Alex Ovechkin became the most prolific goal-scorer in NHL history Sunday, breaking the career rec...

<p>Alex Ovechkin became the most prolific goal-scorer in NHL history Sunday, breaking the career record he had shared with Wayne Gretzky. To put the scope of Ovechkin's accomplishments in context, we have a series of infographics that mark his place in history in a number of categories.</p><h3>Tale of the tape</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779179/Ovi_vs_Gretzky_0.jpg?ts=1743967949 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><h3>Ovi vs. his peers</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/778745/Scoring_Titles_0.jpg?ts=1743716823 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779178/Ovi_GWG_0.jpg?ts=1743967662 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779176/Ovi_hat_tricks_0.jpg?ts=1743967273 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779181/Ovi_shooters_0.jpg?ts=1743968425 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><h3>Ovi and his teammates</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779183/Ovi_assists_0.jpg?ts=1743968710 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779188/Ovi_game_states_1.jpg?ts=1743970968 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><h3>Ovi vs. the league</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779184/Ovi_teams_scored_0.jpg?ts=1743968944 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779189/Ovi_goalies_2.jpg?ts=1743971604 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/779166/Ovi_goals_arena_0.jpg?ts=1743963038 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution"></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Graphic design by Julian Catalfo, theScore. Data sources: Hockey Reference and NHL. Photos: Getty Images</em></p>

ELMONT, NEW YORK - APRIL 06: Alex Ovechkin #8 of the Washington Capitals poses with former NHL player Wayne Gretzky after scoring his 895th career goal during the second period against the New York Islanders at UBS Arena on April 06, 2025 in Elmont, New York. Ovechkin's goal passes Gretzky's 894 goals to become the NHL all-time goal-scoring leader.

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/30878185/related

Ovechkin's goal-scoring record by the numbers

Before we close the books on Week 13, let's take a moment to lament the collective woe of the NFL...

<p>Before we close the books on Week 13, let's take a moment to lament the collective woe of the NFL's placekickers, who did something unprecedented this century.</p><p>In no other week have kickers missed as many field goals as they did in Week 13. Dustin Hopkins' first-quarter misfire for the Cleveland Browns on Monday night was the 24th miss. The previous low-water mark was back in Week 12 of 2001 when NFL kickers missed 23. In no other week in TruMedia's data, which goes back to 2000, have kickers missed more than 19 times (Week 8, 2001; Week 10, 2011).</p><p>Daniel Carlson missed three times for the Raiders in their two-point loss to the Chiefs on Friday, although they were all from at least 55 yards. Five other kickers missed twice, including Baltimore's Justin Tucker in the Ravens' five-point loss to the Eagles; Carolina's Eddy Pineiro in the Panthers' three-point overtime loss to the Buccaneers; and New England's Joey Slye in the Patriots' one-point loss to the Colts. Slye had the distinction of missing the shortest and longest tries, one from 25 yards out at the end of the first half and one from 68 yards at the end of the game.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>Nine kicks were missed from 50-plus yards, but there were also 10 misses between 40-49 yards (including one block).</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="Missed field goals by week" aria-label="Bullet Bars" id="datawrapper-chart-gNWcr" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/gNWcr/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="439" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
</script></figure><p>Those who watch RedZone can't get through a Sunday without hearing someone talk about how great kickers are from 50-plus yards. And that's true: kickers have made 71% of their tries from 50 yards or greater, while their success rate from 2000-23 was only 60.8%. With five weeks left in the season, it seems likely the league will set new marks for makes and attempts from 50-plus yards. (The current records are 158 makes and 230 attempts in 2023. Kickers only need 12 more makes and 24 more attempts to eclipse those totals.)</p><p><a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/3133492" href="https://thescore.com/news/3133492">Following Week 11</a>, we noted that kickers were still connecting at the fifth-highest rate in history, 84.9%. Their Week 13 efforts have now sunk the season-long average to 83.6%, which ranks only 13th.</p><p>Plenty of kickers are having outstanding seasons. Nine who have appeared in at least 12 games this year are above 88%: Jake Bates (DET, 95%), Nick Folk (TEN, 95%), Cameron Dicker (LAC, 93.1%), Chris Boswell (PIT, 91.9%), Chase McLaughlin (TB, 91.3%), Blake Grupe (NO, 90.9%), Will Lutz (DEN, 89.7%), Cam Little (JAX, 89.5%), and Matt Gay (IND, 88%). </p><p>It's the players at the other end who are attracting all the attention. <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2024/kicking.htm#kicking::20">Seven regulars are under 80%.</a> Tucker is talked about as a future Hall of Famer, and he has seven seasons with a success rate of over 90%. But he's sitting at 70.4% this campaign. He's only made five of 14 kicks from beyond 50 yards in the last two years after hitting on 71% of them in his previous 11 seasons.</p><p>Although this year's kickers did set a new mark for total futility, Week 12 of 2001 still stands up for relative failure. Kickers last weekend attempted 86 field goals, while the 2001 cohort missed 23 of their 68 attempts, almost 34%.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/29290393/related

NFL kickers' futility hit a new low last week

Walk-off blocked field goals like those by the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers in the la...

<p>Walk-off blocked field goals like those by the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers in the last two weeks are rare occurrences, but they're not as rare as you might think.</p><p>Going back to 2000, there have been 21 blocked field-goal attempts that would have tied or won the game in the final 10 seconds of regulation, based on records searches at TruMedia and Stathead. Twenty-three more happened in the last two minutes of regulation, excluding the final 10 seconds.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="Late game-changers" aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-k4qgr" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/k4qgr/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="789" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
</script></figure><p>The Will Lutz kick the Chiefs blocked in Week 10 is tied for the shortest kick on the list at 35 yards. It is one of five kicks that had a probability of success greater than 80%, according to TruMedia. Six attempts were Hail Marys from 60 yards or more.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><figure class="article-segment--embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">NOT IN OUR HOUSE 👆 <a href="https://t.co/CnXgKHl3jU">pic.twitter.com/CnXgKHl3jU</a></p>— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1855715417760706662?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2024</a>
</blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></figure><figure class="article-segment--embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">THE FG IS BLOCKED FOR THE WIN!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GBvsCHI?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GBvsCHI</a> <a href="https://t.co/zdxGIdJyZI">pic.twitter.com/zdxGIdJyZI</a></p>— Green Bay Packers (@packers) <a href="https://twitter.com/packers/status/1858253418785104130?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2024</a>
</blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></figure><p>The kicks that were least likely to succeed, with probabilities under 30%, were Martin Gramatica's 62-yard attempt in 2003 for the Buccaneers (28.4%) and Sebastian Janikowski's 65-yard try in 2011 for the Raiders (28.8%).</p><p>Blocks account for just 4% of the outcomes of the 518 field-goal attempts in the last 10 seconds of regulation since 2000.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="Late FG by range (count)" aria-label="Stacked Columns" id="datawrapper-chart-TeGLj" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TeGLj/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="500" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
</script></figure><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="Late FG by range (percentage)" aria-label="Stacked Columns" id="datawrapper-chart-umjwe" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/umjwe/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="521" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
</script></figure><p>These game-deciding blocks tend to come in bunches: There were two in 2003, 2014, and 2019, and there were four in 2011.</p><p>This season's blocks have been important to the playoff races. The Chiefs maintained their perfect record when Leo Chenal redirected Lutz's kick. The Packers kept pace with the Lions and Vikings in the NFC North by pulling a potential loss to the Bears out of the fire on Sunday.</p><p>And this season's blocks in back-to-back weeks aren't unprecedented. Teams blocked potential game-tying or game-winning kicks in three consecutive weeks in December 2011, and all three games involved teams in the playoff chase.</p><p>In a Week 14 Cowboys-Giants matchup, New York's<strong> </strong>Jason Pierre-Paul blocked Dan Bailey's game-tying 47-yard attempt with 6 seconds left to even the division rivals' records at 7-6. TruMedia's data shows the kick had a 70% chance of success. The Giants ultimately finished 9-7 and won the NFC East while Dallas finished 8-8 and missed the postseason.</p><p>The Lions improved to 9-5 after Ndamukong Suh deflected Janikowski's 65-yard attempt in Week 15. Detroit finished 10-6 and earned a wild-card spot while the Raiders finished 8-8 and were edged out of the AFC West division title in a three-way tiebreaker.</p><p>The Raiders did manage to reverse fate the next weekend: Richard Seymour blocked the Chiefs' Ryan Succop from 49 yards with 5 seconds left to send the game into overtime. Janikowski made a 36-yarder on the first drive of OT to win.</p><p>The other observable trend among the blocks is that a defender rarely sweeps around the end to bat the football. Only three of the 21 were recorded by <a href="https://youtu.be/gBeAtQS_1_Y?si=JSeGAGpPDoZjfspC">defensive backs</a> coming around the edge. There's no analytics hack for this kind of play: 17 were accomplished by linemen making a brute-force push up the middle. They've been household names like Seymour, Suh, Calais Campbell, Maxx Crosby, and Chris Jones, as well as less acclaimed players like Sunday's Packers hero Karl Brooks, Treyvon Hester (2018 Eagles), and Ra'Shede Hageman (2014 Falcons). Chenal is the only linebacker to make a successful middle push.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is the features editor at theScore.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/29095683/related

Brute force is key to last-second blocked field goals

Baseball's basic rules haven't changed in a century, but every generation has its own cast of cha...

