1:50

On Tuesday, for the first time in Major League Baseball history, all 15 home teams won.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Finally this hour, a little bit of baseball history.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: McFarland deals down the line.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Fair ball.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Oh, it’s fair ball.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Game over. Mariners win it 6 to 5. Austin Jackson with a game-winner.

SIEGEL: Late last night, the Seattle Mariners beat the Baltimore Orioles at home in the final at-bat.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

OK, you’re saying to yourself that sounds exciting for Mariners fans, but why do I care about an inconsequential game between two baseball teams having mediocre seasons? Good question. Well, that win marked the first time in baseball history that all 15 home teams won on the same day.

SIEGEL: Now, legions of baseball historians and hard-core fans absolutely live for the game’s random stats and bits of historical trivia.

BLOCK: And it’s rare that a first-time ever event happens without someone knowing ahead of time.

SIEGEL: But Jacob Pomrenke, web editor for the Society for American Baseball Research, says almost nobody realized a 15-for-15 home team sweep had never happened before until it happened yesterday.

JACOB POMRENKE: They hadn’t even been thinking about it. You know, this was something that just kind of wow, you know? I would’ve assumed that this would’ve happened, you know, a long time ago. And this would’ve been the third or the fifth time that this had happened.

BLOCK: Pomrenke says days like yesterday are why fans like him love the game.

POMRENKE: When you go to again you never know what you’re going to see. And you can go to a game on a Tuesday night in August and see something that’s never been done in, you know, nearly 150 years in baseball history.

SIEGEL: And if you’re hoping that maybe this will happen again soon, you should know the likelihood is just one in nearly 33,000.

BLOCK: And that’s more inconsequential baseball than even the biggest fan should ever have to live through.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

A photo posted by Geno Smith III (@genosmith7) on Aug 11, 2015 at 11:03am PDT

Here is a letter from @USATF I received several weeks ago congratulating me on being selected to Team USA. It also tells me to ONLY pack Team USA, Nike, or non branded apparel. First, thanks for selecting me USATF, see you in Beijing. Second, gonna go ahead and pack some @brooksrunning gear as it is by far the best running gear out there. #RunHappy

A photo posted by Nick Symmonds (@nicksymmonds) on Aug 6, 2015 at 11:22am PDT

2:20

In Brazil, the countdown has begun for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Brazilian organizers say everything is on track, but concerns persist over the water quality for some of the events.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

It’s a year until the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and despite worries over construction quality and delays, Brazil is promising that everything is on track. All this week, Rio has been running Olympic test events. NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro spent this morning at one venue, itself the subject of controversy over the quality of its water.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: The rowing Olympic test matches are underway in Rio de Janeiro’s lagoon. It’s a beautiful, cloudless day, and there is, as you can hear, a lot of excitement.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.

JENNIFER MOFFAT: I am beyond excited. We’ve been looking forward to this for months, and I just can’t believe it’s finally happening.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Jennifer Moffat from Manlius, N.Y., who’s here watching her daughter row. These test events allow organizers to make sure that facilities are working and to run through operations – kind of like dress rehearsals. And so far, so good on what’s happening on the surface of the water. Last week though, an Associated Press investigation found that the water quality here is basically equivalent to raw sewage. So we decided to ask one of the U.S. coaches here about whether or not there should be a change of venue.

CONAL GROOM: The conditions have been great. The water is a great lake to row on and pretty. It’s fair. So if FISA has us racing – if the – our governing body has us racing, then we’re not worried.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s Conal Groom, who coaches the men’s sculling team. He says at this point, most Olympians have been training for this course.

GROOM: It’s a sport that looks really simple – a bunch of round buoys in a body water – but there’s a lot of technical stuff. You know, the athletes and the infrastructure have just put too much work to prepare for this course, this setting.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Other athletes agreed. Both the world sailing and rowing bodies have said they will be testing the waters for viruses, something that they weren’t doing before, but they haven’t called for a change of location. And Rio is promising it will try and improve water conditions before the games. So it seems for now, all will go ahead as planned.

But as one Brazilian resident of the city quipped to me outside the rowing venue, I’m sure it’ll be a fine for the athletes, but we will have to deal with our terrible water long after the Olympians are gone. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

3:39

Because college football and basketball are so prominent, when the best players move up to the pros they’re already well-known.

However, baseball’s different.

How many of you pretty good sports fans can tell me who won the baseball College World Series just a few weeks ago? Same with the players. Even the stars drafted highest are anonymous except to the real cognoscenti. And even then, whereas invariably the can’t-miss prospects in other sports don’t miss, hardly ever miss, in baseball nobody ever says: Can’t miss. Fact is, the ones who miss too often are the scouts.

Click the audio above to hear what Frank Deford has to say about these two players.

1:54

The official recognition by the International Olympic Committee means that disc sports are now eligible for future Olympic Games.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The International Olympic Committee has formally recognized the World Flying Disc Federation. Translation – Ultimate Frisbee is one step closer to being included in the Olympics at some point in the future. Here’s NPR’s Brakkton Booker.

