March Madness is about to take over. Before the NCAA brackets are revealed on Sunday, here are some tips (you’ll also need luck) for filling them out.

LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:

It’s March. So that means a few things, like turning your clocks forward an hour tonight or breaking out that barbecue for the first time in months. But for a lot of people, it means one thing above all else – Madness as in March Madness. Tomorrow, the full fields will be announced for the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. The women’s draw will be revealed on Monday.

The winners will be the college basketball national champions. There will be plenty of winners and even more losers in office pools across the country. So we thought it would be a good time to call our very own Tom Goldman NPR sports correspondent. Thanks for being here.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Calling a loser – is that what you’re saying? You’re calling me a loser.

SINGH: A loser.

GOLDMAN: All right. Happy to be here, Lakshmi.

SINGH: Well, tell me – when you think March Madness, what immediately comes to mind?

GOLDMAN: I think of disappointment when I think of the pools. But I think of excitement, and I think of the first week mainly. The first week always seems to be the best. That’s where the madness really is in March Madness. It’s where you have all these teams playing, and it’s where your really fun upsets will happen usually.

SINGH: OK. So for folks, like myself, who haven’t really gotten into it as much as in, you know, recent years, you have any big strategies in mind for those who start filling out their brackets tomorrow?

GOLDMAN: (Laughter) Well, let me preface this by saying I have one – maybe one pool in the last decade, so buyer beware. OK here are a few tips.

SINGH: All right.

GOLDMAN: If you have face paint and a foam number-one finger and all kinds of colorful T-shirts and sweatshirts from your alma mater…

SINGH: Yeah.

GOLDMAN: …Put them away.

SINGH: What?

GOLDMAN: You can wear them during the games, but not when you’re making your picks. It’s not about emotion. It’s about business. Only pick your school to win if you went to Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, you know, UCLA, teams this year that have a real chance. OK. Another one.

SINGH: Wow. OK.

GOLDMAN: If you want to pick upsets, 12 seeds for some reason do well against fives. So go ahead and pick them. And if you want to pick a whopper upset like a 15 seed over a two or a 14 over a three, don’t take your Cinderella team far. They’ll often flame out quickly after the thrilling win.

And one thing, Lakshmi, do not pick a 16 seed to beat a number one seed. That is the only guarantee because it’s never, ever, ever happened. It might someday, but don’t use the someday principle to knock out a first seed that might very well go all the way.

And, lastly, arm yourself with a quarter because you will need to flip a coin on several picks. It’s just that close or you don’t know the teams, and that’s perhaps the biggest rule, except that there’s luck involved both in the games and in picking winners.

SINGH: Although I’ve seen those coins with two heads or two tails, so I’m thinking get the coin that has a head and a tail.

GOLDMAN: There you go.

SINGH: OK. Who are the teams and players to watch on the men’s side?

GOLDMAN: Well, you know, I mentioned a couple of teams before, but I’ll add Louisville, I’ll add defending champion Villanova. We haven’t had a team win consecutive titles since 2007 when Florida won its second straight – also Gonzaga which spent a good deal of the regular season as the number-one ranked team. The West in general has some very strong teams, along with Gonzaga, UCLA which I mentioned, Oregon and Arizona.

SINGH: And how about the women?

GOLDMAN: Well, the women – of course, it’s all about UConn. They have now won 107 straight games, many by whopping margins. Although this season, they had some squeakers. They won by two, by three, by six in three different games, and I asked espn.com’s great women’s basketball writer Mechelle Voepel, the question we always ask in March with UConn, can they be beaten? She says, while it’s still a tall order, there’s probably a better chance this year than last.

Last season, they were ridiculously dominant, rather than their usual unbelievably dominant. They have some younger players leading them this year, and those younger players without a lot of experience in past tournaments. That might make them a little vulnerable, but it should be UConn. We have South Carolina, Baylor, Notre Dame, Maryland as teams that might be the ones to beat them.

SINGH: Well, I hope you go mad this March Madness. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. That’s Tom Goldman, NPR sports correspondent. Thanks again.

GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.

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.

Over the course of two matches, the Barcelona soccer team pulled off a win for the ages as they climbed back from a 4-0 hole in the Champions League tournament to beat Paris-St. Germain 6-5 in aggregate.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Remember when the New England Patriots came back from 25 points down to win the Super Bowl? Yeah, that was a piece of cake compared to what happened in the world of soccer yesterday.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Here, I’ll set it up. The Champions League tournament – Barcelona versus Paris Saint-Germain. Paris Saint-Germain were big underdogs. They’d never won this tournament before. Meanwhile, Barcelona are basically the Patriots. They’ve won it four times in recent years.

