Need to Know Sports: April 29, 2015

I’m introducing a new thing this week. It’s called Need to Know Sports and its a daily email that answers the question, “What do I need to know about sports today?” Whether you’re someone who needs to know everything about sports to feel alive or someone who views sports as being strictly on a need to know basis, this is a good way to start your day.

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 29, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE REVOKES NON-PROFIT STATUS: The National Football League announced yesterday that it was dropping its tax exempt status and would in the future be filing and paying taxes as a for-profit company. While it sounds totally crazy that the league was ever considered a tax-exempt non-profit, it’s actually not, or at least not as much as it seems. What we think of as the NFL is an association of 32 football teams who play within a single structure. Each team is an independent company with its own owner or owners. These teams share equally in all of the money the league makes. The entity that had been considered a tax exempt non-profit was just the central office that helps coordinate and run the league. Now, given the size of the NFL, that’s still a material task that involves lots of money, but you could see how it could be described as non-profit. It’s job is not to make money, it’s to facilitate the making of money. Whether or not you buy that logic, the actual effect of this change will be that the league’s critics will no longer be able to criticize them for this and (and this is important) it will no longer have to file public financials. This means that high-profile NFL officials, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, most visibly, will no longer have their salaries made public. So while this seems like a step forward, it may actually be a small step backwards if you believe in transparency and accountability. Read Aaron Gordon in Vice Sports and Ken Belson in the New York Times for more information.

BASEBALL GAME IN BALTIMORE TO BE PLAYED IN EMPTY STADIUM: Major League Baseball announced that today’s game between the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox will be played but without any fans in the stadium. This follows the postponement of the two previous games scheduled between these teams which were supposed to be on Monday and Tuesday but will instead be played in May. The idea of playing a game with no fans allowed is not a new one, in fact it’s reasonably common in international and European soccer, but in that context it is done as a penalty for fan misbehavior, either violence or racism. In the United States, it’s basically never done. The only times that the New York Times could find were a 1989 basketball game played without fans because of a measles and a 1998 baseball game without fans in order to protect them from a potentially dangerously crumbly stadium. I honestly don’t know what to make of this decision other than that it seems like it will tie the league to the protests in Baltimore more firmly than canceling another game would have. Whether it is viewed as baseball siding with or against the protests, I’m not sure.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – The Houston Rockets won 103-94 over the Dallas Mavericks. This win ended the series and Dallas’ season. Mavericks fans will be shaking their heads, but that’s nothing new, they’ve been doing that for three straight months now, ever since their team made what turned out to be a disastrous trade to bring Rajon Rondo in from Boston. Rockets fans will have celebrated wildly last night and will now be pretending like winning in the first round is no big deal, they want to win it all. The San Antonio Spurs beat the Los Angeles Clippers 111-107 to take a 3-2 lead in their first round series. People will be talking about a non-controversial but critical goaltending call in the final seconds of the game but what they should be talking about is a vintage performance from all-time great Tim Duncan who led his team in points, rebounds, and steals, despite being 39 years old. The series now returns to San Antonio for Game Six with the Spurs having a chance to end the series on home court.

Major League Baseball – It’s no surprise that in a game featuring two of the best pitchers in the world, there wasn’t much offense. The San Francisco Giants won 2-1 over the Los Angeles Dodgers thanks to a single home run by Buster Posey. That’s how close the margins of victory are likely to be when Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner faces Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. The Chicago Cubs continued their great start to the season by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-2. The Cubs scored three runs in the second inning and never looked back. They led, the entire game.

British Premier League Soccer – By losing 1-0 to Hull City, Liverpool really hurt their chances of finishing the year as one of the top four teams in the league and earning a coveted spot in next year’s Champions League. By beating Liverpool 1-0, Hull City significantly aided their own chances of finishing the year above the bottom three teams who get relegated to a lower league. It was a big loss for Liverpool and a big win for Hull City.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Detroit Red Wings at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Network: Thanks to a Tampa Bay victory in Detroit two days ago, the series is tied at 3-3 and hockey fans get to glory in yet another Game Seven. This one should really be no surprise, since the General Manager and architect of the Lightning is a former captain of the Red Wings who spent his entire 21 year career in Detroit. Everything he knows about hockey, he learned in Detroit, and he learned nearly everything. This edition of the Red Wings will have to win a Game Seven on the road without veteran defensive leader, Niklas Kronwall who is suspended after an illegal hit in Game Six. If any team can do it, they can, but it’s gonna be tough.