<p>Baseball's basic rules haven't changed in a century, but every generation has its own cast of characters.</p><p>In the 1970s and '80s, baseball produced a certain kind of pitcher who could capture the imagination of young and old. The game wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, with every game on TV regionally and national games multiple times a week. You caught glimpses of those pitchers on highlights, Mel Allen's "This Week in Baseball," or NBC's Saturday afternoon game of the week. You heard them described during games on the radio. Maybe they made it to the World Series.</p><p>Those pitchers of the era were quirky in some way that felt unique. Two of them died this month: Luis Tiant and Fernando Valenzuela.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>Tiant, the Red Sox stalwart, had that windup where he twisted all the way around toward center field before uncoiling to deliver pitches from multiple angles. And he had that mustache. Beards are everywhere now, but that era perfected the baseball moustache.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ngeqI3Ji6aY?si=SzYPo1qU7qvVcOah" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><p>Bill "Spaceman" Lee was a teammate of Tiant's, both rotation fixtures for the 1975 team that took Cincinnati's Big Red Machine to seven games in the World Series. Lee was a freethinker who railed against baseball's conservative ways.</p><p>As Jim Prime wrote in <a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bill-lee-spaceman/">Lee's SABR biography</a>: </p><blockquote><p>Lee enjoyed tweaking the powers that be and crafting controversial quotes. He once bragged about sprinkling marijuana on his organic buckwheat pancakes so that when he jogged to the ballpark he would be 'impervious to bus fumes.' … He angered the California Angels by suggesting that they could conduct their batting practice in the lobby of the fanciest hotel in town 'and never chip a chandelier.'</p></blockquote><p>Mark Fidrych came along in 1976 and reinvented baseball in Detroit. He was a small-town kid from Massachusetts who didn't care that you didn't talk to the baseball or get on your hands and knees and sculpt the dirt on the mound to your liking. The year before, the Tigers hit bottom, trying to regenerate the roster while still holding on to a few players from the 1968 World Series winner and 1972 playoff team. Fidrych's arrival breathed new life into the franchise and set the stage for its rise in the 1980s, even though injuries meant he wouldn't be part of it.</p><p>Al Hrabosky was the most overtly unique of them all. He helped popularize the idea of the closer throughout the '70s in St. Louis and later in Kansas City. Nicknamed the "Mad Hungarian," he'd arrive at the mound late in games, and before he faced his first batter, he stomped behind the mound, talked to the baseball, slammed it into his glove, and stomped back to the mound with an intense glare meant to intimidate the batter. "I do things through him that I can't do as Al Hrabosky," <a href="https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/july-12-1975-cardinals-fans-celebrate-eccentric-pitcher-with-we-hlove-hrabosky-hbanner-hday/">he said.</a> "He's insane, a menace to society. But he's just on the field when I'm pitching."</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/upcSNjlgzlc?si=bOX0jHdxGrxSm8mF" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><p>Valenzuela didn't have a quirky personality - but he wasn't like anyone else. He wasn't a beanpole 20-year-old when he arrived. He was left-handed, and they always look kind of quirky. While Tiant looked back at center field in his windup, Valenzuela looked up to the sky. He threw a screwball, which was more common then, but still kind of exotic. You would imagine how you had to turn your wrist to accomplish something like that and it seemed impossible. He electrified Los Angeles in 1981, which is hard to do in the place that's literally the entertainment capital of the world.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sO94ZWbBmi0?si=q63R8LMWffbOYLbS" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><p>Today's game has its personalities, and it's loosened up on how it treats those personalities. You can flip a bat now without facing a fastball in the earhole in your next plate appearance. You can scream on the mound after a big third out late in a close game. Maybe that's the difference. It was a statement back then to go against the norm, whether you meant to or not. Fans loved their buttoned-down stars, but they really loved those quirky personalities who stood out at a time when the culture itself wasn't always sure what to do with them.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is the theScore's features editor.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/28799940/related

They don't make the truly quirky pitchers like they used to

More than most of the other major professional sports, baseball has a long history of scandal. Th...

<p>More than most of the other major professional sports, baseball has a long history of scandal. The Black Sox, the Mitchell Report, Pete Rose. </p><p>For now, Shohei Ohtani doesn't look destined to join the list. But he's making the one mistake that all but guarantees more scrutiny: He refuses to talk about what happened with his interpreter and this large gambling debt that Ohtani may have been naive enough to pay directly to an illegal bookmaker under federal investigation.</p><p>Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani's ex-interpreter, is <a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/2873666" href="https://www.thescore.com/news/2873666">accused of stealing money from the two-way star to place bets with a bookmaker being investigated by American authorities</a>. The Dodgers fired Mizuhara on Wednesday, hours after he was in L.A.'s dugout for their regular season-opening game in Seoul, South Korea.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>It's very early in the process and we'll give Ohtani the benefit of the doubt for now that the basic facts of the situation are as they've been presented. The Dodgers were overseas when the story broke, and being that far from home is a hindrance to top-notch crisis communication.</p><p>As a member of the large-market Dodgers and being Japanese, Ohtani has a massive two-pronged media contingent that follows him. So there was immediately a horde of people prepared to hear what he had to say about this unfolding controversy. </p><p>Instead, we're left with descriptions of Ohtani being physically shielded by Dodgers staff in the clubhouse and otherwise taking great pains to stay in areas where reporters aren't allowed. The biggest news story in baseball has Ohtani's name attached to it and he's leaving a vacuum to be filled by speculation, conjecture, and more digging by reporters.</p><p>Ohtani's built a reputation in his professional career as a smiling cipher with no outward flaws who's big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all his fans. Access to him was carefully controlled when he was in Anaheim. But early in spring training, manager Dave Roberts seemed to make it clear that the Dodgers and his teammates may not let him continue being the Forrest Gump of MLB. Life is like a box of chocolates and sometimes you get one tinged with scandal that must be addressed.</p><p>There's a week now before the Dodgers' regular season resumes. During that time, Ohtani's past and present teams will play a three-game slate to fill the rest of spring training, which will only increase the number of reporters looking for his thoughts on all this. Ohtani and the Dodgers need to use the next week productively to get back in front of this story and present his narrative, assuming it's true and unsullied. </p><p>It's time for Shohei Ohtani to step out of the shadows. His idyllic Act I is over.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is features editor at theScore</em></p>

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Idyllic Act I of Ohtani's career appears over

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It's hard to pick the moment that Troy Aikman's disgust with the New York Jets' offense in genera...

<p>It's hard to pick the moment that Troy Aikman's disgust with the New York Jets' offense in general, and quarterback Zach Wilson in particular, was most palpable.</p><p>It might've been when Wilson missed a throw to a wide-open - and stationary - Tyler Conklin in the first half on Monday Night Football or when he somehow underthrew a pitch to halfback Breece Hall. It could've been when, coming back from halftime, partner Joe Buck teed him up with a comment that the Jets' offense was bound to improve, and Aikman said, "Well, you'd think," clearly not convinced that even a dead-cat bounce was likely.</p><p>But it was probably in the dying seconds of the 27-6 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers when Wilson completed a series of checkdowns and then a throw down the middle to Conklin against a Chargers defense that had stopped trying.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>"This is when Zach comes alive," Aikman said, "Look out." Those last two words were uttered with such disdain that you almost expected them to be followed by the sound of Aikman spiking his headset.</p><p>Wilson's display - zero touchdowns, two fumbles, and eight sacks taken - was a fitting bookend to a weekend full of quarterback futility in an NFL season that's included an excessive amount of it. On the same Sunday afternoon, people named Clayton Tune and Tommy DeVito were taking meaningful snaps, continuing a weird trend in which late-round rookies are thrown into the "most important position in sports" if the job hasn't already been handed to a castoff veteran just added to the roster.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/cropped_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/w220xh124_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/w320xh180_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/w640xh360_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/w768xh432_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/600547/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1765350040.jpg?ts=1699553255 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Icon Sportswire / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="Drawing a crowd" aria-label="Column Chart" id="datawrapper-chart-2HqBw" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2HqBw/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="480" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
</script></figure><p>Even as players like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are redefining elite quarterback play, teams without a superstar at the position are struggling to find someone who's even baseline competent. It's a curious look for a league as big and all-consuming as the NFL and a question for which there are a few theories: Why so many bad quarterbacks?</p><h3>The draft puzzle</h3><p>Truly, the league should be better at this. Mahomes was taken 10th overall in 2017 - eight spots after Mitch Trubisky. In the years since, the success rate on high picks isn't unlike that of the Jets' offense on Monday night. Baker Mayfield (first overall, 2018) is on his fourth team, and Sam Darnold (third overall, 2018) is on his third.</p><p>Five quarterbacks were selected in the top half of the 2021 draft, and of those, only Trevor Lawrence has proven to be a sure thing. Wilson and Trey Lance flopped, Mac Jones is rapidly approaching flop status, and Justin Fields has the rest of this season to prove that Chicago shouldn't draft his replacement. Meanwhile, MVP candidates Jackson (32nd overall, 2018) and Jalen Hurts (53rd overall, 2020) were available to anyone who wanted them. If there's a trick to predicting NFL success at the position, few draft rooms have figured it out.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/cropped_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/w220xh124_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/w320xh180_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/w640xh360_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/w768xh432_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/595864/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1716347225.jpg?ts=1697130935 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Boston Globe / Boston Globe / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><h3>The cap crunch</h3><p>The NFL's hilariously complicated salary structure has seen more money allocated toward high-leverage positions like wide receiver and cornerback in recent years. While this has been most evident in the lack of big paydays for running backs, teams also don't want to spend much on backup quarterbacks, which helps explain why so many roster spots are filled by players like Tune and DeVito. Add in a couple of injuries, and suddenly, your season is in the hands of someone whose job so far has been to provide practice-squad ballast.</p><p>Maybe Ryan Fitzpatrick should be required to stay ready to play as a league-wide emergency call-up - especially since the L.A. Rams just signed Carson Wentz for this reason.</p><h3>It's the system, stupid</h3><p>Brock Purdy's rise from last overall draft pick in 2022 to one of the league's top passers is the best evidence yet that all of the bad quarterback performances might say more about the guys scheming and calling the plays than the guy actually throwing the ball. But Purdy's success in San Francisco with Kyle Shanahan isn't a one-off. Hurts in Philadelphia and Tua Tagovailoa in Miami both had pretty grim starts to their careers until new coaches and new offensive systems allowed them to flourish. It suggests that teams forever trying to uncover a jewel in the draft (hello, Chicago) would be better served by building an elite coaching staff first and then getting the player to pilot the system later.</p><h3>It's the stupid system</h3><p>Except maybe some of what goes into developing a modern NFL offense has simply become too complicated. Josh Dobbs has already entered league folklore by showing up midweek in Minnesota after a trade and then having to play in an emergency when rookie starter Jaren Hall was injured. The story of coach Kevin O'Connell having to explain plays to Dobbs through his headset as he was calling them in the huddle is amazing, but it also must have forced a simplicity on what Dobbs was asked to do. "Look to the left sideline, and if that throw isn't there, hit the guy in the flat." That kind of thing.</p><p>Put another way, the number of passers who can process complicated instructions, make adjustments at the line, and make the correct reads in the three seconds before pressure arrives might be smaller than the coaches calling the plays are willing to admit. Not to get overly old-timey here, but one of the reasons an announcer like Aikman gets so annoyed at poor quarterback play is because the league has made so many changes to favor offense since the days when he played. Quarterbacks are protected, and defenders get flagged for almost any contact. It seems like the subtext to Aikman's Wilson-related outbursts this week was: Guys, it shouldn't be this hard.</p><p><em>Scott Stinson is a former national sports columnist for Postmedia News.</em></p>

