Free Republic

God's man on the diamond? The sports fan in me says there’s no way. Tim Tebow hasn’t played baseball since high school, and that was 11 years ago. The guy is a very impressive physical/athletic specimen, but the skill and timing required to hit a ball coming at you at 97 miles per hour is not something you can just put aside for more than a decade and then pick up again because you’re big and strong. That’s what the sports fan in me says. I very much appreciate Tebow’s commitment to his faith and his willingness to speak of...

Lilly King put her money where her mouth is on Monday night, romping to victory in the 100m breaststroke final after she called her closest Russian rival a drugs cheat - and took another shot at her minutes after securing gold. Yulia Efimova, who was caught in a doping scandal, was booed when her name was announced in the women's 100m breaststroke final. King started strongly and maintained the lead — with Efimova trailing right behind her. 'We can still compete clean and do well in the Olympic games — and that's how it should be,' said King after finishing...

American swimmer Lilly King had some choice words, as well as a finger wag, Sunday night for Russian counterpart Yulia Efimova, who was twice banned for doping but was surprisingly reinstated for the Rio Olympics Saturday. Efimova, the reigning world champion in the 100 meter breaststroke, has a long history with using substances to get a leg-up on her competition. She was suspended for 16 months in 2013 when anabolic substances were found in her system, and received a provisional ban (which was later lifted) earlier this year for using meldonium. in their rulings on Russia's state-sponsored doping scandal, The...

I started the 2016 Pick’em fantasy football team. FREEPER_PICKEM_FOOTBALL Group 476 Been going on for about a dozen years. The Pick’em league is simple - just tell us each week who will win, and assign a point value to the win. FReepmail me if you want to join, and I'll send you the password.

The United States women's national team took a big step towards getting into the gold medal match at Rio 2016 on Saturday. Not only was their 1-0 win over France — the No. 3 team in the world — a big statement to the rest of the field's contenders, but it should get them a top seed for the knockout stage as well. In the first half, the Americans had trouble getting a hold of the game, with France looking like the more likely team to score. Hope Solo came up huge repeatedly, making three big saves. She tipped a...

RICHMOND, Va. — ESPN’s show First Take, with co-hosts Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman, visited Redskins Training Camp in Richmond Thursday to film on site. Kellerman was asked by the media on hand about the team this year, the NFC East, and the often-discussed controversial nickname. Kellerman said that not only did he think the name should change, but that it would happen under the current regime. “Yes, it will change and Dan Snyder will change it,” Kellerman declared. “And I’m looking forward to that day, because I’m very disappointed in him right now.” Snyder has repeatedly said...

Liberalism gave us women's sports. Now liberalism is taking them away With reports of dead bodies and excrement floating in the water, the threat of Zika and the Russian doping scandal, the Rio Olympics appears the Frankenstein of athletic events. And now Rio seems dopey in another way: owing to political correctness, a runner with, reportedly, no womb or ovaries but internal testes will be allowed to compete with women. This person is South African middle-distance competitor Caster Semenya. I wrote of Semenya in 2009, back when Semenya (I’m not satisfied that Semenya is female, so henceforth I’ll refer to...

The headlines about the opening ceremony for the 2016 Summer Olympics shout out that for the first time a transgender woman will be featured in the event. But in an article posted on the Telesur website, the push for genderless games does not mean transgender men and transgender women will be treated equally. The last paragraph of the article reveals that male to female athletes will be tested, but female to male persons will not. …

Olympic organisers invoked the spirit of cult 1980s television show MacGyver to describe their attempts to make Rio’s bargain-bucket opening ceremony live up to the memory of its predecessors. “Athens was classic, Beijing was grandiose, London was smart - ours is going to be cool,” said Andrucha Waddington, the Brazilian film director who is part of the team behind Friday’s ceremony in Rio’s Maracana stadium. The ceremony is a joint creative effort, headed by Italian executive producer Marco Balich, a veteran of 17 such bookends of major sporting events, and creative director Fernando Meirelles, the Brazilian whose films include City...