NBA Basketball

Brooklyn Nets at Atlanta Hawks, 7 p.m. ET on TNT: There’s a cliche in seven game playoff series that the “series doesn’t start until a road team wins a game.” If this is the case, then despite this being the fifth game of the series, it remains unstarted. The Hawks won the first two games which were in Atlanta and then the Nets won Games Three and Four in Brooklyn. Of the three remaining games, two are in Atlanta, so if this trend continues, the Hawks would advance.

Portland Trail Blazers at Memphis Grizzlies, 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT: The Grizzlies were up three games to zero in this series but lost Game Four, on Monday by a score of 99-92. In most series, the team that won the first three games would view a Game Four loss as just a small bump in the road. The only thing that suggests this might be a big bump is that the Grizzlies lost their starting point guard to a facial injury in Game Three and he’s likely to be out for a long time. Another loss here and Grizzlies fans will begin to get very, very nervous.

MLB Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays at Boston Red Sox, 6 p.m. ET on regional cable: It’s Game of Thrones season again and it’s hard to resist the lovable Blue Jays pitcher, R. A. Dickey, who uses the fantasy show’s theme song as his walk-up music before batting. He won’t get a chance to bat in this game, since the home team, the Red Sox, play in the American League where the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect. The DH rule means that pitchers don’t ever need to hit.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

ESPN has sued Verizon for testing out a new, partially unbundled approach to television pricing. Verizon was testing a new program where they would allow customers to choose theme based channel packages. Channels like ESPN have an interest in continuing to be bundled with virtually every other channel so that they can benefit from virtually any interest instead of just being purchased by sports fans. I favor bundling philosophically because it forces the majority to subsidize minority content that might not otherwise be profitable and therefore created. I’m curious to see what will happen in this legal battle of heavyweight companies. Retired baseball legend Kirk Gibson who hit one of the most famous home runs in World Series history in 1984 announced that he has Parkinson’s disease. If you’ve ever wanted to look behind the scenes at the NHL, here are two articles to read: the first is from Paul Brownfield of Vice Sports who spent a night watching playoff hockey with the members of the league’s department of player safety; the second, from Sean Leahy of Yahoo’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy, is an ode to the now former home of the New York Islanders, the Nassau Coliseum.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Eduardo Davad.

Need to Know Sports: April 28, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 28, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

ROUGH PLAY IN BOSTON, DAY 2, THE FALLOUT: Yesterday everyone was talking about the rough play in Game Four of the Cleveland Cavaliers sweep of the Boston Celtics in the NBA Playoffs. Today they’ll be talking about the collateral damage in terms of injured and suspended players. On the Cavaliers, the biggest loss is Kevin Love, their third best player, who has a dislocated shoulder and has already been ruled out for the next round of the playoffs. That’s at least two weeks, so you know it’s a major injury. For a detailed analysis of the injury, check out Jeff Stotts on his basketball injury blog, In Street Clothes. The Cavaliers other loss is to suspension. J.R. Smith, who basically punched a Celtics player, was given a two game suspension and will miss the first two games of the next round. The Celtics, were eliminated from the playoffs in the game on Sunday, so their loss of Kelly Olynyk to a one game suspension is a non-issue. The good news is that Jae Crowder, the guy who got punched by J.R. Smith, only has a sprained knee and nothing worse.

ORIOLES GAME POSTPONED IN BALTIMORE: When real life and sports intersect, it’s sometimes good to see sports give way. That’s what happened yesterday in Baltimore when the baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox last night was postponed due to the protests in the city. The Baltimore Sun noted in their article on the topic that this was the first non-weather related postponement in Baltimore since the week following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It’s worth reading up on the situation in Baltimore from more hard-news sites than this one, but for a sports perspective, read a statement from the Orioles Executive Vice President (and son of the owner) John Angelos. It’s pieced together from Twitter, so it’s not the best writing, but the sentiments are good and seem to come from the heart.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Hockey League – The Washington Capitals won 2-1 over the New York Islanders in a climactic Game Seven. This is a giant step forward and a big relief for the Capitals, who have a reputation for falling apart in the playoffs and especially in Game Sevens. For the Islanders, the loss is particularly jarring, because it means they’ve played their last game in their long-time Long Island home stadium, the Nassau Coliseum. Next year, they move to Brooklyn. The Tampa Bay Lightning won 5-2 over the Detroit Red Wings to force a Game Seven in that series as well. That game will be on Wednesday night and is must-watch television. There won’t be any NHL playoff games tonight, so take a deep breath and prepare for Wednesday.

