“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
James Baldwin wrote those words in Time magazine in 1965. They still ring true in 2020.
Before the resumption of play in late July, Masai Ujiri said the Toronto Raptors would channel that rage and use the NBA bubble as a platform. For the last month he, his organization and the entire league have made good on that promise, using daily media coverage to eloquently educate on issues far greater than basketball schemes. Players and coaches alike have protested during national anthems, worn their convictions on their clothing, and used entire media availabilities to speak on pressing issues.
But what if all of that fell on deaf ears? What if it wasn’t enough to spark meaningful action in defence of Black lives?
On Sunday, police in Kenosha, Wisc., a city 40 miles from Milwaukee, responded to an alleged domestic disturbance. A man named Jacob Blake was present at the scene. According to Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing Blake’s family, the 29-year-old was there to break up an altercation between two women.
What happened next was captured in a graphic video filmed from the other side of the street. The video shows Blake walking toward the driver’s side door of a gray SUV. Two officers follow him with their guns drawn. As he opens the door, one officer grabs his tank top and multiple gunshots ring out. Blake collapses. It would later be reported that he was shot seven times from behind by officer Rusten Sheskey, and that Blake’s three children were inside the SUV at the time of the shooting.
Blake suffered organ damage and is now paralyzed from the waist down, according to Crump, his spinal cord severed as a result of the shooting.
On Wednesday, in response to this most recent tragedy, the Milwaukee Bucks declined to take the court for their game against the Orlando Magic as a form of protest. Their decision came exactly four years to the day after Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem for the first time to protest police brutality while playing a pre-season game in the state of Wisconsin. In the locker room, the Bucks reportedly called Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, and attorney general, Josh Kaul.
When the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers all decided to join the Bucks and Magic in protest, the NBA postponed all three playoff games scheduled for Wednesday.
Athletes and teams from other sports quickly followed suit.
Washington Mystics players entered the arena in Bradenton, Fla., wearing shirts that spelled out Blake’s name, each with seven holes in the back signifying the bullets that hit Blake. The Mystics were scheduled to face the Atlanta Dream and both teams met on the court to decide whether to play. They originally planned to go ahead with the game and place the ball on the court every time the clock hit seven minutes, again to signify the seven shots that hit Blake, but three minutes before tipoff a consensus not to play was reached. Players knelt, locked arms and raised fists during the national anthem. All three games on the WNBA schedule were postponed.
It’s no surprise WNBA players would make a strong statement. They have been speaking with a unified voice on these issues since the inception of the league. It’s also worth noting that, if these games aren’t made up, the loss of income is a much riskier sacrifice for WNBA players than their male athlete counterparts.
In MLB, it was the game’s top Black players leading the way. Mookie Betts decided not to play, and the rest of his Dodgers teammates followed suit. Jason Heyward, Dexter Fowler and Jack Flaherty were other big names who decided not to play Wednesday. In all, three MLB games were postponed (they will be played as doubleheaders Thursday).
Five of six MLS matches were postponed after Atlanta United didn’t come out for the kickoff of their match against Inter Miami. And individual athletes also joined the protest, like Naomi Osaka, who decided to skip her Thursday semi-final match at the Western and Southern Open. The tournament itself is now taking a one-day pause.
In total, 14 games across four leagues were postponed Wednesday.
And then there is the NHL.
The NHL had three games scheduled. All three were played. Only in one was there an acknowledgment of what was going on in the wider world. Before the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lighting faced off, they had a “moment of reflection” with “End Racism” and “We Skate for Black Lives” displayed on screens above the ice. Given that every other major sports league has once again taken more progressive and proactive action on these issues than the NHL, a more appropriate gesture might have been to stop skating for Black lives.
At a meeting of all the players in the bubble Wednesday night, the Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers reportedly voted to sit out the rest of the season. Just before noon on Thursday, it was reported that player’s had decided to resume the playoffs, with games likely beginning again on Friday. A meeting between players and owners is also expected Thursday.
There is a meeting of NBA owners and players set for later today, sources tell @MarcJSpears and me. The discussion is expected to include plans of action moving forward on social justice issues.
