Chris Broussard, Bible-Thumping Bigot.
This should be nothing new, but, let's be honest here... ESPN has done a lot (even with the one-hour grandstand it gave to OTL Monday to make us think they give a damn about this story).
But in that hour, the agenda of Real Manhood Through Bible-Thumping Bigotry came out in full color.
(Thank you to Deadspin for this one...)
Chris Broussard said, on the Worldwide Leader, being gay is an open rebellion to God.
He's made no secret of it. It's his opinion.
Frankly, I'm no longer ensured he's entitled to it.
Fuck this noise. I think one of the UK campaigns is the like of "There are gay people, live with it..." (And if I'm wrong, I do believe it's close and will be corrected.)
The fact of the matter is this. There are fucking people out there -- human beings GOD CREATED -- in fear for their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor because of who they love and how they love, in a country supposedly free of religious oppression. (Those of us steeped in reality know better, but that's far beyond the scope of THIS blog.)
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", Mr. Broussard. Romans 3:23, New International Version.
ALL. Me, you, EVERYBODY. We all are in "open rebellion to God" from one time to another. I was taught that when I was SIX YEARS OLD, you idiot!
To have to, on one of the proudest days in the GLBT community's history of American sport, have one of the main NBA broadcasting networks allow that piece of bigoted asshole on the air, KNOWING that he was going to say something like that, just blows my mind, unless we really want to talk in terms of being a Real Man.
The National Basketball Association is one of the, if not THE, greatest supporter of GLBT Equality in the major sports in this country. All my issues with how corrupt David Stern is, I cannot stand against him on this one.
Yes, he "distracted", ESPN. The fact is, YOU KNEW what he was going to say. He's made no secret he's a bigot.
What the fuck is he doing on that discussion, unless you are trying (especially with your tongue up the NFL's asshole) to demonstrate Propagandistic Real Manhood.
So, once again, we find out that ESPN is trying to CREATE the news again, by allowing an open bigot on the subject his say when he has no right to it.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
A Historic Day: A Major-Team Sport Player Has Come Out
Got the news from one of my friends who often gives me information. I'm also saving the snark of my tags on the NBA and the like because they don't apply here.
Of course, most people are going to obsess about where Tim Tebow is going next, and the continuing political farce that is Tebow Time.
Sadly, they miss that the biggest story of quite a while in sports is on the other side of the argument many have placed Tebow on politically.
Today, as Bob Barker would say occasionally, is a historic day.
And it truly is.
It's a day that I think a lot of people knew was coming, especially in the last couple of years about the discussion on major team-sport players being LGBT (up to and including All-World NCAA player Brittney Griner, almost indisputably the best women's college-basketball player in many years, coming out as a lesbian two days after being drafted into the WNBA).
Today, Sports Illustrated has stated that they have the exclusive interview for their next issue:
Jason Collins, a somewhat-journeyman center for six NBA teams over 12 season, has become the first currently-active major team-sport athlete to come out as a gay man.
Obviously, this is a watershed day.
And if anyone knows my contempt for David $tern, I can say one thing fairly: My contempt for the man does not extend to his political beliefs with respect to homosexuality.
The NBA has done more than any other sport, to my knowledge, for the promotion of acceptance of homosexuality. I truly believe that homophobic slurs by Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah changed the outcome of an NBA championship (the year Dallas ended up winning).
But it's not just talk... In 2011, the NBA teamed up with GLSEN for what I considered to be quite a pleasantly-surprising commercial, especially given some of the playground-game talk to which the spot refers:
Say what you want about David $tern's NBA. It's NOT homophobic.
If the NBA is going to sanction no less than Kobe Bryant for his slur, it's not going to put up with anything against Jason Collins. One can almost-certainly expect that arena security is going to be notified to expel anyone from an NBA game that tries to deal with today's announcement with anything but respect.
So, in my own opinion, that it was an NBA player who was the first to come out is completely unsurprising and probably about the safest of the NBA/NHL/MLB/NASCAR/NFL conglomerate (and I believe the safety factor to be in about that order) for him.
He's a free agent, and the one thing I can say is that being gay will not prevent Jason Collins from playing again in the NBA should his talent warrant. I can't say that about all of the other leagues. I (and people I've spoken to on the subject) agree that we all fear what will happen to the first NFL player to come out, even though one of the most outspoken advocates in the league for LGBT equality, Brandon Ayanbadejo, has said that four current NFL players are considering it, and that they are in talks that they will do it in the same press conference together.
Today's announcement by Collins and SI is a step.
But it's ONE step.
But it is still One Small Step For Man, and One Giant Leap For Major Professional Sports.
You really need to read the Collins interview. One of the things I liked most about it is that the first person he came out to was his aunt, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco, CA.
She said she knew he'd been gay for years.
I'll leave you with this quote from the man himself:
"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."
-- Jason Collins, from the May 6, 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated
Of course, most people are going to obsess about where Tim Tebow is going next, and the continuing political farce that is Tebow Time.
Sadly, they miss that the biggest story of quite a while in sports is on the other side of the argument many have placed Tebow on politically.
Today, as Bob Barker would say occasionally, is a historic day.
And it truly is.
It's a day that I think a lot of people knew was coming, especially in the last couple of years about the discussion on major team-sport players being LGBT (up to and including All-World NCAA player Brittney Griner, almost indisputably the best women's college-basketball player in many years, coming out as a lesbian two days after being drafted into the WNBA).
Today, Sports Illustrated has stated that they have the exclusive interview for their next issue:
Jason Collins, a somewhat-journeyman center for six NBA teams over 12 season, has become the first currently-active major team-sport athlete to come out as a gay man.
Obviously, this is a watershed day.
And if anyone knows my contempt for David $tern, I can say one thing fairly: My contempt for the man does not extend to his political beliefs with respect to homosexuality.
The NBA has done more than any other sport, to my knowledge, for the promotion of acceptance of homosexuality. I truly believe that homophobic slurs by Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah changed the outcome of an NBA championship (the year Dallas ended up winning).
But it's not just talk... In 2011, the NBA teamed up with GLSEN for what I considered to be quite a pleasantly-surprising commercial, especially given some of the playground-game talk to which the spot refers:
Say what you want about David $tern's NBA. It's NOT homophobic.
If the NBA is going to sanction no less than Kobe Bryant for his slur, it's not going to put up with anything against Jason Collins. One can almost-certainly expect that arena security is going to be notified to expel anyone from an NBA game that tries to deal with today's announcement with anything but respect.
So, in my own opinion, that it was an NBA player who was the first to come out is completely unsurprising and probably about the safest of the NBA/NHL/MLB/NASCAR/NFL conglomerate (and I believe the safety factor to be in about that order) for him.
He's a free agent, and the one thing I can say is that being gay will not prevent Jason Collins from playing again in the NBA should his talent warrant. I can't say that about all of the other leagues. I (and people I've spoken to on the subject) agree that we all fear what will happen to the first NFL player to come out, even though one of the most outspoken advocates in the league for LGBT equality, Brandon Ayanbadejo, has said that four current NFL players are considering it, and that they are in talks that they will do it in the same press conference together.
Today's announcement by Collins and SI is a step.
But it's ONE step.
But it is still One Small Step For Man, and One Giant Leap For Major Professional Sports.
You really need to read the Collins interview. One of the things I liked most about it is that the first person he came out to was his aunt, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco, CA.
She said she knew he'd been gay for years.
I'll leave you with this quote from the man himself:
"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."
