Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
May 2, 2008, Washington Post

May We Have Your Attention, Please?

Kids sometimes complain that I write too much about popular sports. Okay, this week I won't say a word about football, basketball or baseball. There are lots of other sports to talk about.

· Horse Racing. Saturday's Kentucky Derby was a sad day for racing because Eight Belles, the second-place finisher to Big Brown, shattered both front ankles shortly after the race and had to be put to death on the track.

Incidents such as this and the fatal injury to Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, at the Preakness race in Baltimore a few weeks later make some people wonder if horse-racing should be stopped. It is estimated that two horses suffer career-ending injuries every day from horse racing. Like Barbaro and Eight Belles, some of them have to be killed.

It's always sad when a horse gets hurt or has to be destroyed. But I don't think that's enough reason to stop a sport that has been in this country from its beginning. People who want to stop horse racing remind me of the folks who don't want kids to play sports, or even play tag at recess, because someone might get hurt by accident.

If people want to stop a sport, stop ultimate fighting -- the crazy new sport in which fighters use martial arts to beat each other up. When someone gets hurt in ultimate fighting, it's no accident.

· Lacrosse. The NCAA championships begin this weekend. Local lacrosse fans can check out first-round men's games at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and at the universities of Maryland and Virginia. The women's semifinals and finals will be played on May 23 and 25 at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson, Maryland.

Lacrosse used to be played only at Eastern schools. As the sport has increased in popularity, it has started moving west. The men's bracket this year includes the University of Denver (Colorado), and Northwestern University, near Chicago, Illinois, has won the past three women's titles.

· Women's golf. The big news last weekend was that Lorena Ochoa did not win the women's pro tournament in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Going in, Ochoa, the top-ranked women's player in the world, had won four tournaments in a row.

Folks barely noticed that Paula Creamer won Sunday in a sudden-death playoff. Creamer is a terrific young player who has been overshadowed in recent years by all the fuss about Michelle Wie, the teenager who made headlines by playing men's tournaments. But it's Creamer, not Wie, who has won two tournaments this year and seems to be launched on a fabulous career.

That's a good lesson for kids: The player who gets all the early attention doesn't necessarily end up being the best player. That's true in all sports, popular or otherwise.

Fred Bowen writes KidsPost's sports opinion column and is an author of sports novels for kids.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company