National Basketball Association – There were two teams facing playoff elimination yesterday and both of them won and will live to see (and play) another game at least. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls 94-84 and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Memphis Grizzlies 99-92. The Bucks are now down three games to two in the series while the Trail Blazers are down three games to one. Still, I’d give the Trail Blazers a better chance (still not good though) to come back and win the series, because the Grizzlies have suffered some serious injury losses. The Brooklyn Nets beat the Atlanta Hawks 120-115 in overtime. This evens their series at two games apiece. It’s a surprising result given that the Hawks had by far the best record in the Eastern Conference this season and the Nets just barely made the playoffs. If you want to sound smart and a little smarmy, you can point out that the Hawks don’t have a star player and suggest that no matter how good a team works together, without a star, they are prone to playoff losses.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NBA Basketball

Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets, 8 p.m. ET on TNT: This might be the last game of an era in Dallas. With their team down 3-1 in the series, a loss tonight would end the season and could end the career of Dirk Nowitzky, a great player and fan favorite who has played for the Mavericks since 1998.

San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Clippers, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT: This is the best of the eight first round series in the NBA. It’s tied 2-2 and both teams feel, with good reason, that if they can win this series, they have a legitimate shot at winning the championship.

MLB Baseball

Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs, 8 p.m. ET on regional cable: There’s something about both these lovable losers that makes me want to feature them in my forecasts. I’m not sure what it is, something about tradition and pathos mixed together.

San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10 p.m. ET on regional cable: This baseball game is the rare early season one that might be good enough to tempt even a neutral or casual fan. The two pitchers in this game are among the very best in the world: Madison Bumgarner for the Giants and Clayton Kershaw for the Dodgers. In the past, Kershaw has been better during the regular season but Bumgarner holds the trump cards of having been better in the playoffs and having the better name.

BPL Soccer

Liverpool at Hull City, 2:45 p.m. on NBC Sports Network: You’d think a game between the fifth best and fifth worst team in a league wouldn’t be interesting, but because the top four teams in the Premier League get coveted spots in next year’s Champions League and the bottom three get relegated to a lower league, this game is vitally important for both teams.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

David Aldridge’s weekly NBA column contains some amazing gems from an interview with nerdy NBA player, Brook Lopez, including his thoughts (and fears) about time travel. Read Johnathan Gilbert’s New York Times introduction to the strange sport of Footgolf and the Argentinian athletes who dominate it. NBA coach Rick Carlisle literally taped his mouth shut during a press conference two nights ago as a silent (and prop based) comedic protest against what he thought was unfair refereeing towards his team. Watch the video on Deadspin here. Talking about video, ESPN2 aired live coverage of a video game tournament and people freaked out a bit. Gamer site Kotaku wrote about it. To feel good about the world, watch this SB Nation video of widespread collusion in a Kansas University alumni football game to let 89-year-old former Kansas running back Bryan Sperry score a long touchdown. It’s amazing and I hope I can run like that when I’m 89!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo of Bert and Earnie by See-ming Lee.

Need to Know Sports: April 27, 2015

I’m introducing a new thing today. It’s called Need to Know Sports and its a daily email that answers the question, “What do I need to know about sports today?” Whether you’re someone who needs to know everything about sports to feel alive or someone who views sports as being strictly on a need to know basis, this is a good way to start your day.

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 27, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

ROUGH PLAY IN BOSTON: LeBron James and his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, advanced to the next round of the NBA basketball playoffs yesterday by beating the Boston Celtics 101-93 for their fourth win in a row. Winning four games in a row in a seven game series is called a sweep and it usually means that things went smoothly for the winners. That’s not the case for the Cavaliers who may be missing two of their key players after a series of rough and possibly dirty plays in yesterday’s game. Kevin Love got tangled up with Boston Celtic, Kelly Olynyk, in the first quarter of the game and ended up with a dislocated shoulder. Ouch. Later in the game, J.R. Smith, a Cavalier who is known to be a bit of a lunatic, swung his fist backwards wildly and connected with the head of Celtic, Jae Crowder. While falling to the ground, stunned, Crowder injured his knee and, after being helped off the court, was not able to continue playing.

