"On Louisville, Breonna Taylor, and Muhammad Ali."

Photo credit: The Nation.

From one of the few sportswriters capable of mattering, talking straight.  

On Louisville, Breonna Taylor, and Muhammad Ali, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Louisville is hallowed ground, the birthplace of Muhammad Ali. It will now, thanks to Daniel Cameron, be also remembered as the home of an unspeakable injustice.

 ... If struggle is truly the secret of joy, then I’ll repeat: It felt like hallowed ground.

Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky Attorney General, has desecrated this hallowed ground. In his ambition to remain a Republican rising star, mentored by McConnell and beloved by Trump, he chose his career over justice and made the decision to use Breonna Taylor’s body as a stepping stone to reach even greater heights ... but to me this is less about the color of Cameron’s skin than a naked and grotesque expression of what it takes to rise in GOP circles: You protect the cops, you blame the dead, and you assert, no matter the cost, that Black lives—particularly the lives of Black women—simply do not matter. 

 For the people of Louisville, Breonna Taylor’s name will not be forgotten as surely as Muhammad Ali’s. Maybe someday people will walk Breonna Taylor Boulevard in downtown Louisville and speak her name not merely as a tragedy but as a turning point towards true justice. Daniel Cameron’s name, if remembered at all, will be thought of like the person who stole young Cassius Clay’s bicycle, which inspired the 12-year-old Clay to take up boxing. He will be the anonymous, ignofarm-near-me/">minious cudgel of immorality whose blows didn’t put the people of Louisville down for the count, but propelled them to rise off the mat.

80 years after Lou Gehrig's famous goodbye, Dave Zirin examines baseball's declining popularity.

Photo credit.

It's been 80 years since Lou Gehrig made his famous closing remarks, and the contemporary game seems so far removed from Gehrig's era that we might be speaking of different planets.

I've changed, too. Sporting endeavors mean far less to me now than before, and these days I seldom allot time to watch games of any sort. They all take too damn long; there are books to absorb and words to write, and whatever little contribution I can make toward refusing to view advertisements, it's an easy call to opt out. I can always read about the games.

Thus noted, the ongoing NBA free agent sweepstakes have been fascinating. The Clippers, contenders?

Of course I'm monitoring the major league baseball results, and with the season half finished, Oakland remains in contention. At the same time I'm not enthused enough to actually devote three and a half hours to watching a game. We saw one in April in Cincinnati, and that's enough for now.

Dave Zirin is one of the few sportswriters who genuinely matter, and he's pretty much on target here, noting that the human element seems to be disappearing from baseball.

Analytic approaches to hitting have now become conventional wisdom, with players trying to extend pitch counts, draw walks and swing for the fences, going for a home run or a strike out. The first-ball hitter or the sacrifice bunt are considered antiquated. This slows the game down. It also decreases the number of fielding possibilities, which not only grinds the game down, but makes it more—and here is that word—boring.

There'll be a counterrevolution. There always is. I'll just curl up in the corner with a good book and wait for the pendulum to swing back.

Why No One Watches Baseball Anymore, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The sport is experiencing its lowest levels of support since 1937. The reasons are obvious, but owners and executives have no incentive to look for answers.

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox just played a historic series in London, bringing the national pastime across the pond. Two of the greatest rivals in the history of sports competed in two games over the weekend, and it felt like much of the sports world barely noticed. There has been far more buzz about the US women’s national soccer team, currently advancing to the semi-finals of the World Cup in France, and the wild and wacky NBA free-agency period. People—particularly young people—appear to be more interested in where NBA players are going than what Major League Baseball players are doing.

As someone who grew up loving baseball (tragically, as a diehard Mets fan) and whose own kids would sooner make their beds than go to a game, I feel like I have an answer to the question of why young people want no part of this. The games are too damn long. On Saturday, the Red Sox-Yankees contest, for example, lasted four hours and 42 minutes. The Sunday game was a brisk four hours and 24 minutes. Though a typical game falls more in the three-hour range, this is too damn long. Last year Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenley Jansen scoffed at this notion, saying, “The Super Bowl is four and a half hours.” That is undoubtedly true. The Super Bowl is also once a year. It is not part of a 162-game dirge, many of the games played outdoors in a summer heat that—thanks to climate change—isn’t getting any cooler ...

It isn't so much that we don't have baseball players like Gehrig nowadays. We don't make people like this.

Eighty Years On, Lou Gehrig’s Words Reverberate, by Richard Sandomir (New York Times)

There is little record of the speech known as baseball’s Gettysburg Address, but there is that movie.

