From the Bench: In light of scandals, wars and tragedies, we need sports
The Labor Day weekend has been a great three or four days for sports -- nationally, in the states of Nebraska and Kansas, area-wise and locally.
And the timing could not be better considering this country is going through another political scandal -- this time with Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and his bathroom follies. Fortunately he resigned and in well-deserved disgrace.
We also still have wars and other tragic events going on the world.
Thankfully we have sports to keep our minds off these things -- for at least a little while we can escape through our games. We have "our kids" and other sports heroes to fall back on.
In two places in particular, sports played a very important role in healing after devastating unthinkable events -- Blacksburg, Va., and Greensburg, Kan.
In Blacksburg on Saturday, the No. 9-ranked Virginia Tech football team hosted East Carolina, and in an emotional pre-game ceremony the 32 victims of the April shooting rampage were honored.
In a classy move, East Carolina officals presented a $100,000 check to Virginia Tech's memorial fund.
And oh yes, Virginia Tech won the game 17-7 over a determined bunch of ECU Pirates.
The night before Virginia Tech's return to the field, the 24 members of the Greensburg Rangers played their first football game at Ashland, Kan.
Greensburg High School was destroyed, along with nearly everything else in the small town, by a EF-5 tornado on May 4.
The Rangers played Friday night in uniforms donated by the Kansas City Chiefs.
Ashland won the game 54-28 but that wasn't the story -- the story was the Greensburg team getting back on the field.
Saturday also featured two remarkable performances by the Appalachian State Mountaineers and Boston Red Sox rookie pitcher Clay Buchholz.
The Mountaineers, who have won 15 consecutive games and back-to-back NCAA Division I-AA titles (I-AA no longer exists), blocked two field goals and kicked one of their own to beat the No. 5 Wolverines 34-32 in front of 110,000 fans at the "Big House" in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Someone please tell ESPN analyst Mark May that the Mountaineers won the game as much or more than Michigan lost the game -- his performance as an analyst was despicable.
Buchholz, who was told by Boston manager Terry Francona that after his first start that he would be sent to the minors even if he threw a no-hitter, pitched a no-hitter in his second major league start Saturday in a 10-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.
Baltimore, by the way, now has the distinction of being no-hit and also giving up 30 runs in a game this season.
We also had the start of the high school fall sports season in Nebraska and Kansas.
It's sports-filled weekends like this that help us deal with the horrors and idiocy that want to dominate the news. We can't make them go away -- they are always there.