Regardless of the steps they took moving forward, players were going to draw criticism, and the fact athletes have ended up in this position at all is unfair. Watching Fred VanVleet, Norman Powell, George Hill and Doc Rivers bare their souls is as educational as it is heart-wrenching. And it is their primary job to entertain us not to educate us.
Making the position even more difficult is the impossible task of dealing with your trauma while still performing your job at the highest level. After kneeling for the anthem, Mets first-baseman Dominic Smith broke down explaining the gravity of the moment.
Incredibly raw, powerful, emotional reaction from Dominic Smith after tonight’s Mets game. If you have a heart, this is a must-watch interview. pic.twitter.com/mK7eBWvbBj
On Monday, Bucks guard George Hill expressed how restarting the NBA season might have been a mistake because it took the focus away from pursuing meaningful reforms to address systemic racism and police brutality.
“First of all, we shouldn’t even have come to this damn place to be honest,” he told reporters. “Coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are. But we’re here. It is what it is. We can’t do anything from right here. But definitely when it’s all settled, some things need to be done. This world has to change.”
The players had to advance the conversation somehow. At some point anthem protests became less of a statement. Kneeling before a game was a nice gesture but not exactly a bold statement when everyone including the referees are doing it. Unless you’re in the NHL, where the practice hasn’t been embraced. And the strike did seem to generate some traction, even in the immediate aftermath. Late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Blake.
We can tweet and talk and march but the question we all ultimately have to answer is what are you willing to give up so that someone else doesn’t have to give up their life, their child, their partner, their parent or their freedom?
Martin Luther King Jr. gave up his life.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave up their medals.
Colin Kaepernick gave up his career.
The Bucks and their NBA brethren have given up playoff games.
Many have sacrificed, but one notable exception is those who have the most to spare: The owners, the executives of companies who partner with leagues and, quite frankly, those like us at Sportsnet who broadcast the games.
The NBA’s owners launched the NBA Foundation in partnership with the NBAPA, which will see them contribute a collective $30 million annually for 10 years to support racial equality and social justice. It’s not an insignificant gesture but it’s also a rounding error for billionaires who own Fortune 500 companies. And for change to be enacted, we need more than their fiscal capital, we need their political capital.
At some point, if you benefit from Black talent but don’t work to eliminate Black trauma, you are part of the problem. If NBA stakeholders want players to stop using their power and refusing to play, they need to use some power of their own to create change.
And it’s not like the type of pressure the players are asking the league to apply is foreign or unreasonable. The NBA has used its might before as leverage to promote social change. The league refused to host the All-Star Game in North Carolina for two years in protest of the discriminatory HB2 “Bathroom Bill,” which singled out members of the transgender community and limited LGBTQ+ protections. The NBA didn’t respond with phrases on jerseys or writing on the court, they said, “We are taking the All-Star Game away from Charlotte unless your repeal this bill.” And they didn’t bring that positive economic impact back to Charlotte until they were satisfied. When the NCAA threatened to join the boycott, state lawmakers repealed the bathroom regulations within the bill.
Imagine if leagues and owners put a similar type of pressure on the state of Wisconsin on behalf of Jacob Blake, or the state of Kentucky on behalf of Breonna Taylor. That’s the type of tangible action a strike can force. Black athletes have realized their talents aren’t just for owners to profit off of, they’ve realized those talents have political power. By withholding their services, they not only gained leverage and a seat at the table, they showed the blueprint of the power of a Black labour movement.
This isn’t just about Jacob Blake being shot in the back in front of his kids, or Masai Ujiri not being able to celebrate in peace, or Breonna Taylor’s killers still being free, or George Floyd pleading for his life with a knee on his neck, or Dafonte Miller losing his eye. It’s about the systems that perpetuate a cycle of Black incarceration, voter suppression, racial wealth inequality, lack of access to education and health care, and state violence against Black people. This is about the fact that these deadly interactions with police will keep happening if we keep having the same reaction to them.
The players decided they had to use their status to disrupt the status quo.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” NBA players have put owners, leagues and their fellow athletes in other sports on notice. In removing themselves from the on-court conversation, they will see who speaks up and who stays silent. If Black lives matter, it’s time for those well-connected friends in high places to speak up and act to make some change for all of us.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
