Horse Sense: “The authors really know their horses. This is a horse-lovers book, a real thriller that has opened my eyes to fraud in the high stakes world of championship horses.”
Jeremy Lin’s America
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Brent Budowsky: Notwithstanding the endless echo chamber of political insiders and slashing attacks that is called our public discourse, the wonderful story of Jeremy Lin tells us far more about America than partisan debates or talking heads.
From The Editors: Four New Ways to Engage Our Readers
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Dick Price: Sharon and I are reminded of the various methods we have taken to engage our readers. Here, I thought I’d tell you about three new features we unveiled — and one we’ve revitalized — in the waning weeks of 2011:
Reasons Aplenty for No Farmers Field
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Elizabeth Knipe: Who can afford a $100 to $200 ticket to a pro football game? Who wants to pay that freight, when we can stay home and watch it on the big screen, and save the environment
Am I the Only One Thinking the Lakers Are Trippin’?
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Anthony Samad: With the Lakers, the old girl found out she was about to be dumped for the new girl BEFORE the brotha could break the news. That’s a problem…a fit waiting to be thrown, let’s say.
Why Does the 99 Percent Let Athletes, Executives, and Movie Stars Get Away with Huge Salaries?
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Walter Moss: When Babe Ruth was asked about earning more than the president, he responded, “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
Billionaire Bagger Bamboozles L.A. Downtown Dems
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Brad Parker: With no plan in hand, the city leaders of Los Angeles are chortling about how a new Football Stadium for an imaginary NFL Team will usher in an era of jobs, jobs, jobs for all Angelenos.
Al Davis: More Progressive Than You Know
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H. Scott Prosterman: It is said that only the most righteous Jews die during the High Holy Days. Al Davis died on the morning of Yom Kippur. That may or may not be coincidence.
Homophobe Tim Hardaway’s Change of Words
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Hardaway’s homophobia is shaped by a particular type of black masculinity that no longer has to break through this country’s color barrier to represent the race and prove athletic prowess or manhood in sports.
Playing Ball With the Pentagon
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Andrew Basevich: And the holiday festivities at Fenway had another significance as well, one that extended beyond burnishing institutional reputations and boosting bottom lines. Here was America’s civic religion made manifest.
Scratches on the Blackboard of Animal Cruelty
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Walter Brasch: In a vicious letter to its members and the media, the NRA stated that national animal rights extremists, whom they have also called radicals, are trying to ban what they call a “longstanding traditional shooting sport.”
Race, Racism and Online News & Sports
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Jessie Daniels: Many news sites have abandoned the practice of allowing comments because of the proliferation of offensive comments, many of them racist.
Rev. Peter Gomes: Accidental Gay Advocate
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Rev. Irene Monroe: In 1991 Gomes came out of the closet as a pre-emptive strike against a rabidly conservative Christian student group on campus whose magazine hurled homophobic diatribes against us LGBTQ students.
How L.A.’s New “Farmers Field” Football Stadium Could Boost Urban Agriculture
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Alissa Walker: The name Farmers Field is actually incredibly appropriate for L.A. Agriculture is the business that L.A. was built on—the Farmers Insurance company started here in 1928 to provide lower premiums to L.A. farmers and ranchers.
Packers-Steelers Super Bowl Politics
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Randy Shaw: For those without a rooting interest in either the Pittsburgh Steelers or Green Bay Packers, the teams’ politics might help you decide for whom to cheer.
Of Football Teams, Fraternities, and Other Important Intellectual Concerns
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Walter Brasch: What upset Burton, who had donated about $7 million to UConn, mostly for its football program, was that the selection committee for a new football coach didn’t take his suggestion.
Michael Vick and the Politics of Second Chances
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Anthony Samad: Second chance success stories in our society are few and far in between. People choose to forget who you are and remember what you did, instead of forgetting what you did and remembering who you are.
How Affirmative Action Brought Willie Mays to the New York Giants
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Sherwood Ross: Willie Mays, thought by many baseball writers to be the greatest player who ever wore spikes, was passed up by three major league clubs due to outright racial prejudice or to quota systems that limited them to just one Negro star.
Ozzie Guillen Speaks Truth on Baseball’s Racial Double Standard
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Randy Shaw: It’s clear that MLB fears that formally recognizing its proliferation of Spanish-speaking players by providing interpreters could cause a backlash from a predominately white male fan base that likely supports Arizona’s anti-Latino law.
Baseball Has Lost Some of Its Soul
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William J. Astore: But I despair at the way money and media and mercenary players have invaded the game and changed its character from a pastime to a business. Just one recent example: today’s opener between the Red Sox and Yankees was moved to 8:05 PM for the benefit of ESPN Sunday night baseball in the hopes of garnering higher ratings and advertising revenue. Few seem to care about inconveniencing the fans, or flouting the tradition of opening day played in the afternoon under God’s natural light.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Black Girl: Serena Williams
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What happened Saturday during the women’s semifinal at the United States Open between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters is just another example of how Black women are still seen as threatening and hostile.
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Tim Tebow and the Politics of Whiteness
Mark Naison: Best of all, Tebow doesn’t confirm racial stereotypes. He is strong, tough, athletic, dominating the game because defensive players can’t tackle him. And he has clearly won the respect of his black teammates. I like that.