-- Jason Collins, from the May 6, 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
The Show Must Go On: Where the Economic Realities of Sport Run Headlong Into Common Sense
There's several things I could post about that I've read in the last couple of days. I'll start, however, with this one, a conglomeration of four separate incidents over the last two weeks which have, in my mind, a common thread.
The first three come from NA$CAR, and both involve inspection incidents.
If you basically make it a disqualification offense to fail inspection, it will happen the grand sum total of MAYBE once more. Because, then, you're not only going to get people on the car end involved, but the sponsors too.
You've now nailed, in two weeks: The defending Cup champion, one of the most popular drivers on the circuit, and a former Cup champion who swept pole and race (in dominant fashion) with an illegal car.
Stop catering to the damn sponsors. Stop thinking the money is the end-all of it. Park some of these guys. You start parking them, and the bullshit stops.
But that's nothing compared to this ditty from across the pond, where, once again, the almighty Football Assocation (of English soccer) shows it has no bite to it (pun intended!) at all:
WHAT THE HELL IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO THROW SOMEBODY OUT OF SOCCER?
At minimum, I'd have done the following:
Again, it's money. And the fact of the matter is, it needs to fucking stop. Joey Barton has no business on a football pitch anywhere for his situation in Manchester last season, which has now basically been accepted as his last match at Queens' Park Rangers. (He, IMODO, should still be investigated for actions directly resulting in the relegation of his team, even though it turns out that relegation is one year delayed.)
But if we are going to have anything approaching credible sport in this country, we need to stop the bullshit of letting sponsors and money dictate discipline. They should do that, but in the OTHER direction...
EDIT TO ADD, on the Suarez matter: Brian Tuohy is at it again, showing people reality, through his soccer reporter Matt Agosta: Suarez was, until Monday, the leading scorer in the English Premier League (probably one of the main reasons he's going to remain on the pitch.
Manchester United, with four games to spare, has already won the League championship, and won it with a 3-0 win Monday over Aston Villa at Old Trafford.
Agosta and Tuohy point out that the three goals were a natural hat-trick, all scored in the first half, by Robin van Persie -- who now has the leading scorer title at 24 goals. Suarez finishes his season with 23.
As C&C Music Factory would say: Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmm....
The first three come from NA$CAR, and both involve inspection incidents.
- Three drivers were disciplined for illegal cars in the race at the Texas Motor Speedway on April 13. The two most severely punished were Brad Keselowski (the defending Sprint Cup champion) and Penske teammate Joey Logano. Both failed pre-race inspections, so much so that Logano almost missed the race, having to start in the back when he failed the inspection on his back end of the car TWICE. Martin Truex Jr. failed his post-race inspection on his front end. He finished second at the race.
- Keselowski and Logano had the book thrown at them (at least until this week!). Both crew chiefs were tossed for six races, including the upcoming All-Star Week, for which Keselowski is permanently qualified as a Cup champion. Logano is also qualified for a win in the last year.
- The crew chiefs were fined $100,000 each.
- The same suspensions are levied at the teams' competition directors, engineers, and car chiefs.
- The teams are docked 25 championship points each.
- Truex's crew chief was put on probation, and the team and owner were docked six championship points.
- The next day, Ron Hornaday drew a $25,000 fine and 25 points in the Truck series for wrecking another truck under caution.
- And, now, today, an even bigger penalty: Matt Kenseth, who won last week's race in Kansas on the track, has had basically everything taken away from him for that race except the direct recognition that he won it. Kenseth failed a post-race inspection because of an illegal part from a European vendor.
- Kenseth has lost 50 points in the Championship. (The maximum one can gain in a race is 48 -- 43 for winning, 3 for the win, 1 for leading a lap, 1 for most laps led.)
- Kenseth also loses the three points he would get in the Chase, should he qualify. (A qualifying driver for the Chase has his/her points equaled with all other Chase drivers. Then, three points are added to any driver who has won one of the 26 preceding races.)
- Kenseth also loses the recognition of having the Kansas win for purposes of wildcard qualification. (Kenseth is now 14th in the points, but because he has another win (Las Vegas), and is the only driver outside the top 10 (applies 11-20, but he's the only one outside the Top 10), he wildcards into the Chase in 11th place.)
- Crew chief fined $200,000 and banned for six races, similarly to Logano's and Keselowski's.
- If you fail a pre-race inspection, you are parked for the week (additional penalties to the crew chief, etc. apply). (I've believed this since Knauss' and the 48's misadventures at the likes of Daytona.)
- If you fail a post-race inspection without cause such as Bristol can provide, etc: You are parked for the next race, you lose all points, awards, honors, and money from the race you failed inspection at, and additional penalties to the crew chief, etc.
If you basically make it a disqualification offense to fail inspection, it will happen the grand sum total of MAYBE once more. Because, then, you're not only going to get people on the car end involved, but the sponsors too.
You've now nailed, in two weeks: The defending Cup champion, one of the most popular drivers on the circuit, and a former Cup champion who swept pole and race (in dominant fashion) with an illegal car.
Stop catering to the damn sponsors. Stop thinking the money is the end-all of it. Park some of these guys. You start parking them, and the bullshit stops.
But that's nothing compared to this ditty from across the pond, where, once again, the almighty Football Assocation (of English soccer) shows it has no bite to it (pun intended!) at all:
- Luis Suarez has been suspended for a total of ten first-team matches (meaning the last four matches of this season for Liverpool and presumably the first six of next season) for biting Chelsea opponent Branislav Ivanovic in a game Saturday.
- No official on the pitch saw the bite, even though it was clear on television replays he had done so.
- Suarez was admitted, by the FA, that he should've been sent off, and immediately "charged" with the Violent Conduct, to indicate the three-match ban for such a straight-red card was insufficient.
- Suarez was allowed to remain in the game, and scored an at-the-end injury-time (we're talking seventh minute of a six-minute injury time) goal to draw Chelsea 2-2.
- This is Suarez's THIRD major affront to football in three years. He was banned for eight matches for ANOTHER biting incident in the Netherlands on November 20, 2010 (which precipitated his removal from the Dutch league to the EPL), and was banned seven matches less than a year later for a racial incident against Patrice Evra.
WHAT THE HELL IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO THROW SOMEBODY OUT OF SOCCER?
At minimum, I'd have done the following:
- The match is given to Chelsea, two goals to one. Two additional points are awarded to Chelsea, the one point unjustly given for the draw is taken away.
- Suarez is banned indefinitely, and the case sent to FIFA for a worldwide ban.
Again, it's money. And the fact of the matter is, it needs to fucking stop. Joey Barton has no business on a football pitch anywhere for his situation in Manchester last season, which has now basically been accepted as his last match at Queens' Park Rangers. (He, IMODO, should still be investigated for actions directly resulting in the relegation of his team, even though it turns out that relegation is one year delayed.)
But if we are going to have anything approaching credible sport in this country, we need to stop the bullshit of letting sponsors and money dictate discipline. They should do that, but in the OTHER direction...
EDIT TO ADD, on the Suarez matter: Brian Tuohy is at it again, showing people reality, through his soccer reporter Matt Agosta: Suarez was, until Monday, the leading scorer in the English Premier League (probably one of the main reasons he's going to remain on the pitch.
Manchester United, with four games to spare, has already won the League championship, and won it with a 3-0 win Monday over Aston Villa at Old Trafford.
Agosta and Tuohy point out that the three goals were a natural hat-trick, all scored in the first half, by Robin van Persie -- who now has the leading scorer title at 24 goals. Suarez finishes his season with 23.
As C&C Music Factory would say: Things That Make You Go Hmmmmmm....
