In 1967, Kathrine Switzer ran the Boston Marathon, even though it was a men’s-only event. She tells NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro about that race, and training to run it again in 2017, at age 70.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

The Boston Marathon is tomorrow, one of the marquee events for distance runners around the world. As with many sports, it used to be a men’s-only event until 50 years ago, when Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to wear a Boston bib number and race. Now she’s prepping to run it again at the age of 70. Kathrine Switzer joins me now from Boston. Welcome.

KATHRINE SWITZER: Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be with you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So it’s hard to imagine these days that women would be banned from running in a marathon. Take us back to 1967. What was the thinking behind that?

SWITZER: In 1967, when I pinned on that bib number, I really wasn’t trying to prove anything because a woman had actually run the Boston Marathon the year before by just jumping out of the bushes and running. There was nothing about gender in the rulebook in those days because everybody assumed a woman really couldn’t run and didn’t want to run, and why even bother with it in the rulebook or on the entry form?

And in sports, the longest distance in the Olympic Games, in fact, was just 800 meters. It was feared that anything longer was going to injure women, that they wouldn’t be able to have children or they somehow turned into men. That was what was the theory.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Really, that they were going to turn into men or that their uterus would be damaged?

SWITZER: Absolutely. You know, it was amazing. You’ll never be – ever have children, they said. You’re going to get big legs. You’re going to grow hair on your chest. It was hilarious, the myths. And, of course, when people hear myths, they believe them because to try otherwise might mean damaging yourself. So people were afraid and they just went about their lives that way and restricted themselves.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But you didn’t. You actually entered that 1967 marathon. Tell us a little bit about how you did that and what – and the story behind that.

SWITZER: Well, I entered the race simply because my coach had been a 15-time Boston Marathon runner. And he didn’t believe a woman could do it, but he loved running with me and telling me stories about the Boston Marathon. So he energized me. And, you know, when I told him that I really wanted to try and he said he didn’t believe a woman could do it, I was bound and determined to prove him wrong.

So we did the – all the right things. We followed all the rules. We signed up using the correct entry form and had our travel permits and our AAU cards. We were parts of the federation. The only thing that challenged it was how I signed my name. I sign my name K.V. Switzer, with my initials. And when the entry form went in, they thought it was from a man.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The race organizers realized there was a woman on the course, of course. How did they find out, and what happened when they did?

SWITZER: At about a mile and a half into the race, the press truck went by us, and they saw that I was a woman in the race wearing numbers and they began taking pictures. And alongside of the photographer’s truck came the officials’ press truck. And the race director was on the truck and the guys were teasing him. And he got so angry that there was a girl in the race that he stopped the bus and jumped off it and ran after me and attacked me in the race and tried to pull off my bib numbers, screaming at me, get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.

And I was just blindsided by this. I was terrified. I was scared. And my boyfriend came along with a full streak and gave the official a cross-body block and sent him out of the race instead. You know, we laugh about it now because it’s so funny when a girl is saved by her burly boyfriend. But, you know, I said to my coach immediately after the incident – and I said, I have to finish this race now because if I drop out of this race, nobody’s going to believe that women are serious.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We should tell our listeners you won the New York City Marathon in the ’70s. You came in second in Boston once. You’ve been running ever since. And now, again, you are going to run the Boston Marathon at 70 years old. What’s – what are your hopes for the race day?

SWITZER: You know, what’s going to happen on Monday, Patriots’ Day here in Boston, is to come back 50 years and celebrate the fact, first of all, that I can run, that I’m capable of doing it, amazingly enough, and I’m very, very grateful for that. And I’m also very grateful for the opportunity to thank a city and the streets that changed my life and help to empower millions of women all around the world and change the face of the sport.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kathrine Switzer, good luck out there tomorrow and what an honor to speak with you.

SWITZER: Thank you so much. Good luck everybody and stay fearless.

Copyright © 2017 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.

NBA playoffs are underway with Cleveland and Golden State as the mainstream favorites to win; and in the world of hockey, the Washington Capitals look poised to win their first championship.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Linda Wertheimer, and time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WERTHEIMER: The NBA playoffs begin today. The Indiana Pacers are playing in game one against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Round one is at Quicken Loans Arena this afternoon. And in hockey, the playoffs are already underway. So let’s turn to NPR’s sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Tom, hi.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Linda. How are you?

WERTHEIMER: Well, moderate to good. Cleveland has had a rocky regular season, right?

GOLDMAN: You’re better than Cleveland. The Cavaliers were great, actually. The first couple of months, they looked very much like the defending champions that they are. Since the All-Star break in February, though, their record is 12 and 15. They slipped to the second seed in the Eastern Conference. And most worrisome, their defense has been crummy. There’s an important metric called defensive efficiency. And the Cavs ranked 22nd out of 30 teams in defensive efficiency, so that sure thing.

