By Simulation Sports Station via YouTube
“It looked like we were headed to overtime, but a late face-off win and a beautiful set play clinched the win for the . . . ”
Posted on March 31, 2020
TrackNotes: Dastardly Derby Drama
By Thomas Chambers
No complaints here.
Even as the usual suspects reveal their (im)moral fiber again, TrackNotes was able to play the full Florida Derby card Saturday. It was so much fun, we forgot it was Gulfstream Park.
I’m not sure about watching Cubs World Series games, considering they did next to nothing to reward their wallet-opening fans by trying to sustain. I might do a search for Hawks Cup games, that would be nice.
But, in diminishing amounts, Thoroughbred horse racing is running real live, betting races. Racing is my only real sports time investment, I don’t really watch any other. Not rubbing it in, just sayin’.
Posted on March 29, 2020
Unused Rental Cars Parked At Baseball Stadiums
By AP
“Thursday was supposed to be opening day for Major League Baseball, but stadiums are empty, with the season postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Instead, parking lots are being used to store unused rental vehicles.”
Posted on March 28, 2020
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #297: The Opening Day That Wasn’t
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
A visit to Ernie Banks’ grave instead. Plus: Curly Neal Made Life Better; Tokyo Drift; The McCaskeys Absolutely Did Not ‘Step Up;’ Ryan Pace’s Pathetic Record Just Got Worse; Bears Re-Sign Tyler Bray!; Biggs Time; Cubs, White Sox Minor Transactions; and UIC Screws Steve McClain.
Posted on March 27, 2020
An Opening Day Requiem
By Roger Wallenstein
While teaching at a progressive, experimental school in the ’70s, the suggestion of creating a national holiday, or at minimum a school observance, was a rather easy sell. Of course, I’m talking about Opening Day, which passed quietly Thursday amid the surreal pandemic that we’re enduring at the present time.
Retreating almost 50 years, the school was Van Gorder-Walden, or VGW as we called it. Former Latin School head Ed Van Gorder was the founder, and Walden was a farm in southeastern Wisconsin where each student in grades K-12 spent a month in 10-day chunks during the fall, winter and spring. The city campus was on the top floor of the Catholic Charities building at 721 North LaSalle Avenue.
Much has changed in the past half-century, but the beginning of the baseball season remains a staple of our lives. Opening Day represents a new awakening, high hopes, almost-spring, tulips and daffodils, and, of course, a dose of foolish aspirations.
In the mid-’70s, I suggested to Headmaster Van Gorder that 20 or 30 students accompanying me to the South Side for the Sox opener would represent a cultural experience unmatched by any other event. Using the city as a classroom, riding public transportation, and increasing our breadth of experience all were tenets of the curriculum. Ed dwelled on the request for the better part of maybe 15 seconds before approving the proposal.
Posted on March 27, 2020
Missing Chicago’s Game
By Jim Coffman
My love for the Big Dance has faded during the last decade, but I still love basketball. Fiercely. And I miss it. I don’t think I ever took it for granted but I will find a way to take it even less for granted when the games return.
Given the fact that so much of current sports media is highlights of great performances of yesteryear, I thought I would run through my own best memories of local basketball. Or, should I say, my best memories of consuming local basketball as I grew up on Chicago’s North Side.
Posted on March 25, 2020
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #296: Foles Gold
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Least bad move. Plus: Alternate Sports Programming; Thank You (Again), NFL!; Tom Brady Is A Buccaneer; Bears Transactions; Bowman (& Co.) Will Be Back; Gar Forman On Way Out Again; UICUL8R; Elk Grove Village Bails On Bahamas Bowl; Cubs, White Sox DNP.
Posted on March 20, 2020
TrackNotes: Indictment Of An Industry
By Thomas Chambers
Vindication is defined as “the action of clearing someone of blame or suspicion.”
After Bloodhorse headlined the word in its wrap-up of Maximum Security’s $10 million win in the first-ever Saudi Cup in February we got another example of people believing something simply because somebody said it. They sheepishly put the word in quotes, as if to imply “we didn’t say it. Jason Servis did.”
It’s right there, graf 12: “‘This has got to be vindication,’ Servis said, referring to the Kentucky Derby ruling, which placed Maximum Security 17th.”
No, it doesn’t. And then 27 indictments against trainers including Servis and his pal Jorge Navarro; veterinarians (is there a horsey Hippocratic Oath?); and horse drug makers came down in the Southern District of New York. It’s a dark story with more than enough stink to be spread on a lot of people, with enough left to pave over the slop at Churchill Downs on that May Saturday.
Posted on March 17, 2020
SportsMonday: Thank You, NFL
By Jim Coffman
I’ll take a 17th real NFL football game next season thank you very much. And that means there are now only two “ultimate fan rip-off” exhibition games per team rather than four, right? And it gives the Bears significantly more cap space (all the other teams get it as well I know but we’re accentuating the positive here) as they work on signing free agents in the next few days?
Teams can finalize contracts on Wednesday after beginning sanctioned negotiations with qualifying players later today.
With everything else essentially shut down in world sports other than Mexican and Russian professional soccer, I would like to express my humble thanks for the ongoing NFL offseason, which got a massive boost over the weekend with the passing of a new collective bargaining agreement between owners and players.
Posted on March 16, 2020
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #295: The Day The Sports Died
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Cancel culture. Plus: March Sadness; Summer Training; NBA & NHL Lose Their Christmas; Do Draft Day Digitally; Baffling Bears; Blackhawks Go Out On A High Note; Bulls Go Out On A High Note; Michael Kopech A Little Geeked; Deja Cub; Illinois Hoops Nation; Fire Singe Revolution; Can Gambling Juice Fandom For Women’s Sports?; and The Ex-Cub Factor.
Posted on March 13, 2020