CORNISH: At this stage of the tournament, the teams play each other twice. The goals from both games get added together, and the club that scores the most overall moves on to the quarter finals. And in the first game, the French team surprised many by winning big against the Spaniards four to nothing.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: And one of the greatest occasions in Paris Saint-Germain’s history – this. Make no mistake about it.

SIEGEL: That meant Barcelona had to score five more goals than Paris Saint-Germain in the next game, or they’d be done. And for anyone who’s ever sat through a nil-nil finish, you know how rare goals can be in soccer.

CORNISH: Last night, the two teams faced off again, and Barcelona clawed their way to a 5-to-1 lead, but winning by four wasn’t enough. They needed one more goal. And so it came down to the final frantic seconds.

SIEGEL: A cluster of players jockeying for position near the Saint-Germain goal. One of Barcelona’s superstars, Neymar, lofted the ball just over their heads. And the unlikeliest of heroes – a guy who hadn’t played at all in the first half named Sergi Roberto – timed it perfectly. He stuck out his foot and volleyed the ball toward the net.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: It’s a stretch, and it’s in. And I can’t remember the last time I saw something like this.

(CHEERING)

CORNISH: The moment sounded a little different in Spanish.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCERS: (Yelling in Spanish).

SIEGEL: And it was downright heartbreaking in French.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #3: (Speaking French).

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Laughter).

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #4: C’est pas possible. C’est pas possible. C’est pas possible.

SIEGEL: C’est pas possible. It’s not possible.

CORNISH: Nice try, PSG. Thanks to that stunning comeback, Barcelona is on to the quarterfinals in the Champions League.

(SOUNDBITE OF LL COOL J SONG, “MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT”)

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.

NPR’s Robert Siegel talks to sports journalist Jonah Keri about the role of Dutch players in the current World Baseball Classic being held in South Korea. Several of the players have chosen to take leave from spring training with their American teams to attend the tournament.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

I feel like I’m about to do one of those commercials aimed at an aging demographic in which a man with gray hair, if any, says something like this – if you, like me, suffer from advanced baseballophilia (ph), there are two things you can do about it this month.

One is the old fashioned treatment – watch pointless spring training games from Florida and Arizona. The other is guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any truly addicted baseball fan. Watch the World Baseball Classic, baseball’s attempt at a World Cup. Teams from 16 countries are competing in four pools. It’s great fun. Sportswriter Jonah Keri joins us now. And, Jonah, are you as enthusiastic about the World Baseball Classic as I am?

JONAH KERI: Well, absolutely. And the thing that makes it exciting is that the players are invested in it. I mean, you could tell what indifference looks like. If you’ve ever watched an all-star game of any sport, that’s what indifference looks like. But here, the players are hanging on every pitch. They’re representing various nations and doing so with pride. And it really has generated a lot of excitement that way.

SIEGEL: The action has begun in Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo, where pools A and B are taking place. And so far, we know three of the teams that are advancing to the round of eight, Japan – which would be considered a favorite, they’ve won a couple of World Baseball Classics – the Netherlands and Israel. The Netherlands, the Kingdom of the Netherlands as World Baseball power, tell me about that one.

KERI: Well, it’s an interesting one. And you’re not – maybe what you might think of as a typical Amsterdam native doesn’t necessarily apply. A lot of it are Dutch colonies, you know, places like Curacao that have delivered some terrific baseball talent. You think of guys like Xander Bogaerts who’ve emerged as young stars in Major League Baseball leading that club.

So that’s what really what we’re talking about. And you could say the same thing for Israel. We’re not talking about native-born Israelis. In that particular case, we’re referring to – I guess you could call them members of the tribe that chose to play for the team. So the selection criteria by which you could play for a given nation, Freddie Freeman playing for Canada, not a Canadian, but has Canadian parents.

SIEGEL: Now, in the case of the Dutch team, you mentioned Bogaerts. Didi Gregorius from the New York Yankees is also playing. Several of their best players are playing. Not so the United States, you know, Mike Trout, probably best in the game, he’s not playing. A lot of players have decided it’s not worth missing spring training or risking an injury for the flag.

KERI: Yeah. Just to put a fine point on Mike Trout, we might be talking about the second coming of Willie Mays. I mean, that’s how good he’s been over the first few seasons of his career. But, you know, you look at the rest of the roster, there’s still plenty of talent. And the players that are on the roster speak with pride about it.

