MLB teams are trying to decide whether they should allow alcohol in club houses after Josh Hancock was killed while driving drunk. The question has come up that if you ban booze in clubhouse and sell it in the stands, you’re sending an odd message. It’s a good question. As many have pointed out, Hancock, a St. Louis Cardinal, played for a team owned by a beer company. The Rockies play in Coors field. Miller Park is in Milwaukee. I doubt beer sales at the old ball yard will come to a halt. Maybe baseball teams should determine if players have substance abuse problems and address those first. You can take alcohol out of the club house, but that will do nothing for somebody is struggling with the stuff. I’m not saying Hancock was. I’m saying many drunk drivers do a lot of things under the influence.

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The warm weather this week should scramble track charts. After a miserable 10 days of cold and rain, look for runners, jumpers, and throwers to pop some big marks as we approach the State Meet in Burke a week from Friday. Long, strong muscles react well to 85 degrees and no wind. It would be a fascinating research study to look at Nebraska marks the last month of the track season over the last 40 years. I can remember in 1968 running in the Big Ten Championship meet (two weeks before State) at UNK (then Kearney State). If you stepped off the track it was into three inches of snow. The next week at districts it was 80 in Scottsbluff and State returned to a cold, miserable 45 and cloudy. Make hay while the sun shines? Run fast when it’s hot.