There are four main opinions to have about this, none of them incredibly nuanced, and if you talk to sports fans today, you’ll probably hear all four.

The Celtics are full of dirty players and are an abomination to the sport of basketball.
The Cavaliers are full of dirty players and are an abomination to the sport of basketball.
What happened yesterday was terrible. That type of play is not what basketball is about.
What happened yesterday was great! That type of play was totally common in the 1980s when basketball was a great sport. Since then, it’s gotten way too sanitary to be truly enjoyable.

Feel free to take any of these positions in a sports conversation today. Or choose ONE of the top two and ONE of the bottom two. People will also be speculating about who should and will be suspended.

THE HEAD INJURY CRISIS COMES TO SOCCER: The concussion and brain injury crisis reached beyond American Football and reared its ugly (yes) head yesterday in a high profile British Premier League football game. During the first half of a game between first place Chelsea and third place Arsenal, the Arsenal goalie came out to defend against Chelsea player Oscar and their heads collided violently. Oscar seemed to have been unconscious in the air and was certainly out for some time after he hit the ground. Nonetheless, he returned to play and made it until halftime when he was reassessed and then sent to the hospital.

One of the major problems with addressing head injuries in soccer is that, unlike football or hockey, substitutions are severely limited. Teams are only allowed three total substitutions during a game and if a player has to be assessed for an injury, their team must play with one fewer player until she either returns or is replaced by a substitute. Once substituted, a player cannot return in that game. These rules make it extremely likely that players with brain injuries, even obvious, spectacular ones like today, will play through them instead of being assessed and treated. While a lack of immediate reform on this point seems insane, remember that these injuries have been happening for more than seventy five years and it’s only seemed insane to a majority of viewers for the past five years or so. Add to that the complexity of trying to negotiate a rule change between a dozen or more country-based leagues in Europe, and the slow pace of change is more understandable. Still, every injury like today’s will help push the soccer and sports world towards reform.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Hockey League – The first round (of four) playoff series in the NHL are coming to an end. Yesterday’s two games eliminated two teams and advanced two others to the next round. The Minnesota Wild won 4-1 over the St. Louis Blues. The Blues have now lost in the first round of the playoffs for three years running. This either means they are fatally flawed underachievers OR victims of the random small sample sized experiment that the playoffs are. The Montreal Canadiens finally ended the Ottawa Senators magical run over the past two months by beating them 2-0. The Senators were way down in the standings and not expected to even make the playoffs but no magic will soothe the burn of having lost to their neighbors and rivals, the Canadiens.

National Basketball Association – Los Angeles Clippers won 114-105 over the San Antonio Spurs: The most highly anticipated first round matchup in the NBA is turning into the league’s most competitive one. The Spurs are the defending champions but they come into this series as the underdog. Now tied at 2-2, the series returns to Los Angeles for game 5 and, if needed, game 7. You’d think this would give the advantage to the Clippers but my money is still on the Spurs. Quick soundbite if you want to sound savvy — point out that home-court advantage has been slowly disappearing this year and say that this lessons the advantage the Clippers once would have had. The story of yesterday’s game was the excellent play of Austin Rivers, son of Clippers coach Doc Rivers. Doc traded for his son part of the way through the year, a move which was widely scorned by fans and sports writers, but for one day at least, those critics will have to eat their words.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NBA Basketball

Atlanta Hawks at Brooklyn Nets, 7 p.m. ET on NBA TV: Atlanta leads the seven game series 2-1 but Brooklyn won the last game convincingly. Atlanta lacks star power and Brooklyn lacks the ability to play beautiful basketball.

Milwaukee Bucks at Chicago Bulls, 8 p.m. ET on TNT: The Chicago Bulls lead this series 3-1. With the game in Chicago and the Bulls firing on all cylinders, there’s little drama to be found here.

Memphis Grizzlies at Portland Trail Blazers, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT: Memphis is up 3-0 in this series. Portland may with this game but they almost definitely won’t win the series.