So even though you might have a case where some players say, listen. It’s a long season. I have to really pay attention to my regimen. And I can’t commit to this. There’s a little bit of a risk. There are plenty of guys that are embracing it.

SIEGEL: You mentioned the Israeli team, which so far hasn’t filled in an actual Israeli, although there is, I believe, one on the roster. Ryan Braun, who was born in Jerusalem, is not part of the team. But there are several present or former high Minor League and Major League players. Sam Fuld is starring for this team.

KERI: Yeah. I can confirm that Sam Fuld is not Israeli because his parents live in Durham, N.H., across the street from where I used to live in Durham, N.H. So that is in fact the case. But he is another one of what you would call the members of the tribe and has had a pretty distinguished Major League career and is one of the leaders of a surprisingly talented club.

They do have some pretty interesting characters on that team. We’ll see if they go up against some of the powerhouses, be it the U.S., the Dominican, what have you. But for now, a very impressive showing, 2-0 in the first round.

SIEGEL: And the Israelis, I think, do win the prize for best large stuffed mascot in their dugout.

KERI: Oh, no question about it. They refer to him as the Mensch on the Bench, looks a little bit rabbinical in nature and just could not be better. That’s definitely been one of the highlights of the tournament.

SIEGEL: Sportswriter Jonah Keri on the World Baseball Classic. Thanks, Jonah.

KERI: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAWES SONG, “ONE OF US”)

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.

Minnesota’s Chris Stewart, a real brawler, threw the first punch against a member of the San Jose Sharks. Instead, he connected with the nose of his teammate Zach Parise.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I’m David Greene. There’s a hockey joke – I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. And Chris Stewart of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild is old school. He’s a real brawler.

Last night, things got chippy against the San Jose Sharks. Stewart threw the first punch, which missed his opponent and landed on the nose of Zach Parise, his teammate. Parise was fine. The team was laughing, especially after winning. Asked if he would hit Stewart back, Parise said, nope – you seen how big he is? It’s MORNING EDITION.

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.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks to Ashley Johnston, captain of the New York Riveters hockey team about sustaining passion for the sport in a league that barely pays any money.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRIBECA SONG, “GET LARGE”)

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The New York Riveters did not live up to their name last night. They lost to the Boston Pride 4-3.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Kessel beats her player down the side and she scores. What a shot by Amanda Kessel.

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: That will do it. The Boston Pride come from behind and shock the New York Riveters.

KELLY: The Riveters and the Pride are two of the four teams that make up the NWHL. That’s the National Women’s Hockey League, which is now in its second season. On today’s edition of Out of Bounds, we’re going to talk with the captain of the New York Riveters. That’s 24-year-old Ashley Johnston. She’s at our member station WAMC in Albany, N.Y. Hey there.

ASHLEY JOHNSTON: Hey.

KELLY: Great to have you on. I am told you have played hockey since you were 8 years old. Is that right?

JOHNSTON: That is correct.

KELLY: Did you ever dream you would grow up and be able to play it professionally?

JOHNSTON: Definitely not. When I was younger, I always thought that I’d be the first female playing in the NHL. That was my dream, especially, you know, obviously playing with a bunch of guys. And then, once I got older, I realized that that wasn’t exactly going to be feasible. So then it became a dream of playing in the Olympics.

KELLY: What’s it like to play now, finally, in front of an audience that had to buy tickets?

JOHNSTON: I mean, it’s so different. Our fans are absolutely amazing. There’s nothing better than playing and then midway through a game hearing a let’s go, Riveters chant. It kind of sends chills down your back. We have some – Rivs superfans, are what they call themselves, and they’re some of the best people I’ve ever met and they are die-hard fans.

KELLY: And I should mention, you also have a day job to help pay the bills. You’re an industrial engineer. You work at a robotics company. Is that typical? Do most of the players on your team have other jobs?

JOHNSTON: Most of the girls have some sort of work, whether it be part time or full time. And then you kind of have the other half where they’re just solely playing hockey.

KELLY: And it’s pro hockey, meaning you should be able to earn a living from this, but we should note that the pay is, for lack of a better word, crummy. You make $260 a game, is that right?

JOHNSTON: That is correct.

KELLY: How does that compare to what the guys make?

JOHNSTON: One of the girls was telling me that some of the NHL players, that their signing bonus would cover one team’s entire salary.

KELLY: Wow.

