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      The Week When Sports Would Not Let America Look Away

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      As their games continued in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr, the Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays made powerful statements against gun violence.Before the big N.B.A. game Tuesday night, there was no talk of basketball: only frustration, rage and pain.On Thursday, sports slid into the background once again, as was appropriate, replaced by heartbreaking facts, courtesy of two Major League Baseball teams, and calls to do something to end the carnage.Something is wrong in America. We can’t figure out how to stop aggression and death.The rampage killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, have again shaken us to the core. We brace against the plague of gun violence that threatens every part of the country: grocery stores and churches, street corners and shopping centers, and schools filled with grade school children.Daily life feels at any moment like it could turn into horror.Amid all of this, our games go on. Important games featuring remarkable teams. The Golden State Warriors played their familiar brand of beautiful basketball in the conference finals of the N.B.A. playoffs. The Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, division rivals and contenders to win this year’s World Series, played a key series in St. Petersburg, Fla.Sports can be a tonic during hard times. Games and great performances offer a chance to wash away awful emotion. To move on and even forget. But hours after 19 students and two teachers were murdered in Uvalde, Steve Kerr, Golden State’s head coach, a man who knows firsthand the suffering caused by gun violence, would not let us turn from the agony completely.From Opinion: The Texas School ShootingCommentary from Times Opinion on the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.Michelle Goldberg: As we come to terms with yet another tragedy, the most common sentiment is a bitter acknowledgment that nothing is going to change.Nicholas Kristof, a former Times Opinion columnist: Gun policy is complicated and politically vexing, and it won’t make everyone safe. But it could reduce gun deaths.Roxane Gay: For all our cultural obsession with civility, there is nothing more uncivilized than the political establishment’s acceptance of the constancy of mass shootings.Jay Caspian Kang: By sharing memes with each new tragedy, we have created a museum of unbearable sorrow, increasingly dense with names and photos of the deceased.And the Yankees and Rays would soon come together in a way that demanded attention be paid to what matters — and what mattered most was not about wins or losses or the battle for first place in the American League East.In the minutes before Game 4 of his team’s playoff series, Kerr sat at a table before reporters and powerfully let loose. Nothing he said was scripted. Everything came from the heart, molded by personal experience. And it had nothing to do with basketball or sports.“In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in Buffalo, Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California. And now we have children murdered at school,” Kerr said, his words forceful enough to go viral almost instantly. His voice quaked. His eyes narrowed with burning-ember emotion.He pounded the table, as his voice rose.“I’m fed up. I’ve had enough. We’re going to play the game tonight, but I want every person listening to this to think about your own child or grandchild or mother or father, sister, brother. How would you feel if this happened to you today?“When are we going to do something?” he added.“Enough!”Kerr has long spoken out in news conferences and other venues for stricter gun laws and against our society’s thirst for violence. He did so again this week, denouncing the politicians who do nothing and specifically railing against the Senate for not even passing legislation as simple as a requirement for universal background checks. In that moment, watching him was to watch a man struggling to make sense of a tragedy he is all too familiar with. In 1984, during Kerr’s freshman year at the University of Arizona, his father, Malcolm, was shot and killed by assassins outside his office at the American University in Beirut.With the dark cloud of wanton gun violence growing in America, don’t expect silence.Political statements are more rare in baseball, still nominally our national pastime though its dwindling audience has aged toward conservatism. Even the staid Yankees — so tradition-bound a team that they don’t even allow players to wear facial hair — and their division rival collaborated on a singular message. Instead of posting the usual stats and scoring updates during their game Thursday, both teams shared facts about gun violence to millions of followers.When they played on Thursday, their Twitter and Instagram posts focused entirely on the death toll of guns in this country.“58 percent of American adults or someone they cared for have experienced gun violence,” read one of the scores of posts.“This cannot become normal,” read another. “We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way. We all know, if nothing changes, nothing changes.”Another: “Every day, more than 110 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 200 are shot and injured.”Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ vice president of communications, put the posts in perspective in a text message to my colleague David Waldstein this week. “As citizens of the world, it’s hard to process these shootings and just slip back into a regular routine,” Zillo said. “For one night, we wanted to reflect and draw attention to statistics that carry so much more significance and weight than batting average.”Well said. And well done.I’m one of the legions touched by gun violence: the suicide of a favorite great-uncle, the slaying of a distant cousin, an infant, by a stray bullet in a gang shootout. My pain swims in the same deep currents that swell across America. Together we grieve. Together we decide how to respond.This week, Steve Kerr, and the Yankees and Rays were there to remind us not to dive too deep into the easy distraction of sports — and that action is required to end this madness. More

