Free Republic

Standing on a portable stage erected at home plate of the Milwaukee Brewers ballpark, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers recently praised the professional baseball team as an “essential part” of the state's “culture and identity” and “economic success.” With fanfare, Evers then signed off on $500 million in public aid for the stadium's renovation, adding to a remarkable run of such blockbuster deals. This year alone, about a dozen Major League Baseball and National Football League franchises took steps toward new or improved stadiums. A new wave of sports facility construction is underway. One driven, in part, by a race to...

Former Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas weighed in regarding the death of 18-year-old Mike Brown, which precipitated riots in Ferguson, Missouri. Noting Al Sharpton seeking to involve himself in the proceedings, Arenas took to Instagram to launch an attack on Sharpton, using racially insulting language and asserting that "the racism fight has never been #blackvswhite, it's always been #blackvsblack."

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Former Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas blasted civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton in a race-laced rant, claiming he made the incendiary Ferguson, Mo., situation even worse. Writing in a lengthy Instagram caption, Arenas attacked Sharpton’s reaction to the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb and the riots that are ongoing in the wake of the incident. Arenas’ rant pleaded with Brown’s family to leave Sharpton out of their planned protest, saying that “caesar the monkey” or a “Planet of the Apes” character could get the family better justice.

How gun prohibitionists and an image-conscious NBA scapegoated a basketball star On December 19, 2009, NBA star Gilbert Arenas and fellow Washington Wizards player Javaris Crittenton got into a heated argument over a card game, exchanging violent threats. (Arenas maintains that his were made in jest.) After Crittenton challenged him to a fistfight, Arenas told his younger teammate he was too old to fight him, but he’d burn his SUV or shoot him in the face instead. Crittenton answered that he’d shoot Arenas in his surgically repaired left knee. Two days later, before practice at Washington, D.C.’s Verizon Center, Arenas...

Some people ask why a man who stands 6-foot-4, weighs 215 pounds and doesn't have an ounce of fat on him needs to carry a gun. But Gilbert Arenas is not an anonymous physical specimen. He's a player for the NBA's Washington Wizards. And statistics show that the point guard's fame and recognition make him much more likely than the average man on the street to become the victim of a violent crime. Arenas, who has no previous criminal record, was indefinitely suspended without pay Wednesday by NBA Commissioner David Stern for bringing unloaded guns into his team's locker room....

The NBA and Washington Wizards are investigating Gilbert Arenas for storing firearms in his locker, which would be a violation of the league's gun policy. After CBSSports.com first reported the incident Thursday, the Wizards released a statement saying that Arenas stored unloaded firearms in a locked container in his locker. The guns were not accompanied by ammunition, the team said. But under league guidelines collectively bargained between the players and owners, players are not permitted to carry firearms on league property or during league business. Arenas, who was previously suspended one game in 2004-05 for violating the NBA's weapons policy,...

CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- School officials were investigating a brawl among 20- 50 people at a Otay Ranch High School soccer match on Friday that sent one youth to hospital and a coach to jail, it was reported Sunday. A San Ysidro High School coach is accused of choking an Otay Ranch player, and later punching a teenager who tried to break up a fight, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. "There were people everywhere, pushing each other, and fighting and stuff," Anthony Rodriguez, co-captain of the Otay Ranch team, told the newspaper. "I'm sure some people had bumps and bruises...

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas and forward Awvee Storey have been arrested on charges of disobeying police. Storey was blocking traffic in the middle of a busy street when an officer told him to get back to the sidewalk Saturday night, according to police reports. Storey didn't get out of the street, and the officer arrested him and charged him with failure to obey a command. While police were arresting Storey, Arenas got out of a vehicle and walked toward the arresting officers. According to reports, an officer told Arenas to get back in his vehicle, but he refused, saying...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The State of California may be going into the business of building and operating stadiums, arenas, theaters, concert halls and other public performance facilities A bill quietly moving through the Legislature would create a nine-member California Public Performance Facilities Authority that would have the power to buy, build and operate facilities for sports, concerts, plays, conventions and other events. The measure, by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, passed the Senate earlier this month and it's scheduled to be considered Tuesday by the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee. Murray says the authority would fill...

If you love cities, this is a week to rejoice. Now that the stadium planned for New York's West Side is dead, no one can fantasize anymore about the Olympics coming to New York. If the city had gotten the 2012 Games, its leaders would have basked for seven years in Olympic photo opportunities, and mayors across America would have watched enviously. They would have succumbed further to what I think of as the Circus Maximus syndrome. The victims of this urban-planning syndrome believe, like some Roman emperors, that a leader's prime civic responsibility is to build entertainment palaces for...

<p>Only 12 years ago, Memphis, Tenn., opened a $69 million arena, the Pyramid, that was supposed to satisfy generations of sports fans and invigorate the downtown district.</p> <p>Developers said it would attract a music hall of fame, a Hard Rock Cafe and a steady supply of visitors who would ride to the top of the arena, 321 feet above the banks of the Mississippi. The building would provide 19,000 seats for basketball and even more for stage shows. City boosters called the Pyramid "the ninth wonder of the world."</p>