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It was an all-in move and it didn't work.   The decision from Sunday's action that most rankled f...

<p>It was an all-in move and it didn't work. </p><p>The decision from Sunday's action that most rankled fans and studio pundits - and even <a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/2437207" href="https://www.thescore.com/news/2437207">Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters</a> - was Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh's choice to go for it on fourth-and-2 at Buffalo's 2-yard line with 4:15 left in a tie game. Baltimore was at the end of a 13-play drive that took nine minutes off the clock.</p><p>A field goal would have given the Ravens the lead but would also have given Buffalo the ball back with more than four minutes left. The Bills fell behind 20-3 with 3:39 left in the first half but scored the last 17 points in the game.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>Fourth-and-2 is not a tap-in. Data from Ben Baldwin's fourth-down Twitter bot reported the chances of going for it and succeeding was 47%. A field goal from there, closer than an extra point, had a 99% success probability.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">---&gt; BUF (20) @ BAL (20) &lt;---<br>BAL has 4th &amp; 2 at the BUF 2<br><br>Recommendation (MEDIUM): 👉 Go for it (+2.1 WP)<br>Actual play: (Shotgun) L.Jackson pass short right intended for D.Duvernay INTERCEPTED by J.Poyer at BUF -6. Touch <a href="https://t.co/8AhUoz77oC">pic.twitter.com/8AhUoz77oC</a></p>— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) <a href="https://twitter.com/ben_bot_baldwin/status/1576661041043410945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 2, 2022</a>
</blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></figure><p>The choice, on the face of it, ought to be clear: Take the three-point lead and let the Ravens defense try to defend it. That's where the second set of probabilities comes in.</p><p>Both Baldwin's Twitter bot and the NFL's own <a href="https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1576698772632920066?s=20&amp;t=-Eby_b4mv_hzw0s8cOFcpg">NextGenStats Twitter account</a> said the preferred choice was to go for it. Both data models said the improvement to be gained in the Ravens' probability of winning was between 1.7 (NextGen) and 2.1 percentage points (Baldwin rounded to two points in the tweet).</p><p>But that probability improvement splits the difference between succeeding and failing based on the relative success rate. The real place to look is in comparing the actual probability if the choice succeeds and if it fails. </p><p>According to Pro Football Reference's win probability calculator, the Ravens' <a href="https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/win_prob.cgi?request=1&amp;score_differential=0&amp;quarter=4&amp;minutes=4&amp;seconds=15&amp;field=opp&amp;yds_from_goal=2&amp;down=4&amp;yds_to_go=2">probability of winning</a> the game stood at 71.3% after third down.</p><p>Here are the options Harbaugh was weighing. Even if he didn't have the exact numbers in front of him, he likely knew the general probabilities:</p><ul><li>A field goal gives you the lead but changes your probability of winning to 63%.</li></ul><ul><li>A touchdown gives you an 83% chance of winning.</li></ul><ul><li>Failing to score the touchdown decreases your probability to 49%.</li></ul><p>Poker players and NFL head coaches who think about the odds would choose to go for it. They would want their money in the pot with an 83% chance of winning. That would force Buffalo to go 75 yards (assuming a touchback) just to tie - which is what Harbaugh said after the game:</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Coach Harbaugh on the decision to not kick a FG: <a href="https://t.co/Rkapy4Ve5H">pic.twitter.com/Rkapy4Ve5H</a></p>— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ravens/status/1576667644362719233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 2, 2022</a>
</blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></figure><p>Even if things go against them and the play fails, it's still a coin flip to win.</p><p>As we know, Harbaugh lost that coin flip. </p><p>Many would choose the field goal and the 63% probability. Bill Cowher and Nate Burleson said as much at halftime of the CBS late game, which is fine, although it would be nice if they could express their decision in terms that don't seem backward and out of touch with modern decision-making.</p><p>That 63% probability comes from analyzing similar situations from across hundreds of games - not all of which had Josh Allen at quarterback. Sunday was the 12th game-winning drive in his 65 games.</p><p>Harbaugh wanted the 83% probability. He thought he had a good hand with Lamar Jackson, the other offensive playmakers, and two yards to go. He bet that the Ravens' success rate in that situation was actually better than the 47% of an average team. Jackson had only thrown <a href="https://stathead.com/tiny/ahv9b">two red-zone interceptions</a> in his career.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/cropped_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/w220xh124_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/w320xh180_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/w640xh360_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/w768xh432_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/535367/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1429690433.jpg?ts=1664807386 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Patrick Smith / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Harbaugh has shown a propensity for making tough fourth-down decisions, but it's not like he's a freewheeling gambler. In 2021, he went for it on fourth down 27 times, which ranked 13th. The Ravens were successful 18 times, a 66.7% success rate that was tied for first with the Chiefs. This season, Harbaugh has gone for it only five times in four games, although the Ravens have only been successful twice.</p><p>If you can fault Harbaugh, perhaps it's for the fact he failed to account for the reality of Baltimore's defense, which has allowed 1,700 yards in four games (425 per game, ranked 30th in the league). That's better than only Seattle and Detroit, who collected more than 500 yards against each other Sunday.</p><p>But the Ravens defense had held Allen to a 68.4 QB rating for the day on a season-low 213 passing yards. Allen also had to be the Bills' leading rusher, gaining 70 yards on 11 carries.</p><p>Sometimes you go all-in with what you believe is the best hand and you still lose.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.</em></p>

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This story was first published on Oct. 30 and is among theScore's best features of 2021.  Joel Qu...