BRAKKTON BOOKER, BYLINE: This is what Ultimate Frisbee sounds like at the highest level.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Deep huck down the field. With a step, it’s LaRouche, and she’ll make the catch. Good grab, and here comes Fierry on the attack.

BOOKER: This is from ESPN’s broadcast of the women’s U.S. Open Ultimate Championship semifinal earlier this year. Nob Rauch is the president of the World Flying Disc Federation, or WFDF, and he says the Olympic governing body recognizing disc sports is an incredible milestone.

NOB RAUCH: It’s very exciting. It’s something we’ve been working on for the last four years or so.

BOOKER: Rauch says he believes his organization was selected as one of the sports federations to receive official recognition because the Olympics wants to attract younger audiences.

RAUCH: So I think they’re setting the stage to be able to introduce new sports that are youth-oriented, gaining in popularity, exhibiting gender equality and the like. And so we’re pretty excited about prospects over the next decade or two.

BOOKER: Ultimate Frisbee, or simply Ultimate to those who play, combine aspects of football, soccer and basketball. Tom Crawford heads USA Ultimate, the national governing body for Ultimate Frisbee.

TOM CRAWFORD: So the goal, just like in football, is you score by catching the disk in the end zone.

BOOKER: Nob Rauch of the World Flying Disc Federation says while the U.S. is a major contender in Ultimate, it has lots of competition. But when could we see Ultimate Frisbee make its Olympic debut?

RAUCH: At this point in time, 2024.

BOOKER: Ultimate Frisbee organizers say one of the things that will be popular about the game is that teams will be made up of men and women. Brakkton Booker, NPR News.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

6:22

Greg Louganis is the best diver of his generation — perhaps the best the world has ever seen. The four-time gold medalist is the only man to ever sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympics.

The new documentary Back on Board, by director Cheryl Furjanic and producer Will Sweeney, contrasts that success with the inner turmoil Louganis experienced rising to stardom at such a young age.

Much of the film, which premieres Tuesday on HBO, focuses on one of the most pivotal moments of Greg Louganis’s career. At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, he was going for his third gold medal when he hit his head on the springboard.

“The first emotion I felt, I was embarrassed — because this is the Olympic games! I’m supposed to be a pretty good diver,” Louganis tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “Pretty good divers don’t do that.”

He talks with Rath about getting back into the competition after that experience, as well as coming out as a gay and HIV-positive athlete.

Interview Highlights

On deciding to continue to competing after hitting his head on the springboard

They sewed up my head and I made that decision with my coach Ron O’Brien that I was going to continue. He was just saying “Well, hockey players they get 20 stitches and they get back on the ice. You got five stitches. It’s nothing!” And we were laughing about the whole thing.

But when I got up on the board and they announced the dive and it was in the same direction that I hit my head on the board. I could hear an audible gasp from the audience. So I took a deep breath and I patted my chest. And then the people around who saw that started chuckling and I started laughing to myself, thinking, “Oh my God, I’m not the only one who’s scared. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

As it turned out, it was the highest scoring dive, I think, of that Olympic games.

On being HIV-positive while he achieved his Olympic success

Six months prior to the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea in 1988, I was diagnosed HIV-positive. And I was training in Florida at the time, and I was gonna pack my bags, come back to California, lock myself in my house, and wait to die because we thought of HIV/AIDS as a death sentence. And talking with my doctor he said, “The healthiest thing for you is to continue training.” And so it was much easier for me to focus on the diving rather than the HIV, you know.

When I hit my head on the board, I was paralyzed by fear. I didn’t know what my responsibility was, because really the people who were at risk were the two doctors that were sewing up my head — that was a concern. But I was also competing in a country had they known my HIV status, I wouldn’t have been allowed into the country to be able to compete at that Olympic Games.

On the anger directed at him after he came out as gay and HIV-positive

There was a lot of debate going on around the country … but the thing is, it got people talking about it. I mean, my first interview was with Barbara Walters, and then on Friday on 20/20, and then on Monday I’m talking to Oprah. So what I told Barbara when we did our interview, I said, “Well, all of those people who cheered for me through my Olympic career can no longer say that they have not been touched by HIV/AIDS.”

It was important to learn how you got HIV, but it was also important how you’re not gonna get HIV — and you’re not gonna get HIV through a chlorinated pool.

On returning to the diving world to mentor current Olympic hopefuls

It’s great to share those experiences. I’m most concerned with aftercare because as an elite athlete you finish your career and then you’re pretty young. When you retire from your sport then it’s almost like you lose a part of yourself. You lose your identity … I retired at 28 … You know, making that transition is not always easy. It’s like, “OK, now who am I? Who am I without my sport?”

On how gay rights and attitudes towards homosexuality have changed since the ’80s

It really is shocking to me because where we are today, being legally married in the state of California, having the Supreme Court ruling. You know, during the ceremony when my husband and I got married … we kinda smiled at each other and said our parents are looking down on us and smiling on us today.

Thoughts are with our best track and field athlete, Kira Grünberg! Paraplegic from what she loved most… #teamaut pic.twitter.com/13Ap5oPPm5

— Tamara Adler (@tamara_adler) July 31, 2015