Lou Gehrig had finally made it to the Yankees’ clubhouse that afternoon, drained and drenched with perspiration, having delivered a speech of such simple eloquence that it would one day be called baseball’s Gettysburg Address.

Lou had wept as he spoke — as did many of the nearly 62,000 other people in Yankee Stadium on that Fourth of July 80 years ago.

Back in the comfort of the clubhouse with teammates and friendly reporters around him, he asked, “Did my speech sound silly?” It was a humble man’s question with an easy answer: it did not.

Much of the speech no longer exists as an intact recording; poor preservation of newsreels has left only four known surviving lines ...

Frederick Douglass: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (2019).

Dave Zirin, one of a select group of sportswriters who really matter, introduces a speech by Frederick Douglass, originally delivered in 1852.

Here’s hoping people take the time to read the entirety of Douglass’s brilliant speech. Even though his were words that spoke directly to his moment in history, they still ring with an unsettling power.

As Douglass says, “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

The speech itself is lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, it is best read prior to hamburgers and fireworks.

‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass By Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

NFL: "A sport where player careers last only three and a half years is built on disposable black bodies, indifference to brain damage, and a country-club dismissal of black brain power."

Ladies and gentlemen, just about the only sports writer who genuinely matters, precisely because he doesn't refrain from contextualizing tails that wag dogs.

The NFL Has Fired Almost All of Its Black Coaches, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The firings reflect a league that is actively hostile to black progress.

The day after the end of the NFL season, when teams fire allegedly underperforming head coaches, is known as Black Monday. This year that nickname was a tad too “on the nose.” Of the seven NFL head coaches fired earlier this week, five are African American. That leaves the league with only two black head coaches, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin and Los Angeles Charges coach Mike Lynn. In a league that is 70 percent African American, the number of black head coaches has never even hit 30 percent.

There are also of course still no black owners, and “the Rooney rule” that owners interview candidates of color is completely toothless. A sport where player careers last only three and a half years is built on disposable black bodies, indifference to brain damage, and a country-club dismissal of black brain power. It is this reality that compelled Michael Bennett of the Philadelphia Eagles to write in his 2018 book (which I co-wrote):

If the NFL were really integrated these [ownership, coaching and executive numbers] would be different. The NFL needed what’s called the Rooney Rule just to require owners to sit down with Black coaching candidates. They needed a rule just to talk to us. Not hire us. Talk to us…. We are integrated only on the level that people see on the field, yet all sports celebrate this half-view of integration. When Major League Baseball memorializes Jackie Robinson, they leave out that he wanted to be a manager or executive but they would not give him the opportunity.

But why should anyone be surprised that we’ve arrived at this point in 2019. This is a league whose owners gave upward of $8 million to the shady Trump Inauguration Committee. This is a league that is still signing quarterbacks who were terrible in college, let alone the NFL, while denying Colin Kaepernick employment because he dared to speak out for racial justice and against police violence. This is the league that has almost certainly been harassing Carolina Panthers safety Eric Reid with repeated drug tests, for the crime of continuing to demand justice on behalf of his friend Kaepernick ...

The revival of the black athletic struggle, and a collision with our post-9/11 world.

Just about everyone in New Albany believes Romeo Langford will be a professional basketball player following his tenure at Indiana University.

Just about everyone in New Albany will be closely monitoring Langford's evolution as a basketball prodigy.

My own little bit of voyeurism from afar will be observing his evolution as a black athlete. 

‘There’s No Substitute for Confrontation’: An Interview with Howard Bryant on Today’s Political Black Athlete, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Bryant’s new book explores what happens when black athletic struggle is revived, but collides with our post-9/11 world.

Howard Bryant is the author of eight books including Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball, and The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron. He is also a columnist for ESPN The Magazine and was the editor of The Best American Sports Writing 2017. His latest, out next week, is called The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism.

What is The Heritage? How do you define it?

To me, it’s the responsibility the black athlete has accepted or has actually been placed on them, since World War II. It’s the responsibility that these athletes feel to be the public faces and political faces of Black America.

It’s not a responsibility they’ve always wanted, but it’s one that was created in the mold of the Paul Robesons, the Jackie Robinsons, and then Muhammad Ali and Tommie Smith and John Carlos. I think it’s something that no matter how big your contract is, it’s a responsibility that will always stay with you, not because of your successes, but because of how far African Americans have had to go to gain equality.

