Category Archives: Sports news

Sports news

Mixed-gender relays in the Olympics? Sure, why not?

I kind of like this notion.

The International Association of Athletics Federations is considering an idea to allow track and field relay teams to comprise men and women competing in the same races.

It’s not as though the IAAF would allow female shot putters to compete against the men. Or pole vaulters. Or discus throwers. This idea deserves a fair hearing.

Let the women run with the men

They’ve done this already at a meet in the Bahamas. The 4-by-400 relay featured two men and two women on each team. They ran in no particular order. The home team won the event, which thrilled the fans. But the race reportedly drew a lot of attention leading up to it.

“The crowd was incredible, I still have goosebumps thinking about it. These are the kind of things we need to look at,” said Olivier Gers, head of the IAAF.

My own preference would beĀ to have men and women running against competitors of the same gender in each leg of the relay. But what the heck, it’s not my call.

Frankly, such an event at the Olympics would spur my interest even more. I suspect it also would gin up interest around the world as well.

Sports news

Tebow can play hardball, too!

Call me surprised … in a most pleasant way.

Tim Tebow, the one-time standout college football quarterback who didn’t cut it as a pro, has turned to baseball.

I once thoughtĀ the Heisman Trophy winner’sĀ stint withĀ the New York Mets organization was little more than a publicity stunt.

You may dip me in sesame seeds. It turns out Tebow is starting to get the hang of the game he didn’t play seriously since high school. Tebow is learning how to hit pro baseball pitching while playing for the Columbia (S.C.) Fireflies. He started out abysmally, but has gone 9 for 20 of late, raising his batting average to a respectable .246.

Tebow’s status as a bit of a cult figure goes a good bit beyond his athletic prowess. He is known as anĀ devout Christian who introduced a new verbĀ to the English language: Tebowing. It’s meant to describe the kneelingĀ pose Tebow would use whenever he scored a touchdown. Tebow would kneel while saying a brief prayer of thanks to God.

Yes, I was skeptical about his baseball adventure. I feared the Mets had denied another more deserving young man a shot at making it in the big leagues by giving a high-profile celebrity-athlete a chance to play some hardball.

TebowĀ gave up football after being unable to make the grade with a number of National Football League teams. He fell victim to the curse that occasionally hits Heisman Trophy-winning athletes, those who are unable to lift their game to a competitive level in the pros even after excelling at the college level.

Baseball, though, is providing him with another opportunity.

I wishĀ the young man well and hope he continues to improve.

Sports news

Jackie Robinson stood tall and proud

They unveiled a statue today at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

It honors a young man who 70 years ago stepped onto a baseball field while wearing a baseball uniform. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers back then.

But this wasn’t just an ordinary young man. His name was Jackie Robinson. He had black skin and started playing Major League professional baseball at a time — the year was 1947 — when only white players were allowed to take the field.

Many of those who ran Major League Baseball knew at the time that this would be a special athlete. He was a gifted hitter, fielder and base runner. His contribution to the Grand Old Game, though, went far beyond his prowess on the field.

He became a champion for the rights of all Americans to pursue their dreams. Robinson’s was to become a professional baseball player, to play the game in the big leagues.

I wrote about this young man a year ago in a piece for Panhandle PBS, which broadcast a special in Robinson’s memory.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/blogs/public-view-john-kanelis/jackie-robinson-blazed-daunting-trail/

Major League Baseball recently retired the No. 42, which was the number Robinson wore on his back. It’s the first time MLB had done such a thing. Each year about this time, teams take the field with all the players wearing that number. They do so to honor the courage Robinson showed in facing down the racism he encountered when he took the field.

They also honor the man he became after he no longer played ball. He remained an iconic figure in the battle to obtain equal rights for all Americans.

Robinson died too soon, in 1972, from diabetes-related complications.

This great man’s legacy, though, lives on in the young African-American and Latino athletes who came along right behind him on that trail he blazed.

Sports news

Masters exerts ‘prior restraint’?

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The third round of the Masters Tournament is about to end and I want to comment on something that has stuck in my craw for the past several years.

CBS Sports has been broadcasting this professional golf “major” for as long as I can remember. Some years back, CBS hired a smart aleck announcer named Gary McCord to broadcast golf on the network.

McCord played on the PGA tour. He didn’t win any tournaments. But he fancies himself as a comedian. I don’t find him funny.

Neither do the snotty souls who belong to Augusta (Ga.) National Golf Club, where they play the Masters every year.

What did these ultra-rich guys do some years back? They ordered CBS to pull McCord off its broadcast team for the Masters.

Why did this stick in my craw? It kind of smacks of a form of “prior restraint,” with an exclusive,Ā private country club dictating to a major media outlet how it can do its job.