<p><em>This story was first published on Oct. 30 and is among theScore's best features of 2021.</em></p><p>Joel Quenneville has resigned. Stan Bowman has resigned. Al MacIsaac is out too. The independent report into the Chicago Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal reopened old wounds and forced a group of seven executives and coaches to reckon with 11 years of inaction. But as quickly as the scandal exploded this week, the furor will die down now that small measures of justice have been meted out.</p><p>The news cycle moves so fast that Quenneville's resignation Thursday afternoon was already giving way Thursday night to speculation about whether John Tortorella would be hired to take over in Florida.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>That's how it always goes. Behavior is exposed, people are outraged, prices are paid, but life continues as people return to their own self-interests. Change is promised, but it never seems to arrive in any demonstrable way. </p><p>On Wednesday, Kyle Beach told <a href="https://www.tsn.ca/kyle-beach-john-doe-1.1712468">TSN's Rick Westhead</a><strong> </strong>that he hoped the release of the report from the independent investigation would make a difference.</p><p>"I hope that this entire process can make a systematic change to make sure this never happens again," Beach said. "Because it not only affected me as a young adult and now as a 31-year-old man, but it also affected kids because it was not handled in a correct way."</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/cropped_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w220xh124_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w320xh180_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w640xh360_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w768xh432_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w1080xh607_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Dave Sandford / NHL / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, though, sports' history of sexual abuse has run like clockwork. Despite dozens of scandals, young athletes' dreams and aspirations can be twisted grotesquely by predators operating not just in the shadows but in plain sight. </p><p>It shouldn't be up to Beach, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sheldon-kennedy-swift-current-documentary-1.3572660">Sheldon Kennedy</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/simone-biles-gymnastics-sexual-abuse-larry-nassar-cb63ffbfd09d9d4ffe21561aa63d3ca5">Simone Biles</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026114066/gymnastics-larry-nassar-survivor-rachael-denhollander">dozens more American gymnasts</a>, and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bo-schembechler-s-son-says-his-father-failed-protect-him-n1270312">Bo Schembechler's son</a> to bare their souls to get the rest of us to pay attention.</p><p>The Blackhawks situation makes it obvious that many of these scandals come down to a failure of leadership. Quenneville and Bowman can lose their jobs, but those punishments do nothing to prevent the next scandal.</p><p>What would real change look like? We know the Blackhawks had a corporate policy in place in 2010 when Beach made his complaint. The policy meant nothing if the Blackhawks leaders could simply put it aside until it was more convenient. The policy did nothing if the perpetrator could be quietly dismissed without an investigation. Policies alone can't be the answer. </p><p>"Posters and buttons and policies and procedures don't change culture," Kennedy told the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8334520/chicago-blackhawks-scandal-beach-kennedy-hockey/">Canadian Press</a> this week. "Until sport makes this a priority as they do winning, they'll never have the change that I think people expect from them."</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/cropped_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w220xh124_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w320xh180_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w640xh360_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w768xh432_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Steve Russell / Toronto Star / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the weekend, I came across <a href="https://ateodletter.substack.com/p/anyone-can-experience-the-bystander">an interview</a> with Julie Lalonde, who trains people to overcome the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/bystander-effect">bystander effect</a>. Throughout this week, I kept returning to this idea as an explanation for the inaction by Blackhawks management. The bystander effect most often relates to attacks in progress; the more people who witness an attack, the theory goes, the more likely it is that no one will attempt to intervene out of fear and self-interest.</p><p>In fact, people choose not to get involved for myriad reasons. Apart from the bystander effect, Lalonde believes the lack of intervention in difficult situations is "about a lack of empathy. We’re not socialized to have empathy for anyone who is in crisis." There is also <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-sexual-harassment-programs-backfire">research</a> suggesting that poorly executed sexual harassment training makes men more likely to blame victims. It's important to find a way out of this mess.</p><p>In 2010, Kyle Beach was not in immediate physical danger when Blackhawks management learned about his complaint, but the report outlines that skating coach Paul Vincent recognized that Beach seemed "distraught" the week after the incident with Aldrich. Vincent says that he reported what he knew about Beach, along with allegations that Aldrich had committed sexual misconduct involving a second player, to team president John McDonough, Bowman, MacIsaac, and mental skills coach James Gary - four of the seven men who would be involved in the bigger meeting several days later.</p><p>Still, none of the seven men, who all had some measure of power within the organization, felt it was up to them to go any further. Quenneville was concerned about "upsetting team chemistry" and wanted to "focus on the team and the playoffs," according to other people in the meeting. Bowman abdicated his own responsibility by pointing a finger at McDonough in his statement this week.</p><p>Better leaders, even if they didn't act on the information the same day, would have reflected on it and quickly intervened. Better leaders would believe that a player's allegation of (at minimum) sexual misconduct by a coach is a potential cancer that ought to be biopsied. But no one felt the urgency to step forward to protect one of their players and initiate an investigation. They were more than willing to sacrifice Kyle Beach to the altar of the Stanley Cup.</p><p>"I just don't get why one guy couldn't just stand up and say, 'You know what, no, this is wrong,'" <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamZHerman/status/1453809788215832579?s=20">Tortorella said</a> Thursday during a panel discussion on ESPN.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/cropped_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w220xh124_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w320xh180_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w640xh360_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w768xh432_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w1080xh607_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>It's easy for all of us to second-guess and believe we would have acted better. But nothing is going to change unless every person in a position of leadership decides to seek out training to overcome the bystander effect. Leaders' top priorities should include not just meeting business objectives, but keeping their team members safe. Until more leaders accept this responsibility, sports will continue to cycle through abuse scandals.</p><p>On Sunday in Canada, Showcase will air the finale of the series "Dr. Death," which dramatizes <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dr-death-christopher-duntsch-a-surgeon-so-bad-it-was-criminal">the case of a narcissistic and unskilled surgeon</a> who botched dozens of spinal surgeries in the Dallas area in the 2010s. (The series is a Peacock+ original and available on that streaming service in the U.S.)</p><p>It intersects with the Blackhawks scandal in respect to the way that large organizations deal with removing troublesome employees. Large organizations, almost by definition, are obsessed with liability, doing whatever it takes to avoid having to pay penalties for bad acts perpetrated in their name.</p><p>In the case of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, two hospitals quietly shuffled him out the door without official, public reprimands, allowing him to continue to butcher spinal surgeries in tragic ways. He was not reported to any licensing board and was also given legally truthful yet vague letters of recommendation that allowed him to gain surgical privileges from his next employer.</p><p>People were maimed because leadership at a couple of large hospitals took the expedient route to rid their organizations of Dr. Death. It's easier to pass the problem to someone else than to deal with it yourself.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/cropped_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w220xh124_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w320xh180_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w640xh360_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w768xh432_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w1080xh607_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Chase Agnello-Dean / NHL / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>The Blackhawks are clearly guilty of doing this as well. It's galling that Aldrich has a Stanley Cup ring. It's galling that he got to have the Cup for a personal day of enjoyment. It's galling that Quenneville wrote him a glowing performance review dated at the end of June 2010. It all demonstrates a shallow pool of empathy in the organization. At least Blackhawks ownership has formally requested to remove Aldrich's name from the Cup. But that doesn't make up for the people he went on to harass and abuse, most notably the high school student in Houghton, Michigan.</p><p>The Blackhawks failed to follow their own policy and investigate Beach's complaint. Allowing Aldrich to resign without an investigation meant there was no documentary trail that could have warned other organizations before hiring him. The whole episode needs to be an object lesson in the catastrophic consequences of not taking responsibility for the care and safety of the people in your organization and recognizing the duty to make sure there aren't future victims.</p><p>The Blackhawks failed so many people in 2010, and that failure spread outside their circle. If anything is going to change, it won't come from policies and punishments after the fact. Change has to come from leaders having empathy and taking responsibility, and it has to come at the moment when it means the most.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is the features editor at theScore.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/20248686/related

Policies can't change what happened to Kyle Beach. It takes real leadership

Joel Quenneville has resigned. Stan Bowman has resigned. Al MacIsaac is out too. The independent ...

