Bob CollinsFor the most part, parents can be pretty over-the-top when it comes to protecting their kids from risks real and imagined. So why are they letting them play youth football? NBC reports on a study being released today that shows the brain changes after just one season of suiting up, even if the player doesn’t Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Sports
Most fans of the Cleveland Indians had never heard of Ryan Merritt, until he pitched his team into the World Series. Now they’re rewarding Merritt and his fiancee, a Rochester area native. Read more →
When we talk baseball, we pull our past with us — our brothers, our grandmothers, our aunts, our sons and daughters — as we hang on for one more season, one more game, one more chance to dream that salvation will come, if not in this life, then surely the next. Or the one after that. Read more →
The Ada-Borup game against Cass Lake was supposed to be just a football game. A young man’s death transformed it into something more. Read more →
Football is knee-deep in hypocrisy when it comes to alcohol. Beermakers are major advertisers, teams play up tailgating and drinking, it’s a tremendous source of revenue at the concession stand, and when the game ends, only a fool would deny that a fair number of fans are getting in their cars hammered Read more →
It wasn’t part of a protest, Northland Community and Technical College’s president assured veterans groups. But if it had been, he wouldn’t have tried to stop it. Read more →
The second-best part of October postseason baseball is some city’s symphony always posts a video in support of their local team, playing the sport’s national anthem.
This year the distinction goes to Chicago. Read more →
Indigenous activist Douglas Cardinal’s attempt to prevent it from happening because of Cleveland’s racist mascot and team name is worthy of attention in a country that has a law against such things. If nothing else, Cleveland’s success in the playoffs is coming alongside attention over its racist mascot. Read more →
You have to give a nod to Rick Swenson, 35, of Fergus Falls, who found inspiration watching a giant pumpkin dropped onto a car in Lancaster, Minn., some time ago.
Read more →
The occasional tales of sportsmanship on this blog are, indeed, heartwarming. But it must also be acknowledged that with every yin, there is often a yang.
Tyler Ohmann, of the Morrison County Record, found the yang at the homecoming football game in Royalton earlier this month when Upsala Swanville came calling. Read more →
Jerry Howarth cannot bring himself to say “the Cleveland Indians.” He finds the team’s name and mascot insulting. Lots of people do. But lots of people aren’t the play-by-play voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, who open the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians. Jerry Howarth is. Read more →
The Internet search is on for the San Francisco Giants fan who must be somebody, because he was wearing a World Series ring. Oh, and because he left a server in the bar outside Wrigley Field a tip for $5,000.
Read more →
Here’s another installment of our occasional series,’Why Baseball is Better Than Football.’
Today’s reason: Because you don’t ever hear about people being stabbed over giant inflatable baseball players. Read more →
Ben Hildre says he wouldn’t have done it if the gorilla costume he normally wears for some annual team tradition hadn’t been damaged. Read more →
You probably figured as soon as Donald Trump blamed his sexual exploit talk on ‘locker room talk’ that former Minnesota Viking Chris Kluwe would weigh in on life in the Vikings locker room to set him straight. Read more →