By Roger Wallenstein

Friends of mine growing up who were Sox fans often had parents and grandparents who emigrated from the South Side. They landed in the leafy environs of Highland Park on the North Shore to flee the burgeoning African-American population brought on by the Great Migration. The White Sox were part of their heritage.
Our family was different since my parents were Cincinnatians who came to the Chicago suburbs in the early ’50s because of my dad’s job. He rooted for the Reds, the ones who played ball. Being a patriot and a conservative Republican, he did a 180 when it came to the other Reds.

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Posted on June 9, 2020

By Alex Russell/The Conversation

Sports are restarting as part of easing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. But, to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, there’s one crucial ingredient missing: crowds.
To provide atmosphere in the absence of people, broadcasters are experimenting with canned crowd noise, much like the laugh tracks used in sitcoms. Last weekend the National Rugby League unveiled its fake audience noise, drawing a mixed response from viewers.

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Posted on June 9, 2020

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Cancel culture. Plus: Defund Baseball; Bring On The Blackhawks; Bulls Miss Playoffs; Coffman Wish Granted; and Biggs Time.

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Posted on June 5, 2020

By Thomas Chambers

Writing about big horses with little riders running in a counterclockwise circle seems awfully disproportionate these days.
But horse racing too cannot escape being a reflection of the society in which it exists. I suppose the old cliche of something being a sum of its parts might be true.
On the other hand, it’s amazing how few parts, and one in particular, can wield the most power over the sport. First, barring an out-and-out boycott of any sport, the fans are most definitely not part of the parts. Fans, and people in general, exist only to be exploited by the fewer and fewer lords who have bought, stolen and fashioned their power purely for their own malignant aims. Racing is no different.

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Posted on June 3, 2020

By Jim Coffman

Shut your piehole, Roger Goodell. And while you’re at it, tell all of your owners to zip it as well. The current generation of National Football League “leadership” has stained its legacy forever with the way it has tried desperately to repress Colin Kaepernick’s fight against police brutality in the last four years. Nothing you can say now will change that.
But there is something you could do. And it would have big ramifications right now.

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Posted on June 3, 2020

By Jim Coffman

Writing about anything other than systemic racism and/or the desperate search for justice right now seems worthless. But that’s what I do in this space and I’m hoping that maybe if we figure out a few more things about how we react when we are watching sports/life we can make ourselves slightly better overall actors.
Because God knows we need to be the best actors we can be right now.

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Posted on June 1, 2020

By Roger Wallenstein

I couldn’t care less whether there’s a 2020 baseball season.
There, I’ve said it.
This despite the fact that I love going to a ballgame. I accept the sappy descriptions about the smell of cut grass of the rich verdant greensward, the awakening of my taste buds from a sizzling red hot smothered in mustard and onions, the beauty of a shortstop going into the hole and throwing a perfect strike to nab the runner by a half-step, and the late-inning home run that puts the home team ahead.
However, with all the other truly horrible and unthinkable events that currently grip our existence, the idea that the baseball lords and their employees can’t come together, support one another, and make arrangements to play a simple baseball game if and when it is safe to do so, is beyond my patience.

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Posted on May 30, 2020

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Billionaire owners cry poor, as usual. Plus: Our Hearts Ache For Minneapolis; Illinois Provides Week’s Top Sports Story; Last Dance Remnants; The Blackhawks Just Undeservedly Made The Playoffs; Kaner & The Breadman; Reopening Sports; Remembering Biff Pocaroba!; Thibs Lives!; Biggs’s Bag; and Chicago-Based Wilson Gets Back The NBA’s Official Game Ball.

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Posted on May 29, 2020

By TheLines.com

The NHL betting lines changed after NFL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced Tuesday the league’s return plan for the 2019-20 season, but the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning remain the betting favorites to win the Stanley Cup. The updated betting lines reflect a modified playoff format, according to TheLines.com, which tracks odds in the U.S. regulated sports betting markets.

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Posted on May 28, 2020

By Jim Coffman

On the day after the generally acknowledged toughest guys in sports, hockey players, announced a plan for ending their season with a tournament (the near-the-bottom Blackhawks somehow qualify to play), I find my thoughts turning to Jerry Sloan one more time. The Southern Illinois native who became the first Bull to have his number retired at the end of his stellar, 10-year playing career that included 10 years on the West Side, died last week at age 78.
Sloan went on to put together a Hall of Fame coaching career mostly at the helm of the Utah Jazz. And in so doing he became the best example in all of sports of how a coach should comport himself – displaying class and dignity every day but also flashing an ultra-deadpan sense of humor.

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Posted on May 27, 2020