Today, we’re talking sports. In May, the Baltimore Orioles had the best record in baseball. In June, they broke a record by allowing 5 or more runs in 16 consecutive games. They lost last night in Milwaukee. They will send only one player to the All Star game next week, second baseman Jonathan Schoop.
As concerns grow about the catastrophic and often fatal consequences of concussive brain injuries in professional football players, some prominent voices are calling for an end to tackling in youth leagues, until players are at least 14.
And on the basketball front, more than half of the players in the first round of the NBA draft were college players who played only one year. That’s more Freshman than ever before who went pro. We’ll talk about possible changes to NBA policy affecting what age young players will need to be in order to qualify for the league.
Dr. Terry Anne Scott, an assistant professor of history at Hood College, is in the studio. She’s currently working on a book about basketball legend Lenny Wilkens, among other projects.
Milton Kent joins us as well. He’s the host of Sports at Large here on WYPR; he also serves on the faculty of the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University.
And our longtime sports guru Mark Hyman is here too. He’s on the faculty of George Washington University in their Sports Management program, and the author of a bunch of books, including Concussions and Our Kids: America’s Leading Expert on How to Protect Young Athletes and Keep Sports Safe, which he co-authored with Dr. Robert Cantu.
