When I read about this, I couldn’t help but think about the old National Lampoon cover with the butch looking female athlete with a medal and a bulge in the crotch of the shorts. That cover of course poked fun at the East Germans whose cheating in the 1970s and 1980s was historic, but nothing seems to have changed in the old Soviet bloc; desperately trying to prove their superiority by any means necessary.
What is surprising is that the International Olympic Committee has apparently “grown a set” (speaking of balls) by backing the ruling of the International Association of Athletics Federations to retain the suspension on the Russian track-and-field team for the upcoming Rio Olympics. It means Russia’s track-and-field team is suspended from the Rio Olympics, though athletes can compete as neutrals if they prove they are clean. The IOC said the ruling was in line with its “zero-tolerance policy”.
The IOC said in a statement it “fully respected” the IAAF’s position, adding: “The eligibility of athletes in any international competition including the Olympic Games is a matter for the respective international federation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and every Russian sports official have decried the ban that was imposed in November. Putin called the suspension “unjust and unfair.” A taskforce studying reforms in Russia acknowledged on Friday that “significant progress” had been made but said the “deep-seated culture” of tolerance of doping “appears not to have changed”. This followed a report by the World Anti-Doping Agency (“Wada”) that said anti-doping officials in Russia were being stopped from testing athletes, and were also being threatened by security services. Wada president Craig Reedie said there had been “no cultural change” in Russia since its athletes were banned and the IAAF ruling should send “a strong message” to other sports.
Unfortunately, the only message that resounded in Moskow was for Russian investigators to begin a criminal case against the former head of the country’s anti-doping laboratory, who alleged the government and security service were involved in cover-ups. The powerful Investigative Committee said it had started criminal proceedings against Grigory Rodchenkov for “abuse of power”. Rodchenkov, who has fled to the United States, last month made claims of an elaborate doping cover-up at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, with the close involvement of the sports ministry and the FSB security service.
A program that was broadcast on German public broadcaster ARD last week alleged Russian authorities had covered up doping cases despite calls for reform. Russian officials have criticized Rodchenkov for making the allegations. A statement read: “Through his actions, Rodchenkov caused substantial damage to the legally protected interests of the state.” It also accused him of “trying to conceal shortcomings and violations in his activities”, violating “Russia’s international interests” and discrediting the country’s anti-doping policy.
It seems like the doping officials are catching up on the Soviet-sphere athletes. In tennis, Maria Sharapova was suspended fro two years for using a substance that had been banned recently and she never stopped using it. As I noted at the beginning of this piece, use of performance enhancing substances was so prevalent it was comical. It appeared that everyone was doing and those that didn’t were fools and certainly losers.
This just seems like yet another tough break for the Rio Olympics which seems to be a morass of bad luck, lack of money, pollution, and fear of the Zika virus. Putin and his apparatchiks once again seem to long for the days of the old Soviet Union – “we will prove our superiority in politics, in the world as a whole” through sports and we will do anything necessary to win. Fortunately, the world has moved on: the Olympics have fallen on hard times for the ways the money could be more useful; athletes not compete in many international venues now that there is no Iron Curtain.
Only one thing seems certain – the cheating continues.

The Stanley Cup Finals are over and the Pittsburgh Penguins have triumphed. They outplayed the San Jose Sharks in nearly every game in every situation. It doesn’t really surprise me because I wrote before the Western Conference Finals that nether the Sharks or their opponents; the St. Louis Blues, had shown any grit or heart in the playoffs previously, what makes them a solid contender this year. (By the way, I said that the Blues would not renew it’s contract with Coach Ken Hitchcock if the team didn’t make the Cup Finals. The Blues surprised me, signing Hitchcock to a one-year deal after which presumably he would retire. The Blues hired Mike Yeo as Assistant Coach and eventual replacement to Hitchcock. Yeo is most known for a stick throwing, profanity laced tirade a couple of years ago when he was the head coach of the Minnesota Wild. It worked at the time – the Wild shook off a horrible start and made the playoffs, but the Wild still haven’t made a deep playoff run in their history and Yeo was fired some time ago.)
The Pens’ win was a true team victory, which makes the awarding of the Conn Smyth Trophy for playoff MVP to Sidney Crosby puzzling. Yes, Crosby is the face of the team, its captain, and the face of the league, but he had no points in the finals. Similarly, Evgeni Malkin didn’t have a great series. Some were proposing Phil Kessel, longtime winner of the “most overrated player” in the league in polling of players by The Hockey News. Kessel scored a lot, but as usual, was marginal on defense. He may not be the worst player ever to be on a Stanley Cup winning team, but he’ll be I guess they had to give the award to somebody, and Crosby is the best known player on the team.
