View 2 photos raquo; In this March 10, 2015, photo, University of Oklahoma President David Boren talks with the media before the start of a Board of Regents meeting in Oklahoma City. Many colleges are…
Eight Royals could start in the All Star game July 14. NPR’s Robert Siegel talks to Chris Eckes, curator of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, about the last time this happened.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Every year, Major League Baseball fans vote-in starters for the All-Star game. This year, Kansas City Royal fans have been voting early and often. Just a couple of weeks ago in the voting for the eight non-pitching positions, eight Royals were leading. Now it’s five Royals who are leading. Casting many votes is permitted. In fact, it’s encouraged.
But this year’s results have sparked an uproar. It isn’t the first time that fans of one team have stuffed the ballot box. In fact, the most egregious case before this was in 1957. It involved the Cincinnati Reds, who incidentally called themselves the Redlegs for a few years for fear of being associated with Communism. Chris Eckes, curator of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, joins us now.
Welcome to the program.
CHRIS ECKES: Nice to be here.
SIEGEL: And how many Reds were voted to the National League All-Star team in 1957?
ECKES: Well, if the actual vote totals had been allowed to stand, it would’ve been seven of eight.
SIEGEL: The ’57 Redlegs were a team that finished fourth out of eight teams in their league. The team had a few good players and one truly great player, Frank Robinson. How did they get so many All-Star votes?
ECKES: Well, a lot of it had to do with the success of the team the year before. The 1956 Reds were the first Reds team to be competitive in quite some time, so a lot of what happened in 1957 was carry-over from 1956. People in this town really fell in love with that team.
SIEGEL: And there were people who were really urging-on the fans to vote a lot.
ECKES: Absolutely. At that time, there weren’t real strict rules governing All-Star voting. So here in Cincinnati, one paper in particular really got behind the endeavor, printing a ballot every day. And actually on the ballot was printed, vote early, vote often. And it became really this grassroots civic effort. People talked about doing your civic duty by voting. Waite Hoyt, the longtime Reds broadcaster, reminded people every day on the radio, do your civic duty – go out and vote. Ruth Lyons, who was a broadcasting legend here in a town, she did the same thing on her television show. And there’s a brewer here in Cincinnati called the Burger Brewing Co., used to be a longtime sponsor of the Reds back then. They printed-up hundreds of thousands of ballots and sent them bars all over the city. And some of the bars would require that you complete a ballot before you could be served your beer.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
ECKES: So it was a lot of fun, people had a great deal of fun with it, and it was one of those things that just kind of snowballed.
SIEGEL: If in fact the National League All-Star team had fielded all of the vote winners, it would’ve been Stan Musial of the Cardinals and seven Cincinnati Redlegs and then the pitcher. As it turned out though, the commissioner of baseball overruled the fans in this case.
ECKES: Yeah, that’s correct. You know, as ballots started coming in, it became apparent that something unusual was happening. And he used his executive power to intercede and dropped two of the Reds and replaced them with some pretty familiar names – Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. The bigger after-effect of it all was that fans were no longer permitted to vote after 1957, and that ban lasted all the way up until 1970.
SIEGEL: Well, a National League team heavy with Cincinnati Reds did play in the All-Star game, and what was the outcome of the game?
ECKES: Well, the American league actually emerged victorious in that game. They won the game 6-5.
SIEGEL: Chris Eckes, curator of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.
Thanks for talking with us.
ECKES: Thank you.
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As teams began courting free agents Wednesday, two of the NBAs rising stars kicked things off by agreeing to max deals. Moments after the leagues free-agent negotiating period opened at 12:01 am ET, Anthony Davis…
U.S. prosecutors have sent Switzerland a formal request to extradite seven FIFA officials who had been arrested in May in Zurich in a corruption investigation of soccer’s governing body.
The FIFA officials were arrested May 27, and the extradition request, submitted by the U.S. Embassy in Bern, came within the deadline laid down by the bilateral extradition treaty between the U.S. and Switzerland.
As we reported in May, the U.S. Justice Department indicted 14 people from the U.S. and South America, including nine senior FIFA officials, seven of whom were arrested in Switzerland at the time. Here’s more from our story at the time:
“Of the nine officials who were indicted, two of them are FIFA vice presidents. Charges in the 47-count indictment include bribery, racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud. Five corporate executives were also indicted.”
U.S. officials alleged the suspects were part of money-laundering schemes and complex bribery payments within FIFA.
