The Good Times Drag Strip was busy again this past weekend with two days of racing. Saturday featured a doubleheader race day and a King of Hill race as well.
Winnemucca Regional Raceway hosted the Wild West Modified Tour last weekend that brought in modified racers from around the west for two days. IMCA Modifieds, IMCA Northern Sports Mods, IMCA Stock Cars, Hobby Stocks, Min-Mods, Pure Stocks and GenX raced over the two days. Over 90 cars raced over both days.
A seventh-inning stretch without fans at Yankee Stadium was far from the oddest happening on the second day of summer exhibitions in the majors. The first inning ended at Dodger Stadium without Los Angeles making a single out Sunday night, a game went to the 10th inning in Philadelphia even with the Orioles leading the Phillies 4-1, and the Yankees hit in the bottom of the ninth with a 6-0 lead over the Mets. It’s not quite baseball like you’re used to seeing. Then again, we’d never seen baseball amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
NFL players are publicly pleading with the league to address several health and safety concerns on the eve of training camp. The league informed teams on Saturday that training camps will open on time even though discussions with the players’ union regarding testing for the coronavirus and other health and safety protocols are ongoing. Rookies for Houston and Kansas City are set to report Monday and rookies for other teams are due on Tuesday. Players for all teams are scheduled to report by July 28.
For the first time in his career, senior wide receiver Elijah Cooks has been placed on the preseason watch list for the Biletnikoff Award, which is presented annually to the nation’s top receiver. Cooks is one of 55 to earn the distinction from around the country and is one of five from the Mountain West. He also earned preseason honors from Athlon Sports and Phil Steele Magazine, being named to their preseason All-Mountain West teams. Cooks posted a breakout season in 2019, leading Nevada with 76 receptions, 926 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, all of which were career highs.
Nevada junior running back Toa Taua earned a spot on the preseason watch list for the Doak Walker Award, which is presented annually to the nation’s top running back.
Even though it was a little later in the year than normal, the annual Bombs for Moms baseball tournament, hosted by the Winnemucca Badgers travel baseball team took place this past weekend.
Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez wanted to hug, high-five and fist bump his players. After all, the defending World Series champions spent nearly four months apart before resuming workouts last week. Then, he remembered: Those are out. And just like crying, now there’s no spitting in baseball, either.
As college football preseason watch lists begin to roll out, Nevada has its first honoree with junior defensive end Dom Peterson being named to the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list. The award is presented annually to the nation’s top defensive player.
The Washington NFL franchise announced Monday it is dropping the “Redskins” name and Indian head logo, bowing to recent pressure from sponsors and decades of criticism that they are offensive to Native Americans. A new name must still be selected for one of the oldest and most storied teams in the National Football League, and it was unclear how soon that will happen. But for now, arguably the most polarizing name in North American professional sports is gone at a time of reckoning over racial injustice, iconography and racism in the U.S.
Instead of MLB All-Stars gathering this week for the Midsummer Classic at Dodger Stadium, players who haven’t opted out of the season are at their home ballparks. They are going through summer camp before they finally get to open the pandemic-delayed season July 23-24. There also will be no final ride in Paris. While NBA and NHL players are also getting back to practice to resume their seasons, The Associated Press looks at some of the sporting events that had been scheduled the week of July 13-19:
Cleveland manager Terry Francona won’t sidestep the hot-button topic any longer. He believes the Indians need to change their contentious nickname. “I think it’s time to move forward,” Francona said Sunday. Francona’s comments came two days after the Indians, amid a nationwide movement to erase racially insensitive symbols, released a statement saying the organization is “committed to engaging our community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regard to our team name.”
There would have been a lot of close MLB rivalry games this week if not for the coronavirus pandemic, with five interleague series matching teams from the same city or state. All of those rivals will still get to play this year. The Associated Press looks at some of the sporting events that had been scheduled the week of July 6-12:
Bryson DeChambeau pounded protein shakes and lifted iron to transform his body, adding 40 pounds of mass, and changed his game to put a premium on power. The plan is working. With jaw-dropping drives and some clutch putts, DeChambeau won the Rocket Mortgage Classic by three strokes Sunday for his first victory of the season and sixth overall. He became the first PGA Tour player since 2004 to lead a tournament in driving distance, along with shots gained off the tee and putting.
Coastal Carolina already had one of the smaller athletic budgets in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and that was before a 15% spending cut was ordered because of projected declines in state funding and student fees stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Facing the prospect of having to pay for testing of returning athletes and staff for the virus this summer, athletic director Matt Hogue went to work finding a way to defray costs. His 19-sport program includes about 450 athletes, and with individual tests currently costing about $100, testing could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars by the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Hogue found help from a local health care company — a longtime sponsor of Coastal Carolina athletics — that will provide free tests, at least while athletes are coming back to campus this summer.