Perhaps they should have given the award to rookie goalie Matt Murray. A co-worker from Pittsburgh sent me a message reminding me that I had said that the Penguins would never win another Cup as long as Marc-Andre Fluery was in goal. Of course, due to injury and better play, they didn’t win with Fluery, they won with the kid. It’s nice to be reminded when you’re right.
Finally, odds-makers list the Pens as favorites to repeat. This surprises me – the Pens had a great second half, but weren’t the best team coming into the playoffs. (To be honest, my Blackhawks weren’t the best team coming into the playoffs last year either – showing that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are truly a war of attrition.) I think their blue line is still weak, and a strategy to have everyone attack will only work for a short time. If they send their defensemen in to play offense, they are going to give up a lot of goals, even if they had Patrick Roy or Grant Fuhr or Ken Dryden in their primes in goal. Besides, it’s hard to repeat – no team has done it since the Red Wings did it in 1997 and 1998, before there was this problematic thing called a salary cap.
Its been another great hockey season; I look forward to next season. My Blackhawks finally got rid of Bryan Bickell, but had to trade Teuvo Teravainin to Carolina also. He will get the chance to be a top center, which he would be no better than the center on the number 3 line if he stayed here. But at 21, he will get much better. We will miss him; he may turn into one of the best in the league some day.

With his death, one thing comes to mind – I have never not known Muhammad Ali. He won the light heavyweight Olympic Gold Medal in 1960 – I was 8 months old. I can’t say I knew who he was then, but I can’t say when I didn’t know who he was. Boxing back then was one of the top sports, especially for black people, who revered Joe Lewis’ exploits which made America sit up and notice what a black man could do.
My folks however, were definitely “old school.” They didn’t like Cassius Clay, they rooted for black people to do great things, but they didn’t like brash and Clay, later Ali, were certainly that. (They never liked Little Richard either, he was too “out there” and gay.) My grandparents preferred their Negro heroes humble, all the while hoping that the black man would beat the sh%t out of any white challengers.
I grew up in the 1960s and Ali was a bold, shining example of black male role model and superstar athlete. As kids we mourned when his titles were stripped away for not allowing himself to be drafted by the Army. We boys all knew that we may have to one day fight in that war and many of us would not return physically and all of us wouldn’t return mentally. My mother and grandparents secretly had a plan for me to move to Canada if drafted and I did have to file the paperwork, but by the time I was of age, Vietnam and the draft were over, and I would have been able to get a college exemption anyway.
We knew that war was wrong. We didn’t know any Vietnamese kids, we didn’t hate them, as Ali said. We had (and will always have) a tenuous love of our country. We love it for the freedoms allowed, but 400 years of oppression that is more open today than ever because a black man dare run for, win and be an effective President of the United States.
The 1960s were a turbulent time but blacks were on the forefront. Motown and Stax was a worldwide phenomenon; James Brown was creating funk and was also important in African-American consciousness. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., my folks’ hero, moved from fighting for rights at lunch counters and buses, to income inequality; Malcolm X was, at first, a militant fighter but mellowed as he grasp Islam. Ali followed Malcolm into the Nation of Islam, which absolutely enraged my grandparents; the Nation of Islam was a very visible force on the South Side of Chicago, even buying the grocery store that my grandmother managed for many years. She still had a job at another store, but for Elijah Muhammad, who proclaimed separatism and that white people were devils, went against what my grandmother knew and lived for; she was very close to the owners of the stores in which she worked, who were Jewish. During the 1968 riots, my grandmother and other workers made sure that the store wasn’t bombed and the owners were able to leave the area safely.
Banished by boxing, Ali was the People’s Champion; he certainly was to us. When he returned, it was like the king returned for us. We had heard of Joe Frazier, but he wasn’t Ali. In one of the worst things about Ali, he demonized Frazier, a very great champion, even to us. Frazier supported Ali while in exile and then Ali, in part doing his usual bragging, made it personal; Frazier was Uncle Tom; Frazier wasn’t the champion. We eat it us, and when Frazier beat him in “The Fight” in 1970, we couldn’t believe it. None of us saw the fight, closed circuit fights were expensive and the fight would start long after bed time. In our hearts, Ali was robbed; in truth, Frazier beat him fair and square, but he was forever the villain in the court of public opinion of 10 year old black kids.