Cleveland versus Golden State match up in the finals has looked a tad shaky. But remember a few important things – Cleveland’s conference, the East, isn’t that strong. It’s going to be hard for any team including the number one seed Boston to beat the Cavs four times in the series. And they have LeBron James. He’s the best basketball player on the planet. And in the postseason, he ratchets that up. He’s taken his teams to six straight NBA finals. He definitely thinks he can get there for a seventh.

WERTHEIMER: So do you think it’s going to be a problem for Cleveland that they will not have a home court advantage?

GOLDMAN: Maybe, we’ll see. I mean, playing on your home court traditionally helps teams win but not as much now as it has in the past. Tom Haberstroh of ESPN wrote a story in 2015 that’s been cited a lot. And the article shows statistically how home court advantage has dwindled due to several factors, including the rise of three-point shooting.

Essentially, this is the theory. Referees are influenced by a home crowd. They call more fouls on visiting teams. When a team is playing inside near the basket, more fouls are called, meaning more fouls against the visitor, thus, giving the advantage to the home team. But when the game is played far out at the three-point line, fewer fouls called, less influenced by the referees and, thus, not as great an advantage for the home team.

I should note that Cleveland was second in the league this season at taking and making three-point shots. So according to this theory, this might help the Cavs now that they don’t have home court advantage throughout the entire playoffs.

WERTHEIMER: Now, we’ve obviously heard a lot about Cleveland and the Golden State Warriors, but there are some other teams, some other players?

GOLDMAN: (Laughter) Yeah, 14 others and lots of other good players. You know, must-see first round series, Linda, Houston versus Oklahoma City. Houston is led by guard James Harden, Oklahoma City by guard Russell Westbrook. One of those guys will win this year’s MVP award. They’ve both been phenomenal.

The juicy matchup to watch in that series is when Houston’s Patrick Beverley guards Westbrook. Patrick Beverley is a dogged and annoying defender. And he was guarding Westbrook a few years back when Westbrook injured a knee, and Beverley is despised in Oklahoma City because of that.

A few other teams – the Washington Wizards won their division for the first time in 38 years. They have one of the best, best backcourts in the NBA with guards John Wall and Bradley Beal. And the expectations by you and other Washingtonians are very high.

And then Milwaukee playing Toronto in the first round. Milwaukee won 20 of its last 30 regular season games. The Bucks have this fascinating player in Giannis Antetokounmpo. He’s a 6′ 11″ point guard who led his team in every possible statistical category. He’s nicknamed The Greek Freak. And he’s worth watching, and he might just dominate this league in a few years.

WERTHEIMER: Now, while we’re talking about Washington stars, what about the Washington Caps?

GOLDMAN: They look like a nervous team right now. The Caps had the best regular season record in the NHL and are considered serious contenders to win their first Stanley Cup trophy. They lead their series against Toronto 1-0. But they looked shaky in game one. They played tight. They appear to be feeling the weight of expectations. And Cav’s fans are hoping the team can settle down, forget the past playoff failures – and there are many – and play the way they played this regular season.

WERTHEIMER: Speaking to us from Portland, Ore., NPR’s Tom Goldman. Thank you very much for being with us.

GOLDMAN: Thank you, Linda.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2017 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.

A look back at the life of Dan Rooney. pic.twitter.com/eEOJweoxYX

— NFL (@NFL) April 13, 2017

Dear Mr. Rooney, When we first met in 2010 you embraced me with open arms. You made me feel welcome. You looked at me as more than just another jersey number. One of the most genuine, and humble human beings I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. You motivated me not only to excel on the field but also in life. This season, the number 84 on my uniform will represent the 84 years you spent on this earth making an impact on the lives of others. I’ll miss you my friend. Thank you for everything ? -AB

A post shared by Antonio Brown (@ab) on Apr 13, 2017 at 1:48pm PDT

Steroids used to be the scourge of baseball, to the extent that Congress held hearings about it. Commentator Pablo Torre of ESPN The Magazine says time has been kind to some of the worst offenders.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

So in baseball, the difference between being a hero and being a lousy cheat sometimes depends on which era we are talking about and which era we are living in. Here’s Pablo Torre, senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.

PABLO TORRE: If the Baseball Hall of Fame ever admits that it should be more of a museum and less of a shrine, these last two weeks would deserve space in a very special exhibit. Nothing related to this new season – it’s because of two asterisked sluggers whom we once banished from Major League Baseball, the most moralistic kingdom in sports. First, there was disgraced steroid user Jose Conseco taking on a new public role – TV analyst for Oakland A’s games on NBC Sports California. And then, not to be outdone, there was disgraced steroid user Alex Rodriguez, who became a full-time baseball analyst for Fox and a guest co-host on “The View.”