(snip)

There is no greater influence in American culture today than 9/11. 9/11 is Pearl Harbor. 9/11 is Watergate. When you look at sports, or going to the movies, or walking through the airport, the specter of 9/11 touches everything. And what 9/11 did to sports was transform it from a place where being apolitical was part of the business model, to making politics part of the business model.

And those politics are extremely, extremely powerful. They are militarized. They are racialized. They are internalized in terms of heroes and villains and it set up a confrontation because you have this hero-worship of police at the time when police brutality is an everyday occurrence and fear in the black community and many of the athletes are from these communities. You’re asking African Americans to deify and to genuflect toward the very entities that have really caused a lot of harm in the black community ...

Dave Zirin toughs it out: "The Progressive Case for the New England Patriots (Seriously)."

Dave Zirin once again proves he's the only sportswriter who genuinely matters, this time by conquering a task many thought impossible.

I'm more interested in our living link to the Spirits of St. Louis, Bob Costas, being omitted from Stupor Bowl coverage. Is it because he talked turkey about concussions?

Take it away, Dave. Click through to absorb every last point, and if you're a beer lover, ponder this:

Is there a progressive case to be made for New England IPA?

The Progressive Case for the New England Patriots (Seriously), by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The team referred to as Team Trump is far more complicated than its critics would admit.

Setting aside football franchises named after racial slurs, the New England Patriots are my least favorite team in sports. It’s their annual dominance – now in 2018 it will be eight Super Bowl appearances in 17 years – as predictively monotonous as a metronome. It’s their Hall of Fame head coach, the joyless hooded gnome, Bill Belichick. It’s 40-year-old dreamboat quarterback Tom Brady and his carnival huckster approach to physical health – for $99.99 you too can get the Brady pajamas with “bioceramic particles woven in to reflect back to the body infrared waves.” It’s the way referees seem to love them just a little bit too much for comfort.

The list is long and I know I’m not alone in my disgust. Many have taken our resentments against this team and politicized it, saying in effect that a cheer for the Patriots is a cheer for the Trump agenda. They are viewed as Team Trump because their owner Bob Kraft gave a million bucks to Trump’s inauguration committee and has long touted their friendship. It’s because Belichick wrote a letter of support to Trump that Donald read aloud – almost certainly without Belichick’s approval – where he said, “You’ve proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing.”

It’s the “Make America Great Again” hat hanging in Tom Brady’s locker in the summer of 2016 and Brady asking plaintively, “Why is that such a big deal?

For people defending the franchise against these Team Trump charges, it also hasn’t helped that Nazi leaders have said that the Pats are their favorites because they are “consistently NFL’s whitest team.” [That’s not actually true, but facts have never stopped Nazis before.]

Yet I want to make the counter argument to this ...

NFL Follies: "Billion dollar teams choosing to fail rather than sign Kaepernick is a scandal for reasons beyond wins and losses."

I'm told that the national concussion league's playoffs begin this weekend, moving from wild cards and betting lines toward the inevitable Stupor Bowl, which exists for otherwise intelligent people to indulge their childlike glee while comparing the merits of advertisements designed to relieve them of their money.

Meanwhile, Dave Zirin remains the only sportswriter who matters, because he writes about things that ... matter.

Zirin places sports into a context, as a part of life, not removed from it. I only wish he had time to bring the same skill set to beer writing, which is in a wretched condition these days.

As a prelude to Zirin, consider this: Colts fans offended by anthem kneeling could receive refunds under legislative proposal.

Colts management tanked its season after it became obvious Andrew Luck wouldn't return -- but fans are strongly urged to be outraged by freedom of expression and civil rights, not the team's ineptitude.

Uh huh.

The NFL Chose to Tank Its Season Rather Than Sign Colin Kaepernick, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Billion dollar teams choosing to fail rather than sign Kaepernick is a scandal for reasons beyond wins and losses.

... That is why the sports story of 2017 was how many NFL teams chose to flush their seasons, screw their fan bases, and gut the local economies that had lavished them with tax payer dollars rather than sign free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick ...

... This matters not only because it reveals the moral rot of a league that would sign abusers of women before people who have given time and money to organizations that empower women or a league that lives in fear of the tweets of a racist autocrat with a 32 percent approval rating. It matters because so many of the above teams cited have stadiums at least partially built on the public dime. Whether you are a sports fan or not, you are subsidizing these organizations. By fielding an inferior product, that means fewer fans in the seats, fewer people in the bars and restaurants, fewer rooms filled at the hotels. It means that the always exaggerated bang-for-your-buck that comes from subsidizing a stadium was muted just so NFL owners could send a shot across the bow to other players that political talk would not be tolerated. Of course, all they did was spur more resistance.

