Sports media keep letting boorish behavior and bad actions rule the day
What once would have been impossible due to a shame factor, especially shame administered by a sports media that represented the public trust, is kaput.
nypost.com
By Phil Mushnick
Finally, some good news: Following his second bust for co-starring with a gun in America’s Dumbest Home Videos, Ja Morant said, “I take full accountability for my actions.”
Whew! That lets a lot of folks off the hook, including reader Mike Caputo who writes that he was prepared to at least share some of the accountability with Morant.
Even better, given the vile, vulgar, violent, N-worded NBA YoungBoy rap Morant was enjoying at the time, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who avoids taking any accountability, has a lead for the next Super Bowl halftime show.
Artificial Intelligence is about to devour us? Heck, sports fans have been surrounded by it for years!
What once would have been impossible due to a shame factor, especially shame administered by a sports media that represented the public trust, is kaput.
Now, we just grin, nod our heads and move along, lemmings led to the ledge.
In recent days, MLB customers were forced to endure a four-hour rain delay in Washington, while the NFL determined that for the first time, a playoff game will appear exclusively on pay TV, on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.
Short-term money in exchange for long-term risk and likely regret. And to that we, the media, respond with a collective duh.
And if you don’t have a sucker bet or two or five, you can get lost right now, as opposed to later, after your credit cards hit 20 percent interest. Our counting-house commissioners — guardians of our sports — couldn’t care less as long as their bosses, team owners, get their cut.
And the sprint backwards continues.
Now, Anthony Rizzo, once so easy to root for, has become a home plate-poser. In 14 MLB seasons he hasn’t seen enough examples of counterproductive self-smitten behavior to know better? He doesn’t see that there is zero upside, hasn’t learned from Giancarlo Stanton what Stanton has refused to learn?
On Wednesday, Francisco Lindor hit a bloop single, then stood on first base doing his check-me-out thing: broad smile, flamboyant arm gestures toward the Mets’ dugout. A bloop single, for crying out loud!
At game’s end, Pete Alonso reminded all that he still has no sense of genuine class by shouting “Let’s F–king Go Mets!” to the crowd and into the SNY microphone, no doubt to please the reprobates in both audiences.
While Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez then played stupid, Alonso had just spoken about the high level of “professionalism” among the Mets’ younger players. Ya don’t say, Pete?
Alonso still chooses a gutter vulgarity as his public calling card? Does no one at or near the top — Steve Cohen, perhaps — see fit to straighten him out as per the best common decency interests of all, including Alonso? Alonso would choose that word for the kids in his life?
Yankees telecasts on YES remain a strain on the good senses. During two home wins over the Rays last week, Michael Kay several times became hysterical, carrying on like a wild man trying to scream over what could plainly be seen. Kay again played his audience for a pack of nursery schoolers.
Then, there was that suspicious Aaron Judge sign-peeking suggestion from the Blue Jays’ veteran TV announcers (and that’s all it was, a reasonable suggestion based on video evidence, more gamesmanship than a crime) that Kay, on Tuesday, helped pump into an unjust defamation of Judge.
How dare anyone suspect any Yankee of malfeasance — especially the night before Yankees starter Domingo German was tossed for cheating.
If YES had similar video as the Blue Jays’ telecast — say, of Vlad Guerrero glancing at his first-base coach while at bat — YES wouldn’t have shown it? And Kay wouldn’t have made his suspicions known?
Yet after the Yankees’ win Tuesday at Toronto, Kay led a full-bore, insulting, shouting and maudlin loyalty oath: “What a win for the Yankees, 6-3! Facing adversity! Their starting pitcher getting thrown out of the game! Judge under suspicion that he didn’t deserve!” Ugh.
Artificial intelligence? Our sports have long been predicated on it.
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