There will be no Major League Baseball in London and no College World Series in Omaha because of the coronavirus pandemic. While the PGA Tour resumes its season this week without spectators at Colonial Country Club in Texas, after IndyCar joined NASCAR in getting back on the track, The Associated Press looks at some of the other sporting events that had been scheduled the week of June 8-14:
NOT CALLING LONDON: The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, NL Central rivals whose ballparks are about 250 miles apart, were planning to travel about 4,000 miles to play Major League Baseball’s second series in Europe. The Cubs and Cardinals were scheduled for two games at Olympic Stadium next weekend. They have played 2,424 games against each other, and this would have been their second series this season.
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The New York Yankees swept both games against Boston when they met in London last June. The Yankees would have been at Fenway Park for a three-game weekend series against the Red Sox.
TRIVIA BREAK: There have been nine sweeps in the best-of-seven NBA Finals. Only one team has twice won the title in a four-game sweep, and only one franchise has been swept out of the finals three times. Who are they? (Answers at bottom).
CWS: For the first time in seven decades, there is no college baseball in Omaha this summer. The eight-team College World Series would have started with opening-round games next weekend. The event has been a summer staple in Omaha since 1950.
RAISING THE CUP?: If a Game 7 had been needed to determine the Stanley Cup champion, the NHL season could have had a win-it-all finale this week. St. Louis won its first title in a seven-game series last year against the Boston Bruins, who had won the last seven-game Stanley Cup, in 2011 over Vancouver.
NBA FINALS: The NBA season would be down to two teams and they would have been deep into a best-of-seven series.
CFL: The nine-team Canadian Football League had been scheduled to open its season, with an opening-week rematch of last season’s Grey Cup game. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the CFL title last year with a win over the East Division champion Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
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TRIVIA ANSWER: The Golden State Warriors swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2018 NBA Finals, and beat the Washington Bullets in four games in 1975. The Lakers have lost in sweeps three times — twice in Los Angeles (by the Detroit Pistons in 1989, and Philadelphia in 1983) and once in Minneapolis (by the Boston Celtics in 1959, the first NBA Finals that went only four games). Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers swept the New Jersey Nets to win in 2002, their third championship in a row.
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