SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it's time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Jordan Chiles officially denied the bronze. A college swimming betting scandal, and Little League World Series returns. Michele Steele of ESPN also returns. Michele, thanks so much for being with us.
MICHELE STEELE: It's deja vu all over again, Scott.
SIMON: (Laughter) Oh, how wise. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, which I'm not sure I knew existed, took away Jordan Chiles' Olympic bronze medal for floor exercise. And I'm going to ask you to explain, Michele, but judges said it had to do with the estimated degree of difficulty.
STEELE: Yeah. It's a little bit of a confusing mess at this point, Scott. So what happened in Paris is that Jordan Chiles originally came in fifth in the floor routine, but her coach appealed to the judges at the time. The judges agreed to add a certain element back into the routine, and they bumped up her score by a tenth of a point. That was enough to win bronze.
Now a court of arbitration is saying the appeal should have never been allowed because the coach was, and I quote, "four seconds late" in submitting her appeal." Now, the USA Gymnastics organization wants to get this overturned. They dispute that. They're going to take it all the way to the Swiss courts, and we'll see what happens. But just an unfortunate situation all around.
SIMON: Yeah. Look, University of Notre Dame suspended its men's swim program for at least a year over allegations of gambling. The university said several swimmers violated NCAA gambling rules or nongambling rules by betting on themselves. Of course, any kind of betting is prohibited. But what else do we know?
STEELE: You might ask, who gambles on swimming? Well...
SIMON: (Laughter).
STEELE: Let me know.
SIMON: People gamble on anything.
STEELE: Yeah. Some - the people who gamble on swimming are swimmers at Notre Dame, on the men's team. Some of them created, Scott, a virtual in-house sportsbook at the school to...
SIMON: Wow.
STEELE: ...Bet on their own results. And the majority of the team is believed to have placed bets on their times in certain races, on outcomes of these races. So it seems like the most obvious thing in the world would be to say, you shouldn't bet on your sport, much less your team, but not so obvious here. They're suspending the team for a year, and it's too bad because they have some serious talent on that squad.
SIMON: Little League World Series is underway in South Williamsport, Pa. What teams should we keep an eye on?
STEELE: This is such a bucket list thing for me, but I'm usually at NFL training camps this time of year - but one day. Seven thousand teams start the tournament. There's only 20 left. Only one are - is going to be standing at the very end of this thing in about a week. We do have a handful of elimination games this afternoon. Those are always fun to watch - South Dakota versus New York, Pennsylvania versus New Hampshire. Which one should you watch? I think you should root for the hometown team if you're watching the Little League World Series. And for me, that's the Great Lakes team from Hinsdale, Ill. They were unfortunately shut out yesterday, five-nothing to Hawaii.
SIMON: Hinsdale. Hinsdale.
STEELE: (Laughter) They can hear you in Hinsdale, Scott. They unfortunately lost to Hawaii, which always seems like a very serious contender at this thing. But it's a double-elimination tournament in the early round, so Hinsdale gets another bite of the apple tomorrow.
SIMON: Finally, New Hampshire woman found a genuine baseball treasure in her family barn.
STEELE: Yeah.
SIMON: Baseball cards. What's the story there, Michele?
STEELE: It's such a cool story because so many of us collected baseball cards growing up. But a Manchester, N.H. woman, Toni Pappas, was doing some work on her property and found more than 50 vintage cards from the 1930s and 1940s. She thinks it belonged to her late husband, Billy. He was a Baseball Hall of Famer...
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: ...At the University of New Hampshire. And one of the cards, Scott, is a Ted Williams rookie in very good condition. The last Ted Williams rookie went for almost half a million dollars at auction. She says if she sells a card, she's going to use them to fund a scholarship in her husband's name at the University of New Hampshire, which is pretty cool, but what a home run of a story for her.
SIMON: Oh, that's wonderful. Well, Michele Steele of ESPN, talk to you later. Take care.
STEELE: Got through it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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