<p>Joel Quenneville has resigned. Stan Bowman has resigned. Al MacIsaac is out too. The independent report into the Chicago Blackhawks sexual abuse scandal reopened old wounds and forced a group of seven executives and coaches to reckon with 11 years of inaction. But as quickly as the scandal exploded this week, the furor will die down now that small measures of justice have been meted out.</p><p>The news cycle moves so fast that Quenneville's resignation Thursday afternoon was already giving way Thursday night to speculation about whether John Tortorella would be hired to take over in Florida.</p><p>That's how it always goes. Behavior is exposed, people are outraged, prices are paid, but life continues as people return to their own self-interests. Change is promised, but it never seems to arrive in any demonstrable way. </p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>On Wednesday, Kyle Beach told <a href="https://www.tsn.ca/kyle-beach-john-doe-1.1712468">TSN's Rick Westhead</a><strong> </strong>that he hoped the release of the report from the independent investigation would make a difference.</p><p>"I hope that this entire process can make a systematic change to make sure this never happens again," Beach said. "Because it not only affected me as a young adult and now as a 31-year-old man, but it also affected kids because it was not handled in a correct way."</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/cropped_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w220xh124_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w320xh180_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w640xh360_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w768xh432_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/402307/w1080xh607_GettyImages-81651930.jpg?ts=1635525340 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Dave Sandford / NHL / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, though, sports' history of sexual abuse has run like clockwork. Despite dozens of scandals, young athletes' dreams and aspirations can be twisted grotesquely by predators operating not just in the shadows but in plain sight. </p><p>It shouldn't be up to Beach, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sheldon-kennedy-swift-current-documentary-1.3572660">Sheldon Kennedy</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/simone-biles-gymnastics-sexual-abuse-larry-nassar-cb63ffbfd09d9d4ffe21561aa63d3ca5">Simone Biles</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026114066/gymnastics-larry-nassar-survivor-rachael-denhollander">dozens more American gymnasts</a>, and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bo-schembechler-s-son-says-his-father-failed-protect-him-n1270312">Bo Schembechler's son</a> to bare their souls to get the rest of us to pay attention.</p><p>The Blackhawks situation makes it obvious that many of these scandals come down to a failure of leadership. Quenneville and Bowman can lose their jobs, but those punishments do nothing to prevent the next scandal.</p><p>What would real change look like? We know the Blackhawks had a corporate policy in place in 2010 when Beach made his complaint. The policy meant nothing if the Blackhawks leaders could simply put it aside until it was more convenient. The policy did nothing if the perpetrator could be quietly dismissed without an investigation. Policies alone can't be the answer. </p><p>"Posters and buttons and policies and procedures don't change culture," Kennedy told the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8334520/chicago-blackhawks-scandal-beach-kennedy-hockey/">Canadian Press</a> this week. "Until sport makes this a priority as they do winning, they'll never have the change that I think people expect from them."</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/cropped_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w220xh124_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w320xh180_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w640xh360_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w768xh432_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479277/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1091460486.jpg?ts=1635525455 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Steve Russell / Toronto Star / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the weekend, I came across <a href="https://ateodletter.substack.com/p/anyone-can-experience-the-bystander">an interview</a> with Julie Lalonde, who trains people to overcome the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/bystander-effect">bystander effect</a>. Throughout this week, I kept returning to this idea as an explanation for the inaction by Blackhawks management. The bystander effect most often relates to attacks in progress; the more people who witness an attack, the theory goes, the more likely it is that no one will attempt to intervene out of fear and self-interest.</p><p>In fact, people choose not to get involved for myriad reasons. Apart from the bystander effect, Lalonde believes the lack of intervention in difficult situations is "about a lack of empathy. We’re not socialized to have empathy for anyone who is in crisis." There is also <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-sexual-harassment-programs-backfire">research</a> suggesting that poorly executed sexual harassment training makes men more likely to blame victims. It's important to find a way out of this mess.</p><p>In 2010, Kyle Beach was not in immediate physical danger when Blackhawks management learned about his complaint, but the report outlines that skating coach Paul Vincent recognized that Beach seemed "distraught" the week after the incident with Aldrich. Vincent says that he reported what he knew about Beach, along with allegations that Aldrich had committed sexual misconduct involving a second player, to team president John McDonough, Bowman, MacIsaac, and mental skills coach James Gary - four of the seven men who would be involved in the bigger meeting several days later.</p><p>Still, none of the seven men, who all had some measure of power within the organization, felt it was up to them to go any further. Quenneville was concerned about "upsetting team chemistry" and wanted to "focus on the team and the playoffs," according to other people in the meeting. Bowman abdicated his own responsibility by pointing a finger at McDonough in his statement this week.</p><p>Better leaders, even if they didn't act on the information the same day, would have reflected on it and quickly intervened. Better leaders would believe that a player's allegation of (at minimum) sexual misconduct by a coach is a potential cancer that ought to be biopsied. But no one felt the urgency to step forward to protect one of their players and initiate an investigation. They were more than willing to sacrifice Kyle Beach to the altar of the Stanley Cup.</p><p>"I just don't get why one guy couldn't just stand up and say, 'You know what, no, this is wrong,'" <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamZHerman/status/1453809788215832579?s=20">Tortorella said</a> Thursday during a panel discussion on ESPN.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/cropped_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w220xh124_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w320xh180_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w640xh360_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w768xh432_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479275/w1080xh607_GettyImages-477355258.jpg?ts=1635525251 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>It's easy for all of us to second-guess and believe we would have acted better. But nothing is going to change unless every person in a position of leadership decides to seek out training to overcome the bystander effect. Leaders' top priorities should include not just meeting business objectives, but keeping their team members safe. Until more leaders accept this responsibility, sports will continue to cycle through abuse scandals.</p><p>On Sunday in Canada, Showcase will air the finale of the series "Dr. Death," which dramatizes <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dr-death-christopher-duntsch-a-surgeon-so-bad-it-was-criminal">the case of a narcissistic and unskilled surgeon</a> who botched dozens of spinal surgeries in the Dallas area in the 2010s. (The series is a Peacock+ original and available on that streaming service in the U.S.)</p><p>It intersects with the Blackhawks scandal in respect to the way that large organizations deal with removing troublesome employees. Large organizations, almost by definition, are obsessed with liability, doing whatever it takes to avoid having to pay penalties for bad acts perpetrated in their name.</p><p>In the case of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, two hospitals quietly shuffled him out the door without official, public reprimands, allowing him to continue to butcher spinal surgeries in tragic ways. He was not reported to any licensing board and was also given legally truthful yet vague letters of recommendation that allowed him to gain surgical privileges from his next employer.</p><p>People were maimed because leadership at a couple of large hospitals took the expedient route to rid their organizations of Dr. Death. It's easier to pass the problem to someone else than to deal with it yourself.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/cropped_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w220xh124_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w320xh180_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w640xh360_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w768xh432_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/479298/w1080xh607_GettyImages-903605246.jpg?ts=1635532689 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Chase Agnello-Dean / NHL / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>The Blackhawks are clearly guilty of doing this as well. It's galling that Aldrich has a Stanley Cup ring. It's galling that he got to have the Cup for a personal day of enjoyment. It's galling that Quenneville wrote him a glowing performance review dated at the end of June 2010. It all demonstrates a shallow pool of empathy in the organization. At least Blackhawks ownership has formally requested to remove Aldrich's name from the Cup. But that doesn't make up for the people he went on to harass and abuse, most notably the high school student in Houghton, Michigan.</p><p>The Blackhawks failed to follow their own policy and investigate Beach's complaint. Allowing Aldrich to resign without an investigation meant there was no documentary trail that could have warned other organizations before hiring him. The whole episode needs to be an object lesson in the catastrophic consequences of not taking responsibility for the care and safety of the people in your organization and recognizing the duty to make sure there aren't future victims.</p><p>The Blackhawks failed so many people in 2010, and that failure spread outside their circle. If anything is going to change, it won't come from policies and punishments after the fact. Change has to come from leaders having empathy and taking responsibility, and it has to come at the moment when it means the most.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is the features editor at theScore.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/19555898/related

Is it possible to win the most medals at the Olympics and feel like the games were a disappointme...

<p>Is it possible to win the most medals at the Olympics and feel like the games were a disappointment?</p><p>The United States finished atop the overall medal table for the seventh consecutive Summer Olympics, but the Toyko Games marked only the fifth time in 28 Summer Games that the Americans produced more silver medals than gold. And if you ain't first, you're last, as noted sports philosopher <a href="https://youtu.be/y4usE2RePqo">Ricky Bobby once said</a>. </p><p>According to FiveThirtyEight's projections, the second-largest U.S. team in Olympic history (613 athletes) finished 16 medals <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/olympics-medal-count/">short of expectations</a>. To be fair, several major nations fell far short: Host Japan was 14 medals down, according to FiveThirtyEight, while France and Germany were 16 and 13 off their hopes, respectively.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>But it's not just the medal count that might be considered disappointing; it was the U.S. performances in marquee events.</p><p>Lilly King boasted that the American women's swim team had the talent to win every event. It won only three, two by long-distance powerhouse Katie Ledecky.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/cropped_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/w220xh124_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/w320xh180_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/w640xh360_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/w768xh432_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467805/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1331727062.jpg?ts=1628362396 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Tom Pennington / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the previous five Olympics, the U.S. men's sprinters and hurdlers won gold in at least one of the five races (100/200/400m, 110/400m hurdles). But the Americans will leave Tokyo with none - and without reasserting superiority in the 100m and 200m after the retirement of Usain Bolt.</p><p>The U.S. finished with three basketball gold medals courtesy of its NBA and WNBA heroes, but the men weren't exactly dialed in like Dream Teams of the past.</p><p>The dominant women's soccer team struggled in the tournament, even though it made the semifinals, where it lost to Canada for the first time in 20 years. A bronze medal was the consolation prize. </p><p>Even the American public's performance was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/business/media/nbc-olympics-tv-ratings.html">underwhelming</a>, with the Tokyo Games drawing an average nightly audience of roughly 60% of the 2016 Olympics in Rio. <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2021/08/nbc-olympics-track-sydney-mclaughlin-athing-mu-coverage.html">Some believe</a> NBC didn't do enough to promote some of the real stars of the games who nailed their events and performed up to expectations. Certainly, NBC's usual plan to show hours-old programming from an Asian locale in prime time has grown outdated with an always-online modern audience. And, well, there's the whole pandemic thing.</p><p>Still, U.S. athletes produced some magnificent, transcendent performances. Here are the five best:</p><h3>Caeleb Dressel</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/cropped_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/w220xh124_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/w320xh180_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/w640xh360_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/w768xh432_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467683/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1331731361.jpg?ts=1628286661 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Visual China Group / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Precisely 205 nations sent athletes to Tokyo, and Dressel racked up more gold medals (five) than all but 16 of them. Canada's 370 Olympians combined for seven first-place finishes for the country's best Summer Games total since 1992. All that to barely edge Dressel's haul.</p><p>Dressel's dominance necessitates such a comparison. In the 50m freestyle, the meet's shortest race, he beat the silver medalist to the wall by almost half a second. In another final, Kristof Milak swam the fourth-fastest 100m butterfly ever (49.68 seconds), but Dressel lowered his world-record time to 49.45. In the 100m freestyle final, 2016 champion Kyle Chalmers matched his personal best and hung with Dressel until the last lunge, yet Dressel still prevailed in Olympic record time.</p><p>Then there were the men's relay victories. Dressel's opening leg of the 4x100m freestyle predictably was fastest in the field, staking the U.S. to a permanent lead. He swam a scorching butterfly leg in the 4x100m medley as the U.S. beat favored Great Britain and established the world record. These games belonged to Dressel. The Paris Games in 2024, when he'll be 27, shouldn't be any different.</p><p>On that note, Ledecky deserves recognition. Her time in Tokyo could only be seen as a comedown relative to the superhuman expectations she shoulders.</p><p>Ledecky flew home with two gold and two silver medals to boost her career Olympic total to 10. Her slow start to the 200m freestyle final consigned her to fifth place, and Australia's Ariarne Titmus outdueled her at 400m. But Ledecky reigned as expected at 800m and in the women's 1,500m race's Olympic debut. The longer she's in the water, the less conceivable it becomes that the world will reel her in.</p><h3>Robert Finke</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/cropped_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/w220xh124_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/w320xh180_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/w640xh360_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/w768xh432_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467685/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1234365266.jpg?ts=1628286785 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Odd Andersen / AFP / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>It's often difficult for an American to emerge from the shadows at the Olympics. Various world championships and Olympic trials make it hard to avoid being identified as a future Olympic champion. But Finke was hiding in plain sight until the final 25 meters of the men's 800m freestyle. Still fourth on the final half-length of the pool, he unleashed an unimaginable burst of speed to pass everyone in front of him. Those he passed aren't slouches in the water: All were past world champions at 1,500m, and two of them medaled later in the 10km open-water swim. But none were capable of covering the final 50 meters in 26.39 - about two seconds faster than anyone else that night. It might have been the most stunning performance in the pool.</p><p>In the 1,500m two days later, Finke faced the two open-water medalists again, and they meant to go hard from the start to blunt his finishing kick. But Finke stayed in touch throughout the 30 lengths of the pool, and they were powerless against his late speed.</p><p>"Honestly, it doesn't seem too real," Finke told <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2020-tokyo-olympics-swimming-sports-tokyo-united-states-olympic-team-d07ac1a9204d7188949acf544ebd7288">The Associated Press</a>. "I came in not expecting to medal and just do my best to make the finals. To come out with two golds, it means the world to me and my family and my teammates."</p><h3>Sunisa Lee</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/cropped_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/w220xh124_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/w320xh180_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/w640xh360_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/w768xh432_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467687/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1331290593.jpg?ts=1628287070 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Jamie Squire / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Gymnastics seems to crown a new queen every quadrennial, from Larisa Latynina, Olga Korbut, and Nadia Comaneci to Mary Lou Retton, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas, and Simone Biles. This year, amid the maelstrom of chatter about Biles' decision to step aside in the middle of the team event, Lee arose to claim the mantle. She helped the U.S. team to silver, then owned the individual all-around to extend the Americans' hold on that title to five straight games. She added a bronze later in the uneven bars.</p><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/29/olympic-gymnastics-all-around-final/">The Washington Post</a> reported that Lee has two bar routines and decides which one to pursue after a particular move in the middle. She went for the more difficult endgame during the all-around, giving her enough points to win gold. Had she opted for the lesser version, she would have finished second.</p><p>But that was only the second event of the four-apparatus all-around rotation. Needing to protect a lingering foot injury in the floor exercise, the final event, she performed a dialed-down routine that allowed her to hit all her tumbling-pass landings. </p><p>Her high-stakes decisions gave her the perfect path to victory, to stand with Carly Patterson, Liukin, Douglas, and Biles as the Olympic all-around champion.</p><p>"Coming into this competition, I didn't even think that I could be competing for a gold medal," Lee told the Post. There was no way to know Biles wouldn't be extending her reign. "I was coming to compete for a silver medal. To be here is just crazy."</p><h3>Sydney McLaughlin</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/cropped_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/w220xh124_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/w320xh180_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/w640xh360_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/w768xh432_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467688/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1332242114.jpg?ts=1628287184 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Cameron Spencer / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>It seems like McLaughlin's fame has been simmering since her high school exploits in New Jersey got her noticed as a track talent to watch. At the age of 21, she exploded fully into that stardom, obliterating the world record in the 400m hurdles for the second time this year. The event record hadn't changed since 2003 until American Dalilah Muhammad lowered it twice in 2019 down to 52.16 seconds. McLaughlin first put her name in the record book at the Olympic trials in June, clocking 51.90.</p><p>On the fast surface in Tokyo, McLaughlin and Muhammed both went under 52 seconds in a race that wasn't decided until the last hurdle had been cleared. Muhammad, attempting to defend her 2016 Olympic title, had the edge at the 10th barrier but couldn't withstand McLaughlin's speed in the final strides.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sydney McLaughlin's speed to the finish line was absurd. <a href="https://t.co/84gWysq3TS">pic.twitter.com/84gWysq3TS</a></p>— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSSports/status/1422750952692535300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 4, 2021</a>
</blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></figure><p>The final clocking was 51.46, a huge leap in a record progression that had been stagnant until McLaughlin and Muhammad started dueling.</p><p>"I think that's really iron sharpening iron," McLaughlin told <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/track/sydney-mclaughlin-bests-own-world-record-to-win-gold-womens-400m-hurdles-1.6128735">the CBC</a>. "Every time we step on the track, it's always something fast."</p><p>On her 22nd birthday, McLaughlin teamed with Muhammad, 800m champion Athing Mu, and the venerable Allyson Felix to win the women's 4x400m relay. (It can't be forgotten that Felix won her 11th medal to become the most decorated American track athlete in Olympic history.)</p><h3>Nevin Harrison</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/cropped_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/w220xh124_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/w320xh180_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/w640xh360_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/w768xh432_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/467689/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1234469213.jpg?ts=1628287318 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Philip Fong / AFP / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>The Olympic program never featured women's canoe racing until this year, despite men competing in the discipline since 1936. Canada's Laurence Vincent Lapointe arrived in Tokyo with 11 world championship gold medals on her resume dating back to 2011. But it was Harrison, the 19-year-old from Seattle, who dominated the C1 sprint race over 200m. A new Olympic sport has a young champion who could reign for many years.</p><p>Hip pain from dysplasia forced Harrison to give up the other sports she was good at - softball, soccer, and track - so she concentrated on canoeing. Now an Olympic champion at 19, she's gained insight into teenage superstardom.</p><p>"I never really had a good understanding when I saw a 16-year-old gymnast competing at the Olympics," she told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/sports/nevin-harrison-canoe.html">The New York Times</a>. "I would think, 'Oh, they're just machines, they're programmed like that.' But the reality is, being a teenager in a high-level sport is so scary. You're still learning about the world, but you're expected to perform at the same level as women who have been doing it for two decades."</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe title="U.S. medal winners" aria-label="table" id="datawrapper-chart-U9QK2" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/U9QK2/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="872"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();
</script></figure>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/18627025/related