NHL Hockey

Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings, 7 p.m. ET on CNBC: Down three games to two in this series, all the pressure for this game is on the Lightning. Lose and they’re eliminated from the playoffs. Win and they get to fly back to Florida to host a deciding Game Seven on Wednesday. The Red Wings are a veteran team and while they’d prefer to win this one, they won’t be afraid to go on the road and win game seven.

New York Islanders at Washington Capitals, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: This is by far the most exciting game on the sports calendar for today. This is game seven of the series between the Islanders and Capitals. Each team won three of the first six games, so this one is for everything. Game sevens are better than single elimination tournament games, like you get in March Madness, because the stakes are the same but the tactical and emotional plots have had six games over the past two weeks to build.

Verisimilitude

Read The Economist’s obituary of cricket legend Richard Benaud. Benaud was an incredible Australian cricket player who followed up his long playing career by becoming one of the most well known cricket television commentators. I loved learning a little about Benaud’s life and admired his decision to leave commentating in 2005 when the rights to televise cricket were bought by a cable channel. Benaud felt that “the joy of watching cricket should be free for everyone.” I laughed out-loud at the description of his commenting style as “almost prissily bipartisan.”

Glory in Bruce Ely’s amazing photograph of Portland Trail Blazers, Robin Lopez, and Memphis Grizzlies, Zach Randolph preparing to snag a rebound.

RoLo working against Zach Randolph pic.twitter.com/cumt17JMX9

— Bruce Ely (@bruceely) April 26, 2015

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo of Two Rhesus Macaques at Blijdorp Zoo, Rotterdam (Netherlands) by Jinterwas.

What happened on Thursday, April 24, 2015?

In the world of the hopeful, the Pirates are the king: At least for a day. The Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates, both teams who have lost for a long, long time and who are more hopeful this year than ever, played yesterday in a matinee baseball game. It was a good one. The Cubs led 4-2 after five innings but lost the lead sixth and then the game in the seventh both to RBI hits by Gregory Polanco. On the Cubs side, Kris Bryant, their star-studded rookie got his first start in his second game and has still not gotten a hit.
Line: If things go the way we’re used to them going, the Cubs and the Pirates will be a nice story until around August and then the Cardinals will turn it on and leave them in the dust.
Lightning strikes three times: The Detroit Red Wings were securely skating to a 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning before the Lightning struck three times in a row to win the game. Their first goal came with less than seven minutes to go in the game, they scored a second to force overtime with only a smidge over four minutes left. In overtime, it only took two minutes and 25 seconds for Tyler Johnson of the Lightning to end the game with a bad angle shot into an open net created by a rare overtime three on one break.
Line: The Red Wings will be shaking their heads all the way to Game Five in Tampa Bay.
Predictable results, unpredictable means: The NBA playoffs this year, as they often are, have been characterized by favorites winning. All three favorites won again last night but two of them needed overtime to do it. The Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks 113-106 in double overtime to take a 3-0 lead in their series. The Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-119 in single overtime but needed a heroic 39 point fourth quarter just to erase a 20 point deficit and get there. Likely MVP, Steph Curry had 40 points including an incredible last second three pointer.
Line: You’d believe the results but if you hadn’t seen the games (or the highlights,) you wouldn’t believe how they happened.

What happened on Wednesday, April 22, 2015?

It’s good to be royal: After 170 minutes of scoreless soccer over two games between Madrid rivals Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, Real broke through with a single goal. That was all they needed to advance into the Champions League semifinals, joining Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Juventus.
Line: Atletico put up a good fight, but in the end, Real’s quality showed through.
From the brink: There were two hockey teams facing their playoff extinction last night. One will live to see another day, the other will not. The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 to force at least a fifth game in that series. On the other side of the country, the Anaheim Ducks finished the Winnipeg Jets off, by a score of 5-2. The Winnipeg Fans, who waited 19 years to see a home playoff game, will need to wait at least another year for a home playoff win.
Line: Good for Ottawa for pushing back at the Canadiens. Poor Winnipeg.
The Spurs are still the Spurs: After losing game one of their series against the Los Angeles Clippers, there was a predictable flood of stories proclaiming this to be the end of the aging San Antonio Spurs. Last night, the Spurs showed that until they are truly dead and buried, it’s always a bad idea to count them out. Despite losing two key players, one with an injury, the other from fouling out, during last night’s game, the Spurs still found a way to win. The final score after four quarters and one overtime period was 111-107.
Line: You can’t expect the Spurs to go out easily, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they won it all. Again!

