Virus will make the timeline for sports, too

April 6, 2020

The unthinkable, at least for sports fans, already has happened. The games, as we know them, are shut down. We’ll never know if San Diego State was a Final Four contender or if Tiger Woods would have defended his green jacket at the Masters. There was no opening day in baseball. The odds are increasingly good there will be no Stanley Cup Final or NBA champion in the year 2020. And now it’s time to consider the unimaginable, at least when it comes to fun and games as we once knew them. That means no college football this fall. No Super Bowl next February. No sports at all as ...

Spring brings memories of baseball

April 3, 2020

Living without spring sports gives everyone a chance to reflect on some of their memories of years past. Staring out the window into the sun and an empty baseball field while visiting my father in Tyrone a couple weeks ago, I started to think about one of the most memorable high school baseball games I ever covered. Ten years ago, Central hosted Tyrone in a game no one thought the Golden Eagles would win in the first round of the District 6 playoffs. Tyrone left most of the fans in attendance, including its own, in shock when it took an 11-3 lead into the seventh and final inning. ...

Time at home now vital to PSU’s future

March 29, 2020

Penn State has a chance to enjoy a great football season this fall — if there actually is football — but a lot of what happens months from now on the field will depend on what the players do at home over the coming weeks and months. There’s no spring practice, no Blue-White Game, no on-campus workouts with teammates and training staff pushing each guy to the max. There won’t be any organized team activities until at least mid-summer, all because of the coronavirus. Football, right now, is an individual sport. The individuals who maximize their work and focus during this ...

A ‘Classic’ case of ‘what if?’

March 28, 2020

Readers of our newspaper should be pulling out their sports pages to read about last night’s Altoona Mirror Basketball Classic. It could have been one of the most memorable yet, with at least seven future NCAA Division I girls players set to lace up their shoes and one of the strongest Blair County boys teams since the Mirror Classic began in 2006, extending the Big John Riley Game, which started in 1984. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The Mirror Classic was officially canceled on March 13 after Penn State Altoona, the scheduled host of the game, closed its facilities. A ...

Giger: Sports may not return to normal for rest of year

March 22, 2020

This. Stinks. What we’re going through in this country because of the coronavirus is terrible, for tens of millions of people. And things still are expected to get worse before they get better. We're all looking for good news. For slivers of hope. For reasons to think that maybe some of this is overblown and we can get back to our normal lives sometime soon. But if you follow the medical people — not politicians, not blowhard talking heads on TV, not your know-it-all neighbor, but actual people who study medicine and science and probabilities — there is a sobering reality out ...

Pearl Washington’s shot changed my life, and I have no idea why

March 19, 2020

Today would have been the start of the magical two-day extravaganza of the first round of NCAA Tournament, the greatest sports event in our country. I love, love, love the tournament. Always have. But we won’t get to see it this year because the coronavirus has forced a nationwide shutdown of sports. So, I’m taking this opportunity to write about college basketball in any way possible, and will do so by kicking off the Mirror’s new series for sports fans called “Picking favorites.” I hope you enjoy it and also take part by sharing your stories. n n n We like what we like. ...