three key players in the off-season, Beane and his assistant Paul DePodesta used a roster selection system based on sabermetrics.  That season the Oakland Athletics went on a 20 game winning streak. In Major League Baseball, this is unheard of - in the 122 years of modern baseball, only 3 teams have had longer winning streaks.  And on the Athletics'  limited budget (just 30 % of that of the New York Yankees), it was something of a miracle.  By the mid 2010's, every major league team had an analytics department conducting proprietary sabermetric studies.

Here are a few of the most widely used sabermetrics:

WAR (Wins Against Replacement) - a metric that attempts to distill a player’s contributions into a single number. This number compares a player’s actions to the expected contributions of an easily available replacement-level player.  Its calculation centers around the number of runs a player adds offensively and the number of runs he saves his team either defensively or on the mound.  This year's leader in the season so far is Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees with a WAR of 6.7.  The highest pitcher is Sandy Alcantara, in second place with a 6.0 WAR.

BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) - BABIP measures how often a ball put in play falls for a hit (excluding strikeouts, walks and homers because they are not technically hit into play and affected by the defense). This season's leader is Xander Bogaerts of the Boston Red Sox at .382.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) - While Earned Run Average (ERA) has long been the mainstream king of pitching metrics, FIP was created to capture what ERA largely ignores. FIP looks just at a pitcher’s strikeout, walk and allowed home run rates, three main areas that the pitcher has the most control over. Kevin Gausman of the Toronto Blue Jays currently leads the majors with an FIP of 1.98.

Have the advances made by  sabermetrics been all positive? The Beyond the Box Score article linked below argues that while sabermetrics have given mangers, coaches, ballplayers and fans a deeper understanding of the game, baseball's popularity and fan base have been declining.

Can anything reverse baseball's declining popularity?

Since the 2010's MLB has introduced a number of technological innovations to improve fan experience.  They had to.  Ballpark attendance dropped from 78 million in 2008 to 68 million in the pre-covid season of 2019.  World Series viewership has declined steadily since the late 1970's with the three last World Series (2019, 2020, 2021) ranked among the lowest five ever.  

Many factors played into the declining popularity of what was once America's undisputed national past-time.  A graying fan base, increasing competition from other sports, and a seemingly endless season have all helped to shrink the sport’s following.  I am one of that graying fan base, but I haven't attended a ballgame in more than 10 years.  I seldom watch games on TV until the postseason - and then only if a player or a team I root for is playing.  My loss of interest in the sport is driven by what the game has become in recent decades. 

A couple of weeks ago, I turned off a game between the Yankees and the Mets before the end of the second inning as batter after batter fouled balls off and worked deep into the count.  Those at bats used to be considered epic.  Once in a game with the game on the line is exciting; many times in the first inning of one of 162 regular season games is boring. 

Changes to any sport are inevitable, but whether the changes actually make it better is debatable. Over the past 20 years, Major League Baseball has moved from "a game of movement and strategy to a static contest of boredom only interrupted by the occasional home run and even rarer base hit."  Or as former Yankee great and current Marlins' manager put it: baseball is "unwatchable sometimes...because nothing goes on." 

No statistic bears this out more than "balls in play" - the at-bats that do not result in a walk, a strikeout or a home run.    The number of balls put into play has been declining rapidly - in the decade of the 2010's there was a 7.5% drop.  Two of the key reasons for this trend are the reliance on sabermetric data and the fact that pitching has once again become dominant.

• The reliance on sabermetric data has led teams to value certain skills more than others; analytics encourages power pitching and power hitting. Skills, like hitting the opposite way, drag bunts and stealing bases, are no longer valued.  

• With the advent of today's pitching strategy of starter/set-up man/ closer, the improved conditioning and training regime, and the technology to capture information on every pitch, pitching has once again become dominant.  The average fast ball speed, about 93 mph, is now 10 mph faster than in the mid-twentieth century.  Pitchers are so dominant that there are more foul balls in a game than balls put into play.  The ability to capture information on every pitch has ignited an explosion of “designer” breaking pitches that has made for the toughest era in history for a hitter to put a ball in play. In the cold truth of its diagnostics, technology is telling pitchers what to throw and what not to throw. [link below]

In baseball's first "Year of the Pitcher", 1968, twenty-two pitchers had sub-2.00 earned run averages. Bob Gibson’s was an incredible 1.12, the lowest in modern baseball history. As pitchers emerge again with a clear upper-hand against hitters — there were more strikeouts than hits in 2018 for the first time in Major League Baseball’s 147-year history — the game’s leaders have floated the idea to once again lower the pitchers’ mound, as baseball ultimately did after the 1968 season.  That seems like an easy fix and may work just as it did in 1968.  But asking managers and general managers to "unlearn" sabermetrics will never happen.  The genie has been let out of the bottle and won't be put back.