Ali was still fighting and a rematch with Frazier was in the cards, but Frazier was viciously beaten by George Foreman. Ali wanted Foreman, but Foreman was a force of nature – a bigger, stronger Sonny Liston. Ali was no longer as fast, he had lost 3 years, 7 months and 4 days to the fight against the United States. We loved Ali, but he was going to be killed, we thought. The Ali of 1967-68 was the best anyone had ever seen; by then, he had lost to Frazier. We had hope, but we were concerned. Of course, we all know what happened on that night in Zaire, Ali was champion again.
He fought Frazier again and he won, but in a very tough, but not very memorable match. He lost to Leon Spinks as the march of time worked against him. He got his jaw broken by Ken Norton; regained the title from Spinks and beat Norton. Then came the third Frazier fight, the “Thrilla In Manilla,” two great champions near the end of their careers; Frazier who certainly hated Ali with all of his heart. It was perhaps the most brutal fight I’ve ever seen. Frazier eventually refused to come out for the 14th round but both men were done.
Lots of us hoped (I certainly did) that Ali would retire, but he went on, until Larry Holmes, then champion and former Ali sparring partner begged the referee to stop the fight; he didn’t want to hit Ali anymore. Ali fought one more time, losing to Trevor Berbick badly. For months, Ferdie Pacheco, his doctor in the ring had begged Ali to retire – he had won the title three times, no one has ever done that, but Ali needed the money and the adoration. He should have quit after Manilla, or after beating Spinks.
Soon thereafter, the word came that Ali had Parkinson’s and it looked like Ali was going the way of all retired fighters – forgotten, out of the public eye, but Ali was too big, too large a person. He left the Nation of Islam and turned to mainstream Sunni Islam in 1975. Always a force for African-American equality and justice, he brought the message of Islam, that of peace and harmony to all. Even those who hated him in the past, came around and he was a beloved figure late in his life.
I only met him once, by chance. I was going to a downtown record store at lunch from work turned the corner at LaSalle and Randolph and literally walked right into him. He was suing someone over his likeness or other business issue – his lawyer was a woman who kept telling him “come on Champ;” his hands were full, he was carrying two legal cases. He was just a little bit taller than I so we were eye to eye. I said the only thing I could think of “Hi Champ. How are you?” and he smiled and nodded and walked on. I told him that he was my hero as he walked away.
Hamlet said of his late father “He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.” We say the same about Muhammad Ali – he was no saint: he was a womanizer; he wasn’t around much as his children grew up; his taunting of Joe Frazier was merciless. He beat Ernie Terrell and Floyd Patterson and refused to knock them out because they refused to call him Muhammad Ali. However, what he did in the ring was historic; and what he did outside of it was even greater. Loved around the world, the most recognizable person on Earth, but still a playful jokester, a kid at heart.
We truly will not see his like again.

As we get closer to the July opening of the new Ghostbusters movie, the backlash has been just brutal. The fact that the iconic comedians from the original: Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd have limited participation, and of course Harold Ramis has passed away, is one big problem, but lots of people seem to have a problem that it has been recast will all women, including the very funny Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. The director, Paul Feig Director of “Bridesmaids” and “Spy” and “the Heat” has had great success with Ms. McCarthy, but a horrible first trailer and misogyny of the highest order.
I have always been of the opinion that – let’s wait and see the movie. Back when the comic fanboys were howling about the casting of Michael Keaton as Batman, I said, let’s see. Beetlejuice, starring Keaton and directed by Tim Burton, got that Batman film made; comics are good actors, they have to be – good comedy requires timing, great comedians can be great actors, not every great actor can do comedy.
Another issue was when Daniel Craig was hired to be James Bond. “He’s blond with blue eyes, he can’t be Bond’” they said. Then was got three out of four great movies including Skyfall, one of the best Bond films of all time, and now, as Craig has said he won’t do any more (despite being contractually obligated for one more film), many people are sad at him leaving.
I don’t have a problem with the casting, or the women, that’s not important – women are as good as men. The problem is that a remake of Ghostbusters is so unnecessary. The original was made in 1984 and is an iconic comedy. I still cannot look without laughing at the Staf-Puft Marshmallow Man. It still holds up; it’s not that dated having been made in 1984. It is the lack of originality, the fear of new ideas; that is my problem. Of course, it is the same lack of originality that has led to the huge number of comic book movies, which does please me no end.
Remakes generally suck. Everything from Casablanca to 12 Monkeys has been remade. For every “The Fly” or “The Thing” or “Scarface” there were the unnecessary and horrendous remakes of “Psycho” or “The Wicker Man” or “The Haunting.” The millions of dollars that could finance dozens of original screenplays are spent on unnecessary and bad wastes of time in hope of a quick buck based on name recognition.
