54,005 baseball fans crowded into the RingCentral Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics, on the evening of Oct. 2 to watch the American League wild card game between the A’s and the Tampa Bay Rays. Fans filled every last seat of the dingy, old stadium, which still doubles as the[Read More…]
Baseball
Montreal baseball fans want the Expos back
The Packed House On March 25 and 26, over 47,000 fans packed into the Olympic Stadium to watch the Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers finish up their Spring Training schedules. This series marked the sixth straight season that the Toronto Blue Jays played a set of games in Montreal.[Read More…]
2018-19 ‘Tribune’ end-of-year athletic awards
Team of the year: Martlet Hockey On March 17, the McGill Martlets (14-6), fifth in U Sports’ national rankings, claimed silver at the National Championships after falling 1-0 to the Guelph Gryphons (19-3-3). The loss came after an upset victory over the top ranked Alberta Pandas (23-5) in the semifinals[Read More…]
Bay Area sports usher in new wave of fandom
This season, the Oakland Athletics will change baseball. It isn’t the first time they have done so, and, if all goes according to plan, it certainly won’t be the last. However, unlike Moneyball, their first innovation that spawned a Michael Lewis book and subsequent Brad Pitt movie, this development will[Read More…]
10 things: Ugly uniforms through the years
1960-61 Denver Broncos With this uniform, the Denver Broncos made one thing clear: Sports teams should avoid brown and yellow. However, the Broncos went a step beyond the ugly colour combination by adding stripes on the pants and socks. While the pants were merely lacklustre, the striped socks may have[Read More…]
Changing the game: Competition in pro sports
Fixing the flaw in NFL OT rules Gabe Nisker Some of the NFL’s biggest games come to anticlimactic finishes, with stars like Patrick Mahomes stuck on the sidelines because of the current overtime rules. As it stands, if the team that starts with the ball in overtime scores a touchdown[Read More…]
Behind the bench: Baseball can do better to honour Jackie Robinson
On Jan. 31, Jackie Robinson, immortalized in baseball history as the first black player to play in the MLB in over 60 years, would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Baseball has come a long way since Robinson’s major league debut on April 15, 1947. Though the legendary Dodgers second baseman[Read More…]
Eakin fellow Robert Elias delivers lecture on baseball in hockey’s shadow
On Nov. 29, Robert Elias gave the Fall 2018 Eakin lecture, the summary of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada’s (MISC) Eakin Visiting Fellow’s research, titled “Sports and Canadian Values: Baseball in Hockey’s Shadow” at the McGill Faculty Club. Elias, who was visiting from the University of San[Read More…]
Point-counterpoint: Kyler Murray
Kyler Murray was drafted ninth overall by the Oakland Athletics in the 2018 MLB draft, but after a stellar season as the University of Oklahoma’s starting quarterback culminating in a Heisman Trophy, the 21-year-old has a chance to make it big in the NFL, too. Now, he must choose between[Read More…]
Left shoe, right shoe: Superstition in sport
In 1982, only one game stood between the Cameroonian national soccer team and its first-ever trip to the FIFA World Cup. The night before the big game, Head Coach Jean Vincent decided to visit the team captain in his hotel room. He walked down the hall and knocked on the[Read More…]
