Chicago -
By Jim Coffman
I’m sorry, but they look like they are just a bunch of guys having a good time, albeit in masks.
The Cubs, and the White Sox, held workouts at their respective ballparks Tuesday and if they had worries in the world, their facial expressions certainly didn’t show them.
Posted on July 8, 2020
By The WNBA
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) announced Monday the launch of a new platform, The Justice Movement, and the creation of the WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council.
The collaborative efforts of the League and the Players Association represent an unprecedented and bold new commitment to advancing social justice by the longest standing U.S. sports league for women, as well as the first labor union for professional women athletes.
The mission of the Social Justice Council is to be a driving force of necessary and continuing conversations about race, voting rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and gun control amongst other important societal issues.
Posted on July 7, 2020
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Sports now really a life and death proposition. Plus: The Washington Appropriators: Coach Loves The Princess Bride; Seeing Red Stars; Q-Anon; COVID Cubbie; Dash Cam; Hubba Bubbles; I’d Tap That; and Beachwood Sports Specials.
Posted on July 3, 2020
By Jim Coffman
Defund the racial slurs!
It has been obvious for a long, long, long time that the Washington (D.C.) football team should change its name. It is as stupidly obvious as obvious can be, with a heaping helping of obvious and obvious on top.
But one crushingly dimwitted (if not just racist and hateful) individual stands in the way. And while I strive to not include personal insults in my columns, I think starting today I will never again refer to owner Dan Snyder without a personal insult until his football team’s goddamned Redskin nickname is changed.
There is news on this front this Thursday morning.
Posted on July 2, 2020
By David Rutter
Presuming the NFL stumbles into actually playing football this year without infecting all the players, fans, coaches, and officials, Chicago will celebrate an anniversary.
This is one of those physical events that seems closer in the rear-view mirror than it really is.
It’s been 35 years since the Super Bowl that Chicagoans revere.
Not so long ago, right?
Wrong. A really long time ago, even though it doesn’t seem so.
Posted on June 30, 2020
By The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, in collaboration with civil rights hero Rachel Robinson and baseball legend Hank Aaron, are joined by scores of baseball players and other professional athletes, sports executives, entertainers, journalists and others for an unprecedented tribute to the 100-year anniversary of the founding of baseball’s Negro Leagues.
The Tip Your Cap campaign, which is being directed by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick, is intended to bring long overdue recognition and respect to the enormously talented and courageous men and women who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 through 1960. The campaign was conceived when long-planned centennial events in major league stadiums across the country were cancelled due to COVID-19, and the response has been extraordinary.
Posted on June 30, 2020
By Roger Wallenstein
The issue of service time was one of contention included in the sordid public display of selfishness on the part of Major League Baseball and the players association as plans for this season were negotiated.
Surprisingly, the owners easily gave in to the players on this one item, agreeing to grant a year of service even if nary a game is played this season.
All of which means that players eligible to become free agents after the 2020 season, will still retain this vaunted privilege. Stars like Mookie Betts, George Springer, Marcus Semien and Trevor Bauer, despite playing in a 60-game season as was announced last week, will remain eligible to entertain multimillion-dollar offers this fall while all other players can add a year on their journey to free agency.
We often hear about today’s players’ reverence for the past. They recognize the cruel and unjust treatment endured by Jackie Robinson as he opened the door for all the other Black players who followed him. Prior to the formation of their union in 1966, each individual player was at the mercy of the owners when it came time to negotiate one-year contracts rather than the common multi-year agreements of today. Any alert present-day athlete understands how powerless his brethren were decades ago.
Nevertheless, do today’s players know what service time meant 80 years ago when both benchwarmers and All-Stars missed entire seasons because their country needed them during World War II?
Posted on June 28, 2020
By Thomas Chambers
Chicago was once, a very long time ago, a capital of American horse racing, if based on volume alone.
Now, there are just two, each on the cusp of very different fates.
Posted on June 28, 2020
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
The virus doesn’t care how much you want to watch a game. Plus: Other Sports Are Also Back Pending Death; Pandemic Baseball Sucks; Hub Bubs; Hall Of Fame Hossa; The Mystery Of Mitch’s Motivation; Choking On Chalk; and It Was Unmistakably A Noose.
Posted on June 26, 2020
By The Native American Journalists Association
The Native American Journalists Association joins the National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association, and Society of Professional Journalists to call for immediate discontinuance of race-based sports mascots in media.
NAJA is joined by NABJ, NAHJ, AAJA, and SPJ to reiterate its demand for the immediate and permanent discontinuance of racialized sports mascots by news outlets. This discontinuance should include clear policy development and implementation that clarifies the harm they cause, and the practical editorial methods to avoid their use on all platforms.
The continued portrayal of racialized mascots in news media directly violates fundamental tenets of professional journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics makes clear that journalists should act to minimize harm:
Posted on June 25, 2020
