Sports Tag

Criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement and Obama has resulted in the unpaid suspension of Seattle Mariner Steve Clevenger.  He is suspended for the remainder of the season. CNN reports:

The Seattle Mariners have suspended Steve Clevenger for the rest of the MLB season after the catcher labeled the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and President Barack Obama "pathetic" on Twitter Thursday. Clevenger also also [sic] mocked the protests of sports stars kneeling during the US anthem and seemed to suggest all involved in protesting the death of Keith Lamont Scott at the hands of police in Charlotte, North Carolina, should be locked up like "animals. "Black people beating whites when a thug got shot holding a gun by a black officer haha s**t cracks me up! Keep kneeling for the anthem!" Clevenger tweeted Thursday. Another post stated: "BLM is pathetic once again! Obama is pathetic once again! Everyone involved should be locked behind bars like animals."

Kneeling during the national anthem has taken the sports by storm since San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick began it during preseason to protest police treatment of black people. Other NFL players have done it along with high school football players. But Virginia Tech basketball coach Buzz Williams will not have that behavior in his house. Instead, he chose to show his players why we stand for the national anthem. We do it to honor the men and women who sacrificed so much so we can enjoy our freedom at home.

Muhammed Ali's death is the sort of news that will be covered in the media for weeks, with tributes and reminiscences. He styled himself "The Greatest," and boxing aficionados say that he certainly was one of the greatest, or maybe even the greatest, just as he had always claimed. People like me, who never followed boxing and can hardly bear to watch it, still know a lot about Muhammed Ali, because he has been a huge celebrity and unique personality ever since he burst on the scene as Cassius Clay. Brash and talkative, he went through many transformations---his name, his women, his religion, the form his religion took (from racial- and anger-focused Black Muslim to more conventional Islam and a far more mellow outlook)---as well as the terrible transformation wrought comparatively early in his life by Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's is a progressive disease, and Ali's diagnosis came at the age of 42---although, looking back, his trainer Angelo Dundee thought he might have shown signs as early as the age of 38. It is commonly assumed that his Parkinson's was the result of his boxing career and all the blows he took, and although that may be true it is not necessarily the case for Ali: