Justify Wins Preakness, Keeping Triple Crown Hopes Alive
Justify, ridden by Mike Smith, wins the 143rd Preakness Stakes in the mud and fog Saturday to capture the second leg of the Triple Crown in Baltimore.
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Baltimore Sun/TNS via Getty Images
Dense fog and a soggy track blurred ideal viewing conditions, but there was no mistaking Justify’s run to victory in the 143rd running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Entering the race with overwhelming odds, the undefeated favorite, ridden by jockey Mike Smith, shot out of Post 7 with a clean start as he had in Kentucky. Smith takes his second Preakness win.
While Justify’s victory hardly came as a shock, don’t call it an easy win. The favorite, who had been recovering from a bruised hind foot, stayed nose-to-nose with trailing Derby runner-up Good Magic for the majority of the race.
In the end, though, Bravazo placed second and long shot Tenfold finished third, reports The Associated Press:
“Justify went the 1 3/16th-mile race in 1 minute, 55.93 seconds as the 2-5 favorite, beating Bravazo by a half-length, with Tenfold in third by a neck and Good Magic fading to fourth another neck back.”
“It was a nail-biter,” Justify’s trainer Bob Baffert told NBC Sports. “They put it to us. It was like they had their own private match race (but I’m) so happy we got it done. Such a great horse to handle all that pressure and get it done.”
Baffert is now one race closer to taking his second Triple Crown. Baffert led American Pharoah to Triple Crown victory in 2015, ending a 37-year-drought in series champions.
Justify’s next stop: the final jewel of the Triple Crown at Belmont Stakes in New York on June 9.
MSU Settlement In Nassar Case 'A Great Victory,' Abused Gymnast Says
Michigan State University, which failed to adequately monitor USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, on Wednesday settled a lawsuit by 300 gymnasts, including Jeanette Antolin, for $500 million.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Gymnast Jeanette Antolin is one of more than 300 sexual abuse victims of the U.S. national team physician Larry Nassar. In 1999, she competed at the Pan American Games, where she helped the U.S. win a team silver medal in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Now she is part of the group that today won a $500 million settlement with Michigan State University, for whom Nassar worked. Jeanette Antolin joins us now. Welcome.
JEANETTE ANTOLIN: Thank you so much.
SHAPIRO: What does this decision today, this settlement mean to you?
ANTOLIN: I think it – I mean, it feels like a great victory for me and my sister survivors. It means that there was an organization that failed all of us, and finally they’ve stepped up and settled the case.
SHAPIRO: Have you and other survivors been talking today? What have you heard from them?
ANTOLIN: Yeah, we’ve talked amongst ourselves – a few of us. And we just feel empowered all over again. It’s, like – I feel like for so many months, like, people didn’t believe us and didn’t take us seriously. And finally we’ve gotten our justice.
SHAPIRO: I know that this happened to you a long time ago. In addition to the Justice and sense of closure, has there been a sense of pain of having to relive so much of this?
ANTOLIN: Extreme amount of pain and frustration of just retelling the story over and over again and having to relive our experiences with Larry and not just with Larry but USA Gymnastics and our experience on the national team. I don’t think people realized how traumatic of an experience that it was. And so to have to tell your story to be believed and have some action taken – it’s completely trying. And for me, it’s almost been two years of this. So it’s encouraging that it’s coming to an end. And with MSU settling, it’s a small weight off my shoulders. But we still have work to do. We still need USA Gymnastics and the USOC to follow in the footsteps of MSU.
SHAPIRO: And as you say, the settlement doesn’t address the claims against USA Gymnastics. What do you want to see from them?
ANTOLIN: I want them to take responsibility ’cause they’re just as much at fault as MSU. I feel like they were there all along. They had knowledge of what was happening, and they didn’t take action to protect the other athletes that could have been protected. I mean, I have sister survivors that were abused after they were told of the abuse. So they need to step up and take responsibility for that.
SHAPIRO: Given the number of different fields where perpetrators are being held accountable and victims are speaking out across the United States and beyond right now, are you optimistic that future generations of young women are not going to have to go through what you went through?
ANTOLIN: Absolutely. I think it’s a long road. I think us going through this in the last couple years has empowered a lot of women to stand up and use their voice. It’s a wave of women realizing that their voice matters, and they can take their power back. And I think a lot of us sister survivors – we want to see a lot more change in not just USA Gymnastics but amateur sports across the country. We want awareness to be brought to school systems and children and parents so that – we know that obviously we can’t catch every single predator, but it will make it a lot harder for them to get away with things like this.