Is there any hope that baseball will regain its popularity?  One determining factor for liking baseball is whether you played it as a kid.  Today's youth have a plethora of other sports to choose from - not only the traditional football, basketball, and hockey that have been around for a century or more but "newer" sports such as soccer and lacrosse.  1996 was a a watershed year for youth sports - the first year in which more of America's young played soccer than either baseball or football.  The pipeline to baseball fandom is growing narrower year to year.  

Will any of the technological innovations being advanced, such as virtual reality goggles, pitch-tracking apps, and StatCast, [link below] be enough to lure younger fans in?  Probably not.  To love this game, you first have to play it.

Sources: Bleacher Report, Wikipedia, CDC, Baseball Reference, Sports History and Culture, How They Play, SI.com

How baseball and America have changed since Opening Day, 1947 

Part II, 1965-1994

POSTED AUGUST 2, 2022

Part I of this series (1947-1965) can be found here: How baseball and Americas have changed since Opening Day, 1947 

The Demise of the Complete Game and the Nine-Inning Shutout

One of the most glaring changes in the game has been the role of the starting pitcher.  Today's pitchers seldom make it past the seventh inning even if they are winning.  While pitch count is the main driver, the roots of this change lie in the late 1960's and '70's, after "The Year of the Pitcher".

In 1968, the Cardinals' Bob Gibson, a starting pitcher, led the Major Leagues with a phenomenal 1.12 ERA, compiling 13 shutouts; the Giants' Juan Marichal pitched 30 complete games that year and the Tigers' Denny McClain pitched 28.  Pitching had become so dominant by the late 1960's that something had to be done.  

“Defense now dominates offense to the point of extinction,” wrote Rex Lardner in the New York Times, speculating that by 1971 no-hitters would be common and fans would celebrate the occasional foul ball. “With the batter being as helpless as he is,” Lardner wrote, “the game has become largely one of pitcher throwing to catcher and catcher throwing back.”

While 1-0 victories are exciting in soccer, the slower paced sport of baseball would not endure an infinite number of low run games.  A series of changes beginning in the late 1960's turned the tide - so much so that by 2021, the American and National League leaders in shutouts each had 2.  

After 1968's "Year of the Pitcher", MLB lowered the pitcher's mound by 1/3 - from 15" to 10".  

In 1969, "Saves" became a statistic that was established as an indicator of a relief pitcher's effectiveness.  Over time, a specialty developed - the "closer" who would enter the game to often pitch just the ninth inning when his team was in the lead.*  Since 1974, eight "closers" have been inducted into the Hall of Fame and nine have won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in their league.**

 Beginning in 1969, the strike zone was shrunk several times to give the batter an advantage.  The last change was made in 1996 with the strike zone is now the space at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap.

In 1973, the American League adopted the Designated Hitter rule which allowed a field player to have no other duty other than to bat in the place of the pitcher.

Free Agency, Unions, and the Players' Strike of 1972

Prior to the 1970's, baseball players were "owned" by the team they played for.  They could not play for another team unless they were traded by the team's owners, and, if traded, they would not be able to object but would have to play for their new team.  On Christmas Eve, 1969, Curt Flood, a star centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals who had just been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, wrote to  baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.  Flood's two paragraph letter pretty much ended his career but united a union behind his cause.

After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several states. 

It is my desire to play baseball in 1970 and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decisions. I, therefore, request that you make known to all the major league clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.