This brings to mind a question I wish I would have asked the corporate owner of the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years until Aug. 31, 2012. William Morris III is chairman of Morris Communications, which owns the G-N. It is based in Augusta, Ga. Morris is a member of Augusta National, an outfit filled with members who are “invited” to join; one doesn’t apply for membership, mind you. The blue-noses at the country club have to ask you to join.

As near as I can tell, the predominant qualifier for membership has something to do with the size of one’s bank account.

The question I wish I would have asked Billy Morris? Why do you people at Augusta National take yourselves so damn seriously?

Sports news

Act, Texas lawmakers, to make texting while driving illegal!

A tragedy in Uvalde County, Texas ought to spur the state’s Legislature to do something it needs to do with utmost urgency.

Here comes my rant.

The Legislature needs to enact a bill that’s pending to ban motorists from doing anything behind the wheel of a motor vehicle that doesn’t involve driving the damn thing.

It needs to ban texting while driving and using a handheld telephone while driving. It needs to send the bill to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and the governor needs to sign it into law immediately.

Jody Kuchler is a hero in my book. He was driving along a highway near Garner State Park when he witnessed a vehicle swerving dramatically in front of him. He dialed 9-1-1 and pleaded with authorities to “get this guy” off the highway. He told dispatchers he was certain the driver would get himself killed or, worse, kill someone else.

He proved to be tragically prescient.

The pickup truck slammed head-on into a bus carrying members of a Baptist church in New Braunfels. Twelve passengers died at the scene. The driver of the pickup — 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young — admitted to police he was texting while driving.

Ban this activity

Would a law have prevented this person from committing this act of sheer idiocy — allegedly? Probably not.

But — dammit to hell! — there needs to be serious penalties attached to someone committing this kind of outrageous behavior.

There have been judges in Texas who have been unafraid to assess creative sentences to people who commit egregious crimes that result in death or serious injury.

My wife today came up with an idea: sentencing the perpetrator to community service — in addition to jail time — that includes speaking to high school students about the dangers of doing what he has done.

This story sickens and saddens me to my core. It also enrages me that the state of Texas hasn’t yet declared texting while driving important enough to make it illegal across our vastĀ state.

I don’t blame the Legislature so much for this failure. The 2011 Legislature placed such a bill on Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. Perry vetoed it for the most stupid reason imaginable: He labeled it a form of government overreach.

I am hoping fervently that Gov. Abbott sees it differently.

Sports news

Pulling for a comeback from Tiger

Call me strange.

But I do enjoy watching pro golf on TV more than pro football. Pro basketball, too, except when the Portland Trail Blazers are on the tube.

Accordingly, I keep hoping for a comeback from a young man named Eldrick “Tiger” Woods, who announced this week he is going to skip next week’s Masters Tournament, an event he has won four times.

Tiger’s back is acting up. He can’t rehab it sufficiently to allow him to play at a competitive level. So, he’s sitting out an event that the great Jack Nicklaus once said he’d win more Masters green jackets than he and the late Arnold Palmer did combined; Jack won six of ’em, Arnie won four.

I’m not entirely sure why I remain drawn to Tiger Woods, the golfer. Tiger the husband turned out to be pretty much of a dirt bag, as he cheated wildly on his gorgeous then-wife, Elin.

It pretty much went to hell after that for Tiger.

Tiger remains on the injured list

He hurt his back. His major championship total stands at 14; he says he wants to surpass the 18 majors owned by Nicklaus.

I don’t know what pro golf’s TV ratings have done since Tiger hit the skids. I’m guessing many TV watchers are like me: They’d prefer to watch Tiger on the course than nearly anyone else.

I want the young man to make a full comeback. Do I care if he breaks the all-time major championship record? Not really. Jack Nicklaus, by all rights, should stand as the greatest of all time.

Tiger Woods belongs on the golf course — and on my TV screen.

Sports news

Las Vegas Raiders? Oh, puh-leeeeze!

Media coverage of major professional sports these days seems to focus on salary caps, contract disputes, major stars’ holding out … and the relocation of franchises.

It’s the last item that troubles me today.

The San Diego Chargers are moving up the highway to Los Angeles; the St. Louis Rams already have returned to LA, from where they departed for St. Louis all those years ago. In fact, now that I think about it, the Chargers joined the old American Football League as the LA Chargers.

Oh, I know. There have been others: The Arizona Cardinals once played in Chicago, then St. Louis, now in suburban Phoenix; the Kansas City Chiefs once were known as the Dallas Texans; the Tennessee Titans moved from Houston, where they were the Oilers.

Now it’s the Oakland Raiders moving — of all places — to Las Vegas.

The Raiders’ move hurts a little more than the others.