SHAPIRO: That’s Jeanette Antolin, a former artistic gymnast who was a member of the U.S. national team from 1995 to 2000. Thank you so much for talking with us today.
ANTOLIN: Of course. Thank you
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
States Eye New Revenues After Supreme Court Backs Legal Sports Betting
People watch coverage of the NCAA college basketball tournament at the Westgate SuperBook on March 15 in Las Vegas. Several states are expected to allow sports gaming after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.
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John Locher/AP
Now that the Supreme Court says it’s OK, states are free to legalize betting on sports if they want to. As a once under-the-table economy moves into the open, it creates some large business opportunities — and the potential for millions in new tax revenues.
But first comes the nitty-gritty part: writing the rules for how sports fans can bet on their favorite games — the legal age, where people can bet, licensing requirements, software standards for mobile apps, and money laundering safeguards.
“We also have to establish what the tax structure will be,” says New Jersey Assemblyman John Burzichelli. “That’s very important. We’re actually in our budget cycle now.”
He says the tax rate is still being negotiated, but will be between 8 percent and 15 percent of revenue after winnings are paid out. He says New Jersey can get these rules written in about four weeks.
This puts the state neck and neck with Delaware and Mississippi. Close behind them — and just in time for football season — are Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Connecticut. These are all states with an established gaming industry, all trying to be the first to take legal sports bets.
“Markets of this size don’t just come into being on a regular basis,” says Chris Grove, a gaming analyst for the research firm Eilers & Krejcik.
He expects 32 states to eventually allow sports gaming, worth roughly $6 billion annually. But, he says, that may not come so easily.
“There’s an existing black market. It’s entrenched. It’s attractive. It offers a number of advantages that regulated betting sites will never be able to offer: the lack of having to fill out tax forms and have your winnings reported, the ability to bet on credit,” Grove says.
But new entrants into the gaming industry don’t expect much competition from the black market.
“I think most people would prefer to do things in a legal manner if given the option,” says Jason Robins, CEO of the daily fantasy sports company DraftKings.
He compares illegal sports betting to the pirating of music. Most people shifted to legal products when streaming services came along. He contends something similar will happen in sports gambling.
Some analysts warn that profit margins might not be as plush as investors hope. A lot depends on how heavily sports betting is taxed.
And on top of taxes, there’s what professional sport leagues want.
After years of fighting against sports betting, the NFL, Major League Baseball and other leagues have changed their approach. Over the last few months they’ve been going state to state, lobbying aggressively for a special fee to pay for policing against cheating, like an athlete intentionally throwing a game.
In New Jersey, leagues tried to get a fee between 2 percent and 3 percent of gross wagers. But lawmakers balked.
“They’re not paying that in Nevada and their not paying that to the illegal sportsbooks.” Burzichelli says. “That’s a nonstarter as far as I’m concerned.”
In statements Monday, the major sport leagues said they will be looking to Congress for a “regulatory framework” to protect the “integrity” of their games.
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey is sponsoring one bill, which would establish a legal framework for consumer protections and give the Federal Trade Commission some oversight. But he acknowledges it’s not getting passed anytime soon.
Casino Owner Discusses Supreme Court Ruling On Sports Betting
The Supreme Court has given the green light on sports betting, but will that really change the industry? NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Ed Sutor, CEO and President of Dover Downs Casino and Hotel in Dover, Delaware about the decision.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now to Delaware, a state hoping to be one of the first to take advantage of this ruling. Delaware Governor John Carney says full-scale sports gaming could be available at Delaware casinos by the end of next month. Dover Downs Casino and Hotel in Dover, Del., bet that this day would come. Ed Sutor is Dover Downs CEO and president, and he joins me now. Hey there.
ED SUTOR: How are you?
KELLY: I’m well, thank you. It does indeed sound as though you were betting the Supreme Court would rule this way, having built a sportsbook already.
SUTOR: Yes. We’ve anticipated this for quite a while. Ten years ago, when we built our sportsbook, we thought we could do anything – bet on basketball, baseball, college. But in a very narrow decision, the District Court in Philadelphia said we could only bet on parlay bets. That’s meaning you had to bet on at least three games, only on the NFL.
KELLY: Right. This was this loophole in – on the Delaware state books, that you could bet in this limited way on NFL games.
SUTOR: Exactly.