Team USA's 5 best performances at the Tokyo Olympics

Tim Peel became Twitter's main character Tuesday night when he inadvertently opened the curtain t...

<p>Tim Peel became Twitter's main character Tuesday night when he inadvertently opened the curtain to what NHL referees think and act upon in games. The league was swift in its punishment of Peel but left unaddressed the larger disgruntlement fans have with officiating.</p><p>There has always been a disconnect between what the paying customers see and the seemingly inexplicable events that are triggered by game officials on the court/field/ice.</p><p>During the Red Wings-Predators game, <a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/2140353" href="https://www.thescore.com/news/2140353">a hot mic</a> appeared to catch Peel saying that makeup calls and "evening things out" do exist in the NHL. The league banished Peel for the final few weeks of the regular season, though the 53-year-old was scheduled to retire anyway.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>But <a href="https://nhlofficials.com/nhl-officials/current/tim-peel/">Tim Peel</a>'s dismissal is not just an NHL story. It ought to be a reminder to all leagues that accountability from the participants in major professional sports doesn't stop with teams and the players. Leagues have rules about making players available to the media but fail to hold themselves and their game officials to the same standard.</p><p>The NBA is the most progressive with its last two-minute reports and the decision to keep the bubble addition of courtside microphones for referees to explain which elements of a play they are reviewing. Leagues otherwise make officials available for postgame interviews only in rare circumstances.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/cropped_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/w220xh124_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/w320xh180_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/w640xh360_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/w768xh432_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447350/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1231226320.jpg?ts=1616609365 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption">NBA referees Scott Foster, left, and Tom Washington examine a replay during a January game in Utah. <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Garrett Ellwood / NBA / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Leagues have always placed a cloak of secrecy around their game officials and the way they're managed. And anything that is shielded from the public (via their agents in the media) can go off the rails.</p><p>The public generally believes that game officials put their thumb on the scale in the name of "fairness," such as makeup calls to cover over a previous bad call. The public also generally believes that established players are treated more favorably than rookies and stars in many sports can get away with just about anything.</p><p><a href="https://www.nflpenalties.com/penalty/offensive-holding?view=team&amp;year=2020">Offensive holding calls</a> noticeably dropped in the NFL in 2020 - only 477 were called in regular- and postseason games versus 732 in 2019. The difference represented nearly 2,500 fewer yards lost. The league briefly addressed the trend after Week 1, with Walt Anderson, the senior vice president of officiating training and development, telling <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/referees-focusing-on-clear-and-obvious-calls-as-penalties-drop">NFL.com</a> that officials were instructed to only call "clear and obvious" penalties.</p><p>The transparency is fine, but it doesn't explain why holding penalties specifically dropped 35% when penalties overall dropped only 16%.</p><p>If the NFL wants to goose offensive production, it should just say so. Otherwise, fans are left to draw their own conclusions.</p><p>You can easily point to your own example in any sport. Baseball umpires, for example, made up their own strike zones for years. In the '90s, umpires' strike zones became so distorted that we eventually reached Game 5 of the 1997 National League Championship Series. Marlins starter Livan Hernandez famously struck out 15 Braves. Umpire Eric Gregg's strike zone was so wide that hitters had no choice but to try to swing and foul off unhittable pitches off the plate.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bW8YkRiRUBw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><p>Joe Brinkman's strike zone in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series was similarly bloated. This is not to denigrate those two umpires. But the strike zone was more art than science in the 1990s and people knew it.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7RXmmS8yOnI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><p>Through much of the 1970s, National League umpires wore chest protectors inside their shirts while the American League maintained the practice of using the balloon protectors held in front of them. The leagues operated separately back then, with their own presidents and league offices and umpiring crews. It all gave rise to the public perception that NL umps could properly call strikes at the knees, while encumbered AL umps had a high strike zone.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/cropped_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/w220xh124_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/w320xh180_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/w640xh360_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/w768xh432_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/447344/w1080xh607_GettyImages-515586138.jpg?ts=1616608183 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption">Joe Brinkman holding an outside chest protector during a 1976 American League game. <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Bettmann Archives / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>There are any number of ways to erode the public's confidence in the outcome through inconsistent officiating.</p><p>Calling the strike zone has gotten better in the data age, partly because broadcasts now show the location of pitches during every at-bat. Holding umpires accountable resulted in a more consistent product.</p><p>All of this is not to say that game officials need to be scrutinized by reporters after every game. But leagues can bolster public confidence in the games. Game officials should be as accountable to the public as any other participant in the game. And when their bosses judge that their work falls short of the standard, the public deserves to know what punishments have been meted out.</p><p>As North American jurisdictions decriminalize sports betting, confidence in the product becomes paramount. Leagues have decided they want to profit from betting. In return, they need to continue to lift the veil draped over their game officials. </p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.</em></p>

https://rich-content.thescore.com/content_cards/17345105/related

It's time for every league to lift the veil shrouding officials

It all still seems hard to believe.   Below, we remember a truncated baseball season unlike any o...

