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Hypocrisy in Bristol

Few things in sports go hand-in-hand as well as ESPN and hypocrisy.

Sure, there are the high-profiled bashings of spring college football two days before ESPN decides to send Gameday to the University of Florida’s spring game. And then there is ESPN’s talk of high journalistic standards, the same standards that lead one of its primary writers to announce that Les Miles had accepted the head coaching position at the University of Michigan just an hour before he publicly announced that he had not taken the job.

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The True Villain

Eight Belles wasn’t the only sign of death on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Horse racing will die too, at least in the United States. It must. I don’t want to say it and it hurts, but there seems to be no other alternative right now.

Sure, there are solutions, fixes if you will, but nobody is going to listen; nobody, that is, with the power to listen.

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Shred the Rack: Why bowling will never be a mainline sport

By Billy Fellin

I would be willing to bet that anyone who reads this column has been bowling before. Whether it would be a rainy day activity with friends or that cool birthday party when you were 5, most of us at one point or another have thrown a bowling ball down the lane. But how many of us actually would consider it a sport that takes just as much work as football, baseball, hockey or basketball? Or even a legitimate sport at all, able to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the four sports previously listed. Certainly fewer people than have ever bowled in their life actually take bowling seriously and consider it a thriving sport. I am one of the rare people who take bowling seriously, but I don’t think it will ever become a mainstream sport that people will jump up to watch as they do for football and baseball.

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Team U.S.A. – Choose Your Sport

In the U.S. where basketball, baseball and American football rule, the performance of our national teams in other competitions is sometimes overlooked.  Considering the importance placed on sports in our society and the money and resources available you are left to wonder how we cannot be more competitive in sports outside of our “comfort zone”.  

The Rugby World Cup ended for Team U.S.A. today following a thrashing at the hands of South Africa.  This was hardly a big surprise.  The United States is not exactly a rugby nation while South Africa won the World Cup in 1995 and is a contender whenever it steps on the pitch.

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A Question of Class

As an American living overseas, I’m exposed to another perspective of my compatriots.  Although media is supposed to be objective, we all know the reality of humanity and even the most committed and honest reporter will expose their inner feelings in the process of a broadcast.

This applies to sports reporting as well.  Growing up in Northwest Ohio, I could have listened to The Game on two different radio stations and, although the score would be the same, I would likely have a completely different perspective on what was transpiring on the field based on which station I listened to at a particular moment.

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Nascar First Half Report

Has there been a better season for NASCAR than this one? We’ve had everything – close finishes, fights, suspensions and high-profile moves, accompanied by the soundtrack of drivers whining and the screech of cars prior to the crash.

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Blacktop Culture

It’s a far cry from the bright lights of the arena. The familiar sight of brightly polished parquet floors and fully loaded box seats are nowhere to be found. In its place is a slab of asphalt and cement blocks posing as bleachers. Everything is different; the bounce of the ball, the sound of a swishing net, and the roar of the crowd.

This is street basketball.

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Taboo Survival

Sunday’s Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix brought back memories that nobody in the sport would actually admit it brought back.

While Lewis Hamilton won the race to become the first black driver to ever win an F1 event, it was overshadowed by the horrific crash of Poland’s Robert Kubica on lap 27. Luckily, Kubica, who’s car came apart and rolled a half dozen times while he was still in it, was alright, suffering merely a broken foot.

He’s lucky because if Ayrton Senna, arguably the greatest driver of all time, hadn’t died 13 years ago, Kubica could have died too.

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Coppin With Sabotage

For Coppin State’s baseball team, the NCAA tournament was never the goal.

After an offseason that featured its head coach resigning mid-summer to pursue a different career and all but three players quitting because of an alleged letter that Guy Robertson, the resigned coach, sent to convince the players to quit too, to an athletic budget that makes it a burden to purchase baseballs, the NCAA tournament was more than that clichéd dream from occurring. And no, they didn’t make the tournament, because you would have heard the story by now if they had.

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As Maryland as Crab Cakes

If you search the Arlington Park website, you’ll find no report about why the horse track was closed for two years from 1998-1999.

You’ll find out how the track recovered in the 1980s from a fire that destroyed the grandstand, forcing the track to move its meet to Hawthorne Race Course, located across town in Chicago; you’ll find out how in 1981, Arlington Park became the first horse track in the history of the world to offer a $1 million purse for one race, the Arlington Million; you’ll find out that Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, John Henry, Native Dancer, and Citation have been among the countless horses to run and win at the track; you’ll find out that Cigar tied Citation’s 16-race winning streak at the track; but the only mention of the track going dark is that it reopened in 2000 after a two year absence.