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Terror Under The Color Of Sports
I don't think I need to go into great detail as to what happened yesterday at the end of the Boston Marathon.
I think we can all agree that, whosoever committed these acts, committed true terrorism on the people of Boston, the sport of running, and on this nation.
That said, obviously everybody from Saudi Arabia to our own government to the random tax-hating wacko on Tax Day is going to be "blamed" for it.
But let's get a few things straight:
First, the person or persons who did this are some of the STUPIDEST PEOPLE ALIVE.
Yeah, I said it. I meant it!! That's one of the reasons I can almost certainly rule out any government "Made It Happen On Purpose" stuff or "Al Qaeda" or any other organized terror group.
If our government, as one example, can only do this well in a false-flag, they can't find their ass with both hands.
For those who can stomach it, you've seen the pictures and the videos. I'm not going to post them here, because I know a number of the people who read this site cannot stomach any more of it.
The thing is, the first thing you notice on any shot of the finish line just before the bombs go off (and it is no doubt that these are bombs and part of a coordinated terrorist effort -- there were at least SIX such devices found in Boston yesterday!) is the time, past four hours after the start.
Excuse me while I state Mr. Obvious:
If you're going to try to maximize casualties on the side of the finish line, would it not make much more sense to actually set the bombs off when there are -- shock! -- more people there!!
About the only people left in the stands at four-hours-plus are supporters of the individuals who aren't world-class athletes but are forging their own stories and paths in the streets of Boston for 26 miles and 385 yards.
If you seriously wish to create terror and havoc, why not set the bombs to go off... Oh, I don't know... About when the first male finisher is expected to finish, two hours previous?
Even if the aim is simply to create a stir, wouldn't it be better to do it with all the people in the audience? (Especially, as some have proclaimed as a possible motive, a protest against the gun control movement post-Sandy Hook/Newton, something which was plastered all over the Marathon, and some of the families were actually seated in the bleachers near the finish line...)
So you've already basically shown yourself to be less than competent in your planning.
Secondly, another reason we can eliminate any large-scale foreign entity is because the fact that the bombs were clearly conventional and far too small for anything the likes of North Korea would pull up.
They clearly were small-scale entities with conventional arms. If this was any kind of "OMG North Korea!!!!!1111!!!eleven" stuff, it almost certainly would have rendered most of Boston completely uninhabitable by now.
So let's put an end to all that.
Thirdly, is it just me, or is the entire fabric of everything falling apart as we speak?
I mean, just in sports, and just in the last 4-5 days, we had
I think we can all agree that, whosoever committed these acts, committed true terrorism on the people of Boston, the sport of running, and on this nation.
That said, obviously everybody from Saudi Arabia to our own government to the random tax-hating wacko on Tax Day is going to be "blamed" for it.
But let's get a few things straight:
First, the person or persons who did this are some of the STUPIDEST PEOPLE ALIVE.
Yeah, I said it. I meant it!! That's one of the reasons I can almost certainly rule out any government "Made It Happen On Purpose" stuff or "Al Qaeda" or any other organized terror group.
If our government, as one example, can only do this well in a false-flag, they can't find their ass with both hands.
For those who can stomach it, you've seen the pictures and the videos. I'm not going to post them here, because I know a number of the people who read this site cannot stomach any more of it.
The thing is, the first thing you notice on any shot of the finish line just before the bombs go off (and it is no doubt that these are bombs and part of a coordinated terrorist effort -- there were at least SIX such devices found in Boston yesterday!) is the time, past four hours after the start.
Excuse me while I state Mr. Obvious:
If you're going to try to maximize casualties on the side of the finish line, would it not make much more sense to actually set the bombs off when there are -- shock! -- more people there!!
About the only people left in the stands at four-hours-plus are supporters of the individuals who aren't world-class athletes but are forging their own stories and paths in the streets of Boston for 26 miles and 385 yards.
If you seriously wish to create terror and havoc, why not set the bombs to go off... Oh, I don't know... About when the first male finisher is expected to finish, two hours previous?
Even if the aim is simply to create a stir, wouldn't it be better to do it with all the people in the audience? (Especially, as some have proclaimed as a possible motive, a protest against the gun control movement post-Sandy Hook/Newton, something which was plastered all over the Marathon, and some of the families were actually seated in the bleachers near the finish line...)
So you've already basically shown yourself to be less than competent in your planning.
Secondly, another reason we can eliminate any large-scale foreign entity is because the fact that the bombs were clearly conventional and far too small for anything the likes of North Korea would pull up.
They clearly were small-scale entities with conventional arms. If this was any kind of "OMG North Korea!!!!!1111!!!eleven" stuff, it almost certainly would have rendered most of Boston completely uninhabitable by now.
So let's put an end to all that.
Thirdly, is it just me, or is the entire fabric of everything falling apart as we speak?
I mean, just in sports, and just in the last 4-5 days, we had
- a base-brawl where a guy decides his stance (which has led to him getting hit over 200 times in his professional career -- TAKE THE HINT, MORON!!) gives him license to charge the mound, and breaks the collarbone of the star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He's suspended eight games, the pitcher is out 3-4 months!
- The previously-mentioned Tiger Woods debacle, spurred by a home viewer that is (at least at present) allowed to basically become part of the competition by calling the scorer's tent when he claims to witness an on-screen foul on his 75" 1080p HDTV...
- In what has to be (depending on your political bent) karma, ironic, or just plain sad, the National Rifle Association 500 Sprint Cup race in Texas Saturday night had a man shoot and kill himself after an altercation in the infield during the event.
- Today at the Boston Marathon...
Saturday, April 13, 2013
The Show Must Go On (?): Tiger Woods Gets A "Free" Drop (Or Does He Get Screwed Royally?)
(Several Sunday edits, including ANOTHER picture.)
I will make no secret as I start this post. I believe Tiger Woods to be the complete anti-thesis of anything resembling "fair sport". I have no problems stating a strong bias against Tiger Woods, as I believe he has no less than supplanted Michael Jordan at the top of the Corporate Machine of Sports.
So count me less than surprised that Tiger Woods (and his millions of dollars and with his millions of viewers) was allowed to participate in the third round of the 2013 Masters.
However, it sounds like the whole thing was full of bloody freaking shenanigans.
Not even under a rules change that was supposed to take away some of the shenanigans that "home refereeing" has done to the game of golf has something like this gotten so ridiculous!
This, after what I (and golf fans (note that I say "golf fans" and not "Tiger Woods jockers" -- as the two have been badly confused, resulting in decisions like this morning's) have varying opinions about this ruling, too) had believed to be the biggest effort yet of "Get Out of the Way, Tiger's Supposed To Be The ONLY Story!"
The history of Major golf is a long one. In the history of the major tournaments, no player has ever qualified younger than China's Tianlang Guan, who won the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship to qualify for this week's Masters... at age 14!!!
He actually gets paired with the likes of Ben Crenshaw, and then goes out and posts a 73 in his first round, including a very nice birdie on 18!
Guan becomes the story of the tournament, a tournament (much to the disgust of people like me!) dominated with Tiger Talk after his three Tour victories so far in 2013.
So what do I wake to Friday morning?
Guan (in what would turn out to be a complete Masters first -- the first time this have ever happened!) is penalized under Slow Play rules.
It turns out Guan was too indecisive on a number of the holes with respect to the winds at Augusta, was cautioned on 10, put on the clock at 12, and eventually was penalized after 17.