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “THE VIEW”)

JOY BEHAR: So you and J-Lo are an item. So do they call you J-Rod now?

(LAUGHTER)

SARA HAINES: Or A-Lo…

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: We’re having a great time. She’s an amazing, amazing girl, one of the smartest human beings I’ve ever met and also an incredible mother.

TORRE: Not long ago, these gigs for these men would have been unthinkable. As of 2005, performance-enhancing drugs seemed so irreparably toxic that ex-players were being grilled by Senator Bernie Sanders, not Joy Behar.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BERNIE SANDERS: I appreciate all of your efforts, and you’re willing to stand up for the kids of America, that you know you’re role models, you know that steroids are bad, and you want to do everything you can to prevent kids from emulating bad habits.

TORRE: But it’s not just Canseco and Rodriguez who’ve been returned. No less than Mark McGwire, who broke the single-season home run record on steroids in 1998, is now the bench coach for the San Diego Padres. And no less than Barry Bonds, the tainted home run king, was the hitting coach for the Miami Marlins last year. As with Canseco and A-Rod, nobody really protested their presence. So what’s changed? Well, for one thing, Congress realized it had bigger fish to fry. And for another, revelations of steroid use clearly became less shocking and less evil to the average American, which is reasonable. We’ve learned that legions of players – both pitchers and sluggers, both stars and scrubs – have used performance-enhancing drugs. And as criminality goes, asterisks are nothing compared to the last decade of sports villains.

The torrid news cycles around Ray Rice and Donald Sterling and Jerry Sandusky and Aaron Hernandez – they’ve all reshaped the very concept of athletic scandal. And yet, one organization remains absurdly puritanical about the past. The voters for the holy Baseball Hall of Fame keep refusing men like Bonds and McGwire. But our most famous juicers belong in an exhibit right alongside Canseco and Rodriguez, one that reminds us how an asterisk was once a stigma and how it also became a star.

(SOUNDBITE OF WIL BLADES’ “RED LANTERNS ARE BLUE”)

GREENE: That was commentator Pablo Torre. He is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.

Copyright © 2017 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.

Major League Baseball announced some rule changes to speed up game play. More radical changes could be coming, but it’s not yet clear whether these new rules will actually work.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Major League Baseball is stuck between centuries. Just about everyone agrees that games drag on far too long for the distracted, modern audience. The average major league game takes about three hours and postseason games are much longer. But purists balk at any changes to the game.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

And a lot of those purists are the players themselves. Commissioner Rob Manfred wanted to really shake things up for the season, like setting time limits between pitches and limiting how often a manager can visit the pitcher’s mound. But the players didn’t agree. A frustrated Manfred spoke to the press back in February.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROB MANFRED: I believe it’s a mistake to stick our head in the sand and ignore the fact that our game has changed and continues to change. I’m firmly convinced that our fans, both our avid fans and casual fans, want us to respond to and manage the change that’s going on in the game.

CORNISH: There were some rule changes. The intentional walk is a lot snappier now. Instead of throwing four straight balls to put a dangerous batter on first base, teams now simply signal for the walk.

SHAPIRO: The Chicago Cubs were the first team to do this in a regular season game when they gave a free pass to St. Louis Cardinals star Yadier Molina.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Well, remember of course, if there is an intentional walk, there’s no more four pitches. And Molina’s going down to first. They just said to him, we’re going to walk you. So Molina takes off the shin guard, hands the bat, got a little smirk on his face. This is the way it’s going to be done now.

CORNISH: While players and apparently broadcasters try to wrap their heads around the no-pitch intentional walk, Jonah Keri says it won’t impact the game much at all.

JONAH KERI: I think you save 39 seconds per major league game.

SHAPIRO: Keri covers baseball for Sports Illustrated. Commissioner Manfred can make unilateral changes without a blessing from the players’ union next year. But Keri says even the most drastic rule changes aren’t really going to make the game more appealing to younger fans.

KERI: You know, if we’re sitting here talking about, should it be four pitches for an intentional walk, I think that by then, the – you know, the horse is kind of already out of the barn. You’ve got to really go to work on younger fans where they live. You’ve got to figure out, what are their digital tendencies? What do they do for entertainment? And you have to try to get in there and be a part of that conversation.

CORNISH: Yes, change comes slowly to a game steeped in tradition and statistics and the way it’s been played for generations, especially if baseball wants more fans. Perhaps Rob Manfred can get an intern to show him how to make a meme to post on his Twitter feed.

Copyright © 2017 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.