As a teenager, I was a huge Raiders fan. My interest in the team goes back to the era of Daryle “The Mad Bomber” Lamonica and moved forward to the time of Kenny “The Snake” Stabler, Warren Wells, Fred Biletnikoff, Jim Otto (yes, I cheered the center, too), Ben Davidson … and a bunch of other guys.

Now the Raiders are moving to Sin City. Might they return — eventually — to the east side of San Francisco Bay? They did it once before; they moved to LA, played there for a time — won a Super Bowl while playing as the LA Raiders — and then returned to Oakland.

Ugh! I hate the idea of them moving yet again. They are stiffing their loyal fans, much in the manner that the old Cleveland Browns did when they moved to Baltimore, or when the Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis (in the middle of the night, I should add).

Pro sports doesn’t reward loyalty. It rises and falls on money.

I’m an angry Oakland Raiders fan today. I just cannot wrap my arms around the idea of theĀ Las Vegas Raiders — or whatever they’re going to call the team.

Sports news

Final Four matchup converts a college hoops agnostic

I am entitled in this blog to acknowledge that I spoke a bit too soon about March Madness, that annual rite involving the college men’s basketball tournament.

I tweeted something the other day about not giving a damn about March Madness.Ā In the moment, I didn’t care.

Then a member of my family reminded me that the University of Oregon Ducks were taking part in the tournament.

Fine. I’ll care about the men’s tournament as long as the Ducks are in it. I’m allowed, given that I’m an Oregon native. So what if my view of March Madness has evolved. Sue me if you wish, OK?

Here we are. The Ducks not only are “in it,” they’re one of four teams that will gather in Glendale, Ariz., to play for the national men’s basketball championship. As I’m writing this blog, the final team in that foursome has yet to be determined; it’ll be either North Carolina or Kentucky, two programs with plenty of Final Four experience. The winner of that game will play the Ducks in the semi-final round in Glendale.

The Ducks were there once before, in 1939, the first year of the NCAA men’s tournament. Oregon went on that year to win the championship. They were called the Tall Firs. They remain a legendary presence in Oregon sports annals.

They haven’t been back since. Until now!

The other two are little ol’ Gonzaga, that school in Spokane, Wash., and the University of South Carolina. They’re both going to the Big Show for the first time in their history.

There you go. The Ducks, the Zags, the Gamecocks; still waiting for the Tar HeelsĀ and the Wildcats to finish their game.

Do I care now about the Final Four? Uh, yeah! Go Ducks!

Sports news

Feeling so-o-o-o busted

A friend of mine outed me this morning after I wrote a blog post criticizing the FBI forĀ spending public money to look for quarterback Tom Brady’s stolen jersey.

I wrote that the feds didn’t have a role to play in looking for a damn shirt worn by Brady the day he led the New England Patriots to their stunning Super Bowl victory over the Atlanta Falcons.

My friend responded with this query: How would I feel if the trunks that Muhammad Ali wore the night he defeated Joe Frazier in Manila had been stolen?

Oh, my goodness! I was so very busted by my friend, to whom I responded “knows me too well.” He must know how I feel about The Champ. How I revered him for so many years as he fought with such power, speed and grace. And how he became such a huge civil rights voice during the time he was exiled from professional boxing because he stood up in protest of the Vietnam War.

My response to my friend was that I would feel differently. I joked that I would have mobilized the armed forces to find Muhammad Ali’s stolen trunks.

Actually, I wouldn’t do such a thing.

Although …

My friend clearly decked me with that question. He gave me pause.

The FBI has been in the news a good bit of late for reasons that speak directly to its mission. Looking for a quarterback’s stolen jersey just doesn’t seem to fit that bill.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/03/good-job-fbi-in-helping-find-a-shirt/

Sports news

Good job, FBI, in helping find a shirt

I am a big admirer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It does great work on a whole host of serious matters: they include counterterrorism and pursuingĀ those who break federal law.

Seriously, I love the FBI. I watched “The Untouchables” as a kid and cheered for Elliot Ness to catch the bad guys every week.

However, the FBI didn’t need to spend a single one of my tax dollars — or yours, for that matter — to help locate a damn shirt! It happened to the jersey worn by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady during that Super Bowl game this past month, the one in which Brady led the Pats to that amazing comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons.

I get that the shirt is worth a lot of money. I also get that the FBI felt it was justified in assisting in finding it.

Look at this way: Brady is worth a few hundred million bucks; the team for which he plays has even more dough in the bank. They could have paid top dollar to the greatest private investigative firms on the planet to find the shirt.

The FBI, however, got involved.

No thanks. I ain’t cheering this one.

The Patriots ought to reimburse the Treasury for every nickel spent in the hunt for a shirt.