JOHNSTON: It’s an entirely different world. There’s a lot of extra zeros on their paychecks.

KELLY: What’s that like, having grown up playing these guys, competing against them to a certain age and then you see them go on to these astronomical NHL salaries and you’re making $260 a game?

JOHNSTON: I mean, it’s definitely – it’s – in some sense, it’s a tough pill to swallow. But really, prior to the NWHL, there wasn’t even a league for you to compete in. So that was almost harder because you’d see your college friends graduating, going and signing pro contracts, and you’re like, oh, there’s literally nothing else for me. Like, this is the end of the road.

And I know for me, I felt like my last year of college, I was still getting better. So I was almost worse because I wasn’t at my peak yet. So even having the opportunity to play is now a great first step.

KELLY: I have to ask just the basic question of, why is this worth it? I mean, what is it about hockey that makes you get out there for this terrible pay, your – have a long commute to get there? Why get out there on the ice every day?

JOHNSTON: Obviously, over time, that kind of – that dream, that desire has changed. When I was younger, you know, obviously you have the love of the game. And then when I was in high school, it was – an opportunity to go to college was a huge drive and huge reason for my passion. And now I help out with a U12 team.

One of the girls came up to me and she just goes, I want to be just like you when I’m older. And right there is just so much – that adds fuel. That just adds drive because now she’s saying – she walks around with her little Riveters T-shirt, wants to be on the Riveters, and that’s what she wants to do. She wants to be a professional women’s hockey player.

KELLY: That is the captain of the New York Riveters, Ashley Johnston. Ashley, thanks so much for coming by. Good luck with the season.

JOHNSTON: Thank you and thank you very much for having me.

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.

The Oakland A’s of the 1970s were legendary for their victories and their colorful demeanor. Scott Simon talks to author Jason Turbow about his book on the team, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Oakland A’s of the early 1970s were one of the greatest teams in history. They won three straight world championships, ’72 ’73 and ’74, five straight pennants. They wore the first colorful uniforms, had the most colorful names, the most colorful – possibly insufferable – owner in Charlie Finley and had a club that looked like they were extras in “Easy Rider” – Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers who had a mustache that could steer a motorcycle.

Jason Turbow’s new book, “Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, And Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s,” reminds us how that team changed baseball but then burned out and busted up.

Jason Turbow joins us now from University of California at Berkeley. Thanks so much for being with us.

JASON TURBOW: Thank you so much for having me on, Scott.

SIMON: How do you explain the fact that what turned out to be so many big-name stars wound up playing for one of the smallest market teams?

TURBOW: Well, a big part of that was that many of these guys signed before the draft. Before that point, any team could go out and sign any player for as much as they were willing to spend, and those were the heydays of Charles O. Finley and company.

SIMON: How do you explain Charles O. Finley? Because I find we have to begin and end with him.

TURBOW: He was an incredibly complex guy, which is part of what makes this story so interesting.

SIMON: Insurance magnate in Chicago, never spent much time in Oakland for that matter, but he wound up making some fantastically perceptive judgments about baseball, didn’t he?

TURBOW: He did. I mean, he was smart enough to know that he wasn’t inherently a baseball guy. He wasn’t a talent evaluator, and he never really tried to be. What he was was a salesman and somebody who could elicit information out of others. He also had this very unique ability to spend many, many hours every day on the telephone, which is what he did. He would call scouts and fellow general managers and people in front offices across the league, you know, ostensibly to propose trades, to have conversations. He’d pick up information all the while, free assessments of his own players and players on other’s teams. And when he heard something repeated often enough, he knew he was on to something, and he used that as the basis for his general managerialship (ph), which itself was unique to him. He didn’t hire a general manager for much of his tenure. He just did the job himself.

SIMON: Let me ask you about some of the players on this especially vivid team. Let me begin with Jim Hunter – got the name Catfish from Charlie Finley, didn’t he?

TURBOW: Yes, he did. As soon as Jim Hunter signed the contract, Charlie said, oh, yeah, there’s one other thing. Do you have a nickname? Jim Hunter said, well, no, I don’t. Charlie said, well, what do you like to do? Catfish said, I like to hunt and fish. And Charlie Finley said, that’s it. Your nickname is Catfish. And he – on the spot, he invented a story about how a young Jim Hunter ran away from home and his parents went searching for him desperately, and they found him with a string full of catfish that he had caught in a nearby pond.

SIMON: (Laughter).

TURBOW: And Hunter thought it was going to go immediately. He agreed to it. He thought it was just a whim of the moment. But almost from that moment on, there was nobody named Jim Hunter in Major League Baseball. It was only the Catfish.