Michael Collins of ESPN.com notes in his commentary and grades for Round Two that the same official who penalized Guan, John Paramor, also put on the clock a golfer in the 2009 (British) Open Championship.
So what happens? Ross Fisher is found to have violated the 40-second time limit from address to ball-strike SEVEN FURTHER TIMES, and Paramor does not penalize him for Slow Play.
Hmmm... That's an awful large case of "Get the fuck back to China, kid. TIGER'S THE ONLY STORY HERE!" (And especially given the racist and sexist nature of Augusta National Golf Club, can anyone dispute that possibility really exists?)
(Is there any wonder that I believe the future of golf is an Oriental-based Tour, for both genders. We're almost there for the women as it is!)
That one-stroke penalty (especially with the Almighty Tiger CHARGING to the top of the leaderboard at the turn of his second round) appeared to endanger that Guan would fall more than 10 strokes outside the leader, and, hence be cut (since more than 50 players would be inside that number).
Then the Golfing Gods intervened.
Turns out, TWICE.
The second time was that no one got past the -6 necessary to keep Guan within 10 shots, so he will play the weekend. (According to reports, though he was not warned, Guan was definitely advised on the back-nine to speed up his play at least twice!)
It's the first time that has everybody up in a tizzy! (And may, depending on tomorrow's results, for quite some time!)
Tiger Woods was 5-under when he, predictably, blasted his drive on 15 a mile long and a mile wide into the pine straw.
This forced Tiger to lay up to about a full wedge.
What happens next almost causes golf fans (or Tiger-jockers, depending on your take) to slit their throats.
Tiger's wedge on 15 hits the flagstick.
If it (and we've seen this happen in golf) drops from there into the hole, he's -7 and off to the races.
Instead, something else is off to the races. The ball -- to (EDIT FOR CORRECTNESS: Rae's Creek is on 11-12-13) the pond of the Sarazen Bridge in front of the green! The backspin on the wedge shot spins the ball from a few inches from the hole all the way off the front of the green, into the drink, see ya to 3 or 4... Try 6.
Oh, did I say 6?
I meant 8!!!
The problem which resulted in much overnight Twitter consternation is seen in the following Deadspin picture.
Once the ball went into the hazard, Tiger, under the rules, has three options after a one-stroke penalty under Rule 26:
He had actually taken his shot, and said so in his post-round press conference (which was one of the things Augusta referenced when it pulled him over today) two yards behind that initial divot.
So we have a problem.
Augusta officials (The "Masters Committee") heard Woods' comments, re-evaluated the stand, and ruled that he had illegally dropped, but invoked the following new rule (now part of Rule 33-7) (actually, a decision, two years old, now, at the Masters) to prevent the home viewer from disqualifying Woods.
"Generally, the disqualification prescribed by Rule 6-6d must not be waived or modified.
It turns out, according to multiple sources, WE REALLY HAVE A PROBLEM.
You see, it turns out, and Tiger Woods said this himself on Twitter, that the drop had been declared legal on the course.
This is a huge problem. On it's face, I'd be all for tossing the corporate punk. I have seen a number of articles on the Internet saying exactly that, and the original intention of THIS article was to say that they may well be, as much as the Golfing Gods will allow, trying to rig a golf major for Tiger Woods for all the obvious reasons.
But in this case, you've got a Hell of an issue here. Let's go through a timeline, shall we?
Tiger takes his shot on 15. Conk, roll, splash.
Tiger then, according to his press conference:
“Well, I went down to the drop area, that wasn't going to be a good spot, because obviously it's into the grain, it's really grainy there. And it was a little bit wet. So it was muddy and not a good spot to drop. So I went back to where I played it from,"
The important matter comes up next, but this basically tells you he discarded the other two options.
"but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit."
And that's the comment that the Committee did the penalty on.
On that statement alone, 33-7/4.5 never should've applied, and the penalty should've been disqualification, even if Tiger wasn't entirely aware that he had fouled. This isn't something that some jackass with super slo-mo DVR on a 75" 1080p HDTV found one blade of grass had moved illegally, blah blah blah.
The problem is there are additional issues.
From the committee's statement on the matter:
"In preparation for his fifth shot, the player dropped his ball in close proximity to where he had played his third shot in apparently conformance with Rule 26. After being prompted by a television viewer, the Rules Committee reviewed a video of the shot while he was playing the 18th hole. At that moment and based on that evidence, the Committee determined he had complied with the Rules."
OK, so why does the comment at the press conference merit reconsideration then?
You told him it was legal at 15.
Some Joe Blow calls in, you review it when he plays 18, call it legal again.
THEN you tell him to sign the 71, even as you advise him that something may have happened.
THEN, and only after his press conference, do you call it back.
First off, you made the call on the course when it happened.
Second off, you made the call again on the video (which should've been the same video that the guy at home saw!) as he was playing 18.
Third off, you authorized him to sign for the 71 that the two rulings of legality indicated he had earned!
If you are going to THEN say that he had fouled because he openly said he'd dropped two yards behind and took that into account when he took the shot:
"So I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit..."
Then, to me, you've screwed yourself.
33-7/4.5 does NOT apply. He's admitted to going two yards further back and taking that into account.
The problem is: You called the shot legal THREE TIMES. On the course, on the video, at the scorer's tent. And howinhell are you so blind as to not have seen the divot mark that he made with the first thing, especially with the aid of the video for the second review?
So you have only two options:
No penalty, as you said to him three times.
or Disqualification.
Now I will scream the loudest and the longest that he should be gone (and said it a lot today!) until I heard of the ruling and what was behind it.
If it was legal on the course, then you either have to toss the officials or let the call stand, because they made the call, and they saw it legal.
If what Tiger says is an admission of illegality, he's gone. That's not 33-7/4.5.
However, was it actually illegal?
He's ruled legal three times (including the actual time of the shot and the video review (which should've handled 33-7/4.5.).
Also, as a good friend of mine (who knows her golf and wanted me to edit in that she hates Tiger Woods more than I do!) talked to me extensively about tonight:
Could this have been a drop from what normally would've taken place on such a shot, that it was in line where the ball crossed the hazard the first time?
Which crossing of the hazard is counted under Rule 26?
After the Guan controversy, did they decide to stick it to a superstar, perhaps THE superstar, for Augusta National to make a point?
Could this have been payback against Tiger and the media for making Tiger the story? That Augusta National Golf Club is the only attraction here??
We all know there is racism and sexism deep in the Augusta National Golf Club. Perhaps still some animosity that a black man has taken over the white man's expensive game?
The more we see of it, the more it smells.
If Tiger admitted taking the two yards back and taking it into account, he should be tossed -- if that's a penalty under Rule 26.
But looking at the lie, what has he done to improve it?
One thing is for certain: The Committee's Discretion rule does not apply here. He either fouled and knew he fouled, or he didn't foul.
I'm not even sure he fouled, and, the more that golf fans I know read of it, it's pretty cloudy that he did foul at all. ("As close as possible...")
Now, you have articles like this all over the Internet:
Tiger Woods' Masters Escape Reflects Badly On All Concerned
Rules are Rules -- Except for Tiger
Tiger Woods Should Withdraw from the 2013 Masters
Not to mention multiple golfers stating the same.
That said:
If he fouled, it's the wrong penalty.
He was ruled legal, even after a video review after Joe Blow called in.
If the facts of the press conference changed that, it's the wrong penalty.
Fact is, especially with Joe Blow with a telephone in one hand and a penalty flag in the other out there, they called it legal, with what should've been the same knowledge Woods provided in the press conference.
But if it is clear that he stated that he changed things, then you have the other problem.
