Sports Authority
Outrunning The Virus
Running should be among the safest of pandemic sports. Open trails. Space for social distancing. Virus loads diluted by fresh air. Fit and healthy runners. If two sturdy legs and a decent pair of running shoes don’t guarantee immunity, they help the odds.
But what happens when 800 or 1,000 runners congregate for a Sunday race? Or when 29,000 show up for the Thanksgiving Run to Feed the Hungry? Health officials don’t want to think about that. In mid-March they banned organized races until further notice—a prohibition that wiped out the running calendar and threatens to linger into next year.
Iceland’s Cold Legacy
Summertime in Sacramento and the streets sizzle. After months of coronavirus and social upheaval, my thoughts naturally turn to sports. Specifically, ice skating.
Imagine the joy of heading to Del Paso Boulevard and cooling off with a few spins around the frozen pond at Iceland. But skating is impossible at Iceland. The ice is gone.
Oak Hall Bend is a Destination Bliss
Destination Bliss Cyclists shouldn’t miss this riverside treat By R.E. GraswichJuly 2020 At a certain time each day, the most beautiful place in Sacramento is Oak Hall Bend. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it. What really matters is how you get...
Tennis Players Hit a Break Point
When gyms, playgrounds, pools and parks are closed and everyone told to stay home, exercise opportunities are foreclosed to all but the resourceful.
One activity I managed to continue during lockdowns was tennis. In the first month of shelter-in-place, courts in public parks closed one by one. Many older players dropped out. Our tennis club was the last to bar play, but thankfully, they let family members still share the courts. My adult son had to be convinced to play tennis with his mother.
Adapt Or Else
Adapt or Else Kings, NBA need creative recovery after virus By R.E. Graswich June 2020 In my fourth or fifth year covering the Kings, loss after loss, I thought about ways to make the NBA season more interesting. One obvious trick was to shorten it. I...
Same Name Game
Like many baseball fans, Walt Yost enjoys poking around the cobwebbed cellars of baseball history. He’s a member of the Dusty Baker Sacramento chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, a global fraternity of historians and statisticians united in their devotion to baseball. He loves old baseball stories.
Now he’s told one. His new book, “A Glove and A Prayer,” is a novel that imagines the life of a 1890s baseball vagabond named August Yost. It’s the perfect diversion for baseball fans anchored in the doldrums of sports cancellations caused by coronavirus.
