Advertisement

Listener Comments

03:56
Download Audio
Resume

Two weeks ago I spoke with Tim Crothers, whose new book, The Queen of Katwe, features an exceptional young chess player in Uganda named Phiona Mutesi. Roger Wallace posted a comment under that story wondering if Ms. Mutesi and her family, who've lived in poverty for years, would realize anything from the book. Tim Crothers emailed as follows:

"Phiona is benefiting financially from both the book contract and the movie option, as well as the fact that donations to Sports Outreach Institute, which sponsors her and the other Katwe children, have risen dramatically since the book's release."

My conversation last week with former Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa provoked a Facebook post from Raymond Guy LaFauci. "I listened to the future Hall of Fame manager defend Mark McGwire," he wrote, "and I was floored by his reasoning. Tony mentioned how hard Mark worked in the gym. A 'benefit' of taking steroids is the ability to heal after a workout and the 'rage' of desiring to be in the gym. Future Hall of Fame managers like La Russa and Joe Torre should point to the Selig era wing of the Hall as The Hall of Shame."

Karen Given's story about the competition between various organizations to build from cans of fruit, vegetables, and other comestibles the most spectacular possible creations struck Pete Hooper as thoroughly worthy of a comment. On our Facebook page he wrote: "In my best Charlie Pierce voice…Sports!"

Alicia Quintano had a different response to the creative piles of cans which will go to feed the hungry. "What happened to dominos?" she wrote. "How many tunas had to give their lives for this one gag?"

S. Conti found something to celebrate in that story and wrote, "This sounds like something we could do on a smaller scale for our community. Fun and games and food! A natural combination!"

Pat Jones added, "These are the SPORTS I find most interesting."

Our story about Nike and various other sponsors that had cut their ties to Lance Armstrong inspired passionate Facebook posts. M N Monk wrote, "The part that is most grotesque about this story is the bullying of others who did not dope or help with doping. That bullying often gets glossed over when talking about the cheating. I don’t recall news of some of the other high profile cheaters (Bonds, Jones, etc.) trying to get others to use drugs to this extent. Armstrong seems to have set the rules here: You dope or you get out of his sport."

Let us know what you think. You can leave a comment on the listener line at 617-353-1860. You can also find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

This segment aired on October 27, 2012.

Advertisement

More from Only A Game

Listen Live
Close