Kaepernick’s current collusion lawsuit against the NFL should not be complicated. It should be as basic as showing videotape from the 2017 season and asking the question, “Why would multiple NFL teams with playoff hopes willingly choose to tank rather than sign me? Why was Tom Savage put under center only to be concussed?” To even ask the question is to answer it: the Bob McNairs and John Elways of the world hate the idea of a free-thinking, openly anti-racist player more than they love the idea of winning a Super Bowl. That damns this league as much as hiding concussion data, and ignoring instances of violence against women. It’s more evidence that the league’s moral compass points in one direction: it’s not toward money and it’s not toward winning. It’s toward remaking this country in their political image: an image where billionaires make the decisions and the rest of us just shut up, work, and salute on demand.

Zirin: "Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness."

Try to imagine another major American sports writer saying this:

Our love of sports laid the groundwork for the madness of "lotteryism." We’re the frog in the slowly boiling water. And they are not content merely to cook us. We’re also their dinner.

And, as the ever-masterful Zirin notes in this essay, "lotteryism (is) little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments."

Earlier this morning, Zirin tweeted this closing thought.

You think it's possible that Trump is turning up the vile racism at precisely this moment to push through a tax bill that benefits the 1% so we fight each other while he robs us blind?

Think so? It seems to be working, isn't it?

Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Cities that have been most shameless in their stadium spending are now groveling for Amazon’s largess

The terrific podcast Citations Needed, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, call it “lotteryism”—the grotesque process where local and state governments bid for Fortune 500 companies by offering billions of dollars in tax breaks in the hopes that they will relocate to their cities. The most high-profile example of this right now is, of course, Amazon. Politicians across the country are offering absurd packages to attract the new “Amazon HQ2” headquarters. These enticements will gut services for those who depend on public schools, hospitals, public transportation, and basic infrastructure. This is not to say that Amazon won’t bring jobs to these cities. It is making promises of thousands of permanent hires. But the pound of flesh being offered for these jobs is frightening.

Chicago has said Amazon could keep employees’ income tax, a total estimated at $1.32 billion, according to the Seattle publication The Stranger. New Jersey has offered a staggering $7 billion dollars in tax breaks. Boston has offered to have city employees be privatized workers when doing work under the auspices of Jeff Bezos’s empire: his own army of the underclass. Southern California is offering $100 million in free land. Fresno is offering to “place 85 percent of every tax dollar generated by Amazon into a so-called ‘Amazon Community Fund.’” This would give Amazon control over where our taxes flow, which undoubtedly would be in the direction of its own well-compensated employees—think parks, bike lanes, condo development—creating a new model of gentrification, directly subsidized by the traffic tickets and meters and regressive taxation of the poor.

Fresno’s economic development director Larry Westerlund told the Los Angeles Times, “Rather than the money disappearing into a civic black hole, Amazon would have a say on where it will go. Not for the fire department on the fringe of town, but to enhance their own investment in Fresno.” Sure would suck to have your home on fire if you live on the “fringe of town.”

This is little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments. And publicly funded sports stadium scams and Olympic bidding wars laid the groundwork for it. They have normalized the idea that our tax dollars exist to fund the projects of the wealthy, with benefits trickling down in ways that only produce more thirst ...

"The NCAA is a zombie system, feeding on the flesh of the people they are supposed to be educating."

A book worth reading, but you won't, will you?

It's another of my periodic reminders that Dave Zirin is among the select few sports writers worth reading, for the simple reason that he refuses to view sports outside a broader societal context: Our games, and the games we play.

Your March Madness Bracket Is Exploiting Student-Athletes, by Dave Zirin (Edge of Sports)

The quote of this year’s NCAA tournament was spoken before a minute of action took place on the court. Lavar Ball, the garrulous hype-man/father of UCLA star freshman Lonzo Ball as well as upcoming prepsters LaMelo Ball and Liangelo Ball, was asked if he believed that he was “exploiting” his sons. His response: “What do you think UCLA is doing?” Half the sports commentariat reached for their fainting couches and the other half said, “Damn right” ...

... If the economic structure of this thing we call amateur college basketball has altered so dramatically, the situation of the players is painfully similar to the days when Kareem patrolled the paint at Pauley Pavilion. In fact, the most tangible differences for players, compared to Kareem’s days, are that they travel greater distances, play more games, risk more injury, and have less flexibility in terms of the classes that they can take. In other words, as the money has become greater, the level of exploitation has increased.

Enjoy the tournament, suckers. The robber barons appreciate it.