The thing is: He was called legal on the course. If it were that blatant, I'd be loudest and longest to scream that the PGA and CBS and ESPN are buying this guy a Green Jacket.
Now, regardless of result, the tournament's been tainted. Maybe, as my friends have said, this ends Joe Blow with the right to DQ and the like...
---
EDIT TO ADD after Sunday's action:
And, according to Sports Illustrated, there's now discussion that the pictures you saw with Deadspin are WRONG.
According to THIS SET of pictures, Woods was very precise in abiding by Rule 26.
Now Tiger did (due to several problems on the front side) lose by 4, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that this whole set of shenanigans, because of how golf screws with people's heads (we had one golfer on the Par-3 12th post a 7 today, and TWO MORE got 10's!!), this whole debacle may well have cost Woods the long-awaited 15th major.
If they don't get rid of the at-home officiating in tournament golf, the US Open, especially, is going to be a freaking debacle!!
I will make no secret as I start this post. I believe Tiger Woods to be the complete anti-thesis of anything resembling "fair sport". I have no problems stating a strong bias against Tiger Woods, as I believe he has no less than supplanted Michael Jordan at the top of the Corporate Machine of Sports.
So count me less than surprised that Tiger Woods (and his millions of dollars and with his millions of viewers) was allowed to participate in the third round of the 2013 Masters.
However, it sounds like the whole thing was full of bloody freaking shenanigans.
Not even under a rules change that was supposed to take away some of the shenanigans that "home refereeing" has done to the game of golf has something like this gotten so ridiculous!
This, after what I (and golf fans (note that I say "golf fans" and not "Tiger Woods jockers" -- as the two have been badly confused, resulting in decisions like this morning's) have varying opinions about this ruling, too) had believed to be the biggest effort yet of "Get Out of the Way, Tiger's Supposed To Be The ONLY Story!"
The history of Major golf is a long one. In the history of the major tournaments, no player has ever qualified younger than China's Tianlang Guan, who won the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship to qualify for this week's Masters... at age 14!!!
He actually gets paired with the likes of Ben Crenshaw, and then goes out and posts a 73 in his first round, including a very nice birdie on 18!
Guan becomes the story of the tournament, a tournament (much to the disgust of people like me!) dominated with Tiger Talk after his three Tour victories so far in 2013.
So what do I wake to Friday morning?
Guan (in what would turn out to be a complete Masters first -- the first time this have ever happened!) is penalized under Slow Play rules.
It turns out Guan was too indecisive on a number of the holes with respect to the winds at Augusta, was cautioned on 10, put on the clock at 12, and eventually was penalized after 17.
Michael Collins of ESPN.com notes in his commentary and grades for Round Two that the same official who penalized Guan, John Paramor, also put on the clock a golfer in the 2009 (British) Open Championship.
So what happens? Ross Fisher is found to have violated the 40-second time limit from address to ball-strike SEVEN FURTHER TIMES, and Paramor does not penalize him for Slow Play.
Hmmm... That's an awful large case of "Get the fuck back to China, kid. TIGER'S THE ONLY STORY HERE!" (And especially given the racist and sexist nature of Augusta National Golf Club, can anyone dispute that possibility really exists?)
(Is there any wonder that I believe the future of golf is an Oriental-based Tour, for both genders. We're almost there for the women as it is!)
That one-stroke penalty (especially with the Almighty Tiger CHARGING to the top of the leaderboard at the turn of his second round) appeared to endanger that Guan would fall more than 10 strokes outside the leader, and, hence be cut (since more than 50 players would be inside that number).
Then the Golfing Gods intervened.
Turns out, TWICE.
The second time was that no one got past the -6 necessary to keep Guan within 10 shots, so he will play the weekend. (According to reports, though he was not warned, Guan was definitely advised on the back-nine to speed up his play at least twice!)
It's the first time that has everybody up in a tizzy! (And may, depending on tomorrow's results, for quite some time!)
Tiger Woods was 5-under when he, predictably, blasted his drive on 15 a mile long and a mile wide into the pine straw.
This forced Tiger to lay up to about a full wedge.
What happens next almost causes golf fans (or Tiger-jockers, depending on your take) to slit their throats.
Tiger's wedge on 15 hits the flagstick.
If it (and we've seen this happen in golf) drops from there into the hole, he's -7 and off to the races.
Instead, something else is off to the races. The ball -- to (EDIT FOR CORRECTNESS: Rae's Creek is on 11-12-13) the pond of the Sarazen Bridge in front of the green! The backspin on the wedge shot spins the ball from a few inches from the hole all the way off the front of the green, into the drink, see ya to 3 or 4... Try 6.
Oh, did I say 6?
I meant 8!!!
The problem which resulted in much overnight Twitter consternation is seen in the following Deadspin picture.
Once the ball went into the hazard, Tiger, under the rules, has three options after a one-stroke penalty under Rule 26:
- There was a drop area near the water hazard. Tiger elected not to take that option because he felt the lie there was too wet.
- He could take a line from the hole to the point in which the ball entered the hazard, and then drop any distance behind the hazard on that line he so chose. The pin placement on 15, however, made that nearly impossible.
- So he elects the third option: "a. Proceed under the stroke and distance provision of Rule 27-1 by playing a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played (see Rule 20-5);"
He had actually taken his shot, and said so in his post-round press conference (which was one of the things Augusta referenced when it pulled him over today) two yards behind that initial divot.
So we have a problem.
Augusta officials (The "Masters Committee") heard Woods' comments, re-evaluated the stand, and ruled that he had illegally dropped, but invoked the following new rule (now part of Rule 33-7) (actually, a decision, two years old, now, at the Masters) to prevent the home viewer from disqualifying Woods.
"Generally, the disqualification prescribed by Rule 6-6d must not be waived or modified.
However,
if the Committee is satisfied that the competitor could not reasonably
have known or discovered the facts resulting in his breach of the Rules,
it would be justified under Rule 33-7 in waiving the disqualification penalty prescribed by Rule 6-6d. The penalty stroke(s) associated with the breach would, however, be applied to the hole where the breach occurred."
It turns out, according to multiple sources, WE REALLY HAVE A PROBLEM.
You see, it turns out, and Tiger Woods said this himself on Twitter, that the drop had been declared legal on the course.
This is a huge problem. On it's face, I'd be all for tossing the corporate punk. I have seen a number of articles on the Internet saying exactly that, and the original intention of THIS article was to say that they may well be, as much as the Golfing Gods will allow, trying to rig a golf major for Tiger Woods for all the obvious reasons.
But in this case, you've got a Hell of an issue here. Let's go through a timeline, shall we?
Tiger takes his shot on 15. Conk, roll, splash.
Tiger then, according to his press conference:
“Well, I went down to the drop area, that wasn't going to be a good spot, because obviously it's into the grain, it's really grainy there. And it was a little bit wet. So it was muddy and not a good spot to drop. So I went back to where I played it from,"
The important matter comes up next, but this basically tells you he discarded the other two options.
"but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit."
And that's the comment that the Committee did the penalty on.
On that statement alone, 33-7/4.5 never should've applied, and the penalty should've been disqualification, even if Tiger wasn't entirely aware that he had fouled. This isn't something that some jackass with super slo-mo DVR on a 75" 1080p HDTV found one blade of grass had moved illegally, blah blah blah.
The problem is there are additional issues.