KELLY: And the Supreme Court ruling today means you can come in and bet on any sport you want. How good is this going to be for business for you? How much do you stand to gain?
SUTOR: Well, just to give you some perspective, in Nevada, which has been betting on sports for well over 50 years, sports-betting revenue only equals about 2 percent of their gaming revenue. I know this bill has caused a lot of excitement. There’s high expectations. But truth be told, it’s still going to be only a small part of our business. The good thing is we already have our sportsbooks.
KELLY: And what does that mean? For people who aren’t in the habit of placing sports bets, in part because it hasn’t been legal in most states until now, what does that mean, that you already have a sportsbook in place?
SUTOR: Well, it’s a separate facility that has big TV screens and then boards that produce all the games and the odds and the projected outcomes, all up on big electronic scoreboards. It also happens to be where we do our simulcast betting on horse racing. We are a racetrack. We do do harness racing six months out of the year. So we have it set up to do sports betting as well as horse-racing bets both here and around the country. So it’s been active.
KELLY: I want to ask you just how welcome this additional income may be. And I asked that in New Jersey, where racetrack owners have talked about how they run their racetracks at a deficit, that they really need this income from sports betting in order to allow them to continue to operate. Is that the case in Delaware?
SUTOR: Yes, it is. What they expect is perhaps not as much revenue from the actual sports betting as getting additional attendance at their facility. That’s one thing that sports betting does too.
KELLY: Oh. It just gets people in the door.
SUTOR: Yeah, especially for the Final Four or the March Madness or the Super Bowl. And while they’re here, they do other activities. So I think that it’s not unusual for the tracks in New Jersey, as well as other tracks throughout the country, that they want anything they can get to drive more business to their facility.
KELLY: Any downside at all to today’s ruling from where you sit?
SUTOR: For me, the only thing is that I had an exclusive here in Delaware for the past 10 years. Now – you know, 40 percent of my business came from out of state. Now those states are going to have their own sports betting, so I have to overcome that additional competition.
KELLY: So people in New Jersey might stay in New Jersey to place their bets.
SUTOR: You got it, kid. You got it. But overall, are we happy to get it? Yes. Is it going to be a windfall? Absolutely not. But we’re still happy to have it.
KELLY: Ed Sutor. He’s CEO of Dover Downs Casino and Hotel in Delaware. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
SUTOR: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BETA BAND’S “B+A”)
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
'Heroic, But He's No Hero': Revisiting Football Great Jim Brown
Jim Brown, a star running back for the Cleveland Browns in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is the subject of a new biography by The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin.
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Many consider the running back Jim Brown the greatest American football player ever. But he’s known as much more than an athlete — he’s an activist, an actor, a thinker and a man with an alleged history of violence against women.
Here’s how he’s described in the opening paragraph of Dave Zirin’s new biography, Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.
Football is the closest thing we have in this country to a national religion, albeit a religion built on a foundation of crippled apostles and disposable martyrs. In this brutal church, Jim Brown is the closest thing to a warrior Saint.
Zirin, sports correspondent for The Nation, spoke to NPR about this complicated figure, who is now 82 years old.
“I think it’s important that when we look at these icons of the past, that we look at them not as these kinds of immortals,” Zirin says. “Because if we do that, when we deify people, the problem with that is then there’s nothing to learn from them or their lives. It’s a story of somebody who is very flawed, but somebody who also did heroic things. As Howard Bryant, the great sportswriter, said, he said: Jim Brown is heroic, but he’s no hero. And I think that’s the best way to look at his life.”
Interview Highlights
On why he chose Jim Brown as a subject, and why now
There’s a discussion happening right now — not just in the world of sports, but I think nationally — about masculinity, and about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a real man. And I think we are assessing some of what we’ve been taught. And I think Jim Brown, for the last 50 years, has been this kind of icon of the old way of looking at manhood: somebody who defined his manhood by not showing a great deal of emotion; by playing in the National Football League and never missing a game for injury, and being lauded for that; as being somebody who stepped inside the black power movement and was an icon; as someone who stepped into Hollywood, and was thought that he could be the black John Wayne and participated in the blaxploitation era, which was a very hyper-masculinized form of cinema at the time; and as somebody who stepped to the terrain of the gang battles in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and did a tremendous amount of activism to try to bring warring gangs together and bring peace to the streets of South Central Los Angeles. And all of these landscapes he did with this resolute focus on teaching people of what it means to be a “real man.” And one of the things I try to argue in the book, and this connects with the discussions which are happening right now about masculinity, is whether or not that discussion of manhood is positive or negative. And so I also look in the book about Jim Brown’s history with women, which is the dark side, if you will, of this discussion about masculinity — particularly the issue of violence against women.