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      Twins, Timberwolves and Wild Postpone Games After Shooting

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      With the Minneapolis area on edge, M.L.B., N.B.A. and N.H.L. teams decided they could not play on Monday following the shooting of Daunte Wright.Professional baseball, basketball and hockey games in Minnesota were postponed on Monday in response to tension and unrest after a police officer shot and killed a Black man during a traffic stop north of Minneapolis.The Minnesota Twins postponed their afternoon game with the Boston Red Sox and were quickly followed by the N.B.A.’s Minnesota Timberwolves calling off a game against the Nets and the N.H.L.’s Minnesota Wild postponing a match against the St. Louis Blues.With the region on edge as the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer facing murder charges in the death of George Floyd, continues in Minneapolis, the Twins said it would not have been appropriate to play. The police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., where the latest shooting took place Sunday, said that the victim, Daunte Wright, 20, was shot accidentally by an officer who had intended to use a Taser.“Our community’s been through a lot, and we have a trial taking place just blocks away from Target Field,” said the Twins team president, Dave St. Peter, in a video news conference with reporters. “Emotions across our community, emotions across our organization, are raw.”He added that baseball seemed “a little less important” now, and that the Twins prioritized safety and compassion over holding the game as scheduled.“Make no mistake, part of the decision here today is out of respect for the Wright family, but there’s a big part of this decision that’s also rooted in safety and consultation with law enforcement about unknowns, about what will, or could transpire within the broader community over the next several hours, based on the news that has come out of Brooklyn Center this morning,” St. Peter said.“Once you understand that information, for us the decision becomes a lot easier. The right thing to do is always to err on the side of safety for our players, for our staff, for our fans.”Outside of Minnesota, Aaron Hicks, who had previously played for the Twins, asked to sit out of Monday’s game between the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays. Another Yankees player, Giancarlo Stanton, was considering sitting out as well.“I would say that Aaron is hurting in a huge way,” Manager Aaron Boone told reporters. “I think in a way felt like it was probably the responsible thing to take himself out and knowing that it was going to be hard for him to be all in mentally in what’s a high stake, difficult job to go out there and perform for the New York Yankees.”In a statement, the N.B.A. said the decision to postpone Monday night’s game was made after consultation with the Timberwolves organization as well as local and state officials.Last spring, after the killing of Floyd, several N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. players became active participants in the protests that broke out around the country.Last August, after the N.B.A. had resumed its season on the Walt Disney World campus near Orlando, Fla., some N.B.A. players took their demonstrations further after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. Blake, then 29, was partially paralyzed after being shot multiple times in the back by police while trying to enter his vehicle.With emotions high after the shooting of Jacob Blake, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for a playoff game on Aug. 26, 2020.Kevin C. Cox/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBefore a playoff game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic, George Hill, then a guard for the Bucks, persuaded the rest of his teammates to sit out the game. This created a cascade effect: The other games on tap that night were postponed as well, as well as those in other leagues, like women’s basketball, baseball and soccer. Naomi Osaka, a Black tennis star, threatened to leave the Western & Southern Open, which pushed officials to delay the tournament by a day.Two days later, the N.B.A. and its players’ union announced an agreement that would convert some team arenas into polling sites and lift the player-inspired work stoppage. Some of the league’s top players, including LeBron James and Chris Paul, consulted with former President Barack Obama on a path forward.In discussing the Twins’ postponement on Monday, Manager Rocco Baldelli said some players were shaken by the incident in Brooklyn Center.“We have some guys that I would put in the category of passionate,” Baldelli said, “and were really damaged and hurt by everything that was going on today.”The Twins and the Red Sox were scheduled to play four games through Thursday, and this is Boston’s only scheduled trip to Minnesota this season. The teams play a series in Boston in late August, but St. Peter said the Twins have not considered moving the series to Fenway Park.The N.B.A.’s announcement did not say when the Timberwolves and Nets would make up the lost game. The Wild’s game against the Blues has been rescheduled for May 12. More