SIMON: Reggie Jackson – obviously one of the signature players in baseball history, a great ballplayer, Hall of Fame caliber, not always popular, though, was he?

TURBOW: Not always popular. I mean, Reggie had a big mouth and a big ego. You know, the difference between Reggie in Oakland where he spent significantly more time than he did in New York and after he got to the Yankees was that he came up with the players in Oakland. He was friends with some of them. At the very least, they all understood him, and they understood that he really wasn’t malicious at heart. He just liked to bark a lot. And when he got to the Yankee Stadium, those players didn’t know how to take him, and things really went sour for him there on a personal level.

SIMON: The Oakland A’s were often in what amounted to open rebellion against their owner. And maybe we can understand this best if you tell us the Mike Andrews story. This was the 1973 World Series.

TURBOW: Yeah, this is actually the centerpiece of my book, and every time I recount it, it’s just as unbelievable as when it happened. Mike Andrews was picked up in the middle of that season to be a right-handed pinch hitter. He had been let go by the Chicago White Sox. He had been a second baseman. He’d injured his shoulder. He wasn’t a good fielder. He could barely throw. Everybody knew this coming in. Yet, in game two of that World Series, the A’s had to use him at second base in extra innings against the Mets, and he made two key errors. The A’s were losing anyway already by a run. They ended up giving up several runs because of the errors. They lost 10 to 6. And after the game, Charlie Finley could not abide it. He couldn’t sit still. He wanted to call up minor league second baseman Manny Trillo, but the only way he could do that was as an injury replacement.

SIMON: We’ll explain for people who don’t necessarily follow baseball – rules that your roster has to be established by the time the series opens. You can’t make changes.

TURBOW: Thank you for reminding me that we’re no longer on sports talk radio. He tried to replace Mike Andrews with this rookie, and to do so, he had the team doctor give him a very perfunctory examination. He drafted up a memo, forced Andrews to sign it, and he went home. He didn’t join the team for its flight to New York, and the players were wondering what’s going on. They eventually worked themselves into a lather chanting, we want Mike, we want Mike. Mike never showed up. And for the duration of that flight to New York and that night in the hotel and the next morning, they fomented rage. Reporters couldn’t get enough of it. They were knocking on their hotel rooms. They were finding them on the field. They were finding them in restaurants. And the players were more than willing to talk up and down about what a rotten move it was.

And that’s essentially where Charlie Finley turned from, you know, a benevolent dictator into someone who resented every player on the roster. They all turned on him, and he couldn’t stand it. To the point that the commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn, ordered Andrews reinstated eventually, Finley gave strict orders to his manager, Dick Williams, do not let this guy see the field, at which point Dick Williams immediately inserted him as a pinch hitter…

SIMON: Yeah.

TURBOW: …Just to rile up the owner. Everybody in Shea Stadium in New York saw what was happening, knew what was happening, gave Mike Andrews a standing ovation. And the only guy in the ballpark not applauding this A’s player was his own team’s owner.

SIMON: One of the greatest teams ever – why do you think they wound up not being able to sustain it though and become beyond question the greatest?

TURBOW: Well, on the field, it’s because the free agency era came upon them, and Charlie Finley was unable to adapt to it.

SIMON: Yeah.

TURBOW: He was a guy who had to have absolute control over his team, and, you know, for good and for bad, it worked out on the field, but he wasn’t willing to cede any of that control to the players. And instead of signing them up for reasonable rates when he could, he let them all go. And it bears noting that across the country in New York, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner knew precisely how to play this game from the very beginning. And in short order, he won back to back World Series with the A’s’ two best players, Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter.

SIMON: Jason Turbow – his book, “Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, And Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s.” Thanks so much for being with us.

TURBOW: Thank you so much for having me, Scott.

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.

The National Hockey League is dealing with an outbreak of mumps. Steve Inskeep and David Greene report this isn’t the first time the NHL has had to deal with a mumps outbreak.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This week, two star players in the National Hockey League playing for the Minnesota Wild were benched.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Oh, benched – because of high-sticking?

GREENE: You don’t get benched for that, Steve.

INSKEEP: Oh, sorry. Some kind of fighting, major penalty?

GREENE: No, no, no, no, no. They actually didn’t do anything wrong. They actually were put in isolation for five days because they had the mumps. So did one of the assistant coaches for the team. They had that viral infection that causes fevers, achiness and also visible swelling of the glands in the throat.

