For the third time in less than a year, a national tragedy has cast a pall over the United States. This time, a sporting event was the target.
A bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon killed at least two and injured dozens Monday afternoon, with several of those injuries serious. The bombings took place near the finish line of the race.
Monday’s attack is just the latest national tragedy in the United States. Within the past year, mass shootings resulted in the deaths of 12 movie-goers in an Aurora (CO) movie theater and 26 schoolchildren and educators in Newtown (CT).
Unlike the previous tragedies, the attack had a direct impact on the sports world. It was the first to target a U.S.-based sporting event since the 1996 Olympic park bombing in Atlanta.
Even after years in which office buildings, schools and movie theaters have been targets for acts of violence, the sports world remained largely untouched. But as the events in Boston have shown, the sports world is not immune — and the dozens of events that take place each day can be as much a target for violence as any other place in society. Charles P. Pierce in Esquire Monday:
It was always going to be something like this. After the Olympic Park Bombing in 1996, it wasn?t going to be a big event. It wasn?t going to be the Super Bowl. Or the World Series. Or college basketball?s Final Four. It was going to be a happy gathering that everyone took for granted. It was going to be the average college football game. It was going to be a small college basketball game. It was going to be the Boston Marathon, one of the last big open events in a society closing in on itself from every direction.
As with the Olympic park bombing, reporters who usually focus on sports have spent hours covering a major news incident. ESPN’s “SportsCenter” has aired several hours of live coverage, most of which was anchored by Bob Ley and Jeremy Schaap. The network wisely canceled Monday’s episodes of “Around the Horn” and “Pardon the Interruption.” The NBC Sports Network simulcast local news coverage of the incident.
Obviously, the attack has affected other sporting events in Boston. Monday’s Bruins NHL home game against the Senators game has been postponed. Tuesday’s Pacers/Celtics NBA game, which was scheduled to air on TNT, has been canceled altogether and will not be made up.
Outside of Boston, an SEC/ESPN press conference to announce the new SEC Network was also postponed. Other events, including the WNBA Draft, went on as scheduled.