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      The Masters Is Business as Usual as Georgia Faces a Political Onslaught

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      Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game from the Atlanta area, but Georgia’s most cherished sporting event remains firmly rooted in the state.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Georgia and its new elections law are caught up in a political riptide.But there’s scant evidence of that on and around the grounds of Augusta National Golf Club, where the state’s most cherished sporting event, the Masters, begins play on Thursday. There are no protests along Washington Road. There are only limited calls in Georgia, even among the law’s fiercest critics, to upend a springtime ritual at a club that stands on what was once an indigo plantation and did not admit a Black member until 1990.Indeed, even after Major League Baseball chose to move its All-Star Game from Georgia to protest the law that restricts access to voting, there was little doubt that the Masters would go on as planned this week — a reflection of golf’s Republican lean, but also of Augusta National’s honed willingness to defy pressure and, crucially, the reality that the mighty, mystique-filled brand of the Masters hinges on one course, and one course alone.“When you think about the Masters golf tournament, the first major of the year, the Augusta National Golf Club, to suggest that it ‘doesn’t happen’ in Augusta really speaks to people’s lack of knowledge about the Augusta National and, more importantly, the Masters,” said Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. of Augusta, a former Democratic legislator in the state and an avowed opponent of the new elections law.Tournament play will begin less than one week after baseball’s announcement about the All-Star Game, an exhibition that will now be played in Denver and, unlike the Masters, is staged in a different city each year. But Augusta National is still facing scrutiny from well outside its gates, not least because its membership includes executives whose current and former companies have come under pressure to condemn the machinations in Atlanta, the state capital.At the White House on Tuesday, President Biden said it was “up to the Masters” whether the tournament should be moved out of Georgia. He added that it was “reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up.”Officials at the club, which remained all-male until 2012, did not respond to requests for comment about the law ahead of the tournament. Augusta National’s chairman, Fred S. Ridley, is scheduled to hold his annual news conference on Wednesday, when he will most likely be asked about the measure, which, among other provisions, limited the time for voters to request absentee ballots and handed broad powers to the Republican-controlled Legislature.Ridley, who became Augusta National’s chairman in 2017, has often had a more conciliatory tone than his predecessors on whatever controversy percolated around the tournament. Less than 20 years ago, Chairman William Johnson, whose nickname was Hootie, faced pressure to allow a woman to join Augusta National and responded by decreeing that a woman might someday be invited to join “but that timetable will be ours and not at the point of a bayonet.”At the height of the protests in 2003, Augusta National held the Masters without the support of television sponsors. It was “unfair,” Johnson said at the time, “to put the Masters media sponsors in the position of having to deal with this pressure.”But last autumn, with the country engaged in a sustained debate about some of the very racial inequities that had endured at Augusta National over its history, Ridley said that the club and three corporate partners had pledged $10 million for a pair of underserved Augusta neighborhoods that have grappled with generational poverty and neglect.Lee Elder became the first Black golfer to compete at the Masters in 1975.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Thursday, Lee Elder, who in 1975 became the first Black golfer to play the Masters, will join the traditional honorary starters Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to hit the 2021 tournament’s ceremonial tee shots. To many people, Augusta National’s ultimate decisions were welcome but tardy, a familiar criticism for a club where opaqueness and caution are among the norms.This time, golf has given Ridley some cover. The sport has expressed measured anger — and suggested it had no desire, or willingness, to boycott Georgia.The PGA Tour, which does not control the Masters, said over the weekend that it would not move the Tour Championship, which is scheduled to be played in Atlanta, because of the economic and charitable repercussions the decision would have on nearby impoverished areas. It added, though, that the choice “to stage an event in a particular market should not be construed as indifference to the current conversation around voting rights” and that it was “a critical national priority to listen to the concerns about voter suppression — especially from communities of color that have been marginalized in the past.”The P.G.A. of America, which is planning to hold the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in suburban Atlanta in June, said it was “monitoring developments.”