Cultural History Commons^™

Negro Leagues And College Football Playoff, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Last week, the Commissioner of Baseball announced that from this point on the Negro Leagues that were operating between 1920 and 1948 would be “elevated” to “Major League status” by Major League Baseball. He added that “MLB is proud to highlight the contributions of the pioneers who played from 1920-1948.” The action was presented as a culmination of the centennial celebration of the founding of the Negro Leagues in 1920. The statistics from those leagues now become a part of the official records.

Covid-19 Covers Against The Nfl, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

For the NFL, the push to the playoffs begins in December as the contenders are separated from the pretenders. The Super Bowl is still eleven weeks or so away, but those who hope to be there are fine-tuning their game to make the run to Super Bowl LV in Tampa.

Covid-19 Is Number One, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Heading into December, the college football season has reached that point when teams are trying to position themselves for conference playoffs and championships, and for the elite the CFP National Championship Game. Lesser teams are trolling for bowl games, great and small. In addition, men’s and women’s college basketball and hockey are underway. College basketball opened on Wednesday with a bundle of cancellations.

Thanksgiving, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As with all American traditions, if it happened once or twice it is one. Therefore I present my traditional Thanksgiving piece.

The Sports Tsunami, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It was March 11 when the NBA cancelled the regular season game between the Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder after Jazz players Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell tested positive for Covid-19. The next day the NBA suspended its regular season. This decision rolled across the world of sport and soon most other sports in the United States followed the NBA lead.

Anti-Semitism, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

I am not a social media person, and, so at times, things slip by me that I should know about. In the past few weeks, I found myself playing catch-up on the uproar set off by DeSean Jackson’s tweets. Jackson mistakenly thought he was quoting Hitler in his anti-Semitic blast. Steven Jackson, no relation to DeSean, supported DeSean with his own splash of anti-Semitic material. Both men followed up with tributes to the wisdom of Louis Farrakhan, regarded by many as the current leader of anti-Semitism in the world.

Sport In The Middle Of Crisis, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It has been two weeks since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, an event that has thrown American society into a state of shock and mourning, followed by protest, marches, and rioting. It has been over fifty years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the city of Memphis. That event also sent the country into a state of shock and mourning, with protest, marches, and rioting.

Intercollegiate Athletics Part Ii, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Perhaps the biggest news in intercollegiate athletics concerns the changing NCAA policy on player commercial endorsement. At the end of April, the NCAA Board of Governors approved recommendations allowing athletes to be paid for endorsements. These will now go to the NCAA annual meeting in January, and, if approved by the full membership, the new policy will go into effect for the 2021-22 academic year. (Placing this in terms of “academic year” is the NCAA’s subtle way of promoting the pretense of the “student athlete.”)

College Sports In The Covid19 World (Part I), Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Even though College Sports are no longer being played, the NCAA and colleges continue to make news. Some of the news is an expected part of the norm, while other news concerns the new world of Covid19 and the future of intercollegiate athletics or, more to the point, football and basketball.

There is growing discussion over the coming football season in the world of Covid19. When will it start? What will it look like? Will it take place at all? The discussions around these questions spin in many directions and, at times, crisscross one another. Are there any guidelines that …

What We Miss, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It has been several weeks since the world changed. The regular patterns of life have been disrupted, and keeping track of what day it is has required some effort. Sport with its familiar patterns and rhythms is gone. March Madness took on a very different meaning; the NHL and the NBA shut down; spring training in Arizona and Florida ended abruptly; the Olympics have been postponed for a year; and across the world, sports at all levels have been cancelled or postponed.

Michael Jordan In Orlando For Baseball, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

ESPN has now aired the first four episodes of “The Last Dance.” There will be ten in all. This documentary is being marketed as a new and candid look at Michael Jordan and the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls. It is receiving rave reviews and, so far as I have seen, this is a good piece of documentary film making. As many of you know Jordan left basketball in mid-career to pursue baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization. During the 1994 baseball season, Jordan played for the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League. In early May of that year he came …

Kobe Bryant, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The first reaction was disbelief, then shock, then sorrow. Kobe Bryant and his 13 year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash. Then more news tumbles out and it gets worse. Later, when the photos of Kobe and his daughter appeared in the media it is heartbreaking.

The Astros Et.Al., Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

In studying World War I, the American historian Bruce Catton identified a simple and ironclad rule concerning technology: What you can do, you must do. I was thinking about the current uproar over the Houston Astros’ use of technology to steal signs and I thought about Catton’s observation and how it might offer some understanding of what happened in this latest of baseball scandals.

The Nfl And Volleyball, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The day following the end of the NFL regular season has come to be known as “Black Monday” as it is the day that head coaches of poorly performing teams are fired. I would suggest that some consideration be given to changing the term to “White Monday” because the firing of coaches has resulted primarily in the opening of head coaching positions to white coaches. On another coaching front, a similar story, but this one based on gender was highlight recently by The New York Times. Since the passage of Title IX, women’s sport has experienced considerable growth. At the …

Baseball Hall Of Fame Vote, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It was a little over a week ago that I read a small notice about the Baseball Hall of Fame voting for the class of 2020. Those on the ballot were listed, and as always the name of Marvin Miller was on that list. I skimmed over that name muttering to myself something like, “yea, sure, fat chance.” And that would be the end of it for another year. If there was one sure thing, betting that Marvin Miller would be rejected by Hall of Fame voters for the eighth time, was it.

