Saturday, August 21, 2010

Bill speaks to Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle about the mistakes Roger Clemens made that led to his indictment for perjury and other charges on Thursday. Here's the link to Justice's column about Clemens.

Lou Gehrig was one of the toughest baseball players ever, but he is equally respected for his courage in battling ALS, the disease that now bears his name. This week, researchers have discovered a new disease induced by head trauma with symptoms similar to ALS. Bill examines whether the Iron Horse could have been affected by this newly-discovered condition, and he speaks with study co-author Ann McKee about the implications of her findings.

When Francisco Rodriguez hit his girlfriend’s father at Citi Field on Wednesday, it again brought the ugly issue of violence in sports to the forefront. Bill talks to Sports Illustrated columnist Jeff Benedict about the issues and complications surrounding athletes and violent crime.

Spend a few moments with chess play-by-play announcers, and you’ll quickly realize that the game is not the stuffy, boring activity that some consider it to be. In fact, the national chess circuit is full of tension and trash-talk. Maybe it’s only a matter of time before HBO airs a “Hard Knocks” chess spinoff. Only A Game’s Rachel Lippmann reports.

When athletes’ names show up more in the crime section of the newspaper than the sports, it’s easy for fans to become fed up. In his commentary, Bill reminds us that the games will endure far longer than the athletes who sometimes betray them.

Journeyman center and political activist Adonal Foyle has decided to retire from the NBA. As a parting gift to basketball fans and lovers of sappy poetry, Foyle wrote a poem describing his passion for the game “that transcends the hackneyed love of mortals.” Charlie Pierce reads selections from “Love Song to a Game” and adds his own comments, as well as recapping the rest of the week’s news with Bill.

Brian Bosworth’s NFL career lasted barely three years, and “the Boz” was an even bigger bust as a film star. But Michael Weinreb, author of Bigger than the Game, theorizes that Bosworth and other athletes in the 80’s changed sports by making the modern athlete focus on their image in front of the cameras as much as their performance on the field. Bill speaks with Weinreb about the new book.