“We believe elections should be accessible, fair and secure, and support broad voter participation,” it added.And almost none of the sport’s top players have made open demands for any other approach, a contrast to the tactics of the Major League Baseball Players Association, which had made its reservations about the All-Star Game public.The golfer Collin Morikawa called the issue of voting “very important.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesCollin Morikawa, who won last year’s P.G.A. Championship, said this week that issues of voting were “very important” and that he did not believe that golfers were “stepping out of our way to block it out and forget about it.”“The topic of voter rights and all that, that should be the topic that we talk about, not if we are here playing golf,” he said.Bryson DeChambeau, who is hoping to contend after a disappointing Masters showing last year, avoided the clearest political tripwires but cited golf’s contributions to the communities where tournaments are held.“We try to show, no matter what happens, we’re going to do our best to be an example for the world,” he said. “I think when those times come about, we have an opportunity to show the world what we can provide.”But when asked on Tuesday whether golf or Augusta National should take a forceful stand against the law, Cameron Champ, who is biracial and one of the few Black players on the tour, replied, “I would think so” and moments later described baseball’s decision as “a big statement.”“It really targets certain Black communities, makes it harder for them to vote,” Champ, who wore shoes reading “Black Lives Matter” at a tournament last year, said of the Georgia statute.A crucial question for Augusta National in the coming weeks and months will be how to balance its views with whatever pressure its handful of tournament sponsors or the companies employing its members may face. A similar dynamic surfaced in the early 2000s, when Citigroup effectively acknowledged that Sanford I. Weill, an Augusta National member who was then the company’s chairman, had told the club that he supported adding women to the membership.Condoleezza Rice was one of the first two women to become members of Augusta National, in 2012.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf Augusta National were to condemn the law, its message would carry outsize influence in the state.Although the club’s membership roster is not public, the guarded grounds are a gathering place for many of the South’s most powerful figures and their guests. And its known members include bipartisan political royalty, including Condoleezza Rice, who was raised in segregated Alabama and was secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, and Sam Nunn, a Democrat who represented Georgia in the United States Senate for about 24 years.M.L.B. Commissioner Rob Manfred at the 2020 Masters last November.Rob Carr/Getty ImagesIn a letter on Monday, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, asked Rob Manfred, the M.L.B. commissioner, whether he would surrender his Augusta National membership. A league spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, but Rubio opined that he was “under no illusion” that Manfred would quit because that would “require a personal sacrifice, as opposed to the woke corporate virtue signaling of moving the All-Star Game.”Davis, Augusta’s mayor, praised baseball’s move but said he was not worried about the tournament, which local officials believe is responsible for at least $50 million in economic impact, when the Masters is running at normal capacity. He argued that people in the city would challenge and protest the new law but also be deeply protective of their most renowned athletic tradition.“This is our sports team,” he said. “We don’t have the Falcons, the Cowboys or the Baltimore Ravens. But what we do have, every year, same time, is the Masters golf tournament.” More

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      Could Tampa Bay Be the New Titletown?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The NBA SeasonVirus Hotspots in the N.B.A.Will the Harden Trade Work Out?The N.B.A. Wanted HerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCould Tampa Bay Be the New Titletown?The success of the Buccaneers, Lightning and Rays — pro sports punch lines turned finals contestants — is a run that rivals past glory years in Boston, New York or Los Angeles.Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans waved flags and cheered as they watched their team win the N.F.C. championship game against the Green Bay Packers at a bar in St. Petersburg, Fla.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesJan. 26, 2021, 9:31 a.m. ETTwenty-six straight losses in football. Acres of empty seats at Tropicana Field. A court order to seize the local N.H.L. team’s skates and other equipment if needed to pay a debt. Let’s just say Tampa Bay had not earned a reputation as a hub of professional sports excellence.Until now. In a purple patch to rival the best of them in Boston, New York or Los Angeles, Tampa’s three top-level men’s pro teams have all made their league’s finals over the last five months. The amazing run was capped on Sunday by Tom Brady leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a victory over the Green Bay Packers, clinching the first home stadium Super Bowl.Tampa Bay as Titletown? It just might be so.Tom Brady transformed the Buccaneers.Tom Brady helped lead the Buccaneers to an upset of the top-seeded Packers Sunday. Tampa Bay won three straight road playoff games to earn a Super Bowl berth.Credit…Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesThe Buccaneers became a symbol for futility in the N.F.L. when they debuted in 1976 and