The summer of soccer isn't over yet. After the Copa America and Euro 2016 on the men's side, the Summer Olympics arrive with the men's and women's soccer tournament. Play begins on Aug. 3 for the women and ends with the gold medal game on Aug. 19. Here are the groups, schedule, TV listings and more for the women's tournament, which features the USWNT.

2016 Nevada State Airgun Field Target - Grand Prix Match Report

The United States is sending 292 women to the Summer Olympics— the most women who have ever competed at an Olympics for a single country.

In a column In the Tampa Bay Times, a writer makes the claim that a law to protect the Second Amendment diminishes the First Amendment.  It is a stretch.  The statute, passed by the Florida legislature in 2011, makes it illegal for local governments to pass regulations and ordinances dealing with guns, gun possession, anything to  do with guns. The law was passed because politicians in large urban centers persistently ignored the previous preemption law.  Local ordinances and regulations created a patchwork of firearms law to entrap any Floridians who exercised their Second Amendment rights. The columnist referred to...

Last summer, the whole nation cheered for the USWNT as they won the Women’s World Cup in Canada. This summer, the team looks to make history in Brazil by being the first women’s team to follow up a World Cup victory with an Olympic Gold Medal. The USWNT have brought home gold at the last three Olympics (2004, 2008, 2012) but they’re not a lock to repeat. Here’s what you can expect from the team in the upcoming weeks.

I started the 2016 Pick’em fantasy football team. FREEPER_PICKEM_FOOTBALL Group 476 Been going on for about a dozen years. The Pick’em league is simple - just tell us each week who will win, and assign a point value to the win. Ping me if you want to join.Our team number is 1447.

When Detroit's semipro soccer team needed a bigger stadium to accommodate its growing fan base, it did something unusual. Instead of seeking tax breaks or subsidies to support its ambitions, it turned to private supporters, mostly fans. It did so with the help of the Michigan Invests Locally Exemption or MILE Act. Detroit City FC raised $741,250 from 527 investors to refurbish Hamtramck’s Keyworth Stadium. The team’s first game at its new home, on May 13, was a sellout with 7,410 tickets sold. That was more than double the 3,500 tickets it was limited to selling when the team played...

Image from fox17online.com On Friday evening, June 24th, the local ball club, the Battle Creek Bombers of Battle Creek, Michigan, hosted a Second Amendment Education night.  Because of the way Michigan laws have been crafted, open carry was required, if participants were going to carry at the event.  The event gathered enough publicity that the AP picked up the story, making it national. From the washingtonpost.com (AP): “2nd Amendment Education Night” was held Friday at C.O. Brown Stadium as the Battle Creek Bombers hosted the Rochester (Minnesota) Honkers.  Bombers general manager Tony Iovieno tells WOOD-TV there were no security problems...

...“So who better to give us their opinions on how the match will go on Sunday than the Portuguese and French journalists from the euronews sports team Olà Bruno, Bonjour Vincent: Bruno who is going to win in the Stade de France?”

Who knows how liberals come up with wonderful ideas like Multiculturalism and Identity Politics I recently read about how early-arriving Olympic contestants in Brazil are complaining about the condition of the waters they train by and in—oil slicks, the odd body part, mosquitoes, “superbugs” and such—picky, picky, picky. It struck me how opposed to the spirit of multiculturalism such provincial and benighted attitudes are—how xenophobic, how paternalistic, how…white. Which led me to think about Kanye West’s recent request that Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and other “white” publications stop commenting on black music. Right on Kanye!

The winner of Thursday’s meeting between the world champions and the hosts will enter the final as favourites. The two highest rated sides at the tournament – France on 7.17 and Germany on 7.15 – will be treating this game as if it were the final itself. Joachim Löw’s side are hoping to emulate France’s achievement of holding both the World Cup and European Championship trophy at the same time. France have not been truly tested yet but neither have they breezed through a highly favourable draw. While their first-half annihilation of Iceland in the quarter-finals promised much, it was...