From the committee's statement on the matter:
"In preparation for his fifth shot, the player dropped his ball in close proximity to where he had played his third shot in apparently conformance with Rule 26. After being prompted by a television viewer, the Rules Committee reviewed a video of the shot while he was playing the 18th hole. At that moment and based on that evidence, the Committee determined he had complied with the Rules."
OK, so why does the comment at the press conference merit reconsideration then?
You told him it was legal at 15.
Some Joe Blow calls in, you review it when he plays 18, call it legal again.
THEN you tell him to sign the 71, even as you advise him that something may have happened.
THEN, and only after his press conference, do you call it back.
First off, you made the call on the course when it happened.
Second off, you made the call again on the video (which should've been the same video that the guy at home saw!) as he was playing 18.
Third off, you authorized him to sign for the 71 that the two rulings of legality indicated he had earned!
If you are going to THEN say that he had fouled because he openly said he'd dropped two yards behind and took that into account when he took the shot:
"So I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit..."
Then, to me, you've screwed yourself.
33-7/4.5 does NOT apply. He's admitted to going two yards further back and taking that into account.
The problem is: You called the shot legal THREE TIMES. On the course, on the video, at the scorer's tent. And howinhell are you so blind as to not have seen the divot mark that he made with the first thing, especially with the aid of the video for the second review?
So you have only two options:
No penalty, as you said to him three times.
or Disqualification.
Now I will scream the loudest and the longest that he should be gone (and said it a lot today!) until I heard of the ruling and what was behind it.
If it was legal on the course, then you either have to toss the officials or let the call stand, because they made the call, and they saw it legal.
If what Tiger says is an admission of illegality, he's gone. That's not 33-7/4.5.
However, was it actually illegal?
He's ruled legal three times (including the actual time of the shot and the video review (which should've handled 33-7/4.5.).
Also, as a good friend of mine (who knows her golf and wanted me to edit in that she hates Tiger Woods more than I do!) talked to me extensively about tonight:
Could this have been a drop from what normally would've taken place on such a shot, that it was in line where the ball crossed the hazard the first time?
Which crossing of the hazard is counted under Rule 26?
After the Guan controversy, did they decide to stick it to a superstar, perhaps THE superstar, for Augusta National to make a point?
Could this have been payback against Tiger and the media for making Tiger the story? That Augusta National Golf Club is the only attraction here??
We all know there is racism and sexism deep in the Augusta National Golf Club. Perhaps still some animosity that a black man has taken over the white man's expensive game?
The more we see of it, the more it smells.
If Tiger admitted taking the two yards back and taking it into account, he should be tossed -- if that's a penalty under Rule 26.
But looking at the lie, what has he done to improve it?
One thing is for certain: The Committee's Discretion rule does not apply here. He either fouled and knew he fouled, or he didn't foul.
I'm not even sure he fouled, and, the more that golf fans I know read of it, it's pretty cloudy that he did foul at all. ("As close as possible...")
Now, you have articles like this all over the Internet:
Tiger Woods' Masters Escape Reflects Badly On All Concerned
Rules are Rules -- Except for Tiger
Tiger Woods Should Withdraw from the 2013 Masters
Not to mention multiple golfers stating the same.
That said:
If he fouled, it's the wrong penalty.
He was ruled legal, even after a video review after Joe Blow called in.
If the facts of the press conference changed that, it's the wrong penalty.
Fact is, especially with Joe Blow with a telephone in one hand and a penalty flag in the other out there, they called it legal, with what should've been the same knowledge Woods provided in the press conference.
But if it is clear that he stated that he changed things, then you have the other problem.
The thing is: He was called legal on the course. If it were that blatant, I'd be loudest and longest to scream that the PGA and CBS and ESPN are buying this guy a Green Jacket.
Now, regardless of result, the tournament's been tainted. Maybe, as my friends have said, this ends Joe Blow with the right to DQ and the like...
---
EDIT TO ADD after Sunday's action:
And, according to Sports Illustrated, there's now discussion that the pictures you saw with Deadspin are WRONG.
According to THIS SET of pictures, Woods was very precise in abiding by Rule 26.
Now Tiger did (due to several problems on the front side) lose by 4, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that this whole set of shenanigans, because of how golf screws with people's heads (we had one golfer on the Par-3 12th post a 7 today, and TWO MORE got 10's!!), this whole debacle may well have cost Woods the long-awaited 15th major.
If they don't get rid of the at-home officiating in tournament golf, the US Open, especially, is going to be a freaking debacle!!
Monday, April 8, 2013
And then, something that we should see more of in sports...
Enough, for a moment, of what we need to see less of in sports.
Must play fair, and, though it's hard with one of the name programs in college football (or, at the least, one that used to be to a greater extent than now), I must tip my hat to the University of Nebraska football team.
You see, they just had their spring football game (which, obviously, is a big deal in those parts).
Jack Hoffman scored a 69-yard touchdown for the Red Team in the intrasquad game.
You won't be hearing that name in the boxscores come September.
You should be hearing it in Nebraska lore for all time, though.
You see, Hoffman is seven years old.
He has brain cancer.
Hoffman has caught the hearts and minds of the Nebraska football program for his fight against his childhood brain cancer.
So, for those once-in-a-lifetime moments, they decided to suit Hoffman up for the Red Team and have him take the field.
They had him enter the game on a 4th-and-1.
Yes, what happened was contrived and all that garbage if you want me to be as cynical as I usually am around these parts.
For this post, fuck that cynicism and I will just post what happened (a video, I assume, from the actual Nebraska Cornhusker athletics YouTube account) without further comment:
Must play fair, and, though it's hard with one of the name programs in college football (or, at the least, one that used to be to a greater extent than now), I must tip my hat to the University of Nebraska football team.
You see, they just had their spring football game (which, obviously, is a big deal in those parts).
Jack Hoffman scored a 69-yard touchdown for the Red Team in the intrasquad game.
You won't be hearing that name in the boxscores come September.
You should be hearing it in Nebraska lore for all time, though.
You see, Hoffman is seven years old.
He has brain cancer.
Hoffman has caught the hearts and minds of the Nebraska football program for his fight against his childhood brain cancer.
So, for those once-in-a-lifetime moments, they decided to suit Hoffman up for the Red Team and have him take the field.
They had him enter the game on a 4th-and-1.
Yes, what happened was contrived and all that garbage if you want me to be as cynical as I usually am around these parts.
For this post, fuck that cynicism and I will just post what happened (a video, I assume, from the actual Nebraska Cornhusker athletics YouTube account) without further comment:
Sports Fan Syndrome: A Contagious Disease
(Hat-tip to anonymous friend for today's most ridiculous story -- even more so than some of the Final Four calls, which I may examine later.)
Meet Kendall Gill.
Fifteen years in the NBA, now works for the Chicago Bulls on Comcast Sports Network.
Erm, he did until about two weeks ago.
Gill is now suspended from the network for the rest of the season and will probably be terminated for a fight he got in to with another commentator in the newsroom.
You see, Gill didn't like a call made in a March 18 game between the Bulls and Denver.
This was the call, as you hear Gill and his cohort were calling the game with seconds to go in overtime.
Joachim Noah appears to tip in a game-winning basket, which appeared to be passed to him above the rim in a set play.
The referee calls "basket interference" on Noah, and, as a result, the Bulls lose and the winning streak of the Nuggets reaches, at that point, 12. (It would reach 15 before back-to-back losses at New Orleans and San Antonio.)
The problem is that I can't see who actually made the call. The referee on the baseline didn't. The referee on the opposite side of the court to the camera didn't. So it was the third official, and I assume he was the one who handled giving the ball on the out-of-bounds play, so he was nowhere in the shot!