Unfortunately, we movie fans can’t win. If the new Ghostbusters is good, or finds an audience, Hollywood producers will put even more retreads into production. If it bombs, there are still plenty more remakes in the pipeline that are too expensive to cancel. Meanwhile, many meaningful projects go unfunded because most Hollywood studio executives have all the backbone of an amoeba.
So, when you complain about the new Ghostbusters, let’s put the blame where it belongs.

Last week, the Indignant Children participated in the local rink’s annual Ice Show. It allows all of the children enrolled in the various ice skating classes the opportunity to dress up and show off their skills before family members and friends. It is a good show and everyone does seem to enjoy it, but I do admit to asking myself if it is too much? Five shows: Thursday night, Friday night, two shows on Saturday, and Sunday afternoon while school is still in session has left my kids exhausted most years. Add the technical and dress rehearsals and the kids are at the rink all week.
This year was more stressful as the Wednesday night dress rehearsal turned into the sixth show because many parents who were new to the process failed to get enough tickets for themselves and grandparents. I don’t begrudge the Park District making money off the tickets since the money helps support the programs, but I do have that concern in the back of my mind that it may be too much.
This is what I thought of when I read the Chicago Tribune article concerning whether there should be a pitch limit for high school baseball pitchers. The article starts with the situation of Brady Huffman, a right handed pitcher and Illinois State University recruit, whose coach allowed him to throw 167 pitches in a game. Genoa-Kingston High School baseball coach Roger Butler’s decision spiraled around the Internet with even an ESPN writer tweeting “Fire this coach.”
Huffman’s pitch count was higher than any major leaguer has thrown in almost two decades, and far more than the maximum recommended for a high school player. “He told me that he could keep going,” Butler told the Daily Chronicle after the game. “I trust him when he says that he has something left.”
Other states have rules governing a high school pitcher’s workload that would have gotten Huffman pulled long before reaching that mark. But the Illinois High School Association has no such policy, even as young pitchers are injuring their arms in unprecedented numbers. Huffman’s outlandish usage may be the tipping point towards change. For the second time, IHSA officials are considering establishment of a rule that would cap the number of pitches a player can throw in a game while also establishing the minimum amount of rest he must receive afterward.
“We’re facing an explosion of injuries in youth baseball, and I think that the IHSA definitely has a role to play,” said Dr. Preston Wolin, an orthopedic surgeon who serves on the association’s sports medicine advisory committee and favors a 105-pitch limit (quoted by the Chicago Tribune). “The longer that I go, the more I see that makes me believe we have to have rules for this.”
Perhaps it will happen this time – a similar effort several years ago failed due to coaches’ opposition. Some coaches are still opposed; they claim that pitchers are more likely to hurt themselves in travel leagues or in scouting showcases, and that implementing the new rule would be difficult..
Even for Major Leaguers, the occurrence of Tommy John, rotator cuff surgery is up tenfold from a decade ago. Many Cub fans feel that ace Jake Arrietta’s playoff performance did not match his phenomenal second half of the regular season because he threw more innings last year than ever in his career. The White Sox have been bringing back stars from the recent past and last week, former ace Jack McDowell returned to U.S. Cellular Field. For years, he was the top pitcher in the league and he posted an unreal number of innings pitched until he started to peter out. The Washington Nationals look like geniuses now but took tons of flak from fans and the media when they shut down Stephen Strasburg in 2012 after his Tommy John surgery despite the team being in contention for the playoffs. Now, Strasburg, at 27, is 8-0 with a 2.79 ERA for the 28-18 Nationals who hold a 1 ½ game lead in the National League East.
With young men still growing and maturing physically, a pitch limit and minimum days rest between starts makes sense in high school, perhaps even in college. Again, the lure of riches and fame in the sport are intoxicating, but common sense and trying to avoid long term injury should take precedence.

Facing a deadline yesterday in which to appeal the 2nd Circuit Court’s opinion that upheld New England Patriots’ Quarterback Tom Brady’s four game suspension from the NFL in the Deflategate scandal. Brady filed an appeal Monday for a second hearing by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the first review was a 2-1 decision last April 25, deciding that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s discipline was properly grounded in the collective bargaining agreement and that Brady was treated fairly.
“The facts here are so drastic and so apparent that the court should rehear it,” NFL Players Association attorney Theodore B. Olson told ABC News on Monday morning in an interview aired on “Good Morning America.” In their appeal filing, Brady’s attorneys called Goodell’s appeal ruling “biased, agenda-driven, and self-approving.”
“A divided panel of this Court affirmed Goodell in a decision that repudiates longstanding labor law principles and that, if left undisturbed, will fuel unpredictability in labor arbitrations everywhere and make labor arbitration increasingly capricious and undesirable for employers and employees alike,” Brady’s attorneys said in their filing.
