Live audio has always been the final frontier of sports broadcasting. Lip reading is the best we could hope for. And here it was; the Joey Votto conversation was akin to hearing The Jazz Singer in 1927.

The excitement for this World Cup and the 2026 World Cup— which Canada is to co-host with the U.S. and Mexico— is making some people see dollar signs. Specifically, the politicians in the Canadian cities interested in hosting a sliver of the WC 2026 are seeing the huge price tags for two weeks of excitement.

There are truisms. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never play cards with a guy whose name is the same as a president. And don’t try to fake goaltending in hockey.

Many saw last week’s controversial performance by transgendered University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas as simply a swimming contest. In reality it was yet another political show trial for progressive corporate, media and political overlords who now want to add sports to their quiver. There are lessons to be learned. Just not the ones you think.

Imagine there are two banks across the street from each other. One bank left the door to its vault open. The other— with twice much money inside— had a sophisticated lock on its vault. But bank robbers only wanted to rob the bank with the larger payday, not the easier target. Ladies and gentlemen: The Shift in MLB.

In our new book Inexact Science, my son Evan and I recall how the Detroit Red Wings, under chief scout Neil Smith, cracked the bias against Soviet (Russian) players in the historic 1989 draft as they poached a Hall of Fame defence man from Sweden and two Russian stars— Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov, in the middle rounds of that draft. And how it could have been much greater with a third Russian who got away.

Getting Phil Mickelson to front your dream league was like having Tiger Woods give driving lessons. No player in his right mind will now go near his pipe dream for a long time. The only upside is that the Tour has been nudged into giving larger purses to the stars of the sport. But that’s better than what’s happening to Roman Abramovich at Chelsea.

One might think that, in times fraught with Covid-19, civil unrest and schism politics, the people entrusted with diverting the population for a while might put aside their differences to supply a little entertainment. If you think this you have not met the people in Major League Baseball.

We should just be seeing the raw footage of the events, like CPAC, without the gloss or the hype being adorned on the Communists PR coup. And when the last Canadian has competed? Fold the tent and go home without a farewell parade of nations. Leave this rotten corpse to stink in Xi’s back yard.

I remember Sam came back in the room and said ‘If I make this deal, could it be another Beliveau and Geoffrion for ten years?’ But nobody would stand up and say yes. So he didn’t make the deal— because that’s how Sam worked. If there were five people in the room, he would never do anything until he talked all five people into doing what he wanted to do.”

This current reductio ad absurdum is corrupt. Why should writers create news and impose their bias on the vote? If MLB wants a body to adjudicate these choices it needs to find non-journalists who can reflect MLB’s wishes. The NHL does this. Although the process overflows with bias and pandering the blame at least falls win the NHL, not the people in the fourth estate who need to be seen as neutral.

Many young women athletes see themselves representing the hopes of many when they compete. They often put themselves after a range of family, friends, sponsors and media trolls. Witness Andreescu’s comment that “I felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders.” This burden is real, and is often why these women often have an existential crisis when they reach the top. Having satisfied everyone around them they find their own experience hollow.

The bright side of this Kafkaesque farce is that Omicron is fading like old Xmas decorations. Many are predicting that it is peaking now and will be a spent force by February. The tinpot tyrants in Australia, having booted Djokovic, will need something else to reinforce their desperate grasp on power. Ditto here in North America. Unless a follow-up variant can be swiftly produced (remember that subsequent viruses are always weaker) Skippy and Biden will be left to explain their enforced vaccines and virus solutions to a public disinterested in their ongoing need for power.

As is their wont the Saudis are paying so much in appearance fees that a large number of top Tour pros is headed there. Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson are among the players to have committed to playing in what organizers hope will be a World Golf Tour. Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner and Eamon Lynch likened the players to those who took money to appear in Sun City in the 1970s. Kashoggi’s publisher The Washington Post got straight the point. “There’s no disguising the fact that it’s blood money.”

A cynic might say watching the back of a trainer’s neck instead of the game is symbolic of a hockey season tortured by the insanity of Covid constrictions. On a nightly basis we see half a roster playing three-quarters of a roster. In many cases the players not allowed to play are asymptomatic and no threat to others. But, whatever.

You have to concede this about 2021: At least it was consistent. The year started out miserable and soul destroying and continued that way till the final days of this misbegotten year. It’s a wonder any sports were played at all. From draconian lockdowns over Covid-19 to draconian lockdowns over the Omicron variant, we never knew who was playing, where they were playing and whether anyone would be there to see them play.

Steve Yzerman: “At the end of the day, I think — and now I'm getting political — but at the end of the day our players are testing positive with very little symptoms, if any symptoms at all. I don’t see it as a threat to their health at this point. I think you might take it a step further and question why are we even testing, for guys that have no symptoms."

There will likely be endless protestations and appeals of the Abu Dhabi decision. Was it fair? We can’t say. What is true, however is that F1’s use of live driver audio during the race gave viewers a unique insight into the tension and exultation of the participants. This candid commentary is one of the selling points of F1. Why don’t tother sports follow them?

Why are the tall foreheads of MLB shutting down the sport to save a system that has worked so well for the Tampa Bay Rays? There is a ready template to compete and prosper in smaller markets. Why is this news to other owners? Likely it’s easier to lock out players than do the heavy lifting of the Rays. With no threat of losing a franchise via relegation (as in soccer) or being cut off from the MLB gravy train why bother?

Health® experts forgot the principle economist Thomas Sowell famously observed. “There are no solutions; there are only tradeoffs.” Using an absolutist approach politicians and their embedded media concentrated all their costly efforts on a vaccine. The collateral damage from their single-minded pursuit of vaccines doomed untold millions of lives to addiction, suicide, delayed surgery and neglect.