---

Previously:

"A rank hypocrite and a user of teenagers. In other words, a typical, big-time, top-tier NCAA football coach."

The corrupt NCAA monopoly: "American society is lying to itself about the virtues of its favorite form of entertainment."

"A billion dollar sports enterprise where the athletes aren't paid a penny."

Zirin on "Louisville Basketball and the NCAA’s Political Economy of Misogyny."

R.I.P. Malone and Dawkins, the "two original prophets of justice about the sham amateurism of NCAA basketball."

"A rank hypocrite and a user of teenagers. In other words, a typical, big-time, top-tier NCAA football coach."

A book worth reading, but you won't, will you?

It's another of my periodic reminders that Dave Zirin is among the select few sports writers worth reading, for the simple reason that he refuses to view sports outside a broader societal context: Our games, and the games we play.

Bob Stoops and the Geyser Cesspool of College Football, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The 2014 video of Oklahoma University player Joe Mixon breaking the jaw of a female student is exposing, yet again, the rot of college football.

It is an insult to cesspools to call Division I college football a cesspool. Cesspools serve a legitimate societal function as a gathering point for putrid waste. College football sprays that waste like a geyser, contaminating everyone it touches. Every year there are examples of putrescence. In fact, the endless parade of scandals are critical to keeping the system afloat. Our eyes are so glazed over by the annual flip book of impropriety and misconduct that we don’t recognize how we have normalized a sports system that has become anything but normal. (This makes college football very similar to a certain recent presidential campaign.)

Money? Indeed, and Zirin follows it.

A question that those who might not be familiar with the geyser cesspool that is college football might ask themselves is how Bob Stoops can live with himself. It’s easy. He makes $5.5 million a year in a state where one in four people under 18 live below the poverty line. He makes $5.5 million a year at a school where adjunct professors make $17 an hour and in a state where first-year public-school teachers make $31,000 a year. He makes $5.5 million a year, while his players make meal money. But Bob Stoops is not here to educate. He’s here to win football games and ensure that football in Norman, Oklahoma, maintains its place as a tent pole of the neoliberal university.

Previously:

The corrupt NCAA monopoly: "American society is lying to itself about the virtues of its favorite form of entertainment."

"A billion dollar sports enterprise where the athletes aren't paid a penny."

Zirin on "Louisville Basketball and the NCAA’s Political Economy of Misogyny."

R.I.P. Malone and Dawkins, the "two original prophets of justice about the sham amateurism of NCAA basketball."

Frederick Douglass: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (2016)

Dave Zirin, one of a select group of sportswriters who really matter, introduces a speech by Frederick Douglass, originally delivered in 1852.

Here’s hoping people take the time to read the entirety of Douglass’s brilliant speech. Even though his were words that spoke directly to his moment in history, they still ring with an unsettling power.

As Douglass says, “Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

The speech itself is lengthy, eloquent and worthy. In my estimation, it is best read prior to hamburgers and fireworks.

‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’, by Frederick Douglass By Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

The South does it again -- wait, Indiana did it first. No matter: "The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte."

C'mon -- you know Grooms would have voted in favor if he lived in North Carolina.

The real world, from the only sportswriter who matters.

The NBA Needs to Move the 2017 All-Star Game From Charlotte. Now. (By Dave Zirin, The Nation)

... The 2017 NBA All-Star Game is due to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina. Silver should announce as soon as possible that this game needs to be moved unless the state legislature overturns its new law set to go in effect April 1 “blocking local governments from passing anti-discrimination rules to grant protections to gay and transgender people.”

The law was passed as a direct response to the City of Charlotte for passing an ordinance to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by businesses. Outrageously, the North Carolina legislature scheduled an extraordinary special session—the first time they have done so in 35 years—to annul the Charlotte ordinance before it went into effect. It’s remarkable how quickly lawmakers leap to actually do their jobs when the work involves stripping people of their rights. It is also stunning how all of the Dixie paeans to local control and states’ rights go out the window when it comes to issues such as these.

The law also bans students from using restrooms that correlate with their gender identity if it is not what is listed on their birth certificate. “Legislators have gone out of their way to stigmatize and marginalize transgender North Carolinians by pushing ugly and fundamentally untrue stereotypes that are based on fear and ignorance and not supported by the experiences of more than 200 cities with these protections,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said in a statement.

This law empowers businesses across the state to put signs in their windows saying that they reserve the right to deny service to anyone whom they perceive to be part of the LGBT community. Think about that for a second: The law empowers right-wing small-business owners to legally discriminate based on their own “gaydar.”

