The calendar says late June, and, in a sports context, that, for many, means baseball and the early stages of a pennant race. But, soon enough, the calendar will turn to fall and the American sports attention will quickly turn to football, assuming it ever leaves football. And for millions of parents of kids, especially those kids who want to play football for the first time, the changing of the calendar will bring on a decision: whether to let those kids play the game or not. Once upon a time, say, a generation or so ago, such a decision was a no-brainer.

The calendar says late June, and, in a sports context, that, for many, means baseball and the early

Look at the schedule of virtually every professional and collegiate team in the country and you?re sure to find dates where the club aligns itself with a popular cause or constituency. There are Girl and Boy Scout Days, canned food and blood donation drives and salutes to the military, all the types of events that everyone can get behind. What most teams avoid like the plague are instances where the club could be in cahoots with something controversial. And teams certainly stay away from involvement with anything that could be seen as political. In that vein, July 18 could be a very interesting date on the American sports calendar. That?s the day that the Seattle Storm of the WNBA have a scheduled ?Stand With Planned Parenthood? rally at their home arena.

If you?re an Orioles fan and you?re looking for a piece of good news from this past weekend, some ray of sunshine from three otherwise lousy days and nights in New York, it may be this: The Birds won?t have to go back to Yankee Stadium until the middle of September. That?s pretty much where the optimism begins and ends from three days of horrors in the Bronx. Simply put, the Orioles were mugged in New York. They?re certainly not the first tourists to be mistreated in the Boogie Down, but this was ridiculous.

This was supposed to be the week where Serena Williams was going to take the next step towards removing Margaret Court from the record books. Williams needs one more win at a major tennis tournament to match Court, who won 24 Grand Slam tournaments during her 17-year career. The clay surface at the French Open, the site of this week?s tournament, hasn?t always been kind to Williams, but, as the world?s No.1 ranked player, she would have had a decent chance to tie Court. That is, until Williams revealed her pregnancy a few weeks ago, which took her out of the French Open as well as Wimbledon and probably the U.S. Open for this year. But, by the time Williams returns next year, Court may find herself irrelevant for reasons that have nothing to do with the Grand Slam record.

The debate over one man?s responsibility to another is as old as mankind itself, dating all the way back to Earth?s first sibling rivalry, between Cain and Abel. In more recent years, that discussion has stretched to sports, where no less a figure than Charles Barkley has declared that he, and by extension other athletes, are not role models. But can it really be that facile? Can an athlete with national or global visibility simply play their game without pondering the consequence of how they play on others, especially kids?

It?s graduation season and, after suffering through mostly meaningless and interminable speeches exhorting them to do good in the world, millions of young people are being turned loose on the nation presumably to do just that. One of those graduates, Myron Rolle, has heard this speech a few times, and has apparently taken heed of those exhortations. Rolle joined the ranks of prospective doctors over the weekend and will begin doing his residency at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston next month. But while the addition of yet another doctor is nothing unusual, Rolle?s path to a stethoscope is quite extraordinary.

We begin today?s program with a question that is part existential, part practical. Are you the type that largely ignores the check engine light when it flashes on your car?s dashboard? If you are, then you can understand what appears to be the Orioles? approach to getting third baseman Manny Machado signed to a long-term, big money contract. The Birds? front office seems willing to let Machado enter next season without a deal that would keep him in Baltimore black and orange well into the next decade. And Machado, on the surface, gives the impression that he?s OK with things as they presently stand, too.

At this time last week, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred had few worries beyond where to get good stone crabs during the All-Star break in Miami in July. And, then, within the space of two games between the Orioles and Red Sox in Boston, Manfred had a couple of crises on his hands. In short order, Manfred, the latest of the Big Four American sports bosses to get his powers, had to solve racism and deal with a group of recalcitrant boys passing as grown-ups who don?t know how to get along.

The word hero might be inappropriate for anyone whose name is associated with the idea of reducing the incidents of violence against women. But Fred Glass, Indiana University?s athletic director, has made himself, if not heroic, at least admirable with two words: No more. With the approval of the campus faculty athletics committee, Glass announced that, under his leadership, the university?s teams will not accept athletes who are found guilty of sexual violence.