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Photo credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images In its continuing quest to greatly injure public discourse by gifting legitimacy to arguments from all sides, the Washington Post op-ed page published a hilariously dumb and wrong-headed column Friday by rural Ohio newspaper editor Gary Abernathy, mourning the loss of American professional sports’ apolitical purity. What makes sports so popular in our culture? The answer is simple: It’s a couple of hours of escape from…

Going to the Olympics was a life-changing experience for T.J. Oshie, a shootout star for the United States against Russia in Sochi. Oshie and dozens, if not hundreds, of NHL stars are disappointed they won’t get a chance to do it again at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. He would like to ensure Olympic participation in the future — but not at any cost. “To what end, like…

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. says something, it’s different. This week a firestorm broke out among sports media, and regular media, and really regular people. Politics and sports spilled across their neatly drawn lines and wrestled right in front of the general public. That’s why you heard President Donald Trump call any NFL player who kneels during the national anthem a “son of a bitch,” and that’s why you watched hundreds…

Winning a World Cup is a steep enough challenge. Pelé had the gifts, and talented and remarkable team-mates, to accomplish that not once, not twice, but three times. Trying to win over a country? That might be even harder. That seemed to be an impossible mountain to climb, even for a man nicknamed O Rei (The King). Yet, in 1975 Pelé took a gamble and ventured to the one major…

(Reuters) – Demonstrators unfurled a banner that read “Stop Killing Us” at a Major League baseball game on Friday in St. Louis, where they were protesting the acquittal of a white former police officer who was accused of murdering a black man, local media reported. A video posted on Facebook showed a group of demonstrators high above the playing field holding a banner with the St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot drawn…

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Oakland Athletics’ Bruce Maxwell takes a knee during the national anthem on September 24, 2017. (Associated Press) Ready to Resist? Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions every Tuesday. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue. Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in…

Brandi Chastain celebrates after scoring the winning goal of the 1999 World Cup. Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images Brandi Chastain celebrates after scoring the winning goal of the 1999 World Cup. Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images Title IX is often credited with getting more girls involved in sports, but there’s another, more intimate milestone in the women-in-sports story that deserves some recognition: This year, the Jogbra turns…

NFL LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police acted appropriately and professionally detaining Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett when he ran from a casino as officers searched for an active shooter following a report of gunfire at an after-hours club on the Las Vegas Strip, the head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Friday. A review of hundreds of videos, including police body-worn cameras, found no evidence that the…

RELATED: Practice 1 results | Full schedule for Dover, Las Vegas Matt Kenseth rose to the top of the chart Friday in opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Dover International Speedway. Kenseth, a three-time Dover winner, guided the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota to a best lap of 162.550 mph around the 1-mile concrete track. Drivers involved in the NASCAR Playoffs swept the top nine spots. There…

Oakland Athletics’ Bruce Maxwell takes a knee during the national anthem on September 24, 2017. (Associated Press) Ready to Resist? Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions every Tuesday. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue. Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in…

Oakland Athletics’ Bruce Maxwell takes a knee during the national anthem on September 24, 2017. (Associated Press) Ready to Resist? Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions every Tuesday. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue. Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in…

DOVER, Del. – Danica Patrick’s future in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series remains unsettled as one of the sport’s big-name “free agents” for 2018. But she sure sounded calm and reflective Friday in advance of qualifying for the Apache Warrior 400 at Dover International Speedway. Patrick, 35, spoke to reporters about her situation, reiterating that there is no “new” news in terms of where she may race in the…

North Korea boycotted the 1988 Summer Olympics held in Seoul, the South Korean capital. And North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-un, is highly unpredictable. When the skaters were asked minutes after Friday’s performance if they hoped to compete at the Games, their coach, Kim Hyon-son, stepped in and said, “It is up to the North Korean Olympic Committee to decide whether they will participate or not.” The North Koreans appeared…

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Oakland Athletics’ Bruce Maxwell takes a knee during the national anthem on September 24, 2017. (Associated Press) Independent news is more important than ever. Sign up for The Nation Daily and get our hard-hitting journalism in your inbox every weekday. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue. Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation…

(The Sports Xchange) – The Philadelphia Phillies relieved Pete Mackanin of his managerial duties on Friday but are retaining him as a special assistant to general manager Matt Klentak. The firing is a relatively surprising move because the Phillies extended Mackanin’s contract in May. He is signed through 2018 with a team option for 2019. Also, Philadelphia has enjoyed a strong second half behind the emergence of some young players,…

Brandi Chastain celebrates after scoring the winning goal of the 1999 World Cup. Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images Brandi Chastain celebrates after scoring the winning goal of the 1999 World Cup. Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images Title IX is often credited with getting more girls involved in sports, but there’s another, more intimate milestone in the women-in-sports story that deserves some recognition: This year, the Jogbra turns…

The controversy over players kneeling in the NFL has revealed that the league’s embrace of American iconography has different meanings for different audiences. Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images Every aspect of our lives, whether directly or indirectly, is political. To pretend otherwise is to either be involved in a critical delusion or to have a limited understanding of the term. We tend to view politics strictly in terms of…

Gary Abernathy is publisher and editor of the (Hillsboro, Ohio) Times-Gazette. Hillsboro, Ohio I grew up in the 1960s loving the NBA. That devotion made me a member of a small, insignificant club in southern Ohio, where the Reds and Bengals reign supreme and basketball is embraced only at the amateur levels. When I was a kid, my hometown team was the Cincinnati Royals, featuring stars such as Oscar Robertson…