On where Jim Brown grew up, and how it influenced his particular type of activism
Well, it’s a fascinating story, because Jim Brown was raised by women on St. Simons Island, which is off the coast of Georgia. And St. Simons was a place that was built on self-sufficiency because the ground was so rough that when enslaved people were brought from Africa, their communities were largely left alone. And this, I think, made a mark on Jim Brown throughout his younger years, of this idea of not being an integrationist, not being someone who supported the goals of Dr. Martin Luther King [Jr.], of being someone who more was on the side of: How do we, as black Americans, build our own institutions of power and self-sufficiency? …
Retired NFL greats Jim Brown (left) and Ray Lewis address the media after meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York in late 2016.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images
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Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images
And this is something I think we forget historically, is that there was a black freedom struggle in this country, but there was a left wing and right wing to that freedom struggle. It’s not like everybody believed in marching, or everybody believed in the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins. There was a wide variety of thinking about how black liberation could be achieved. And Jim Brown was, you could argue, on the conservative wing of that camp. And I think it connects to why Jim Brown today is a supporter of Donald Trump … and why he supported Richard Nixon in 1968, as did other figures of that era like the singer James Brown and Sammy Davis Jr. Like, there was black support for Richard Nixon in 1968, and it was built around this idea of economic self-sufficiency.
On Jim Brown’s stance about Colin Kaepernick and modern sports protests
It’s fascinating to me, because Jim Brown said just the other week, on the NFL Network, that if he was the general manager of a team, he would not sign Colin Kaepernick. Last year he walked into the locker room of the Cleveland Browns — the team that of course made Jim Brown famous — and he told players who had been kneeling that they needed to cut it out. And so Jim Brown is really acting as an agent of [NFL] ownership in these cases. …
See, this is what I’m trying to argue with this book, because a lot of people in the sports world were shocked when he said these things, saying: How could Jim Brown, this icon of the black freedom struggle, how could he possibly bury Colin Kaepernick in this way? How can he possibly go into the locker room and tell players to stand up and shut up during the national anthem? And part of what I’m arguing is that: No, these have always been his politics. He’s always had this strain of conservatism in his politics that black people do not achieve advancement through the politics of protest, but through the politics of earning as much money as possible, and trying to get out of the capitalist system whatever they can for the purposes of building economic self-sufficiency. And protest is an impediment to that in the mind of Jim Brown. And those have always been his politics.
What I find so interesting is that his stature on the field, I think, blinded people to what his politics were. I’ll tell you an example of this that I find so interesting, is I scoured the black press in 1968 for when Jim Brown endorsed Richard Nixon, and there are scathing editorials against other black celebrities who were endorsing Nixon, and you could not find a bad word about Jim Brown.
On the history of accusations against Jim Brown of violence against women
It’s a series of accusations that go from the 1960s through the 1990s, and without a conviction. … The repeated accusations and descriptions lead you to look at this as a situation where Jim Brown, at times in his life, definitely saw women as part of the problem, as something that would bring down the black family if they asserted themselves too much in the context of his life. And the accusations against Jim Brown are horrific, and they should be viewed as horrific. But it’s important to say that when they took place, that’s not how they were viewed — they were viewed with a nudge and a wink. And so part of what I’m writing this book is getting us to reassess those times and say: The time of nudging and winking and violence against women has to end — it has to go into the graveyard of history.
Sarah Handel and Viet Le produced and edited this story for broadcast. Patrick Jarenwattananon adapted it for the Web.
Saturday Sports: Washington Capitals, NBA Conference Finals
Scott Simon checks in with ESPN senior writer Howard Bryant on the week in sports.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And it’s time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t quite (imitating spark) spark last night, beaten by the Washington Capitals 4 to 2. And some familiar names in the final four as the NBA begins conference finals tomorrow. Let’s bring in Howard Bryant, author of the book “The Heritage.” Howard, thanks so much for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott. How are you?
SIMON: Fine, thank you. The Caps are in their first conference finals in 20 years. They finally got past the Pens, didn’t they?