Jay-Z, Roger, And Kaepernick, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The National Football League is about to begin its 100th season of play. This will be celebrated ad nauseam and the 2020-2021 season will be celebrated as the 100th Anniversary season of the NFL. The marketing folks at the NFL no doubt spend weeks and months figuring out how to milk this milestone for as long as possible. This points to the self-evident proposition that the National Football League is all about marketing and only incidentally about actual football. One obstacle in the NFL marketing orbit is the persistent set of issues surrounding Colin Kaepernick and the National Anthem protests. …

Sex Identity And The Iaaf, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

For several weeks, now I have been thinking about a major controversy in sport, namely the issue of sex identification as it pertains to the world of athletics. On May 1, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in favor of the decision of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) requiring female track athletes with elevated levels of testosterone to lower those levels when competing in the 400 and 800 meter events. The court, however, did not uphold the IAAF application of the rule to the 1500 meter and mile events.

Tiger Woods At The Masters, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As all the world knows by now, Tiger Woods won the Masters yesterday. Without a doubt, it was one of the most remarkable achievements in recent sport history, completing a long climb back from the bottom following the collapse of his marriage, his body, and, indeed, his life.

Madness On A Major Scale, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Several years ago in their dedication to the student athlete, the NCAA copyrighted the term “March Madness.” Some objected to this attempt to corner the marketing potential for this term. That objection now seems superfluous as the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics have cornered the larger market on “madness” during this month of March.

Super Bowl Liii, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The Super Bowl LIII (that is 53 for non-Romans) is almost here as we come to the end of Super Bowl Week. The amount of nonsense, madness, consumption, and hot events is now approaching infinity. As a public service to the nation, I have worked my way through the websites of media and the NFL, so you would not have to do so, searching for the most insignificant materials available that illuminate the essence of the Super Bowl.

Odds And Odds, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As 2018 gave way to 2019, Sportsworld passed through a deluge of meaningless bowl games, a scattering of interesting bowl games, and this season’s push toward the Super Bowl. The highlights of these days and weeks are now part of the record. As significant as these events are for some sports fans, there were other less significant and insignificant developments that may have been overlooked.

Dysfunction At Usa Gymnastics, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Among all of the dysfunctional organizations in contemporary Sportsworld, USA Gymnastics (USAG) seems to be the leader. The Larry Nassar abuse case peeled back the veneer of success and revealed an ugliness unmatched in recent memory. Nassar’s offenses are now well-known and his conviction and sentencing produced high courtroom drama. More than 150 women offered testimony at Nassar’s trial, most of whom were speaking about this abuse for the first time. Nassar was employed by the USAG for twenty years.

Tiger Woods, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship in Atlanta today. If you are like me you may want to read that one more time before moving on.

The U.S. Open (Correction), Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

For several decades ABC Television’s “Wide World of Sports” opened with a video clip that illustrated what the announcer called “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.” On Saturday the U.S. Open Women’s Final delivered “The Agony of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.”

The Constant Crisis, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Every year at this time, the time being the coming of the college football season, we are treated to a carnival of corruption. This is as natural as the coming of the season and nearly as old as the rhythms of nature itself. Given the fact that the seasons of sport blur one into the other, and none of them ever seems to end, the institutions of Higher Learning in America now offer corruption across the sports spectrum almost without regard to the calendar.

The Dangerous Twitter-Verse, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Over the past few weeks, the tweets of three major league baseball players have made headlines. All three players wrote and sent these tweets when they were in their teens. Josh Hader, a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, was pitching in the All-Star Game when his tweets surfaced on social media. Sean Newcomb, an Atlanta Braves pitcher, was pitching a no-hitter against the Dodgers. It got to the ninth inning with two out and two strikes on the batter. While that drama was playing out on the field, Newcomb’s tweets from his teen years were released across social media. Trea …

The World Cup, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

It has been a month since the start of the World Cup. When a champion is determined on Sunday, over thirty-five matches will have been played in twelve stadia spread across the Russian landscape. It has been an exhausting and impressive cavalcade of sport.

Donald Hall And Baseball, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Donald Hall, died last weekend at the age of 89 at his home in New Hampshire. He was a poet, an essayist, and an amazingly productive writer. He loved his farm, his Red Sox, and his wife Jane Kenyon, (a poet of major talent who died in 1995). Some of you may know them from their work, and from Bill Moyers' 1993 award winning Public Television Documentary, “Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: A Life Together.”

Championship Weekend, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

In a matter of four days from June 7 through the 10th, several championship level sporting events were decided. Beginning on Thursday with the conclusion of the National Hockey League finals through Sunday with the Men’s Final at the French Open, there was a bonanza of sport available to spectators across the world. Each had its own character and each offered a different perspective on winning.

The Nfl's New Rule, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

I’ve been on the road over the past two weeks and have not been able to react to any of the many developments in the world of sport, including the latest from Goodell World. The NFL never fails to disappoint, particularly since the emergence of Roger Goodell as Commissioner. Once again the league has been able to create a policy that, on the one hand, pleases the Sunday nationalists, while, on the other, manages to alienate significant numbers of players, fans, and commentators.