Of course, the request was denied, and the battle for free agency went to the courts.  Supported by the Major League Baseball Player's Association, Flood v Kuhn eventually reached the Supreme Court which ruled on June 19, 1972 (yup- Juneteenth!***) that Major League Baseball’s reserve clause binding players to teams essentially for life was legal.  But...in its ruling, the Supreme Court pointed to baseball's anti-trust exemption as the reason the case was decided for MLB.  Baseball's antitrust exemption could only be removed by an act of Congress and that free agency for players should be attained through collective bargaining.  And that is precisely what happened. Because of the pressure that Flood's suit brought to the baseball owners, Miller and the union were able to bargain for binding arbitration on grievances. In 1976, when pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally agreed to play a season without a contract, arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled them free agents. Overnight, the feudal system that had ruled baseball began to collapse.  

As Flood v Kuhn was making its way through the courts, the union representing the players, the Major League Baseball Player's Association, was gaining strength.  On March 31, 1972, after team owners had refused to increase the players meager pension payments, the players union representatives voted 47-0 for the first players’ strike in U.S. professional sports history.  Realizing how much money they were losing as the strike dragged on, the owners caved on April 13. 

The gains by the baseball players union were a reflection of the times.  Nationwide union membership would peak at 21 million in 1979.  But those times were about to end.  

On August 5, 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers whose union had declared a strike two days earlier.  The union was demanding a pay raise, a shorter workweek, and better working conditions.  Not only did Reagan fire them; he permanently replaced them. And with that action, he sent a powerful message that many employers even in the private sector acted upon after that.  It was an important turning point.  Reagan's firing of the air controllers laid the groundwork for the assault on labor that continues to this day.  

Long before Curt Flood sacrificed his career to challenge baseball’s reserve clause and pave the way for free agency, he followed his conscience to advocate for social change. As a young ballplayer in the 1960s, Flood spoke out against segregated spring training camps in Florida and traveled to Mississippi with Jackie Robinson to support non-violent protests organized by the NAACP.  [link below]

Expansions, Playoffs, and Air Conditioning

In 1969, both the National League and the American League expanded to twelve teams, splitting each league into Eastern and Western divisions, creating four divisions overall and a new postseason round called the League Championship Series.  In the first National League LCS, the New York Mets, one of the original expansion teams from 1963, defeated the Atlanta Braves and then went on to win the World Series in 5 games over the Baltimore Orioles.  

In 1977, the American League expanded to fourteen teams; the National League followed suit in 1993.  

In 1994, with 14 teams in each league, both leagues switched to a three-division format, adding a Central Division in each league and realigning the East and West Divisions. MLB also created a new playoff structure, adding a wild-card playoff berth for the non-divisional winner with the best overall record, and a new playoff round, the Division Series, to determine the two teams that would advance to play for the league pennant.  

The expansions and relocations of teams to the South were spurred by the spread of air conditioning, just as the expansions to the West Coast were spurred by the growing prevalence of commercial jet airplanes.  In 1947, there were no MLB teams in the South or on the West Coast.  By 1994, nearly 40% of MLB teams played in these regions - 7 on the West Coast and 4 in the South.

The nation's demographics were also changing.  In 1947, the percentage of US population living in rural areas was over 40%; by 1994, it was less than 25%.  Over the same period, population growth in the South and Southwest was nearly double that in the rest of the country despite the migration of many African-Americans to the north. 

With the expansion of Major League Baseball in 1994 to nearly double the original number of MLB teams, some observers expressed the concern that baseball talent was getting too diluted.  The US population numbers don't support that concern.  The 28 MLB teams of 1994 were almost exactly proportional to the growth in US population since 1947, when MLB fielded 16 teams.  

Notes:

*According to ESPN, Bruce Sutter's 1979 season was a landmark in the development of the "closer." Sutter was called upon to pitch a single inning only when his team, the Chicago Cubs, was in the lead.  

**Ironically, Cy Young, who pitched from 1890 to 1911, finished his career with 749 complete games. He seldom needed a closer.

***Juneteenth is a federal holiday, which commemorates the date (June 19, 1865) when the last enslaved Americans learned of their emancipation.  Although news of the emancipation was widespread elsewhere in the South, geography and the lack of federal troops in Texas kept slavery alive in that state.  It was not until Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas that these people learned they had been freed years earlier.