“These crimes are thought to have been agreed and prepared in the USA, and payments were allegedly routed through U.S. banks,” Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice said today.
The office said the seven FIFA officials will be given an extradition hearing, after which they, or their lawyers, will have 14 days to respond. The office will take “a few weeks” to rule on the extradition request, but the ruling can be challenged in courts.
The men, who face 20 years in prison, all oppose being extradited to the U.S.
The corruption scandal at soccer’s governing body forced the resignation in June of its chief, Sepp Blatter, who had been re-elected to another term as president just days earlier. He said he will stay on as president until a successor is elected.
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(Credit: AP / J. Scott Applewhite) Of all the bone-protruding injuries in sports, this one may be the most gruesome. In a Monday Night game between fierce NFC East rivals in 1985, the Redskins and…
NPR’s Rachel Martin talks to sportswriter Bob Ryan about the start of NBA free agency Wednesday, and the man with the most power in the NBA — LeBron James.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
LeBron James has been given some lofty titles over the years – the King, the Chosen One, Best Basketball Player on the Planet. You may add to that list de facto GM of the Cavaliers. The NBA’s free agency period started today. James is a free agent. That means he could go and play anywhere he wants. Now, no one thinks he’ll leave Cleveland, but he hasn’t signed yet. And the word that trickles from his camp is that he’s waiting to see if the Cavaliers can build a championship team around him. Joining us now is longtime NBA reporter Bob Ryan. Hey, Bob. Thanks for being with us.
BOB RYAN: Well, you’re welcome.
MARTIN: We don’t know specifically how much input LeBron James has here, but he does have sway. Is it safe to say no NBA player has had this much power over a team?
RYAN: Yes, it is. There’s a unique circumstance here, which is that he’s hometown. And there’s a mutual circumstance here. I think one reason why most of us think he will not leave Cleveland is that he has now recast himself in a positive light after having cast himself in a very negative light the way he departed Cleveland. And now he’s back, and he’s the savior. Of course, he’s from Akron. He’s local. And would he risk sullying his long-term reputation, his ultimate reputation, by being cast as a villain again by abandoning Cleveland in the lurch, leaving the bride at the altar a second time? I don’t think so.
MARTIN: You think not.
RYAN: No.
MARTIN: (Laughter). So is this a testament to the immense stardom of this man – this singular player, LeBron James – or is this a sign of something that could happen elsewhere with a different player?
RYAN: Having said what I said about the power that Cleveland has over him, his power is unprecedented because he is the best player in the game with multiple skills. And he can help anybody out there be a, quote, unquote, “better player” by the nature of his game and the vast array of his skills. And he’s someone that anyone would want to play with. And he also is a showman. He’s a pitch man. He’s a walking public relations advertisement for Northeast Ohio. He makes money for people. You know, they’re talking in terms of when the new NBA contract kicks in in a couple of years and a new TV deal takes hold, that his next contract – not this one; this is going to be a one-year bridge contract – would be for upwards of 40 – I said four zero – million a year. That’s how valuable he is.
MARTIN: Is a player having this much power a good thing for a team?
RYAN: Oh no, no. I mean, there – not – no, it certainly isn’t. Number one, he has, apparently, overruled the coach on numerous occasions during this past season, and there’s an open question as to whether or not coach Dave Blatt will even return. Not that he isn’t under contract, not that he didn’t take a team within two games of winning a championship, but because he has incurred LeBron’s displeasure to the extent that we hear – and it has been reported that he has – it would be an easy call who you would retain. You would retain LeBron James.
MARTIN: The Cavs were two wins away from an NBA title this year. That was with a ton of injuries on their team. So do they really have to do that much work to build up a team that can win a championship?
RYAN: They do not. They need tinkering on the edges. And in fact, I am one of the many who believe that had Kyrie Irving specifically not gotten hurt, that they may have had enough wherewithal to win the championship this year. They’re right there.
MARTIN: Former Boston Globe columnist, long-time NBA reporter, Bob Ryan. Thanks so much, Bob.
RYAN: You’re welcome.
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The lawsuit by prominent attorney Jeffrey Kessler to allow players to be paid is slowly moving ahead and following a similar playbook to the Ed OBannon case. The Martin Jenkins suit wants the court to…
A 2-0 win over Germany on Tuesday night gave the U.S. a place in the Women’s World Cup final.
You can construct a lot of hero narratives around last night’s game: The American defense is unstoppable. (Julie Johnston has been a breakout player.) Midfielder Carli Lloyd owns the field.
