Bob Collins
Baseball doesn’t quite understand — or isn’t willing to understand — why many people have given up on it. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Sports
Imagine a baseball game with no pumped-in music, and no announcers. Just baseball. Read more →
A little over a year ago, Jamie Baker, a lunchpail NHL player for the Quebec Nordiques, Ottawa Senators, San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs back in the day, had a few moments with his own thoughts during his current job as a TV analyst for the San Jose Sharks. That’s when he decided that he would kill himself. Read more →
Serious question: Are you really the state of hockey, Minnesota? Can you be with an empty arena for your signature college hockey team? Read more →
The Atlantic League will test out several ideas this season and it’s clear that if they work, Major League Baseball will try to convince its unions to adopt them for the big-league game. The most striking addition? Robot umpires. Sort of. Read more →
A quick glance at the calendar confirms that it’s 2019, so it’s important to ask what on earth goes through a person’s mind when referring to lynching during a hockey game broadcast? Read more →
Dmitri Moua, 16, just wanted to dance but it took him making a federal case out of it to get him to try out for a girls competitive high school dance team in Roseville. There are no boys teams and the Minnesota State High School League dictates the rules and said “no” to Moua and Zachary Greenwald, a dancer in Hopkins. Read more →
Cindy Gallea, of Wykoff, Minn., is currently in last place in the Iditarod sleg dog race in Alaska, pulling into the Rohn checkpoint on Tuesday, and if you’re prone to chuckle about her standing, answer this: ‘What are you accomplishing today?’
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Facebook kills careers. So does being a little too invested in a political issue. Ask the manager of a North Dakota horse track who, on his personal page, weighed into a bill in the North Dakota Legislature that would provide some assistance to the North Dakota Horse Park in paying special assessments to the City of Fargo. Read more →
The Society for American Baseball Research has nominated a former Saint Paul Saint for a new award honoring women in baseball.
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Five other states have tried a similar bill. Five other states have failed even though the evidence is mounting that football scrambles your kids’ brain. Because: football. And: America. Read more →
The saddest thing about what Devontae Shuler, a basketball player for Ole Miss, did last Saturday is try to explain why he took a knee during the National Anthem to a nation that knows exactly why he did it and is anxious to change the subject.
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The NFL, which has a habit of looking the other way on serious matters, is finally going to crack down — again — on those who discredit the good name of football: touchdown celebrations.
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If you’re the type to toss the sports section from the daily newspaper, you’ll miss a well-written and bittersweet story about a father who’s trying to press on after his son killed himself. Read more →
Karl Andresen, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, was one of the original participants in the Birkebeiner ski race, the latest staging of which will be held this weekend. He left behind a family that won’t forget its Norwegian roots. Read more →