Sources: Washington Post-1, How They Play, Wood Bat, Truth Out, Wikipedia, baseball-almanac.com - 1; baseball-almanac.com - 2, Baseball-Reference.com, ABC News, Athlon Sports, The Grueling Truth, Washington Post - 2, Texas A&M Today, Closer - BR Bullpen (baseball-reference.com), MLB Players

How baseball and America have changed since Opening Day, 1947 

Part I, 1947-1965

POSTED JULY 28, 2022

Seventy-five years ago, the Brooklyn Dodgers opened their season with Jackie Robinson playing first base.  Robinson was the first black player in Major League Baseball.  That year, he went on to bat . 297, score 125 runs, steal 29 bases and win Major League Baseball's inaugural Rookie of the Year award.  

Late as it was in coming, the breaking of baseball's color line was still seven years ahead of the Supreme Court's Brown v Board of Education in 1954 and ten years before the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first piece of civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction.  Brown began the desegregation of America's schools, while the Civil Rights Act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote.

The 1950's in New York were a heady time for the city's baseball fans.  The New York Yankees. the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers gave us plenty to root for and the rivalries among the fans were intense.  New York teams won eight of the ten World Series in that decade, and a ninth was won by the transplanted Los Angeles Dodgers.  In the 1950's New York teams faced each other five times in the World Series.*

In 1951, the New York Giants had an end-of-season miracle run to tie the Brooklyn Dodgers on the last day of the season.  The Giants' incredible charge to the pennant began on August 12.  Trailing the Dodgers by 13-1/2 games on August 11, the Giants went on to win 16 straight games, going 37-7 down the stretch.   In the third and deciding game of the ensuing playoff, with the Giants trailing 4-2, Bobby Thomson hit "the shot heard round the world", capping one of the most incredible comebacks ever.  Even though the Giants would lose to their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees, in the World Series, their 1951 season remains the stuff of legends. (Russ Hodges' memorable call of Bobby Thomson's home run is in the video below.)

In 1954, my favorite team, the New York Giants, won the World Series, and my childhood hero, Willie Mays, won the National League's MVP award.  It was also the year that I saw  Willie Mays make "The Catch" on TV.  It was the greatest play in World Series, and, quite possibly, baseball history. As ESPN explains, it was more than a "catch" or even a "catch and throw".  Calling it "The Catch" "makes an event sound simple that was borne of experience and thought and tremendous athleticism."

In 1955, the Dodgers, with six Black players now on their roster, won their first World Series ever, defeating the Yankees in seven games.  

In 1956, New York Yankees' pitcher Don Larsen tossed the only perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers.  

Jackie Robinson retired after the 1956 season at the age of 37, finishing his Hall-of-Fame career in Brooklyn.  After retirement, he became heavily involved in the civil rights movement, crisscrossing the country and staging concerts at his six-acre home in Connecticut to raise money for the NAACP and the SCLC, writing in support of the movement in the pre-Rupert Murdoch New York Post, and participating in the marches and demonstrations of the era.  Like Dr. Martin Luther King, he was an advocate for non-violence and was front and center during the March on Washington in 1963.

Since their merger in 1903 to form Major League Baseball, the American League and the National League had each fielded eight teams, concentrated on the East Coast and in the Midwest.  That was soon about to change as faster commercial jet planes began to replace the older propeller planes in the 1950's and cross-continent travel became more practical.  

The 1958 season saw both the Giants and the Dodgers playing on the West Coast, and in the early 1960's both the American League and the National League expanded to ten teams..   

In 1961, prompted by the success of the Dodgers’ and Giants’ moves to the West Coast, the American League added a new franchise, the Angels, in Los Angeles. The league also awarded a franchise to Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators there instead, giving the new expansion slot to Washington.

Not to be outdone, and facing the potential threat of a third league with a team in New York to replace the Giants and Dodgers, the National League added 2 expansion clubs for the 1962 season: the New York Mets, whose team colors were Dodger blue and Giants orange, and the Houston Colt .45s, who opened the Texas market to MLB for the first time.  In 1965, the Colt .45s were renamed as the Houston Astros when they moved into the Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium in the world.

As MLB was changing, so too was the nation.  The period from 1955-1965 was  the height of the civil rights movement and the struggle for social and racial justice for African Americans in the United States.  