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The 1994 (U.S.) and 1970 (Mexico) World Cups have two of the four highest average attendances in World Cup history. #WC2026pic.twitter.com/eng30MRhMc

— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) April 10, 2017

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com about spring season beginnings for baseball and the NBA playoffs.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: Springtime and birds chirp, flowers bloom and the Cubs are back in blue, and everyone else is suddenly coming for them. Howard Bryant of espn.com and ESPN The Magazine joins us as always. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT: Oh, good morning, Scott. I am – I’m afraid of that mesmerizing, intimidating voice of yours right there. They are coming for the Cubs, aren’t they?

SIMON: Yeah. Well, it’s one of the first…

BRYANT: It’s not something you get to say very often.

SIMON: (Laughter) I’ve – not in 108 years. All right. What are you looking forward to in this baseball season?

BRYANT: I’m looking forward to seeing how the Cubs respond. They are the best team in baseball. They’re the world champions, as we finally get to say after all this time. They were the best (unintelligible)…

SIMON: I’m sorry. I – we had a bad connection. Could you say that again?

BRYANT: (Laughter) Say that again.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: The World Champion Chicago Cubs.

SIMON: Oh, now I hear it. Go ahead, Howard, yes.

BRYANT: And so actually for the last two years, they’ve been the best team in baseball and now in a third. It’s one of the things that is very, very difficult to do in the National League especially, which is to win a championship after winning a championship – repeating. It hasn’t happened in 40 – more than 40 years. The last team to do it was the Big Red Machine, 1975 and ’76.

SIMON: Wow.

BRYANT: In the American League, we’ve seen it. The Yankees have done it. The Toronto Blue Jays have done it. But in the National League, very, very difficult. So to see how the Cubs respond, to see how they deal with being champions, to see if that fire is still there and all the luck that happens too that you need to win, the Cubs are going to be – they were a story last year, and they’re going to be a story again this year.

SIMON: Yeah. My family and I are going to be at the game in Wrigley Field, first game, home game, on Monday night. And if Joe Maddon is listening, I’m ready. OK, Joe? Just signal me in the stands. I’m ready any day. You know, I can pitch, I can pinch hit, whatever.

BRYANT: Angling to get on the field yet again, Scott Simon.

SIMON: Yes, absolutely. Let’s go to basketball. In the East, the Cleveland Cavaliers took apart the Boston Celtics. In the West, the Golden State Warriors have won thu, thu, thu, thu (ph) 13 games in a row. Kevin Durant should return tonight. Are we looking at another Cleveland-Golden State matchup down the road?

BRYANT: Well, it looked pretty bad for a while for the Cavaliers because they hadn’t been playing well. They hadn’t been doing the things that they had done. But then again, who do they have? They’ve got the best player in the game. They’ve got LeBron James. And when you have LeBron James on your team, suddenly all of your ailments can go away in a night. And they went out to Boston last Wednesday, and they destroyed the Celtics, who were tied with them for first place in the East. And you have the Warriors who didn’t even have Kevin Durant because he was injured, and they go out and win 13 in a row without him. And now he’s back tonight, and once again, it looks like the question is going to be what it’s been the last two years. Can anybody beat these two teams four times before they meet each other? It’s never happened in the NBA history before where you’ve got two teams that meet for a championship three straight years. So this is pretty remarkable.

It’s no question that the best team in the NBA is the Golden State Warriors. And they are the team to beat. But LeBron James has been to the NBA Finals six straight years, and he’s doing something that Michael Jordan never did. He’s doing something that only Bill Russell had done before, to go to the finals this many times. It’s a fascinating matchup because you would like to think that somebody could challenge these two teams. But right now, they are head and shoulders above everybody else. In the West, it’ll be fun to see what happens. In the East, I think that once LeBron starts to go into that playoff gear, I don’t think anybody can beat him.

SIMON: He’s kind of been saving himself, hasn’t he?

BRYANT: Well, he has to. He’s got a lot of miles. You forget that he’s been in the game since 2003, and yet, he still keeps carrying the franchise. I want to see it. I think everybody wants to see it, unless you’re in San Antonio, but Warriors Cavaliers three will be fantastic.

SIMON: All right. Howard Bryant of espn.com and ESPN The Magazine. Thanks so very much, Howard. Talk to you soon.

BRYANT: My pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF COREY HENRY’S “TELL YA MAMA NEM”)

Copyright © 2017 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.

U.S. Soccer and the USWNT Players Association ratify collective bargaining agreement through 2021.

More: https://t.co/ElVwpIlc4Jpic.twitter.com/3IfecnurYO

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@ussoccer_wnt) April 5, 2017

pic.twitter.com/G941W08UC8

— Sunil Gulati (@sunilgulati) April 5, 2017