lost 26 straight games over two seasons before their first win. “I couldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” said Richard Wood, a linebacker on those teams. Even a run to the N.F.C. championship game in the 1979 season couldn’t shake the impression for most fans that “Buccaneers” was synonymous with “futility.”And the team lived up to that reputation for some time, posting three 2-14 seasons in the mid-1980s. Since the Buccaneers’ only Super Bowl title, after the 2002 season, they have put up a two-win season (2014), a three-win season (2009) and three four-win seasons (2006, 2011, 2013). The Bucs had gone 12 seasons without a trip to the playoffs until the franchise ended that drought this year.When Brady, 43, decided to play quarterback for the team after 20 seasons in New England some assumed it would be a sinecure in the sun. Not at all. Tight end Rob Gronkowski came out of retirement to join his old teammate, and the Buccaneers also added running back Leonard Fournette to a loaded offense. A young defense looked consistently good. The signs were there for a better season.But an 11-5 regular season? Three road playoff wins, including upsets of the second-seeded New Orleans Saints and the top-seeded Green Bay Packers? A trip to the Super Bowl? Few saw that coming.The Rays had a small budget and few fans, but claimed a World Series spot.The Tampa Bay Rays upset the Houston Astros in a seven-game American League Championship Series in 2020.Credit…Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe Tampa Bay Rays started their first Major League Baseball season in 1998 as the Devil Rays. They promptly posted 10 straight seasons of 70 or fewer wins, notably finishing with a 55-106 record in 2002 that plumbed the depths of ineptitude for a modern professional sports team.Failure and the Rays seemed to go hand in hand, especially because the team’s average attendance at Tropicana Field nearly always ranked at the bottom of the league — even when the team performed well — providing bad optics for fans tuning in on TV. And the Rays worked with a much smaller budget than the behemoths of the game, making sustained contention difficult.The team emerged from its doldrums to earn an unlikely World Series trip in 2008 (their first season as merely the Rays), losing to the Phillies in five games, and it’s been pretty good in the years since.Still, the signs did not point to a return to the World Series in 2020. The Rays were 0-4 in playoff series in the 11 years between World Series appearances.But Tampa Bay beat the Yankees in the 2020 division series, then eliminated the defending American League champion Houston Astros in the A.L.C.S. As World Series underdogs again last October, they took the Dodgers to six games before falling just short of the big prize. Brandon Lowe hit 14 homers in the abbreviated 60-game season and reliever Nick Anderson had an 0.55 ERA in 19 appearances, but the team got this close to the championship mostly without stars, and continued to have one of the five lowest payrolls in the league.The Lightning put their skates and pucks to good use.Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov kissed the Stanley Cup following Tampa Bay’s finals-clinching win over the Dallas Stars. He led all players in playoff points.Credit…Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesThe Tampa Bay Lightning started slowly when it began N.H.L. play in the 1992-93 season, and hit rock bottom from 1997 to 2000 when they couldn’t manage 20 wins in an 82-game schedule even once. Financial losses and debt piled up, leading to a court order in 1998 allowing seizure of the team’s sticks, pucks, nets, uniforms and skates if the team couldn’t meet its debts. (The team paid up.)But in more recent times, the Lightning have been carrying the banner for Tampa sports, with a Stanley Cup win in 2004, and a finals loss in 2015.In the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, most figured the Lightning as a contender, and they delivered, tying for the third-highest points percentage with a 43-21-6 record and ripping through playoff series against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Boston Bruins, Islanders and finally, in September, the Stanley Cup finals against the Dallas Stars. Tampa Bay lost just six games over the four playoff series. Brayden Point led all playoff scorers with 14 goals, and defenseman Victor Hedman won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player.Now comes a hometown Super Bowl.The Buccaneers will become the first N.F.L. team to play in a Super Bowl at their home stadium when Tampa Bay hosts the Kansas City Chiefs at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7.Credit…Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesThe recent success of some of the area’s pro teams, which each began as expansion-era punch lines, has raised the question: Who’s next?While Tampa has been mentioned as a possible expansion city for both the N.B.A. and M.L.S., other cities seem to be ahead in the queue.Because of coronavirus concerns in Canada, the Toronto Raptors of the N.B.A. began the 2020-21 season playing its home games in Tampa. Given the area’s current sports magic, it may be too soon to dismiss the possibility of them making a championship run.Tampa Bay’s current enchanted run of sporting success will culminate on Feb. 7 at Raymond James Stadium, when the Buccaneers will become the first N.F.L. franchise to play in a Super Bowl in its home venue. And when The Weeknd takes the stage at halftime, he’ll be performing, improbably, in what is now the sports capital of the country.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More