BRYANT: It’s about time. And it’s been a battle that they have been fighting and losing for several years, especially because you’ve got this great battle between two of the very best players of this era, maybe the two best players of this era, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. And we always say about sports, sports – for the most part, it is a best-player-wins game. And obviously that’s very true in basketball. But it’s also true in every sport. So to have a guy like Alexander Ovechkin, to have Ovechkin have never been to a Stanley Cup, this is special. And he’s got an opportunity now to do something he hasn’t done. That fanbase has been starving and waiting for a long time. This is a huge moment, although Tampa Bay is very, very good.
SIMON: And later today, the Winnipeg Jets and the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
BRYANT: (Laughter) Who? Yeah.
SIMON: Yeah. Two good stories there.
BRYANT: Well, exactly. And Winnipeg has never been as well – wonderful team. And they’ve got guys – you know, Paul Stastny. They’ve got Dustin Byfuglien. Byfuglien of course won a Stanley Cup with your Chicago Blackhawks. And then of course you’ve got the – you’ve got the expansion – the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights because they changed the rules so expansion teams aren’t going to sit and lose for years and years.
But these guys have a chance to go to the Stanley Cup in their first year, which is incredible. But they’ve also got Marc-Andre Fleury, who as we know was a guy who won Stanley Cups with Pittsburgh. So it’s not as though these are players that no one’s ever heard of. These are big guys on big stages with teams that haven’t been there.
SIMON: Cross over to basketball now. LeBron’s – and they are LeBron’s – Cavs meet Brad Stevens’ Celtics Sunday afternoon in Boston. One team with the greatest player in the game and four other guys, the other playing without its two biggest stars. How do you see this series?
BRYANT: After a while, I think you just have to stop betting against the Boston Celtics just as you have to stop betting against LeBron James. I think that people looked at this team this year and saw Cleveland – not a very good team. They traded – the big deal in the in the off-season was getting Isaiah Thomas and getting Jae Crowder and getting those players from the Celtics in exchange for Kyrie Irving. Then they traded those guys. And so Jae Crowder ended up on the Jazz, and Isaiah Thomas ended up on the Lakers. And yet Cleveland’s here again because of the greatness of LeBron James. He’s that good.
And then of course the Boston Celtics aren’t supposed to be here because they didn’t have Gordon Hayward. They lost him on opening night. And then you lose Kyrie Irving. And here they are. And they destroyed Philadelphia. Boston is a really, really tough team. And are we really going to bed at this stage against LeBron James going to the finals for the eighth straight year? It’s incredible.
SIMON: And then Golden State Warriors and the Rockets on Monday night. This is the matchup a lot of fans have been saying all year should really be the championship. What do you look for?
BRYANT: Oh, absolutely. This is what these – these two teams have been geared for each other. They were – the Houston Rockets were built for this. You have Chris Paul, who had never been to a conference final. Now he’s going up against a team that has tortured his old team, the Los Angeles Clippers. Wonderful matchup. These are the two best teams in the NBA. This is what everybody wants. And I’m looking forward to this series so well because as we’ve been talking about on this show for – how long, Scott? – do you see anybody beating the Golden State Warriors four times? Nobody saw it when Cleveland did it.
SIMON: Yep.
BRYANT: I don’t see it happening here. But I think this is going to be a fantastic series, one of – maybe one of the best.
SIMON: Howard Bryant of espn.com and ESPN The Magazine – thanks so much, Howard.
BRYANT: Thank you.
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
There's No Surprise In The NBA Final Teams, But There's Still Lots Of Excitement
The NBA is down to its final four teams in the quest for the next champion. There are no surprises, but basketball fans are giddy with excitement about the players and the coaches about to compete for a title.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Only four teams remain in the NBA playoffs – Golden State, Houston, Boston and Cleveland. And that’s just what fans expected – so no surprises. But plenty of people are excited for the NBA Conference Finals. NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins me now. And, Tom, I won’t hear from my dad until these are over. Are you excited as well?
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: (Laughing) As excited as your dad I think, maybe even more so. These teams are playing so well, Audie. And there are such dynamic players in dramatic storylines. Yes, there is a bit of the usual-suspects feel with these four teams, but we should be seeing some great, hotly contested basketball. And that’s what matters, right?
CORNISH: Pretty much.
GOLDMAN: Yeah.
CORNISH: I want to talk about the Western Conference, something which – unfortunate – you have, like, two of the biggest teams – right? – facing off with each other…
GOLDMAN: Right.