It takes me the replay, fifteen seconds later, and no one has realized the call yet!!, to see that the third official was not even in the frame of the shot and would've had to make that call from about 30 feet away!
And here's the thing: Once you see the replay, you realize the call was CORRECT! If anything, there was no reason to believe that ball was going to be short by anyone, except maybe Noah himself, and, hence, you now have to check to see if any part of the ball was "in the cylinder" (take the circle of the rim and "draw" that circle upward infinitely -- it creates a cylinder. If the ball is in that cylinder, an offensive player cannot touch it or he interferes with the shot, negating any resulting basket.)
If you freeze the frame at 29 seconds, the ball is CLEARLY "in the cylinder". The call is right. Absolutely clear at 50 seconds. Doesn't even appear that Noah needs to do it!
It takes at least 45 seconds to get the first mention of a basket interference call. The referees huddle, and then, almost unspeakably, the person who made this video was actually switching to late in the Heat-Celtics game (and this was when the Heat were running toward that historic streak of their own!!). During the few seconds he's in Boston, the basket is waved off and the Nuggets go on to win.
So is Kendall Gill going to kick my ass for saying it here?
Because that's exactly what he did to Tim Doyle from the Big Ten Network a couple of days later after a taping of "Sports Talk Live", according to several reports. A physical altercation has resulted in Gill's suspension from the network for the season, almost certainly that he will be fired when the situation is "re-evaluated" by the network.
I'll let Howard Cosell (through Brian Tuohy's site) state it better than I ever could about Kendall Gill catching Sports Fan Syndrome. His sixth tenet of Sports Fan Syndrome, published in 1985, fits Gill to a T.
"The fan is sacred, even as sports are. He pays the freight, thus he is an entitled being. The media people tell him this every day. Therefore, once within the arena, his emotions whetted by the Sports Syndrome, the fan adopts what John Stewart Mill found to be the classic confusion in the American thought process, the confusion between Liberty and License—a natural and probable consequence of which is fan violence."
Meet Kendall Gill.
Fifteen years in the NBA, now works for the Chicago Bulls on Comcast Sports Network.
Erm, he did until about two weeks ago.
Gill is now suspended from the network for the rest of the season and will probably be terminated for a fight he got in to with another commentator in the newsroom.
You see, Gill didn't like a call made in a March 18 game between the Bulls and Denver.
This was the call, as you hear Gill and his cohort were calling the game with seconds to go in overtime.
Joachim Noah appears to tip in a game-winning basket, which appeared to be passed to him above the rim in a set play.
The referee calls "basket interference" on Noah, and, as a result, the Bulls lose and the winning streak of the Nuggets reaches, at that point, 12. (It would reach 15 before back-to-back losses at New Orleans and San Antonio.)
The problem is that I can't see who actually made the call. The referee on the baseline didn't. The referee on the opposite side of the court to the camera didn't. So it was the third official, and I assume he was the one who handled giving the ball on the out-of-bounds play, so he was nowhere in the shot!
It takes me the replay, fifteen seconds later, and no one has realized the call yet!!, to see that the third official was not even in the frame of the shot and would've had to make that call from about 30 feet away!
And here's the thing: Once you see the replay, you realize the call was CORRECT! If anything, there was no reason to believe that ball was going to be short by anyone, except maybe Noah himself, and, hence, you now have to check to see if any part of the ball was "in the cylinder" (take the circle of the rim and "draw" that circle upward infinitely -- it creates a cylinder. If the ball is in that cylinder, an offensive player cannot touch it or he interferes with the shot, negating any resulting basket.)
If you freeze the frame at 29 seconds, the ball is CLEARLY "in the cylinder". The call is right. Absolutely clear at 50 seconds. Doesn't even appear that Noah needs to do it!
It takes at least 45 seconds to get the first mention of a basket interference call. The referees huddle, and then, almost unspeakably, the person who made this video was actually switching to late in the Heat-Celtics game (and this was when the Heat were running toward that historic streak of their own!!). During the few seconds he's in Boston, the basket is waved off and the Nuggets go on to win.
So is Kendall Gill going to kick my ass for saying it here?
Because that's exactly what he did to Tim Doyle from the Big Ten Network a couple of days later after a taping of "Sports Talk Live", according to several reports. A physical altercation has resulted in Gill's suspension from the network for the season, almost certainly that he will be fired when the situation is "re-evaluated" by the network.
I'll let Howard Cosell (through Brian Tuohy's site) state it better than I ever could about Kendall Gill catching Sports Fan Syndrome. His sixth tenet of Sports Fan Syndrome, published in 1985, fits Gill to a T.
"The fan is sacred, even as sports are. He pays the freight, thus he is an entitled being. The media people tell him this every day. Therefore, once within the arena, his emotions whetted by the Sports Syndrome, the fan adopts what John Stewart Mill found to be the classic confusion in the American thought process, the confusion between Liberty and License—a natural and probable consequence of which is fan violence."
Friday, April 5, 2013
My 500th Post: A Case Study In How Stupid America's Sports Leagues Believe American Sports Fans Are
Wow. 500 posts.
Never thought I'd get this far.
I guess what I really want to do is a post that basically asks this question:
Do the American sports leagues believe the American sports fan is THAT stupid?
If we are to take the cue from the Pacific-12 Conference, the answer is most certainly yes.
The head of the basketball officials in the conference was forced to quit today, as a result of at least joking conduct which would indicate that he was "out to get" and target Arizona coach Sean Miller.
There was at least joking references to the head of the basketball officials of the conference paying referees to get technical fouls and/or ejections on Miller, for reasons still kind of unexplained.
Now why do I tie this in to the question I gave above?
The identity of the now-former head of the basketball officials of the Pac-12: Ed Rush.
Yes, THAT Ed Rush.
Ed Rush was the supervisor of officials in the NBA in 2002, when that debacle in Los Angeles and Sacramento went down.
And you honestly believe in your heart, Pac-12 Conference, that this guy is trustworthy enough to hold the same job in your conference and not come across as a corrupt dick?
Do you honestly believe we are THAT stupid?
EDIT: Brian Tuohy has done it again. He found two YouTube videos by "RiggedBA", basically showing another side of why it is stupid for any league to entrust integrity in officiating with former NBA officials.
"The Michael Jordan Legacy" is a good look -- they might take it down at the YouTube level, though.
Never thought I'd get this far.
I guess what I really want to do is a post that basically asks this question:
Do the American sports leagues believe the American sports fan is THAT stupid?
If we are to take the cue from the Pacific-12 Conference, the answer is most certainly yes.
The head of the basketball officials in the conference was forced to quit today, as a result of at least joking conduct which would indicate that he was "out to get" and target Arizona coach Sean Miller.
There was at least joking references to the head of the basketball officials of the conference paying referees to get technical fouls and/or ejections on Miller, for reasons still kind of unexplained.
Now why do I tie this in to the question I gave above?
The identity of the now-former head of the basketball officials of the Pac-12: Ed Rush.
Yes, THAT Ed Rush.
Ed Rush was the supervisor of officials in the NBA in 2002, when that debacle in Los Angeles and Sacramento went down.
And you honestly believe in your heart, Pac-12 Conference, that this guy is trustworthy enough to hold the same job in your conference and not come across as a corrupt dick?
Do you honestly believe we are THAT stupid?
EDIT: Brian Tuohy has done it again. He found two YouTube videos by "RiggedBA", basically showing another side of why it is stupid for any league to entrust integrity in officiating with former NBA officials.