Under the shadow of this legislation, the NBA really only has one recourse: It needs to move the 2017 All-Star Game and show the world that it is not going to “fall behind” on what is a very elemental issue of human rights and dignity. The NBA Players Association, led by the estimable Michele Roberts, should also call for Adam Silver to take this step.

Zirin on "Louisville Basketball and the NCAA’s Political Economy of Misogyny."

Former University of Michigan and NBA star Jalen Rose, as quoted in the Detroit Free Press on the topic of college athletic recruitment:

"Yes, there is drinking. Yes, there is members of the opposite sex that are present. Remember, they're trying to woo me to the campus ... and as a 17-year-old kid, first off, if I'm not getting laid, I'm not coming. I'm not signing. I'm not coming."

At times like this, as the fanatics rush to decry and defend the coach, I take a deep breath and remind myself that we're about the only country in the world to confuse sports with education.

In this, it's helpful to know that Dave Zirin is out there somewhere, writing about sports and those aspects of it embracing genuine significance. Zirin warns against moralizing and cynicism, and hits the center of the target.

Louisville Basketball and the NCAA’s Political Economy of Misogyny, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

 ... both of these reactions miss the most urgent issue—the NCAA’s political economy of misogyny. There’s a lesson in this scandal if we’re willing to learn it. It starts with Louisville Basketball, whose use of transactional sex as a method of recruitment produced results and made a small number of people very rich. Louisville has now been at the top of Forbes Magazine’s list of most valuable NCAA hoops programs for four consecutive years. Pitino won an NCAA title in 2013 alongside a new contract that pays him well in excess of four million dollars a year. The connective tissue before us between the political economy of amateurism and misogyny has been written in a neon script. It also shines a harsh light on how the use of women as currency links many of the public relations crises that plague sports and the psychological pain that plagues ex-athletes.

Transformational vs transactional, and why Gregg Popovich invited John Carlos to speak but Mayor Gahan never would.

Dave Zirin is one of the few sports writers who matters, and this brief essay pertains to John Carlos' recent visit with the Spurs.

But it's more than that.

Zirin also provides a priceless insight by means of a brief reference to being transformational as opposed to transactional in player development (or similar situations; passage underlined below).

In short, never would Gregg Popovich "present" the San Antonio Spurs, and never has he built a cult of personality around himself. It's been about developing humans, not stoking egos.

Then there's Carlos himself.

"It felt great to spread the message that it has to be about more than just the game, the check, the fortune and fame. It’s imperative for me to let them know they can do so much more and just how they can make nonviolent change in such a violent world. I’m just blessed I had the opportunity to be here."

These are selfless men, and I live in a selfish city. JeffG finds the center of the target.

Legit question: How many hundreds of thousands of public dollars could we save in New Albany if we just stopped making plaques, banners, billboards, signs, videos, and electronic ads that prominently feature Jeff Gahan? I've never seen that much spent on self-promotion. Boy, egos are expensive.

There's simply so much to learn, and you never know where the next lesson will originate.

John Carlos Meets the Spurs, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

This past weekend, I traveled to Texas with 1968 Olympic Sprinter and medal stand protester John Carlos to speak to the San Antonio Spurs. At the request of their head coach, Gregg Popovich, Dr. Carlos addressed the team and then we attended a practice. I delivered an intro about the social context of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and then turned it over to Dr. Carlos for a brief talk and Q&A ...

The main reason I am not going to write about any of this is that if I learned one thing about Gregg Popovich this weekend, it’s that praise legitimately makes him uncomfortable. Pop is cool as hell ... even though he wouldn’t want to hear it, 

Popovich embodies what InSide Out Coaching author Joe Ehrmann means when he writes that coaches need to be “transformational” instead of “transactional”; in other words, caring about developing players as human beings as opposed to using them to gratify their own egos.

Judge cleverly deploys dictionary to refute the "most racist name in football."

We've visited this story at least once before.

The "R" word: Dave Zirin's open letter to Dan Snyder.

Small victories, adding up to larger ones. Sometimes it would be nice to win bigger victories. Other times, you just read the damned dictionary and find the answer.

Of course, you gotta wanna read.

A Judge Just Ruled Against the Most Racist Name in Football, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The Washington football team's name is a dictionary-defined slur—and now the federal Patent and Trademark Office has been ordered to cancel its trademark registration ...