<p>It all still seems hard to believe. </p><p>Below, we remember a truncated baseball season unlike any other.</p><h3>Rule change of the year</h3><p>I've been to two 19-inning baseball games. As a teenager in April 1984, it was a hoot to be at Tiger Stadium until nearly 1 a.m. on a Friday night. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET198404270.shtml">Cleveland beat Detroit 8-4</a> with four runs in the top of the 19th for the Tigers' second loss of the season after starting 16-1. The most vivid memory is that the fans in the bleachers at Tiger Stadium had a garbage fight and the decisive runs were scored with the warning track in center field covered in debris. By the end of the second one, in July 2016, my knees just hurt from six hours in that Rogers Centre seat. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201607010.shtml">Cleveland beat Toronto 2-1</a> when the Jays' second position player pitching, Darwin Barney, gave up a solo homer to Carlos Santana. Trevor Bauer pitched the last five innings in relief for the win.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>All that is to say: the extra-innings rule was a pretty good addition to baseball in 2020. Life's changed and baseball's pace doesn't readily fit with our current world. As the game is being played now, there's not much that can be done about the overall running time. For four years, from 2003-06, no more than 32% of the games lasted three hours. On a steady upward climb since then, 62% of games ran past three hours by 2019. So when extra innings arrive, let's just get on with it. Of the 68 extra-inning games in 2020, only one game went 13 innings and only four made it to the 12th. The vast majority of the tied games were wrapped up in 10 innings. <em>- Guy Spurrier</em></p><h3>Narrative failure of the year</h3><p>When the Baseball Hall of Fame announces the 2021 class on Jan. 26, the list might be empty. So far, according to the votes gathered and made by Ryan Thibodaux and his tracking team, no one will meet the 75% vote threshold for induction. In 2020, Yankees great Derek Jeter made it easily and could have joined former teammate Mariano Rivera as the only players in history to receive unanimous consideration. Except one voter among the 397 declined to participate in the Jeter party, spoiling the fun by leaving Jeter off their ballot. </p><p>Who was this person? Nearly a year later, no one knows. Despite the laudable work of Thibodaux and media members to encourage voters to share their ballots publicly, the Baseball Writers' Association of America does not mandate it, as it now does with its year-end award voting. The analytics community and its acolytes famously liked to poke holes in the Jeter Greatness narrative, so perhaps this person was making a little scratch on Jeter's plaque to remind everyone that while Jeter was great, he wasn't perfect. <em>- Spurrier</em></p><h3>Dunder-Mifflin industrial printing material of the year</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/cropped_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/w220xh124_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/w320xh180_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/w640xh360_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/w768xh432_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/413010/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1227995894.jpg?ts=1597158130 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images Sport / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><p>If you were a commercial printer in a major-league city in 2020, it might have been a very good year for you. When MLB's season kicked off July 23, teams filled seats with cutout visages of their fans, their pets, and past and present team personalities. The workhorse of this scheme was the corrugated plastic medium variously known as Coroplast, Correx, or PP Sheet. The polypropylene stock used for yard signs and the like became the hot decoration accessory in baseball stadiums. It provided the varied background color, if not the sound and movement, viewers are used to seeing on telecasts. And it allowed fans willing to pay for the privilege to feel like they were there in spirit. One Dodgers fan became internet famous when his cutout was mangled by two home runs during the season. <em>- Spurrier</em></p><h3>Inanimate fan of the year</h3><p>Everyone had a lot of fun with the cutouts, but let's hear it for this brave patron in Oakland, who took one off the noggin and kept smiling. He was back the next day with a <a href="https://twitter.com/Athletics/status/1296849985254723584">bandage around his head</a>.</p><figure class="article-segment--embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HKwozZqbZKs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></figure><h3>Animate fan of the year</h3><p>The ballpark shutdowns across baseball allowed the Houston Astros to skate through the 2020 regular season without having to face the wrath of fans who wanted to let them know they didn't approve of the sign-stealing scandal that came to light in November 2019. The players who contributed to, and benefited from, the scheme to steal opponents' pitch signs from live video feeds were never punished beyond having to answer a few uncomfortable questions from reporters at spring training three months later. </p><p>When the Astros and the American League Championship Series arrived in San Diego in October, Tim Kanter decided to use his unique access to give voice to all the fans who missed out in 2020. From an apartment balcony overlooking the stadium, Kanter used a megaphone during the fourth inning of Game 4 to call out several players individually and berate commissioner Rob Manfred for not meaningfully punishing the players. Reporters in the stadium took notice. The New York Times tracked Kanter down that night for a story. </p><p>Speaking to theScore for <a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/2068373" href="https://www.thescore.com/news/2068373">one of our year-end stories</a>, Kanter summed up his motive: "No one was really able to speak for the people who (wanted to shame the Astros). Except for, you know, the yahoo with the megaphone." <em>- Spurrier</em></p><h3>Small sample size of the year</h3><p>In 1875, the first baseball season counted as "major league," the eight National League teams played between 57 and 70 games, averaging 65. By 1879, NL teams were playing 80 games and schedules more or less grew from there. In order to salvage some part of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball drew up a 60-game season that will stand out in the history books. Small sample sizes were everywhere - the Houston Astros went from 107 wins in 2019 to 29 in 2020 and still made the playoffs.</p><p>The Yankees' Luke Voit won the MLB home run title with 22; the last time anyone led the majors in homers with fewer than 30 was Tommy Holmes' 28 in 1945. You have to go back to 1919 to find the next one (Babe Ruth, 29). </p><p>Perhaps the most startling small sample size comes from Brewers reliever Devin Williams, who was voted the NL's top rookie having faced only 100 batters in 2020. Under normal rookie rules, he could have competed for the award again in 2021 because he's yet to pitch 50 innings. Baseball adjusted its requirements in late September and also announced that the 2020 winners could not win again in 2021. It would be like nominating Emerson, Lake &amp; Palmer for the best new artist Grammy in 1972 and then nominating Carl Palmer and the rest of the prog-rock superstars from Asia for best new artist in 1983. That would just be weird. <em>- Spurrier</em></p><h3>Nickname of the year</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/cropped_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/w220xh124_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/w320xh180_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/w640xh360_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/w768xh432_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/420865/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1228838171.jpg?ts=1601642400 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Rob Leiter / Major League Baseball / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><p>"Slam Diego" - what else? </p><p>The Padres made history in August, becoming the first team to hit a grand slam in an obscene four straight games. The best part: San Diego's grandest stars did the slamming - Fernando Tatis Jr., Wil Myers, Manny Machado (his was a walk-off job), and Eric Hosmer. After a one-game break, Jake Cronenworth got in on the act, too, giving the Padres five grand slams in six games. Totally <em>bananas</em>.</p><p>The shortened 2020 season was San Diego's coming-out party, and the grand slams punctuated the club's arrival. Over and over and over and over again. And then again. And once more in September, too. It was awesome. <em>- Navin Vaswani</em></p><h3>Player &amp; team of the year</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/cropped_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/w220xh124_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/w320xh180_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/w640xh360_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/w768xh432_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/432339/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1280805495.jpg?ts=1608674065 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Ronald Martinez / Getty Images Sport / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><p>Turns out, all the Dodgers needed was Mookie Betts. Simple.</p><p>In all seriousness: what Los Angeles did in 2020 was <em>stupendously</em> impressive. With all the pressure on them, after two heartbreaking World Series defeats, and after the 106-win 2019 squad was stunned in the division series, the Dodgers had one option and one option only: be baseball's best team. So they were. They won 43 of 60 regular-season games - a .717 clip. They opened the postseason with five straight wins, erased a 3-1 deficit in the National League Championship Series (and Game 7 deficits of 2-0 and 3-2), and eventually won 13 of 18 playoff games - a .722 clip - and the World Series. Finally, after more than a 30-year drought, the Dodgers are champions.</p><p>But think about it: even in normal times, baseball's best team often doesn't win. The cream rises to the top after a 162-game regular season ... and then the game gets nuts. Face it: baseball isn't built for the postseason; there isn't supposed to be a sprint once the marathon is over. But there is, and L.A. - without David Price, and with Justin Turner for perhaps the final time - wouldn't be denied in 2020.</p><p>The Dodgers had one job, one mission. They were singularly focused, to a man, and were led by Betts, who literally stepped into a clubhouse full of stars after signing a mammoth $365-million extension and immediately became L.A.'s best player. (Betts was the club leader in WAR and finished second in NL MVP voting.) From Day 1, when the Dodgers decided they were going to take the coronavirus absolutely seriously, and weren't going to toss the baseball around the diamond after a strikeout, it was clear: World Series or bust.</p><p>So much can and does go wrong in baseball. So much went wrong in baseball and in life in 2020. But the Dodgers were not deterred. Betts especially. He did it all in October, all over the place: in right field, at the wall, at the plate, and on the bases. And it was absolutely delightful to watch.</p><p>"I'm here to bring rings back to L.A.," Betts said July 22, the day he signed his extension.</p><p>Mookie's a man of his word. Don't you forget it. <em>- Vaswani</em></p><h3>Quote of the year</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/cropped_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/w220xh124_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/w320xh180_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/w640xh360_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/w768xh432_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/433927/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1229318890.jpg?ts=1609717470 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Cooper Neill / Major League Baseball / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><p><em>"World Series champ, World Series champ, World Series champ." - Clayton Kershaw</em></p><p>Those were the words Kershaw kept repeating to himself as he celebrated with his teammates while crying tears of joy after the Dodgers finished off the Rays; he was trying to get it to sink in. And they're the same words I've quietly said to myself all winter whenever I think about the Dodgers' ace. (Yes, I think about Kershaw quite regularly, thank you for asking.)</p><p>Here's the <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30202146/world-series-2020-night-clayton-kershaw-became-world-champion-hometown">full Kershaw quote</a>:</p><blockquote><p>I was trying to take it all in as best I could. You never really script what you're gonna do or how you're gonna feel, but it was a content feeling. Just like a: "Job is done. We won. We did it. We won our race, and it's over. We completed our mission." Just a feeling of contentment. Joy.</p></blockquote><p>No more misery - it only takes one October. Clayton Kershaw's a World Series champion, so let no one ever say nothing good happened in 2020. <em>- Vaswani</em></p><h3>Moment of the year</h3><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/cropped_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/w220xh124_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/w320xh180_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/w640xh360_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/w768xh432_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/424529/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1282607489.jpg?ts=1603892634 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Ronald Martinez / Getty Images Sport / Getty</span></figcaption></figure><p>Yeah, the Dodgers, <em>again.</em> </p><p>How can Baseball's Ultimate 2020 Moment be anything but Turner celebrating L.A.'s World Series win at Globe Life Field, oh, about an hour or so after he was removed from Game 6 - being played at a neutral site in Texas, mind you - after testing positive for COVID-19? It can't.</p><p>The chaotic moments - Turner's sudden departure and reported diagnosis, the <em>Dodgers winning the frigging World Series</em>, and Turner's mask-less face on the field when it was all over - perfectly encapsulated MLB's turbulent short season. The campaign was put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, was played and completed in the virus' shadow, and it was wildly fitting - in a twisted, extremely 2020 energy kind of way - that the virus left its mark on Game 6, the eventual champions, and one of the Dodgers' most important players.</p><p>After all the madness, I kept and keep coming back to one question: who was going to be the person to keep Turner off the field after L.A. had finally won the title that eluded it, that eluded Turner? No one, it turns out, and as absolutely insane as that seems with more than 350,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, that answer, after all the Dodgers and Turner went through ... sort of makes a little bit of sense to me. <em>- Vaswani</em></p><h3>In memoriam</h3><p>It seemed to be a particularly notable year for <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2020-deaths.shtml">the deaths of former major-league players</a>. You could have constructed a pretty fine team if you count all the players who contributed at least 10 career bWAR, notwithstanding the lack of a catcher who fit that criterion. There are seven Hall of Famers on the list and we argued this year that <a data-in-app-uri="thescore:///news/2066280" href="https://www.thescore.com/news/2066280">Dick Allen should be in the Hall</a>, as well.</p><figure class="article-segment--table"><div class="table-responsive"><table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Pos</th>
<th>Players</th>
<th></th>
<th></th>
<th></th>
<th></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1B</td>
<td> Dick Allen</td>
<td> Bob Watson</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2B</td>
<td> Joe Morgan*</td>
<td> Tony Taylor</td>
<td> Frank Boiling</td>
<td> Horace Clarke</td>
<td> Glenn Beckert</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>SS</td>
<td> Tony Fernandez</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3B</td>
<td> Denis Menke</td>
<td> Eddie Kasko</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>LF</td>
<td> Lou Brock*</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>CF</td>
<td> Jimmy Wynn</td>
<td> Jay Johnstone</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RF</td>
<td> Al Kaline*</td>
<td> Claudell Washington</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>P</td>
<td> Tom Seaver*</td>
<td> Bob Gibson*</td>
<td> Whitey Ford*</td>
<td> Phil Niekro*</td>
<td> Johnny Antonelli</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>P</td>
<td> Lindy McDaniel</td>
<td> Ron Perranoski</td>
<td> Mike McCormack</td>
<td> Don Larsen</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MGR</td>
<td>John McNamara</td>
<td> Jim Frey</td>
<td> Kasko</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div></figure><p><em>*Hall of Famer</em></p><p>As a group, these players appeared in 115 All-Star Games and collected 35 Gold Gloves, seven Cy Young Awards, four MVP trophies, and one rookie of the year award. The three late managers all appeared in at least 600 games in the role, led by McNamara's 2,395. <em>- Spurrier</em></p>

