Sometimes there is no choice but to cover up for a vile person in sports because they do something that cannot be ignored. Trevor Bauer is not that, but that Didn’t stop Bob Nightengale from auditioning to get on his payrollnext to Rachel Luba, whatever she does, other than being the occasional megaphone.
Nightingale was only too happy to try to gloss over what got Bauer kicked out of Major League Baseball and to argue for Bauer’s completely meaningless removal against the minor league Dodgers. Nightingale was apparently eager to also point out that there were fans cheering for Bauer and no one was booing, forgetting that you can find 100 loons to support any cause. Hell, you can find 70 million to do it, as we all learned in our last election. Just because there’s no one to boo doesn’t mean the baseball world has forgiven Bauer. It was that we were all pretty sure we had successfully banished him to the land of baseball’s winds and ghosts and that he would stay there. Besides, who can really bother to go watch a backfield game involving no MLB players, other than the kind of sickos who want to broadcast to the world that sexual assault is not a disqualifying factor?
Nightengale could have left him alone, as everyone else seems to have done, but perhaps he can’t help but pick scabs (Bauer being particularly full of cat). It only mentions that Bauer was suspended for violating MLB rules regarding domestic violence and sexual assault, without mentioning the horrible things Bauer was accused of by several women, which was at least credible enough for MLB to kick him out of the league.
It wasn’t as important to Nightengale as what Bauer hit with the radar gun or that some minor leaguers couldn’t touch him, as if there was any doubt about Bauer’s talent or if it was of a comeback story following an injury or age. It’s yet another infuriating example of how sports problems, like many others, are supposed to have two sides. It started with the plague where Skip Bayless screams about something like a regular tornado siren test, but slips into this much darker realm. Just because Bauer was suspended and would like to play in MLB again doesn’t mean someone has to make his case or that he has the right to do so.
Bauer lost the privilege of being an MLB player and everyone is happier that way. There is no redemption arc here. And Nightengale doesn’t need to fashion one just because he feels like it. Let Bauer occupy the nowhere world he won and we’ll all move on. But then again, Nightengale has always sort of existed in his own world of nowhere idiocy. Maybe that’s why he’s drawn to Bauer in the first place.
The USWNT rebounds
The USWNT found its stride to win the W Gold Cup, at least sort of. After having to fight their way through the semi-finals against Canada in a form of alien tug-of-war, they had the opportunity to play a real football match on Sunday in the final against Brazil, which they won 1-0.
Did they play fluid, artistic football? Well, no, not really, but as we said in their loss to Mexico, most of the team is still in the NWSL preseason and very lacking in focus. It’s no surprise that the best-looking players are Lindsey Horan or Korbin Albert, who are in the middle of their European season.
That’s not to say there haven’t been some positives. The USWNT featured a 4-4-2 diamond formation in the final, something they hadn’t really shown before. Sam Coffey and Albert were destroying balls in midfield, providing the kind of bite at the base that the team hadn’t really had in a long time. In fact, Coffey’s instincts and courage led to the only goal of the match:
Although Brazil probably had the best moves together, they failed to get a shot on target in the first half thanks to the iron curtain of Naomi Girma and Tierna Davidson. The U.S. looked sharp on the counter after causing turnovers in midfield, which is most likely how they will continue to play even when Emma Hayes shows up this summer.
The victory doesn’t completely erase the defeat against Mexico, but it mostly erases it, and if there is an advantage, it is that the team will know that it can be vulnerable against any opponent and that she can’t take too many nights off. There was a lot of experimentation on both personnel and tactics, likely to give Hayes plenty of video to go through as well as to balance the different fitness levels of the team members. We have seen three and four back systems with wingers and without wingers. Hayes will definitely have samples on the system she wants to use.
Coffey has grown in the tournament after an unforgettable performance against Mexico, and she remains the best option at the base of midfield, both against the ball, to resist pressure with it and to launch direct attacks . Albert also announced his presence. Overall, pretty useful.