CORNISH: …The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets. The Warriors have won 2 out of the last 3 titles, including last year. But a lot of fans think that they’ll be dethroned this time around. How come?
GOLDMAN: Houston’s the No. 1 seed by virtue of the best record in the NBA this season. The explosive guard tandem of James Harden and newcomer Chris Paul has worked brilliantly despite doubts before the season. And Houston has the home-court advantage. And that means the uber-powerful Warriors start the series with two road games. Golden State obviously is good enough to win anywhere. But if the series does go the distance to Game 7 in Houston, that’s where home court could be very valuable.
CORNISH: Does any of this have an effect on the scoring? I mean, these are two high-scoring teams typically.
GOLDMAN: Oh, the two best offensive teams in the NBA – we’re going to see lots of scoring with two distinct styles. If you distill their offensive philosophies down to a word, Golden State would be movement – Houston, space. The Warriors are constantly moving, cutting, always looking to find the best shot even if that means it’s Steph Curry 40 feet from the basket. The Rockets emphasize spacing the floor, putting two or three players out wide beyond the three-point line. Now, this gives more room to operate for those two guys I mentioned, James Harden and Chris Paul. Ball and player movement aren’t as big a deal with Houston. The Rockets want to shoot a ton of three-pointers or get layups but not much in between.
CORNISH: All right, I want to tackle the East side now…
GOLDMAN: Yeah.
CORNISH: …My home town up against Cleveland, second straight year they’re going to meet up. But I gather it’s like an uphill battle basically. This has been a long season.
GOLDMAN: Absolutely. I love your home town. Boston got to the conference final without its two best players, Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving out with injuries. But Boston has shown itself to be incredibly tough and resilient like you, Audie Cornish.
CORNISH: I’ll take it (laughter).
GOLDMAN: Very young players have played like veterans. Role-players have stepped up and played much bigger roles, all of this orchestrated by a very talented young coach, Brad Stevens, whose reputation grows with each game. But Cleveland, after suffering from injuries and a roster makeover in February – you wouldn’t know that now. We’re running out of ways to describe LeBron James’ greatness. He’s playing his best basketball at 33. And very important here – he’s finally getting the help from teammates that was often missing this season.
CORNISH: That’s NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Tom, thanks so much.
GOLDMAN: You’re welcome, Audie.
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
American Hockey League Playoff Game Ends After 5th Overtime
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers, beat the Charlotte Checkers, an affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes, 2-1 in the longest game in AHL history Wednesday night.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
All right, we’re going to turn now to quite a moment in sports. There is a reason people call playoff hockey the most grueling two months in sports. It is fast. It is physical. It is long.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Right, but not usually this long. The Lehigh Valley Phantoms and Charlotte Checkers, minor American Hockey League teams, played a game that went into five overtimes.
GREENE: Five overtimes. Yes, the players were still on the ice after six hours, when finally…
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB ROTRUCK: Bardreau out in front – (yelling) goal – a goal. Bardreau over Krushelnyski. Alex Krushelnyski scores the winning goal in the fifth overtime, that goal coming 6:48 into the fifth overtime in the longest game in American Hockey League history.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: That guy seems psyched. So that goal for the Phantoms came at 1:10 in the morning. The Phantom’s team captain, Colin McDonald, says both teams were pretty banged up by the end.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COLIN MCDONALD: The emotions right now – I mean, that’s almost three full hockey games in one. Like, its just – I’m really proud of the guys and the way they obviously dug deep and found a way to get it done.
GREENE: Yeah, a lot of fans were tweeting that the real hero last night was the Phantoms goalie Alex Lyon. He made 94 saves.
MARTIN: Wow. And when the guy who scored the winning goal, Krushelnyski, was asked what he was most looking forward to after this victory. His answer – bed. Don’t blame him. The next game in the quarterfinal series is Saturday night.
(SOUNDBITE OF LETTUCE’S “GET GREASY”)
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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Las Vegas Golden Knights Could End Up In Stanley Cup Finals In Team's Inaugural Year
With just a few teams left in the NHL playoffs, it looks like there may be a first time winner of the Stanley Cup before it’s all over. It might even be the Las Vegas Golden Knights, a team that didn’t exist 14 months ago.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Not even two years ago, the Las Vegas Golden Knights were just an idea. Now the NHL expansion team is on the brink of the Stanley Cup final. Now, let’s be clear. If an expansion team somehow avoids finishing in last place in its inaugural year, that’s a big deal. What the Golden Knights are doing this year is just ridiculous. It’s one of the NHL stories I want to talk about with veteran hockey reporter Scott Burnside of The Athletic. Welcome to the program.