What happened on Tuesday, April 22, 2015?

Overtimes abound in the NHL Playoffs: Two of the four games last night in the NHL playoffs went into overtime. The Washington Capitals beat the New York Islanders 2-1 in single overtime to even their best-four-out-of-seven series at two games apiece. The Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators needed three overtime periods to decide their game last night. Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook scored in the 101st minute of the game to give the ‘Hawks the win and put them up 3-1 in the series. Overtime is exhausting for both players and fans, the difference is that the fans are likely to have bleary eyes, the players are likely to have black eyes.
Line: Overtime is exhausting and exhilarating.
Giant wins in the Champions League: Soccer powerhouses, Barcelona and Bayern Munich left nothing to chance in yesterday’s Champions League games. Barcelona beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-0 in a game they only needed not to lose by two or three goals. Bayern Munich needed to win 2-0 to advance but instead decided to put on a soccer clinic and win their game against FC Porto 6-1.
Line: I can’t say I’m surprised by the results but I am surprised by how easily Barcelona and Bayern seemed to get them.
Fun times in Houston: The Houston Rockets not only won their playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks last night to go up 2-0 in the series, but they looked like they were having fun doing it. Dwight Howard and Josh Smith, two mostly unlikeable characters, combined for six alley-oops. Death by alley-oop is a humiliating way to go.
Line: Houston just looks better than Dallas. Can we fast-forward to the next round now?

What happened on Monday, April 20, 2015?

The Boston Marathon was uneventful, and that’s good: Caroline Rotich, a Kenyan runner won the women’s race by four seconds over Mare Dibaba. In a less exciting finish, Lelisa Desisa won the men’s race. The day was dominated by echoes of the race two years ago which was interrupted by a terrorist attack at the finish line. Bitter-sweet stories abounded, like Rebekah Gregory’s. Gregory was at the race two years ago with her son and they were both injured in the attack. Gregory lost her leg below the knee. This year she decided to cross the finish line (not run the entire race, but I don’t really think that’s important, do you?) as a symbolic way of taking her life back. You can read an interview by Amy Van Deusen of Gregory and some of her supporters on ESPNW here.
Line: As long as everyone finished the race safely, I’m happy.
Red Sox win to complete the celebration in Boston: Marathon Day, officially known as Patriots’ Day, is a big holiday in Boston. As part of the day’s celebrations, the Red Sox play a home game starting at 11 a.m. This year they beat the Orioles 7-1 in a rain-shortened game.
Line: Not that any professional sports team should ever intentionally lose, but being the visiting team in Boston on Marathon Day must basically be a no-win situation. Why not just take it a little easy?
You’ve got to feel for the Jets: Winnipeg lost its NHL team, the Jets, in 1996 when the team moved to Arizona of all places. After years of mourning, they finally got them back when they convinced the struggling team in Atlanta to move up north. Last night the city hosted its first NHL playoff game in 16 years. And… the team lost in heart-breaking fashion to go down 3-0 in the best-four-out-of-seven game series against the Anaheim Ducks.
Line: Poor Winnipeg. I wish they were winning.
Tied after three, not close after four: The game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Golden State Warriors was tied after three quarters but the #1 seeded Warriors came out in the fourth quarter and scored 10 more points than their opposition. The advancement of the best team all year, the Warriors, past the first round may be inevitable but the underdog Pelicans are showing themselves to be worthy of admiration as well.
Line: For a series with such little drama about who is going to win, it’s certainly got entertaining basketball.

What happened on Friday, April 17, 2015?