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Hindsight is 2020: Remembering a short baseball season like no other

The World Series resumes Friday, but the Houston Astros used Thursday's off day to put an end to ...

<p>The World Series resumes Friday, but the Houston Astros used Thursday's off day to put an end to the Brandon Taubman incident.</p><p>The Astros organization no longer has to stand on baseball's brightest stage and try to win this year's championship with Taubman's face and his words lingering in the background. Sports life goes on.</p><p>And that is the unaddressed problem in all of this.</p><div class="the-score-article-ad-unit"></div><p>Taubman's been erased, and sports life goes on. But Taubman is a tangent connected to Roberto Osuna's criminal transgression in May 2018, when the relief pitcher was arrested by Toronto police for assaulting the mother of their young child. The Blue Jays traded Osuna to the Astros a couple of months later. It already seems so long ago.</p><p>Allegations of Addison Russell's abuse of his wife surfaced in June 2017. The genesis of Aroldis Chapman's abuse of his girlfriend goes back to late 2015. Chapman was the first to be suspended by Major League Baseball under its newly drafted domestic violence program. Russell and Osuna also lost professional time. None of them spent any time in jail; they barely spent any time in court. All the charges have been dispensed with now. </p><p>If these were regular people in regular jobs, once their time in the criminal justice system is over, what little public spotlight they might have endured is over. But as professional athletes, these three men work in a business with an intense spotlight. Supporters of the game and these teams see and hear about these players often, sometimes every day for six to nine months.</p><p>What are the customers of this business supposed to do? The teams, as employers, will answer for their employee by professing an organizational value that abhors domestic violence. A six-figure check will be cut for a local agency. </p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/cropped_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/w220xh124_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/w320xh180_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/w640xh360_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/w768xh432_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380913/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1181754277.jpg?ts=1572022514 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Mike Stobe / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>Sports careers are short, relative to life, so forgetting is easy enough. But the lack of a real reckoning gnaws at people. There never seems to be an on-going follow-up to the stated organizational value. People like Taubman, who didn't physically strike anyone but certainly seems to have aggressively confronted a group of female journalists with his Osuna hot take, will claim in a statement that the incident doesn't reflect who they are. An unseen wife and children will be referenced as proof of their character.</p><p>Taubman, the tangent, is gone, but Osuna, the vector, remains. So that gnaws at the fan who keeps posting about it on social media. It gnaws at the fan whose heart sinks when the Astros have a close lead in the ninth inning, anticipating Osuna's arrival from the bullpen. The reminder is always there. The story reaches a stasis and remains forever frozen in place. There's an administrative punishment but no satisfying outcome, no real moral reckoning, no opportunity to see growth of character. No reflection of the organization's stated value.</p><p>In May 2017, Kevin Pillar, another former Blue Jay, yelled a homophobic slur at an opposing pitcher after striking out. Pillar's outburst happened in public, was reported immediately, and had to be dealt with in the moment. There was no opportunity for money and power to stash it inside the justice system. Pillar had to apologize, in public, and was suspended two games. But he and the Blue Jays followed through with the stated organizational value.</p><p>"It's not lip service," Pillar told reporters a couple of weeks later when he donated the salary he forfeited to two related charities and caught a first pitch from a local Pride organizer. "It's easy to come out and make your apologies and hope people forget, but I meant what I said when I said hopefully I'll be made an example of.</p><p>"There are still some things that are going to be done. My actions didn't just affect me, they affected this organization as well, and between me and the organization, we're going to do our part."</p><p>It's easier for a fan to move on when it looks like there's a genuine reckoning. Pillar took the opportunity to meet with the local LGBTQ community and face the people who were directly pained by his outburst. Fans were able to glimpse a little bit of the growth and to witness the application of the moral to the story.</p><figure class="article-segment--image"><img src="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/cropped_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361" srcset="https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/w220xh124_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361 220w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/w320xh180_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361 320w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/w640xh360_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361 640w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/w768xh432_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361 768w, https://assets-cms.thescore.com/uploads/image/file/380912/w1080xh607_GettyImages-1139334687.jpg?ts=1572022361 1080w"><figcaption class="article-segment--image-caption"> <span class="article-segment--image-attribution">Icon Sportswire / Getty Images</span></figcaption></figure><p>This never seems to happen with domestic violence cases. There's often an argument made that these incidents happen in private, inside a relationship or a marriage, and ought to be handled there as well. Most of the resolution and restitution should happen there, for the victims' sake. But the perpetrator’s job is extremely public and is supported every day by an adoring public.</p><p>Many will say it's unfair to ruin someone's life for one bad act or one character flaw. They will say it has nothing to do with the job. I struggle with the idea that perpetrators should be tarred and feathered and banished forever. I like to believe in moral growth, and many of us watch sports to see athletes rise above the physical and mental challenges they face in the arena.</p><p>As supporters of these billion-dollar industries, we have to see the full story. It's the only way to come to a full and satisfying reckoning. It's not enough to shield every bad act from public view and hope everyone forgets. Otherwise, stop pretending that the organization has any values beyond making heaps of money. Either way, the gnawing feeling will go away.</p><p><em>Guy Spurrier is theScore's features editor.</em></p>

HOUSTON, TEXAS - OCTOBER 22: Roberto Osuna #54 of the Houston Astros looks on from the dugout prior to Game One of the 2019 World Series against the Washington Nationals at Minute Maid Park on October 22, 2019 in Houston, Texas.

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It's easy to axe Taubman, but there's never a reckoning about domestic abuse

https://rich-content.thescore.com/authors/guy-spurrier/content_cards

Guy Spurrier

Features Editor

https://rich-content.thescore.com/authors/nick-faris/content_cards

Nick Faris

Features Writer

https://rich-content.thescore.com/authors/navin-vaswani/content_cards