SCOTT BURNSIDE: Thank you very much for having me, and – always love to talk about playoff hockey.
CORNISH: So just how good are the Knights?
BURNSIDE: (Laughter) Well, I just got done a radio interview where I said I’m going to stop predicting anything to do with the Vegas Golden Knights because I have been wrong right from the get-go. They’re a driven group, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they were cast off or they felt cast off by their other NHL teams. They were exposed in the expansion draft. And so there is a – I think they call themselves the Vegas misfits. And I think there has been a galvanizing element to that. And they play a very fast-tempo game that is fun to watch, and it’s been captivating. I agree with you. It’s been the story of the NHL this season, and it certainly is the story of the playoffs to date.
CORNISH: I’m going to expose my bias here and talk about the Washington Capitals because for about a decade, they’ve been a Stanley Cup favorite. And they have good regular seasons, and then they kind of fall apart in the post-season. But this year…
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN WALTON: Here come the Caps. Kuznetsov gets loose – Evgeny coming down the middle. A shot, and it comes over. He scores. He scores. Evgeny Kuznetsov wins it for Washington. It’s off to the third round. The demons have been exorcised.
CORNISH: So essentially the Washington Capitals got past their tormentors, the Pittsburgh Penguins, as you can hear there. Their demons have finally been exorcised. Is that the case? How significant was this moment for this team?
BURNSIDE: Oh, there’s no question. I’ve spent a lot of time around that team over the last decade. And you’re right. They are a team – I believe they’ve won three Presidents’ Trophies, so they’ve been the top team in the regular season three times, never managed to get out of the second round in the playoffs. In fact, this represents just the second time in franchise history that they’ve gone as far as a conference final.
I was certainly pleased for, you know, Barry Trotz, who coached for a long time in Nashville before going to Washington. He had never coached a team under the second round. Alexander Ovechkin, who has, you know, at times been criticized because of his inability as a captain to the team to lead his very talented Washington teams beyond the second round – you know, you could see in the postgame interviews that there’s a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And this has been a very talented team. And they have always underachieved in the playoffs. And this was a moment where they did not.
CORNISH: You know, it’s hilarious to me that here we are talking about Las Vegas. I know the Nashville team, Tampa Bay team – they’re all still alive. And meanwhile, no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993. (Laughing) I understand just – there’s just the lone Winnipeg Jets right now. Can they break that streak?
BURNSIDE: Well, you know, in having been in Winnipeg covering this series – and you understand the depth of passion for that team. Of course they lost the team. Years ago, they went to Arizona. And in 2011, Winnipeg got a team again as the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg. And it has not been an easy road.
This spring marked the first time in that franchise’s history that they’d ever won a single playoff game, let alone a series. I don’t know whether they can win on the road in Game 7 in Nashville, but I can tell you they’re a very good team. And if they don’t do it this year, they are definitely going to be back. And I think they probably represent Canada’s greatest hope for breaking, as you point out, what has been a long, long Stanley Cup drought.
CORNISH: All right, so if you could pick a team at this point in time to take it all, who are you rooting for?
BURNSIDE: Well, at the beginning of the playoffs, I had Washington and Nashville in the final. I predicted the Capitals would not just exercise their demons against Pittsburgh but would win the whole thing. So I’m going to stick with that. I know there are three other very, very good teams still that feel that they can – they have the goods to take it all. But I’m going to stick with Washington defeating Nashville in the final.
CORNISH: That’s Scott Burnside, national hockey writer for The Athletic. Thank you for speaking with us.
BURNSIDE: My pleasure.
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Margaret Reid Did Well Betting Kentucky Derby Races
After carefully analyzing the odds, she picked the winning horses in five consecutive derby races. She spent $18 on her bet and by the time Justify won the main race, Reid had won $1.2 million.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I’m Rachel Martin. Placing bets on the Kentucky Derby is part of the fun – right? – a good excuse to pick a horse to cheer for during those exhilarating couple of minutes around the track. Racing fan Margaret Reid got more than a good time, though. After carefully analyzing the odds, she picked the winning horses in five consecutive Derby races. She spent 18 bucks on the bet, and by the time Justify won the race, Reid had won $1.2 million – almost as much as the winning horse and his owners took home. It’s MORNING EDITION.
Copyright © 2018 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 Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