Lloyd was at the center of both goals against Germany: scoring the first one through a controversial penalty kick in the 69th minute, and then when she sent in a cross that was knocked home by substitute forward Kelley O’Hara in the 84th minute.
Here are those two goals:
As NPR’s Chris Hopkins noted Tuesday night: “The U.S. defense has not allowed a goal in five games, since its first game of the tournament against Australia.”
Hope Solo and the U.S. back line’s shutout streak is now at 513 minutes. The game was Solo’s 10th clean sheet in World Cup play. That ties former U.S. goaltender Briana Scurry’s record in the Women’s World Cup.
But let’s save a moment for midfielder Morgan Brian. No, not her bloody, midair collision Tuesday night:
Let’s focus on the other 85 minutes of the game. Brian controlled the field. She moved the ball quickly and precisely. Every time it skidded her way, it seemed to drop neatly at her feet. She was everywhere.
Brian is 22, the youngest player on the team. She wasn’t assured a place in the starting lineup Tuesday night. And the U.S. has struggled — dangerously — to find the right mix in the midfield. At times during the Cup, the team has looked as though it just met. There was a smart case to be made that coach Jill Ellis should keep Brian in the lineup. (Here’s Michael Cummings at Bleacher Report and Kevin McCauley at SB Nation.)
For the U.S. team, this World Cup has been steeped in nostalgia about 1999, the last time the team won. Abby Wambach is clearly a phenomenal leader off the field, but her play has proved that it’s time to pass the torch. So let’s start thinking about the future of this team. And after last night, Morgan Brian should be central to that narrative.
The U.S. plays the winner of tonight’s Japan-England game in Vancouver on Sunday.
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Clay Travis has inked a deal to take his entire sports media brand under one umbrella with Fox Sports. Travis signed a multi-year deal to continue licensing his Outkick the Coverage website to Fox. The…
Schuyler Bailar will swim on the men’s team at Harvard this fall. Images Etc Ltd/Getty Images hide caption
itoggle caption Images Etc Ltd/Getty Images
The Harvard men’s swim team will have a new swimmer on their team this fall: Schuyler Bailar of McLean, Va. He will be the first openly transgender swimmer in NCAA Division I history, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Bailar swam with a club team while he was at Georgetown Day School where he set more than 10 team records and swam on a team with Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky, setting a national record for the 400 yard relay. By his senior year, he had been recruited by Harvard for the women’s swim team. Bailar took a gap year after graduating high school, during which he came out as transgender, writes the Crimson:
“While Bailar has always identified as male, he had not come out as transgender until after graduation. During his gap year he contemplated medically transitioning—something he initially thought might mean quitting the sport he loved.
” ‘Initially the decision was, “Do I swim, or do I quit and transition?” ‘ Bailar said. ‘I really didn’t want to give up swimming, but I also didn’t know how much longer I could do the living as a girl thing.’
“He came up with a solution: He would get ‘top’ surgery and swim on the women’s team, he informed a supportive Morawski in November.”
Bailar didn’t know this at the time, but the women’s swim coach, Stephanie Morawski, talked to the men’s coach, Kevin Tyrrell. Tyrrell told The Associated Press that he spoke with the men’s team:
“We talked about how we’re all about character and values, and I kind of gave my two cents: If we’re going to say that we care about others, then this is something we should consider … And basically all the guys said, within 15 seconds, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ “
Morawski called Bailar and said that if he wanted to, he had the option of joining the men’s swim team. The Crimson adds: “Bailar’s reaction, he said, was positive: ‘Wow, OK. Woah. World exploded.’ “
A few weeks later, after thinking about it, Bailar emailed the men’s team with his decision to join them.
The AP says that Bailar is believed to be the first NCAA swimmer to come out as transgender, but athletes in other sports have come out as transgender in the past. In 2010, Kye Allums was playing for the women’s basketball team at George Washington University and asked to be identified as a man. And in 2005, Keelin Godsey came out as transgender. She is a national women’s hammer throw champion at Bates College.
The NCAA said four years ago that transgender athletes can often compete on either the women’s or men’s team, depending on their hormone use, according to the AP.
As of right now, Bailar has started hormone treatments and is training hard — but he has changed his expectation, the AP writes. On the women’s team, he would have been one of the best athletes on the team, but on the men’s team, his times lagged far behind.
“My goal is just to contribute something to the team, and be a good teammate and a good friend. I have no idea what my body can do,” Bailar said, according to the AP.
You can follow Bailar as he documents his progress here.
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