"The Michael Jordan Legacy" is a good look -- they might take it down at the YouTube level, though.
ESPN's next stop might well bite a hand that feeds it!
Not that I mind, but, perhaps emboldened by the Mike Rice firing at Rutgers, ESPN is now making a concerted effort, it appears, to wipe out the known-fraudulent BCS National Championship "won" by $Cam Newton and Auburn University.
Two separate reports have come out in the last 36 hours.
The first indicates a culture of paying players that should surprise no one with respect to college football.
It meant that Newton could be that next great media/machine hype-fest to get the #1 Draft Pick to go along with the Heisman AND the National Championship -- a National Championship in a year where the BCS solidified it's power and basically stated openly that no non-AQ school would ever play for the national title -- using Newton and Auburn as a nice shield to promote Newton, known dirty with the dealings of his father to get him to Auburn after his thefts at Florida and the like, to the NFL draft and the next step on the road of the American sports machine.
But that's not all ESPN has uncovered.
The good news is that I truly believe NO ONE can now claim, unless there is a concentrated witch hunt against Auburn and all of this is untrue, that the title was clean, whether or not the NCAA chooses to act.
The bad news is that this might well bite the hand that feeds the ownership of college football of ESPN.
Why?
Go back to what happened with respect to this "championship", as I stated above. The Auburn championship may have been the most important of the BCS pre-playoff era. It basically sealed the fates of the Boise States and TCUs and Hawaiis and Utahs of the previous few years -- that there would be no way that a BCS National Championship would be possible as long as the present hierarchy of college football continued to exist.
The problem, now, is that it's clear the whole thing was an utter and complete sham, on numerous levels.
But it now appears that ESPN is willing to help in the nullification of all this.
Is that going to sit well with the American Sports Machine?
Two separate reports have come out in the last 36 hours.
The first indicates a culture of paying players that should surprise no one with respect to college football.
- Selena Roberts, on her website, Roopstigo.com, posted an article yesterday implicating much of the Auburn program (including then-defensive coordinator, now Florida head coach Will Muschamp) paying a number of players for various purposes, up to and including paying players to stay at Auburn for the national championship run.
- Additionally, Roberts reports that many of the players were nowhere near academically-eligible to play in the fated 2011 BCS National Championship Game, where Newton (probably illegal himself) and the Tigers defeated Oregon 22-19. Roberts' report states that three former players implicated nine players had to have their grades materially changed (some flagrantly) to be allowed to compete in the 2011 BCS National Championship Game.
It meant that Newton could be that next great media/machine hype-fest to get the #1 Draft Pick to go along with the Heisman AND the National Championship -- a National Championship in a year where the BCS solidified it's power and basically stated openly that no non-AQ school would ever play for the national title -- using Newton and Auburn as a nice shield to promote Newton, known dirty with the dealings of his father to get him to Auburn after his thefts at Florida and the like, to the NFL draft and the next step on the road of the American sports machine.
But that's not all ESPN has uncovered.
- Tonight, ESPN the Magazine and Shaun Assael report that a six-month investigation of the Auburn program indicated a dozen players had failed synthetic marijuana tests after their national championship, as Auburn only instituted tests on the subject after the Championship.
- One player, TE Dakota Mosley, failed SEVEN such tests, was never punished, and failed one just before he was to go in front of the NCAA for the whole recruiting mess that the NCAA was successful in sweeping under the rug.
- Mosley was brought before Gene Chizik, then the coach of Auburn, and told he could keep his spot on the team.
- The day after that meeting, Mosley and two other players committed an incident in which the three now stand charged with armed robbery. One of them, Antonio Goodman, was found guilty and got 15 years in prison for it.
- Star RB Michael Dyer was also one of the 12 who failed. 18 athletes were found to have failed by the University.
- Another dozen seniors (it was not clear whether these were also football players) used the drug and were never caught, according to Assael's investigation.
The good news is that I truly believe NO ONE can now claim, unless there is a concentrated witch hunt against Auburn and all of this is untrue, that the title was clean, whether or not the NCAA chooses to act.
The bad news is that this might well bite the hand that feeds the ownership of college football of ESPN.
Why?
Go back to what happened with respect to this "championship", as I stated above. The Auburn championship may have been the most important of the BCS pre-playoff era. It basically sealed the fates of the Boise States and TCUs and Hawaiis and Utahs of the previous few years -- that there would be no way that a BCS National Championship would be possible as long as the present hierarchy of college football continued to exist.
The problem, now, is that it's clear the whole thing was an utter and complete sham, on numerous levels.
But it now appears that ESPN is willing to help in the nullification of all this.
Is that going to sit well with the American Sports Machine?
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
ESPN Finally Gets _ONE_ Program To Do The Right Thing
There, more and more every day, is getting down to just one good thing about ESPN (and, even at that, Your Mileage May Certainly Vary)...
In a vain effort to look important and actually think they're doing something, the network allows a small group of reporters to do the actual work that The Worldwide Leader should be doing (especially with it's position in sports) with it's Outside the Lines series.
Well, they finally did a small sliver of good this week. They got a physically violent and abusive college basketball coach fired from Rutgers today -- and almost certainly has run him out of the sport.
Mike Rice was fired today as a direct result of ESPN's exposition of a pattern of violent physical abuse of his players. The videos also showed him throwing homophobic slurs at them.
Several practice videos were shown on the network yesterday (starting with their morning SportsCenter, and leading into their daily program) showing a pattern of verbal and physical abuse of the players. The usual modus operandi is that Rice would always have a basketball at his beck and call (probably through student managers and the like) that he would chuck at players he did not feel were listening. And then the slurs start...
He was also known to grab players and physically pull them where he felt he needed to put them.
Game footage of arguments was also shown, as well as bench footage which pretty much made clear that he had no business being around kids of any age.
This is an unstable man. After being fined $50,000 and ordered to "rehabilitation" during a three-game suspension, yesterday's national show forced the university's President to fire him.
One has to wonder if Rutgers needs to look at a full house-cleaning. This was the same tape that had him still employed during this season. The "new information" was almost certainly political pressure (probably "fire him or we will, and take you with him" from the legislature of New Jersey or the like), and, at that point, I don't think he should be the only one to go.
In a vain effort to look important and actually think they're doing something, the network allows a small group of reporters to do the actual work that The Worldwide Leader should be doing (especially with it's position in sports) with it's Outside the Lines series.
Well, they finally did a small sliver of good this week. They got a physically violent and abusive college basketball coach fired from Rutgers today -- and almost certainly has run him out of the sport.
Mike Rice was fired today as a direct result of ESPN's exposition of a pattern of violent physical abuse of his players. The videos also showed him throwing homophobic slurs at them.
Several practice videos were shown on the network yesterday (starting with their morning SportsCenter, and leading into their daily program) showing a pattern of verbal and physical abuse of the players. The usual modus operandi is that Rice would always have a basketball at his beck and call (probably through student managers and the like) that he would chuck at players he did not feel were listening. And then the slurs start...
He was also known to grab players and physically pull them where he felt he needed to put them.
Game footage of arguments was also shown, as well as bench footage which pretty much made clear that he had no business being around kids of any age.
This is an unstable man. After being fined $50,000 and ordered to "rehabilitation" during a three-game suspension, yesterday's national show forced the university's President to fire him.
One has to wonder if Rutgers needs to look at a full house-cleaning. This was the same tape that had him still employed during this season. The "new information" was almost certainly political pressure (probably "fire him or we will, and take you with him" from the legislature of New Jersey or the like), and, at that point, I don't think he should be the only one to go.
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