HEMAL JHAVERI: It started with the Vancouver Canucks.

INSKEEP: That is Hemal Jhaveri, who’s a hockey reporter for USA Today, who says the Canucks had seven players and a trainer show symptoms.

JHAVERI: And then it has worked its way to the Minnesota Wild, where it’s affected two of their high-profile players.

GREENE: Now, amazingly, this is not the first time the NHL has had a mumps outbreak. Jhaveri covered this last one back in 2014.

INSKEEP: She says that time, a couple dozen players on five different teams were sidelined, including for one of the game’s biggest stars, Sidney Crosby. And here’s what’s odd about the return of the mumps.

JHAVERI: All NHL players were given vaccine boosters. Players got boosters right before they went to Sochi for the Winter Olympics.

GREENE: That vaccine does work. The mumps declined by 99 percent after it was introduced in the 1960s. But turns out, a single mumps vaccine is not a hundred percent effective. Two are recommended.

INSKEEP: Even when most people are vaccinated, the CDC says that outbreaks can still occur in close-contact settings. And hockey is a very physical sport with a lot of spit, occasionally blood, flying around. And then there’s this.

JHAVERI: The Wild recently had a great overtime win where all the players embraced in a giant group hug at the end of the game, where they do what NHL calls a face wash, where they take a sweaty hand and rub it in the face of a player that they think did a great job.

GREENE: I got an idea – maybe a little less of that face washing.

JHAVERI: Absolutely not. I think that that would take away any of the joy and spirit behind the sport. It would make it so sterile. What would we do without hockey hugs? Come on.

INSKEEP: I love that point of view. OK, so let’s go back to the source, Canada. The Minnesota Wild played the Vancouver Canucks last month, when they were extremely contagious.

GREENE: And we should note, a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup in more than two decades.

INSKEEP: Because of the mumps.

GREENE: So it makes you wonder if accidentally spreading an infection to a high-flying American team might be Canada’s only hope.

(SOUNDBITE OF OK IKUMI’S “HEIGHTS”)

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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.

Commentator Frank Deford thinks some of the proposed changes to make professional baseball more exciting won’t help.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

With a new baseball season just around the corner – new baseball season – there are some proposed new rules aimed at making America’s national pastime less passive. But commentator Frank Deford says, foul ball.

FRANK DEFORD, BYLINE: When did the expression, not so good become so popular? It’s everywhere now, highbrow, lowbrow, sad. For instance, basketball and football are really good at making rule changes to help their games – baseball, not so good. It’s imperative that the game must offer more action and take less time as there are more home runs and infinitely more strikeouts from flame-throwing pitchers. Meanwhile, not a whole lot is taking place at first base, second base or third base. The commissioner, Rob Manfred, wants to raise the strike zone to the top of the knee because most batters have a hard time with low pitches, and the pitchers – no idiots, they – are throwing pitches 1.7 inches lower than they used to.

This wouldn’t matter that much if umpires didn’t call these actual low balls strikes. But baseball has this quirky little thing wherein umpires are excused from calling the real strike zone but are tacitly allowed to create their own. Then it’s considered fine so long as the umpire is consistent with that alternate world that he’s created. It’s goofy. Remember when John Roberts was seeking confirmation of the Supreme Court, and he said judges should be just like umpires, just calling balls and strikes? Well, turnabout is fair play. What baseball needs behind the plate are umpires like those judges who are called strict constructionists, which means you follow subtle law to the letter. The strike zone should be what the rule book says it is and not a personal idiosyncrasy. If commissioner Manfred raises the bottom of the strike zone next season, it won’t make any difference if the umpires keep going their merry way and calling low balls strikes. If so, maybe it’s time then to have lasers call the pitches. The technology exists.

Baseball, though, is not alone in being slow to move ahead. Despite the fact that every sport this side of badminton worries about concussions that result in brain damage, CTE, the National Hockey League refuses to accept the overwhelming medical science. Good grief, the NHL still permits fights. Commissioner Gary Bettman, who is apparently brushing up his resume so he can get into the Flat Earth Society, wrote that any connection, quote, “remains unknown.” Others of even the roughest sports acknowledge the connection between concussions and brain damage – the National Hockey League, not so sure.

(SOUNDBITE OF MR. COOPER’S “SEVEN”)

INSKEEP: Throwing strikes over the plate, commentator Frank Deford, who joins us the first Wednesday of every month.

(SOUNDBITE OF MR. COOPER’S, “SEVEN”)

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.