Wild pun and win: You can write your own pun — it was a “wild start” or whatever. The fact is that the Minnesota Wild jumped on the St. Louis Blues early last night and never let up. They led from the three minute mark on and never gave up the lead. The final score was 4-2 but three of those goals, two by Minnesota and one by St. Louis were scored in the last two minutes of the game.
Line: As a neutral observer, I feel for St. Louis, who always seems to just not quite have the answer in the playoffs, but I want Minnesota to win. Minnesota is such hockey country, they should have some NHL success.
Glass half full or totally empty?: That’s the question fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins will be asking themselves this morning after their team gave up a goal in the first 30 seconds of their first playoff game of the year last night against the New York Rangers. That early lapse turned out to be fatal. They were never able to catch up to the Rangers once they spotted them that early goal and lost 2-1. The optimists will say that other than that, the Penguins played well against the favored Rangers. The pessimists will point out that there’s no margin for error when you’re an underdog in the playoffs and then probably tell you that the sky is falling.
Line: You can’t make mental mistakes and hope to win in the playoffs. The sky is falling!!
Back and forth, back and forth, for 12 innings: It’s virtually impossible to predict which games are going to be great and which are going to be mundane. That’s actually one of the things about sports that drives fans to watch so many games. You never know, but you want to be watching when something extraordinary happens, so you just watch a lot. A great baseball game broke out last night between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Francisco Giants. The Giants scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to push the game into overtime (called extra innings in baseball.) Then both teams scored in the tenth. Neither team scored in the eleventh. And finally, both teams scored in the twelfth inning, but the Diamondbacks scored more. Arizona won, 7-6.
Line: Making baseball faster is a hot topic but there are no complaints when an extra innings game breaks out. I guess that’s the exception that proves the rule.

What happened on April 15, 2015?

The hockey playoffs start of with a boom: There is nothing more exciting, nerve-wracking, and pulse thumping than watching overtime in a Stanley Cup playoff game. Hockey fans were treated to two overtimes on the first night of the playoffs, both in the game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators. A defenseman, Duncan Keith, finally scored in the second overtime to win the game 4-3 for the Chicago Blackhawks but the story of the night was the ‘hawks backup goalie, Scott Darling, who came into the game in relief after their starter let in three goals, and proceeded to shut the Predators out for the remainder of the game.
Line: There’s a reason why overtimes where the first team to score, wins, are called sudden death… it’s because watching them makes you feel like you’re going to have a heart-attack!
Barcelona dazzles: Barcelona has such freakishly talented players that sometimes it seems as if they’re the Harlem Globetrotters and their opponents are the hapless Washington Generals. There were a few moments that felt that way yesterday in Paris during Barcelona’s Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain that ended 3-1.
Line: Barcelona can not only beat you, they can make you feel silly for having shown up.
The U.S. Men’s National Team… wins: Okay, so… truth be told, the game between the United States Men’s National Team and Mexico was not nearly as good an exhibition of soccer as the previous game. It was, at times, downright ugly. But, the U.S. did win, so hooray if you’re a fan of the team. The star of the night was Jordan Morris, a college kid getting his first start on the national team. He looked nervous during the anthems before the game, but once play started, he looked right at home. He scored the first goal of the game and of his career after snatching an unlucky bounce off a Mexican defender.
Line: A win is a win, no matter how sloppy.
The Pacers (and Thunder) fade to summer vacation: After 81 games, all the Pacers needed to do was win one more and they would have made the NBA playoffs. They couldn’t do it. They lost to Memphis 95-83. Because of that, the Brooklyn Nets get the last playoff spot in the East and the chance to (probably) lose to the first ranked Atlanta Hawks. A similar scenario played out in the West where the New Orleans Pelicans eliminated the Oklahoma City Thunder from playoff contention.
Line: Although it hurts now, not making the playoffs this year probably won’t turn out to be so bad for Thunder and Pacers fans. Their teams weren’t likely to win much in the playoffs anyway.

What happened on Tuesday, April 14, 2015?

Delayed gratification: Fans of goal scoring or decisiveness will have to wait until the next time Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid meet. Their game yesterday, the first of a two leg Champions League quarterfinal series, ended in a 0-0 tie. The game was well and roughly played overall, there just weren’t any moments of attacking brilliance.
Line: Neither team could solve the other’s defense. Not for lack of trying.
An important sloppy double overtime game: In the NBA, the most important game of the night was between the Indiana Pacers and Washington Wizards. A Pacers victory would eliminate the Miami Heat from playoff contention and strike a blow against the Brooklyn Nets’ chances as well. It took the full 48 minutes plus two five minute overtime periods, but the Pacers, who had much more motivation than the Wizards, finally did it.
Line: Just one more win from the Pacers tonight and they’ll make the playoffs.