COVID-19 expert Dr. Anthony Fauci tossed out the opening pitch when the defending World Series champion Washington Nationals played the star-powered New York Yankees on Thursday night. The Yankees beat the Nationals 4-1. Superstar outfielder Mookie Betts, in his Los Angeles debut, joined the Dodgers on opening day to clobber the San Francisco Giants 8-1. The new 60-game season starts after months of wrangling between players and owners to agree on terms for the 2020 Major League Baseball season.

Despite years of saying he would never change the team’s name, increasing corporate pressure finally pushed majority owner Daniel Snyder to seek a new moniker for Washington, D.C.’s NFL franchise. The team announced on Monday it is dropping the 87-year-old name “Redskins” and the Indian head logo, which many saw as a slur against Native Americans.

In 1970, the Harlem Globetrotters were at the peak of their popularity. Between the unit led by Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal and the unit led by Geese Ausbie and Marques Haynes, the roundball wizards played to stadiums full of ecstatic fans, spreading laughter and goodwill as only they could.

Perhaps the most striking proof of their stature as entertainers was Harlem Globetrotters, a CBS Saturday-morning cartoon in which animated versions of the players defeated hapless opponents while solving mysteries and crimes à la Scooby-Doo.

A policy in Connecticut allowing males who identify as females compete in girls high school sports violates the civil rights of girl athletes, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The current rules “denied female student-athletes athletic benefits and opportunities,” the department’s Office of Civil Rights noted in a 45-page letter dated May 15.

Major League Baseball has a plan for players, but not fans, to return to ballparks in early July. The strategy calls for an 82-game season with teams playing their divisional rivals and other nearby teams to minimize travel during the coronavirus pandemic. The change will mean more interleague play, so MLB executives want the National League to adopt the American League’s rule of having a designated hitter bat for the pitcher. That’s a big adjustment for NL players and managers, as well as for fans who have fiercely debated the pros and cons of a designated hitter for decades.

On the evening of April 30, CTBC Brothers faced off against the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in a stadium in the southern city of Tainan. Typically, baseball games in Taiwan are noisy affairs with rowdy crowds and cheerleaders beating drums and leading call-and-response chants as spectators chomp on sweet Taiwanese sausages and fried chicken. 

Move over Tiger King. A new documentary series is ruling America’s imagination, and its subject is worthier of the crown.