 ... The Confederate Flag is, as we have written about before, connected with iron chains to the logo of the Washington football team, and just as the flag is being denied official sanction over state houses of the South, the football logo was dealt a devastating blow on Wednesday. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, in strikingly definitive terms, affirmed a previous ruling and ordered the federal Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the team’s trademark registration. Judge Lee wrote in his 70-page decision that the name meets the “legal standard” for defamation in that it “may disparage” a substantial part of the Native American community. In proving that the name met this standard, Judge Lee did not reference academic texts or polls or the decades of activism by Native Americans to get the name changed. Instead he referenced a radical text otherwise known as “a dictionary.” Sincerely. Judge Lee ruled that since the name is a dictionary-defined slur, arguing that it is not a slur, as team owner Dan Snyder continues to do, is absurd.

Zirin: "The People of Oakland Need to Occupy Their Sports Teams."

In an ideal world, sports would be about the fun and personal challenge of playing sports. Humans everywhere have long since elevated sports to a position disproportionate to sensible balance, and I've long since accepted this. It's just the way it is.

However, if the tail shall be wagging the dog, then let the whole mutt shake. There are a million sportswriters, and only a handful dare to pace sports in context in quite the same way as Dave Zirin.  

The People of Oakland Need to Occupy Their Sports Teams, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... This is Oakland: the city of the Black Panthers, Berkeley, the Brown Berets, and Boots Riley. It is almost shocking that there is not a public campaign to demand at least a partial public seizure of these teams, given the public expenditure already invested. I asked a slew of people this past weekend why this campaign has yet to cohere, and the answers ranged from it’s being unrealistic to there being “more pressing campaigns” than trying to untangle sports-league bylaws. But the mega-profits being produced by today’s leagues could actually aid those campaigns, providing new revenue streams for cash-strapped schools and hospitals. Here is where the city could take something from the history of the once-fearsome Raiders: Sometimes scaring the piss out of an opponent can be a very effective tactic. Occupy these Oakland franchises and demand that these owners acknowledge that the teams of the East Bay were yours long before these owners arrived for the great plunder. They can share the wealth or they can spend their own money or they can sell out. But the teams remain. As a T-shirt I saw this weekend said, “Oakland: the people that lead the world.” When it comes to turning the table on sports owners, it’s time for Oakland to lead.

Zirin: "Gentrification Is the Real Scandal Surrounding Jackie Robinson West."

In wintertime, daily life in the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness often revolves around sports. Last week, it was a debate about the politics of Little League.

... Little League Baseball confirmed the news on Wednesday, forcing Illinois' All-Stars (Jackie Robinson West) to vacate its U.S. Championship over Nevada and Great Lakes Valley Regional victory over Indiana. The announcement also declared New Albany a Great Lakes Valley champion, the town's first such honor.

Fulfilling my duty as resident civic contrarian, let's pole-vault past the cacophonous blather about scandalous adult cheating, childhood heartache, overdue victory parades and selective exurban zoning. Rather, let's look at a different side of the story.

Gentrification Is the Real Scandal Surrounding Jackie Robinson West, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

 ... As for the decision itself, ironies abound. Jackie Robinson West was the first entirely black team to represent the United States in the Little League World Series. And yes, waiting until Black History Month to strip JRW of their title is at best tin-eared. But that insult shouldn’t blind us to the greater injury. Recall their damnable offense: Jackie Robinson West didn’t use 16-year-old ringers or cork their bats. They had players suit up who lived “beyond their geographical boundary.” The fact that the adults in charge of JRW felt the need to breach this rule perhaps has something to do with the fact that today’s urban landscape supports baseball about as well as concrete makes proper soil for orchids. A plurality of Major Leaguers is made up of people from either the US suburbs or the baseball factories of the Dominican Republic. Many of the few African-American players on Major League rosters actually come from the suburbs. This is because twenty-first-century neoliberal cities have gentrified urban black baseball to death. Boys and Girls Clubs have become bistros. Baseball fields are condos and in many cities, Little League is non-existent. The public funds for the infrastructure that baseball demands simply do not exist, but the land required for diamonds are the crown jewels of urban real estate. That’s what made JRW such a profound anomaly. In Chicago particularly, which under Mayor Rahm Emanuel has seen school closures and brutal cuts to physical education programs, their success made people believe that—with apologies to Tupac—flowers could in fact grow in concrete.

Basketball's Steve Nash: "A voice of resistance when it mattered most."

As one of the few sportswriters who truly matter, Dave Zirin's essays always are a must read for me. That's because the world of sports does not exist in a vacuum, untethered to society in the main. When you've read one account of a high school football game, you've read them all, but blessed are those capable of viewing sports in larger context, as Zirin always does.

