Regarding the June 15 Sports article “Big Apple bedlam”:
The golfer Arnold Palmer had a loyal legion of fans dubbed “Arnie’s Army” who would follow him around on the links. The legend from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, won numerous major tournaments over an illustrious career that spanned several decades.
Yet, none of his victories incited his fans to assemble in the middle of Latrobe or nearby Pittsburgh to brandish guns, torch school buses and attack cops in the middle of the night.
Such was the sickening scene in New York after the hometown Knicks won their first NBA title in 53 years. To be sure, this was far from the first time that so-called fans behaved like hooligans.
My hometown of Pittsburgh has had its share of disgraceful celebrations that garnered national attention. I’m old enough to remember Pirates baseball fans being called barbarians for rampaging through the city, lighting fires and overturning cars after the team’s World Series triumph in 1971.
What is it about a team’s championship victory that triggers such violence and destruction from otherwise civil segments of the population? I’ll leave that one for the psychologists to sort out.
In the meantime, I’ll envision a satirical sketch about country club members smashing cop cars with their clubs and jabbing each other with tees after their favorite golfer wins a tournament.
Vin Morabito, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Regulate sports betting
Sports betting is pervasive. According to the June 15 front-page article “Sports betting’s ascent lands it at White House,” it even reached the White House’s UFC event. And it’s still on the rise: The article reported that combined monthly global trading volume on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket rose from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026.
Betting has become a sport itself. And its marketing, which often involves celebrities and athletes, has created the perfect storm for addiction. As a youth counselor, I work with college students and parents about addiction treatment. And I have seen firsthand how sports betting harms young people.
There is an arrogance in thinking that the expansion of access to betting platforms is risk-free and harmless fun. I know many recovered addicts from drugs and alcohol, but I don’t know anyone who has successfully recovered from a sports betting addiction.
I wonder whether the Supreme Court justices considered all the dangers of striking down the 1992 law that outlawed sports betting in every state except Nevada before their 2018 ruling, which was the gateway to this accelerated access and development of betting platforms.
Lawmakers should course correct and start better regulating sports betting and prediction markets.
Greg Raleigh, Washington
Iran’s sports problem
The June 11 front-page article “Iran’s World Cup team finds an unlikely home” quoted Iran’s ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, regarding U.S.-imposed restrictions on his team: “Politics needs to be separate from sports.” He also said that if the two activities mix, “politics must be at the service of sports.”
That’s rich coming from a representative of a regime that routinely puts sports in the service of politics. Iran forces its female athletes to wear hijabs and forbids athletes from competing against Israelis — even if it means throwing matches.
In 2020, taekwondo champion Kimia Alizadeh, the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal, defected to Bulgaria. In an Instagram post, she wrote, “Whatever they said, I wore.” Alizadeh added, “Every sentence they ordered, I repeated.”
A year earlier, the Islamic Republic intimidated Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei, threatened his family and pressured him not to compete against Israeli Sagi Muki. Mollaei resisted the regime’s pressure but lost a match, disqualifying him from competing against Muki. But because he initially defied the regime, Mollaei was forced into hiding and later defected.
For Iran, sports are at the service of the regime.
David Gerstman, Baltimore
The writer is a media research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
The enduring magic of camp
Phone calls, emails and texts flew among the girls of Camp Saginaw following the publication of the June 14 front-page article “The Pennsylvania summer camp boys who reunite weekly, six decades later” about the Saginaw boys who reunite weekly. We may not meet as often as the boys, but we do Zoom.
Sixty-nine years ago, I boarded a train from D.C. to Camp Saginaw. I knew only one other camper. Eight weeks later, I arrived home not just filled with memories of sports and, yes, boys but with new friends that have lasted a lifetime. Our friendships have lasted through weddings, births, bar and bat mitzvahs, and deaths.
We started to have reunions at camp in the ’80s where we’d sleep in our bunks, eat in the mess hall and sing around camp fires. Even now, though our aging bodies can no longer take the skinny mattresses, we still meet every fall in a hotel in Baltimore.
No matter which camp, all campers learn how to live with other people, how to gracefully accept defeat (I was never on a winning Color War team) and learn life lessons that cannot be replicated anywhere else at a young age.
I am biased, but there was something magical about Saginaw that enabled us to form bonds among bunkmates that has lasted for more than 70 years.
Jacqueline Abelman Cohen, Washington
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