What story do you miss most?
Columnist Mark Kiszla answered questions from readers during a noon live chat at denverpost.com. Here are some highlights:
Q: We’ve obviously missed a lot this year because of COVID, from all the major sports to college, high school and the olympics. What story did you miss the most during this time and why?
Kiz: It’s a very easy answer for me. I love the Olympics. I love the heroes for a day. The political circus. The whole nonsense. The arguments over wretched excess and the tears of a man or woman crying with pride during the playing of the national anthem. In a year without COVID, I would be doing this chat in the middle of the night from the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. I miss that. A lot. But I’m also just barely insightful to know that there are Americans by the tens of thousands hurting far worse from the havoc this virus has wreaked.
Q: Probably still too early to say, but who do you think won the Malik Beasley trade at this point?
Kiz: Nuggets are having trouble getting more than eight players on the court down in the Magic City bubble and you ask if trading Malik Beasley was a mistake?
I think team management didn’t like the way Beasley conducted his business off the court. Well, I don’t like the way Gary Harris shoots his jumper on the court many nights. I think Nuggets chose chemistry over talent. We shall see if Tim Connelly and the gang made the right decision.
Q: You made a case that the Braves need to get rid of the chop and their mascot. But you seem content that KC keep the chop and their mascot. Are you secretly a Chiefs fan working in Denver?
Kiz: I do not like the chop. I do not like it in Atlanta. I do not like it in Kansas City. I think it’s bush league and juvenile, at best.
I’m a Polish kid from the Midwest who fell in love early in life with a college football team known as the Fighting Irish. So I don’t pretend to be an expert on what sports nicknames should be considered offensive.
But Redskins has sounded terribly out-ofplace to my ears for decades. Indians deserves to circle the drain because the Chief Wahoo logo nonsense undermines any idea that it was ever a nickname of respect.
In and of themselves, the words Braves or Chiefs do not connote disrespect to my ears. So I would leave it to Native Americans to give their opinion, with my ears open to listening and learning.