Chicago -
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Worst baseball season ever. Shut it down. Plus: Kubs Killers; Rickey Boylen; Chicago Vikings; Blackhawks Bubble; Eddie Goldman Opts Out; Remembering Lou Henson; Jim Boylen Is Still Here And We’re Here; and Sky High, Fire Fluke.
Posted on July 31, 2020
By Mark Otten/The Conversation
Baseball and basketball might be returning, but the boo birds and thunder sticks will have to wait ’til next year.
Baseball teams have begun playing in their regular stadiums without fans. Meanwhile, all NBA games will be played inside the Orlando bubble before empty crowds.
For sport psychology researchers like me, this is an extremely rare opportunity: We can see what happens when fans disappear for an extended period of time.
Almost like a controlled experiment, it will be possible to compare the outcomes of games with and without fans, with all other things being approximately equal. We’ll even be able to compare fanless home stadium games, like those in baseball, to fanless neutral site games, like in the NBA.
Posted on July 30, 2020
By Jim Coffman
That might have been the most unpleasant Cubs victory I have ever had the displeasure to watch all the way through on television. And I have watched a few games on TV in my 50 years or so of Cub fandom.
Did I mention that game was not pleasant?
Posted on July 28, 2020
By Roger Wallenstein
Baseball in the Time of Coronavirus made its debut over the weekend amid joyous cries of “Baseball is Back,” empty stadiums, cardboard cutouts of fans, dubious rule changes, and the inconsistent wearing of face coverings by players, coaches and umpires. Weirdness reigned.
Dr. Anthony Fauci began the festivities on Thursday by throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in Washington. Maybe shot-putting would be a better description as the ball arced far to the left of home plate, touching down about 50 feet from the nation’s leading epidemiologist. As futile as it was, I’ve seen worse from White Sox relievers.
Posted on July 27, 2020
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Chicago’s First 2020 Champions? Plus: The Cubs Are Back; The White Sox Are Back; Thibs Timeline; and Adam Bomb.
Posted on July 26, 2020
By Jim Coffman
Um, yeah so, Theo. Tell us again what you were thinking when you made that trade with the White Sox for Jose Quintana a few years ago now?
Because I have to say at this point, it is looking like you could have won more World Series’ for the South Siders with that trade than you have won for the Cubs.
Posted on July 22, 2020
By Human Rights Watch
Child athletes in Japan suffer physical, sexual and verbal abuse when training for sport, Human Rights Watch said in a new report, released today, that documents depression, suicides, physical disabilities, and lifelong trauma resulting from the abuse. Japan will host the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics beginning July 23, 2021.
The 67-page report, ‘I Was Hit So Many Times I Can’t Count’: Abuse of Child Athletes in Japan, documents Japan’s history of corporal punishment in sport – known as taibatsu in Japanese – and finds child abuse in sports training throughout Japanese schools, federations, and elite sports.
In interviews and a nationwide online survey, Japanese athletes from more than 50 sports reported abuses that included being punched in the face, kicked, beaten with objects like bats or bamboo kendo sticks, being deprived of water, choked, whipped with whistles or racquets, and being sexually abused and harassed.
Posted on July 22, 2020
By Roger Wallenstein
Baseball, being a game rich with numbers, has a new statistic in this shortened season that just might be the one analytic which will determine whether all 60 games for each ballclub will be played. Of course, I’m referring to the number of positive tests for COVID-19 that potentially could sideline an entire team if folks aren’t careful.
So far the results appear promising although this virus doesn’t differentiate between ballplayers and factory workers where the track record is alarming and dangerous. Tests for players and other personnel last week totaled 10,458, and just six – five players – came back positive. That’s so far below the Mendoza Line that you have to reach back to pitcher Bob Buhl, who in 1962 went hitless in 70 at-bats with the Braves and Cubs, for a close comparison. We can only dream of the days when world health emulated Buhl’s futility.
Posted on July 20, 2020
By Thomas Chambers
When you were a kid, did you ever play with matches and set the drought-stricken short lawn on fire?
It spreads, fast, and you start doing a clog dance, as if your hair is also on fire, to stomp it out, your mind spinning: Where’s the hose?! Let alone getting caught.
I’m not going to comment on how this nation, regionally or as a whole, is handling the coronavirus, but I am firmly in the camp that it’s nearly out of control and I surely cannot get it.
Focus in. If you want to know what might happen as America’s behemoth team sports chase the money – it’s only about the money – head-on to restart, take a look at Thoroughbred horse racing.
Coronavirus has now struck the jockey colony with some of the top riders in America being reined in in more ways than one.
Posted on July 18, 2020
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Is this really happening? Plus: Launching College Football; Corey Crawford Is “Unfit To Play;” Don’t Bank On The Chicago Marathon; Fluky Fire Singe Sounders; Red Stars vs. Reign, and more!
Posted on July 17, 2020
