Spectator Life

Can Trumpists still believe in ‘America First’ if they root against America in the Olympics? Yes, apparently. The US team had a rough start in the opening week of the Tokyo Olympics. For the first time in 50 years, not a single US athlete won a gold medal on day one of the Summer Games. So who was kicking our butts? That’s right, Asia. Eleven gold medals were handed out Saturday, with the first being won by Yang Qian from China for the 10-meter air rifle competition. She bested Mary Tucker, the American ranked second in the world, who ended up placing sixth. American Eli Dershwitz lost the bronze to Kim Jung-hwan of South Korea for saber despite also being No. 2 in the world.

This country is experiencing a long overdue racial reckoning — and the city of Cleveland and Major League Baseball have failed another major test. The new name for the professional baseball franchise in Cleveland — Guardians — must go. As several states work to remove imperialistic statues of cis white men, the city of Cleveland has reached into its racist past to honor them. This is not the progress that Nikole Hannah-Jones has been dreaming of. The new mascot, for the team that will henceforth only be referenced as the ‘Cleveland Baseball Team’, is supposedly a reference to four giant stone statues that ‘guard’ the Hope Memorial Bridge just outside the city’s stadium.

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game was never supposed to be political. It was designed as a casual gathering of the league’s best players to showcase their best skills. That all changed of course when the MLB decided to move the game out of Atlanta over Democrat calls to boycott the state over Georgia’s new voting law. The decision was rash, illiterate to the text of the law and based mostly on tweets and half-truths from popular celebrity Democrats like Stacey Abrams, along with Georgia senators, who later backtracked. When the MLB changed its mind, it transformed itself into a political league and its All-Star Game into a political lightning rod. Therefore the league has no excuse for dodging the political issues of the day.

London All is fair in love and war, and nothing is fair in sport. England rode their luck to their first final in a European Championship in London on Sunday night. They scored a stylish goal in the second minute, too — but then their luck ran out. Italy, always the favorites, regained control of the game. They equalized with only 23 minutes of normal time to run, forced a penalty shootout, and won. You make your own luck. England had the host nation’s home advantage. They had an off-pitch assist from their fans, too. For weeks the words 'Football’s coming home’ have echoed around this green and pleasant, small and crowded land. England’s game rose as the tournament progressed, until an entire nation waited on tenterhooks for Sunday night. For what?

My first summer back in my hometown was a dreary affair — COVID closures, canceled parties and paranoid friends diminished the pleasures of small-town living. But all across the country, the end of the pandemic has brought back one of the joys of living in a non-metropolitan city like mine: minor league baseball. Sure, it’s great to be able to watch the MLB again on split-screens at the bar — and if you’re really lucky, to pay $12 for a hot dog at a major league stadium — but the joys of the minors are all their own. Where else can you watch your very own neighborhood kids dress up in Styrofoam foodstuff costumes to compete in increasingly complex and obscure contests between each inning? With a merry-go-round, fireworks, the smell of popcorn in the air and the sound of P!

Well, it looks like the tennis world has found its Meghan Markle. Naomi Osaka, who may in theory be Japanese, but is to all intents and purposes Californian when it comes to worldview, will no longer be taking part in the French Open because she can’t handle the post match interviews, especially when she loses. She wants to go away and look after her mental health. It’s rough luck on other Japanese tennis players (and maybe the Japan Olympic team), on her sponsors (is she too shy to do endorsements too, the ones she’s getting tens of millions of dollars for?) and on the tournament organizers. But nowadays when you say you’ve got mental health issues, there’s no arguing with that. Except, of course, there is.

Thank heavens the Champions League final is being played in Portugal, now Turkey’s off the menu (sorry). It will certainly be a damn sight easier to get to than Wembley: have you tried to go round the North Circular these days? And at least the capital will not have to accommodate what is ominously described as ‘the Uefa family’, all 2,000 of them. Pity no one told them about family planning. And where would you prefer to go out for a post-match bite: Porto or Wembley Way? Anyway, then we will see quite how far Chelsea have got inside Manchester City’s head, with two very efficient victories in the League and the FA Cup in the past month. And the pressure on City with all that stuff about this being the owner’s dream will be seriously intense come the final.