Amy Bass

I want to talk about the World Series, but not the catastrophic fifth inning that brought the Dodgers a championship in Game 5. No, I want to talk about Tuesday night’s game 4, and to do so, I am going to take off my Red Sox hat for a moment -- although I’m going to keep it nearby, just in case I need it.

Summer, I’m afraid, is officially over. Sigh. This summer felt exceptionally, well, summery — spent time at the beach, read a lot of really good books, grilled some good food, and watched a lot of sports.

It always is amazing to me how quickly the magic of an Olympic Games takes over my life. As someone who studies and writes about sport, the Olympics are a busman’s holiday of sorts for me — I’ve been on the ground at eight Games, written countless editorials, features, and even a book about the mega event, and always take a critical eye on everything from the organizing committee to the international sports federations, the IOC to the media coverage.

The Olympics are coming -- just in time for Americans to take a big breath, settle on the couch, and root for the home team. In the midst of more political chaos than my brain can handle, the Paris Olympics might be exactly what we need right now. Lafayette, to rephrase Colonel Charles Stanton’s famous words in 1917 when Paris celebrated American Independence Day, we are coming.

It would appear that we are going to have to say this once more for the people in the back: women’s basketball is a thing. And if it isn’t your thing, then hush.

On Sunday, Caitlin Clark became the leading scorer in NCAA Division I basketball, passing Pistol Pete Maravich’s longstanding mark in Iowa’s 93-83 win over Ohio State.

Redemption is a key element of sport. That moment of “play again?” keeps us -- players and spectators alike -- engaged, wondering if the result will be different the next time and then the time after that.

On December 3, Green Bay handily took care of Kansas City, 27-19, on a typically blustery day on the gridiron at Lambeau Field. But the battle between the Packers and the Chiefs paled in comparison to the competing headlines regarding the women on the sidelines: Taylor’s boyfriend versus Simone’s husband, and the fact that none of that felt misogynistic or demeaning pretty much summarizes this past year in sport.

“It feels like a fairy tale,” a friend said to me, mere seconds after the Lewiston High School boys’ soccer team clinched Maine’s Class A North championship title and secured a spot in Saturday’s state championship final. Indeed, the 1-0 win, with the lone goal coming from a brilliantly timed cross that Caden Boone got an aggressive head on, did not just feel like one more step in the city’s healing journey. It felt like a celebration.

It was a heck of a weekend in sports. Most of my attention focused on Simone Biles landing the Yurchenko Double Pike, now called the Biles II, on the vault in Antwerp and the sheer dominance of the American women as they got started at the world championships. For those of you who like to count things, that’s the fifth element named for Biles: one on beam, two on floor, and now a second on vault.