And yes, as both a writer and brewery owner, I believe Zirin and Steve Nash are role models. Our machines do kill fascists, after all.

The Bridge: A Political Appreciation of Steve Nash, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... The appreciations of Nash and his arsenal of ambidextrous passing will continue to fly fast and furious, but we should also take a moment to appreciate Nash for reasons apart from his ability to do this. We should also thank him for daring to be a voice of resistance when it mattered most. As the war on Iraq was being planned early in 2003, there was silence throughout the sports world. This was not surprising. It had been years since athletes had put themselves out there to use their hyper-exalted brought-to-you-by-Nike platforms to make political statements. Today, as jocks—from Richard Sherman to Serena Williams to Robbie Rodgers to Jason Collins to the Miami Heat—have used social media to speak difficult truths in unwelcome spaces, it is difficult to remember just how deafening the political quietude was back in 2003. While several million people converged on New York City to say no to what we then called “Bush’s war,” the sports world institutionally, from team owners to media puff pieces, was a center of unquestioned patriotism. For people who only read the sports page, and stay off the front page, being confronted with dissenting views was a non-option.

James returns home, and Zirin called the shot.

(Update: Zirin follows up)

As I constantly remind you, Dave Zirin is one of the few sportswriters in America worth reading on a daily basis. Zirin places sports into a context, as a part of life, not removed from it. I only wish he had time to bring the same skill set to beer writing, which is in a wretched condition these days.

Zirin predicted LeBron James's return to Cleveland. Not last week ... but on March 25, 2013.

The Aspiring Folk Hero: Why LeBron James Will Return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

I believe that in 2014, NBA megastar LeBron James will create the feel-good sports story of the millennium by becoming a free agent and rejoining the Cleveland Cavaliers. This seems like an impossible scenario: the team that LeBron spurned to “take [his] talents to South Beach”; the fan base that burned his jersey when he made “the Decision”; the owner who sent unhinged messages to the press in both the font and tone of an over-stimulated 11-year-old. It sounds impossible, yet LeBron hasn’t denied the possibility, and it makes sense in a way that transcends dollars, cents and championships.

Heavy reading: A golf club, an outing, a suicide and Frank Sinatra.

For the hundredth time, thanks to Dave Zirin of The Nation for sportswriting that actually matters, on a daily basis. Zirin places sports into context, as a part of life, not removed from it. I only wish he had time to bring the same skills into beer writing, which is in a wretched state these days.

On Saturday, Zirin was tweeting about this saga. It begins here:

Dr. V’s Magical Putter; The remarkable story behind a mysterious inventor who built a "scientifically superior" golf club, by Caleb Hannan (Grantland)

... I play golf. Sometimes poorly, sometimes less so. Like all golfers, I spend far too much time thinking of ways to play less poorly more often. That was the silver lining to my sleeplessness — it gave me more time to scour YouTube for tips on how to play better. And it was then, during one of those restless nights, that I first encountered Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, known to friends as Dr. V.

As soon becomes evident, this is not a story about a golf club. It is about a suicide, and a writer getting the story, whatever the outcome (in this case, chilling), because "The Story Is The Most Important Thing" -- as lucidly critiqued here by a fellow writer.

SINATRA’S COLD IS CONTAGIOUS: Hostile Subjects, Vulnerable Sources & The Ethics of Outing, by Maria Dahvana Headley (GLITTERING SCRIVENER blog)

THERE ARE THINGS ABOUT BEING A WRITER THAT SUCK. One of them is that as a writer, you’re sometimes sold a bill of bullshit.

Here is a prime example: The Story Is The Most Important Thing.

This line is a lie, but in order to make students pay for writing instruction – and sometimes in order to fuel our own egos as writers who often professionally neglect the people in our lives so that we can sit in silence making things up – we have to have a culture in which story matters more than anything else.

The Dr. V story is sobering enough, and Headley's deadly accurate corrective edifying, but what of colds? Specifically, what the hell is meant by "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold"? Read all about it here:

FRANK SINATRA HAS A COLD, by Gay Talese (April, 1966 in Esquire; 2007 reboot)

In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese arrived in Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to profile Frank Sinatra. The legendary singer was approaching fifty, under the weather, out of sorts, and unwilling to be interviewed. So Talese remained in L.A., hoping Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and he began talking to many of the people around Sinatra -- his friends, his associates, his family, his countless hangers-on -- and observing the man himself wherever he could. The result, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism -- a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction. The piece conjures a deeply rich portrait of one of the era's most guarded figures and tells a larger story about entertainment, celebrity, and America itself. We're very pleased to republish it here.