Brady appealed en banc, asking the entire panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to participate in the hearing. Seven of the 13 judges would have to agree to an en banc session before a hearing is held.
If the en banc session isn’t granted, Brady could take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Olson told ESPN’s “Mike & Mike” that he expects the appellate court to move quickly on a ruling on the hearing. If necessary, he said attorneys will consider asking the court for a stay. That would freeze action in the case and allow Brady to play if the case continues closer to the season.
As I wrote after the April ruling, it is long past time for Brady to “man-up” and take his punishment. Brady is not debating the facts of the case: that he worked with Patriot personnel to deflate the footballs in the 2015 AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts. His argument is that Goodell overstepped his bounds driven in part because of long-standing allegations that the Patriots cheat by videotaping practices, having listening devices in the visitors’ locker room at Gillette Stadium; having sideline communication fail at key times for the opposition.
The Patriots were caught red handed in 2007 in the Spygate when they were caught videotaping New York Jets defensive coaches during a September 9, 2007 game. Head Coach Bill Belichick was fined the maximum amount allowed under league rules – $500,000, the team was fined $250,000 and the team forfeited their first round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, which would have been 21st pick.
Did other owners expect Goodell to come down hard on the Patriots? I think that’s undoubtedly true. However, I don’t think he overstepped his bounds, and its long past time for Brady to stop fighting in court, he’s lost in the court of public opinion (except for New England), and take his punishment. He can play in the exhibition games; the team is still a playoff contender; they shouldn’t lose all 4 of the games without Brady; and he’ll be more rested and taken fewer hits.

It is a longstanding journalistic standard to publicize a big news exclusive. After all, journalists are in the business of selling papers, generating ratings for television shows, getting eyes on commercials. However, sometimes, what is listed as a bombshell merely confirms one’s opinion of a person or team or league.
ESPN’s Outside The Lines is a fine investigative television show that has done very good work in uncovering stories about athletes, teams, leagues and agencies. So, they did a great service in acquiring the report by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee implicating that top NFL officials tried to influence a study on brain injury research conducted by the National Institutes of Health.
According to the report, the NFL tried to rescind a $30 million “unrestricted” donation the NFL gave the NIH in 2012, $16 million of which was flagged in 2014 to fund research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy or “CTE,” a debilitating brain disease associated with repeated head trauma that’s been found in many retired NFL players. The NIH selected Boston University researcher Dr. Robert Stern to lead the study, however, the NFL balked and pulled its funding, forcing taxpayers to pay for the study instead, the report shows. The league later offered $2 million to help fund the study. The NIH declined the contribution, opting to cover the entirety of the costs itself.
Unnamed sources told ESPN that the league objected to Stern, who has been critical of the NFL in the past, over concerns he might be biased against the league. Not only does the 91-page congressional inquiry released Monday disagree with the NFL’s concern about a biased study, it suggests the opposite is true. The NFL attempted to influence the NIH, not the other way around:
The NFL’s interactions with NIH and approach to funding the BU study fit a longstanding pattern of attempts to influence the scientific understanding of the consequences of repeated head trauma. These efforts date back to the formation of the NFL’s now-discredited [Mild Traumatic Brain Injury] Committee, which attempted to control the scientific narrative around concussions in the 1990s.
In this instance, our investigation has shown that while the NFL had been publicly proclaiming its role as funder and accelerator of important research, it was privately attempting to influence that research. The NFL attempted to use its “unrestricted gift” as leverage to steer funding away from one of its critics.
Of course, the NFL flatly denies any attempt to sway the NIH. Regarding the pulled funding for the BU study, league spokesman Brian McCarthy told The New York Times the NFL has no “veto power” over how the $30 million grant is used and that “the NIH makes all funding decisions.”
This is an important story, but in my opinion, it just shows that the NFL would rather sweep CTE research and findings under the rug because it is a threat to the ongoing existence and profitability of the league. You don’t need to go far to get a similar story – the Will Smith film “Concussion” basically turns the real story of the discovery of CTE and the NFL’s response to it into a thriller. The NFL has traditionally tossed old players away like trash once their playing days have ended. Despite pledging $750 million to treating retired players suffering from CTE and other brain injuries, this amount breaks down to a few hundred dollars per player, and since most players do not keep or invest their football money wisely after they retire, this is a pittance of the money needed for still young men to live, much less handle the medical bills caused by football.
To many observers, NFL and its owners and management are greedy people who care only about the league’s and teams’ bottom lines. While this story is a great scoop for ESPN, for which they should be very proud, I can’t say I’m surprised.