Two events in 1955 - the arrest of Rosa Parks and the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till - sparked outrage and gave a sense of urgency to the outrages and insults committed daily against people of color.

In August, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman.  His murderers were never convicted.  Till’s death ushered in a reckoning, shaping the course of the civil rights movement, in much the same way recent killings of unarmed Black people, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,  Ahmaud Arbery, and many others, have renewed a deep sense of urgency for racial justice across the country.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, tired after a long workday as a seamstress, refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus to a white male passenger.  She was arrested.  The next day, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proposed a citywide boycott against racial segregation on the public transportation system. African Americans stopped using the system and would walk or get rides instead. The boycott continued for 381 days. In June 1956, a federal court ruled that the laws in place to keep buses segregated were unconstitutional. 

De jure segregation and "Jim Crow" laws were coming to an end, but it would not be over until many protesters had marched and much blood had been shed.  As the Major Leagues moved west and expanded, African-Americans were slowly gaining rights that had been denied them for a century, but racist violence and white backlash against African-Americans achieving social and racial justice would continue for decades.  

In September 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, faced down the Arkansas National Guard and a screaming mob, and then, with the assistance of Federal troops sent by President Eisenhower, integrated Central High School.

In 1960, four Black college students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their actions that day reverberated across college towns in the South, becoming the catalyst for six months of sit-ins and demonstrations.  After months of protests and public pressure, Woolworth's  formally desegregated on July 25, 1960.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 10, 1962 that James Meredith was to be admitted to the University of Mississippi.  Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett tried to prevent Meredith’s enrollment by assuming the position of registrar and blocking his admission. On Sept. 30, 1962, when a deal was reached between Barnett and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to allow Meredith to enroll, a riot broke out on campus. A mob of angry whites confronted U.S. marshals stationed on campus to protect Meredith

April-May 1963 - Birmingham Alabama sit-ins began on April 3 to protest the segregation of public facilities.   Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and other leaders were arrested on April 12.  Local students organized and participated in mass marches on May 2, an action dubbed the “Children’s Crusade.” In response, the city’s public safety commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor, ordered dogs and fire hoses to be used on the demonstrators.  Over a six-day period, there were 2,400 arrests.  The actions, filmed and broadcast by the increasingly popular medium of television, shocked the nation.  On May 10 the protest leaders announced an agreement with local authorities to desegregate public facilities within ninety days and to release the arrested protesters on bond or their own recognizance. 

In August 1963, some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

In June 1964, Andrew Chaney, James Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who had been working to register African-Americans to vote in Mississippi, were abducted and murdered in the city of Philadelphia, Mississippi, in June 1964.  

On July 2 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law.  Provisions in the Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in hiring, promoting, and firing.

On March 7, 1965 ("Bloody Sunday"), a 25-year-old activist, John Lewis, led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and faced brutal attacks by oncoming state troopers.  Footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and galvanized the fight against racial injustice.  

On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965**. Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country." 

By the mid-1960's, baseball's undisputed dominance as the national pastime was coming to an end.  Football, a more violent and, if you will, more warlike sport, was gaining in popularity just as America was ramping up its involvement in the Vietnam War.  

In August 1964, I was attending a New York Mets game with my Dad.  Sometime in the middle of the game, an announcement was made that President Johnson had ordered retaliatory air strikes launched against North Vietnam as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident***.  The stadium erupted in cheering.  My stunned reaction ("What the heck are they cheering about?") would prove accurate in the ensuing years as the war escalated and the lies justifying it continued.  

Notes:

* This season the New York teams - the Mets, who have not won the NL pennant since 2015, and the Yankees, who have not won the AL pennant since 2009 - are currently on top of their respective leagues, and talk has begun about a Subway World Series.  If so, it would be the first such since 2000.

**In successive rulings by the conservatives on the John Roberts Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been effectively destroyed. Languishing in the Senate is a new voting rights bill named for John Lewis who went on to serve 33 years as the Representative for Georgia's 5th Congressional District.

***Misrepresented as an unprovoked attack on American naval ships, the "incident" prompted a joint session of Congress to pass overwhelmingly the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, an act that led to the Vietnam War’s escalation.

