Chicago -
By Jim Coffman
Loyola did it!
And so did Lipscomb, Radford and Murray State. On Sunday they all advanced to the Dance, otherwise of course known as the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball tournament that begins in a week-and-a-half. The underdogs are set.
Posted on March 5, 2018
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Pace of play pablum. Plus: Flaming Fastballs & Exploding Bats; Spring Cubs; The Ex-Cub Factor; The White Sox Are Also Participating In Spring Training; The Bulls Are The New White Sox Who Are The New Cubs; Blackhawks Even Sadder This Week Than Last Week; The Bears’ Deja Rebuild; and Arch Madness!
Posted on March 2, 2018
By Thomas Chambers
I don’t know that the four of us could have been called whizzes in arithmetic – we were there when they came up with New Math, although the penguins appropriated the name but just kept teaching numbers – but we’ve gotten by nicely.
Before any formal gazintas or cipherin’, my two brothers had batting averages, on-base percentages and earned run averages down cold. My sister spent a long time in the consumer banking sector, where just one of her many duties was to tell people that if debit overtakes credit, kind of like a pace meltdown, they will be overdrawn. She then had to tell them by how much and which particular ATM hit took them out of the money. It was all right there in the numbers.
I squeaked through high school algebra, but then had to take it twice in college to fulfill the requirement. I was pretty good at geometry, although it was well before I fully grasped that eight furlongs is a mile and once around at Arlington. And if you called it Obround Park or Discorectangle Race Course, you wouldn’t be wrong. Or that getting a mile at Belmont includes a long beginning tangent (the chute) with only one pure curve, if the horse could stay in its lane, like Secretariat did. It came in handy when I realized the old Nad al Sheba in Dubai was something of a scalene triangle with complex radii on the turns, although Cigar aced it without a 60-cent protractor, just a saddle on his back and Jerry Bailey checking his work.
Don’t know if any of it helped, but it didn’t hurt, as now I know how to read the Racing Form. There’s not really a lot of math involved, except maybe adding up win or loss streaks and the money, of course. And M(aiden) = 0(wins).
It’s more about tendencies, such as the consistency of workout times, pace trends, position at the calls, willingness to close or not. The data is really just there, stated. Jockey and trainer percentages, together and separately. Leparoux up, it’s a Show horse. Velazquez up, he’s a Win horse. But that’s not math, just a hunch.
When it comes to the Triple Crown, more acutely this year than ever, I’m not sure any of this vast acquired knowledge will be worth a bent horseshoe. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a lot better than a B.A. in Public Hygiene from the Dean Smith Center for Infinitely Broad Studies, but I’m just itching to put to good use everything I learned from professors Bennie, Red, Anita, Tall Gregg, Paki and The Teach. It’s just getting tougher and tougher to do.
Posted on March 1, 2018
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Bullyproofing racists. Plus: Olympic Gold; The Collapse Of College Basketball?; The Cubs Are Set!; Bulls Tank You Very Much; Sad Blackhawks Season Gets Sadder; and Sitton Spin.
Posted on February 23, 2018
‘We Have Some Fans Who Think A Certain Way’
“The Blackhawks have banned four fans from their home games for directing racist taunts toward Washington Capitals forward Devante Smith-Pelly,” AP reports. “The Blackhawks also apologized to Smith-Pelly and the Capitals.”
The incident:
Barry Trotz with straight facts on the four fans who had racist remarks towards Devante Smith-Pelly 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/MkhpzRbT7v
— Bar South N Celly™ (@BarSouthNCelly) February 18, 2018
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Smith-Pelly:
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The Blackhawks’ Anthony Duclair:
“How do I feel? I mean, like, we have some Blackhawks fans that think a certain way. If they’re Blackhawks fans, they would know there is a black hockey player on the team.
“It’s obviously a white sport, and you just want to go out there and compete. There’s obviously some ignorant people in this world, so you have to deal with that.”
Anthony Duclair: “It’s unacceptable to be honest with you. … It’s just very disappointing.” pic.twitter.com/GAbyagVvt2
— Blackhawks Talk (@NBCSBlackhawks) February 19, 2018
Posted on February 20, 2018
By Jim Coffman
Baseball is coming!
An African-American driver named Bubba Wallace just missed winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday (that is a big deal, people), the NBA might have actually found a compelling All-Star format, the Winter Olympics continue to thrill . . . and because I am a Chicago sports fan, today I’m focusing on baseball.
I would write more about Bubba but this is a local column and if there is anything less local around here than stock car racing, I don’t know what it is.
Posted on February 19, 2018
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
A shitty week grinds Coach Coffman’s gears. Plus: Cubs Win Winter; White Sox Battery & Assault; The Winter Olympics Are Disordered; Big If True; Ramblers On A Roll; Blackhawks Bad To Worse; and Marginal Bulls News.
Posted on February 16, 2018
By Noreen Nasir/AP
“Today’s black athletes are part of a tradition of the intertwining of race, sports and society in America. From boxer Jack Johnson to Serena Williams, each generation has had to reckon with their era’s racial climate to help move the U.S. forward.”
Posted on February 15, 2018
By Heather Dichter/The Conversation
When the International Olympic Committee announced that PyeongChang would host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, most people outside of South Korea had probably never heard of it, let alone knew that the eastern part of the country had snow and mountains.
The shift in the type of place capable of hosting such a mega sporting event demonstrated how much the Winter Olympics has grown – but this change also brought with it a set of problems unforeseen when the event began in 1924.
Figure skating first appeared on the Olympic program in 1908, and ice hockey in 1920, but these events were part of the Summer Games. The first Winter Olympics took place in the French alpine village of Chamonix in 1924. The organizers of the Paris Olympics that year wanted to offer an International Sports Week at the beginning of the year with solely winter sports as an experiment. Only after its success did the IOC decide to call the Chamonix event the Winter Olympics.
Posted on February 14, 2018
By The Windy City Rollers
Don’t miss the biggest night in Chicago roller derby!
All season long, the Windy City Rollers’ home teams have been battling for the Ivy King Cup. On February 17, we’ll see who takes the championship home!
Join us on Saturday, February 17, for our last bout of the home team season, a doubleheader at UIC Pavilion (525 South Racine Avenue).
Posted on February 13, 2018
