By The Washington Football Team

The Washington Football Team announced Monday that they have appointed Jason Wright team president. In this role, Wright will be responsible for leading the organization’s business divisions, including operations, finance, sales, and marketing. He will join Coach Ron Rivera, who maintains all on-field responsibilities and football decisions, in reporting directly to team owner, Dan Snyder.
“If I could custom design a leader for this important time in our history, it would be Jason. His experience as a former player, coupled with his business acumen, gives him a perspective that is unrivaled in the league,” Snyder said. “We will not rest until we are a championship caliber team, on and off the field. Jason has a proven track record in helping businesses transform culturally, operationally and financially.
“He is a proactive and assertive advocate for inclusion of all people and will set new standards for our organization, and for the league. There could not be a better duo than Jason Wright and Coach Ron Rivera as we usher in a new era for Washington Football.”

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Posted on August 20, 2020

By Jim Coffman

There was only one thing left to do – put the Blackhawks and their fans out of their misery.
After thoroughly dominating their first-round playoff series with the Hawks, the Golden Knights mercifully pulled the plug with a 4-3 victory in Edmonton late Tuesday night. That gave them a 4-1 series victory that wasn’t that close.
And anyone around here trying to put any sort of positive spin on this series was not paying close enough attention. The Hawks saved a little face with a 3-1 victory to avoid the sweep in Game 4, but Vegas even dominated that game, outshooting their foes 49-25.

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Posted on August 19, 2020

By Meena Venkataramanan/The Texas Tribune

Growing up in Monahans in the 1960s, Arlinda Valencia said she was used to hearing about the valor of the Texas Rangers in school and on television.
“I grew up watching The Lone Ranger,” she said, referring to the 1950s Western drama series. “The Lone Ranger was a hero, and that’s what we grew up with, thinking that the Texas Rangers were heroes.”
But when Valencia learned from a relative that the Texas Rangers took part in killing her great-grandfather, Longino Flores, and 14 other unarmed Tejano men and boys in the 1918 Porvenir massacre, she slowly began to re-evaluate her long-held perception of the law enforcement agency.

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Posted on August 18, 2020

By Roger Wallenstein

An amusing baseball story, since debunked, featured the greatest leadoff man in history, Rickey Henderson. Seems that in 2000, when Rickey signed with the Mariners as a free agent, he encountered first baseman John Olerud, another fine player, who always wore a batting helmet in the field because of a brain aneurysm he suffered in college.
Olerud explained his situation to Henderson, who said that was such a coincidence because he knew a guy he played with on the Mets who also wore a helmet in the field.
“That was me, Rickey,” said Olerud.
Henderson may have reached base about 40 percent of his plate appearances while scoring more runs and stealing more bases than anyone in history, but the interchange with Olerud also disclosed another aspect of Henderson that the sabermathemeticians can’t measure. The game was all about Rickey, whose ego barely fit into the stadiums in which he performed, perhaps explaining why he played for nine different teams in his 25-year career.

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Posted on August 17, 2020

By Steve Rhodes

Killing in the name of. Plus: Blackhawks’ House Money Running Out; The Infectious Cardinals Way; More Cubs Truths Emerge; The Return Of Ricky Rentamanager; Kollege Football Kills; Bye, Bye Boylen; More Bears Truths!; Sky & Fire; and The Weight Of Gold.

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Posted on August 14, 2020

By Roger Wallenstein

Pitchers are terrible fielders. If confirmation is requested, the first couple of weeks of this shortened season provide more than enough evidence.
Thankfully for the White Sox, much of this ineptitude has been displayed by the opposition, helping the local crew to an 8-8 record thus far after losing a 5-4 decision in 10 innings to Cleveland on Sunday night.

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Posted on August 10, 2020

By AP

“Olympians including Michael Phelps, Apolo Anton Ohno, Jeremy Bloom, Shaun White, Lolo Jones and Sasha Cohen are opening up about their mental health struggles in a new sobering documentary about suicide and depression among the world’s greatest athletes,” AP reports.
“Many of the athletes are sharing their pain for the first time in The Weight of Gold, on HBO. The documentary aims to expose the problem, incite change among Olympics leadership and help others experiencing similar issues feel less alone.”

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Posted on August 10, 2020

By Steve Rhodes

Deflections and denial. Plus: David Ross Week; The White Sox Are Also Playing; Boylen Not Over; Breaking Bears Truths!; Sky & Fire; Smashville; 22-Year Temper Tantrum Approaches Endgame, and more!

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Posted on August 8, 2020

By Thomas Chambers

Like a 5-1/2 furlong sprint, this won’t take long. If I’m all over the track, well . . .
I’m sick of talking about Arlington Park and with the world going to hell anyway, it’s inevitable.
Like a toddler on a 22-year temper tantrum, Arlington Park management, led by corporate mercenary William Carstanjen, got its 265th wind, stood up from its fetal finish-line blubbering, and kicked and screamed that the track will close for good, possibly after its coronavirus-truncated 2020 meet.

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Posted on August 5, 2020

By Mark Kreidler/Kaiser Health News

On college football Saturdays, tiny Clemson, South Carolina (pop. 17,000), turns into a city of 150,000 when fanatics pour into downtown and swarm Memorial Stadium, home of the Tigers. Some don’t even have a ticket to the game, but they come with money to burn.
“It’s well north of $2 million in economic impact per game,” said Susan Cohen, president of the Clemson Area Chamber of Commerce. Hotels sell out rooms at $400 a night; some shops bring in 50% of their year’s revenue during the seven home-game weekends. Add in massive broadcasting contracts and apparel deals that enrich schools directly, and there are hundreds of millions of reasons that universities with large athletic departments and the towns they occupy don’t want to lose even one season to COVID-19.
And that’s just the dollars. There is also the intangible value of a community rallying behind a shared passion in particularly bleak times – to say nothing of the life-changing impact of scholarships to students who might have no other chance to shine or get a college education.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus dominates the conversation. Sports like football offer an ideal environment to spread a highly contagious disease: Players are in close contact for long periods inhaling one another’s sweat and saliva droplets. Even with empty stadiums, players can still infect one another, their team staffs and the communities where they study and live.
College sports are a multibillion-dollar industry, but in 2020 they’re being brought down by the same forces that have hobbled the rest of the economy. University presidents and athletic directors are playing defense amid the constantly changing landscape of the pandemic, rather than driving any sort of solid plan forward.

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Posted on August 5, 2020