Sources: How They Play, AARP, ESPN, SPLC, Times-Union, ABC News. Library of America, History.com - 1, All That's Interesting, Wikipedia, UM History of Integration, Politico, MLB, Gilder Lehrman Institute

Avalanche defeat Lightning 2-1 in Game 6 to win their third Stanley Cup

POSTED JUNE 27, 2022

The Avalanche defeated the Lightning 2-1 in Tampa and took home their third Stanley Cup.  It was the culmination of general manager Joe Sakic's rebuilding project, started after the 2016-17 season when the Avalanche posted the worst record in the NHL, 22-56-4.

In Game 6 on their home ice, the Lightning jumped out to an early 1-0 lead, thanks to a goal from captain Steven Stamkos. From there it was all Avalanche. Colorado dominated the second period, taking a 2-1 lead on the strength of goals from Nathan MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen.  In the third period Colorado completely smothered Tampa Bay, not allowing a shot on goalie Darcy Kuemper until there were 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Highligh5ts are in link below left.

Cale Makar, Colorado's 23-year-old defenseman was the unanimous choice for the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP.  He led the Avalanche with 29 points in their 20 playoff games.  [link below right]

Sources: CBS Sports, US News and World Report

Lightning's hopes for Stanley Cup threepeat still alive with game 5 win over Avalanche

POSTED JUNE 25, 2022

Down three games to one going into game 5 against the Colorado Avalanche in Denver, the Tampa Bay Lightning's hopes for a Stanley Cup threepeat were bleak.  Faced with yet another must-win elimination game, the Lightning rose to the challenge, defeating the Avalanche 3-2 on the strength of Ondrej Palat's shot through the legs of Colorado keeper Darcy Kuemper with 6:22 left in regulation.  Highlights and analysis are linked below.

Should they prevail in the games 6 and 7, Tampa Bay - a dynasty in the making - would become the first team since the 1980–83 Islanders to win at least three Stanley Cups in a row.  The "upstart" Colorado Avalanche have not won a Stanley Cup since 2001.  Their 56 regular season wins were the most in the Western Conference and second only to the Florida Panthers' 58 victories. 

Game 6 is in Tampa on Sunday.  

Golden State Warriors take home the NBA crown

POSTED JUNE 17, 2022

Just two seasons ago, the Golden State Warriors had the worst record in the NBA.  Kevin Durant was going to Brooklyn, Klay Thompson was recovering from two major injuries, and Steph Curry had played just five games in a COVID-shortened season.  An uncertain future lay ahead but it looked as though the Warriors dynasty was coming to an end.  

Last night, Golden State answered all the doubters, defeating the Boston Celtics 103-90 in the sixth game of the NBA finals.  It was their fourth NBA Championship in eight season and the seventh* in franchise history.  Golden State’s 34-year-old superstar Steph Curry was the unanimous winner of the 2022 Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP, averaging 31.2 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game in the series. 

For the Boston Celtics, it was a sad conclusion to a remarkable season.  In January, they were in 11th place in the Eastern Conference and under .500.  A late season run that would bring them to the NBA Finals seemed unfathomable then.  In the playoffs, Boston survived two elimination games in the semifinals against the Bucks, then went on the road to win Game 7 in the conference finals against the Heat.  The "Celtics’ season reached its end, and with it comes optimism tinged with regret." (Boston Globe)

Coverage by the San Francisco Examiner is linked below.

*Two of those Warrior championships (1947, 1956) were as the Philadelphia Warriors before the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1962.

Celtics defeat Warriors in 1st game of NBA Finals

POSTED JUNE 3, 2022

Perhaps more than any other sport, basketball is a game of momentum.  Thursday night, the Boston Celtics went on a 17-0 run in the 4th quarter to defeat the Golden State Warriors 120-108 in the first game of the NBA finals.  

The Celtics shot 15-for-22 from the field, 6-for-10 on 2-point shots and 9-for-12 from beyond the arc, in that fourth quarter.  Their "effective field goal percentage" of 88.6% was the highest for any team in any quarter against the Warriors this season.

Al Horford who drained 6 of 8 three-point attempts was the leading scorer for the Celtics with 26 points, while Steph Curry led the Warriors with 34.

Below: Bleacher Report ranks the greatest NBA Finals performances since 2000 and Dan Gartland of Sports Illustrated tells us why he's excited about this season's Finals.