Phil Mushnick Just Seems to Hate Humanity as a Whole

When I went to write this post I didn't remember that I already had a tag for Phil Mushnick. I didn't remember ever covering anything he had written before, so I searched the archives and I had written one post covering a Mushnick article where he did his best to take a crap on Florida Gulf Coast's run to the Sweet 16. The team was too "look at me" for Phil Mushnick, which is somewhat interesting coming from a guy whose writing schtick basically consists of him saying, "Look at me! I write like a grumpy old man! Matt Kemp's injury was karma and Adrian Peterson may have a dead son, but that doesn't stop me from questioning whether he is a good person or not."

So those are the two articles from Phil. He thinks it is karma that Matt Kemp got injured and is eager upon finding out Adrian Peterson's son died to point out that Adrian Peterson isn't necessarily a good person. Speaking of not being a good person...here's two Phil Mushnick columns. I'll start with Mushnick's thoughts on Matt Kemp and karma.

Two years ago, the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp was runner-up to drug-cheat Ryan Braun for the NL MVP. Kemp, however, is out of these playoffs with a bad ankle.

It's karma for Braun being a cheater! Wait, that doesn't make sense.

At least that’s the cover story — the one TV and radio provide. Two-plus-two. But for those who prefer a bit more, Kemp injured his ankle — then missed 52 games and now the playoffs — because he chose to play new-age baseball, which means stylish, minimalist, and presumptive bad baseball.

If you don't play old-school, good baseball that Phil Mushnick likes then you deserve to die...or at the very least deserve to get injured to where you can't play baseball at all. It's only fair that Kemp suffers a severe bodily injury as punishment for not playing baseball "the right way." I'm sure this is how Adolf Hitler would feel as well were he still alive and decided to become a sportswriter instead of a dictator. You don't do things his way, well the outcome was under your control and now you choose to get hurt as a punishment.

On July 21 against the Nationals, Kemp was on third, two out, bases loaded. Carl Crawford hit a chopper toward first baseman Chad Tracy.

Having two first names as your first and last name is so completely old-school baseball. 

Kemp, who should have been running on contact, presumed the force throw would be made elsewhere.

Matt Kemp didn't hustle which means he deserves to be injured. So what was the result? The Baseball Gods punished Matt Kemp with an injury to the same ankle attached to the leg that didn't hustle down the line to beat the throw.

So he jogged.

How stylish, minimalist and new-age of him to jog to home plate. New-age baseball players love being lazy. This is something that is real and isn't completely made up by Phil Mushnick just now, on-the-spot to prove a point.

But Tracy had no play at any base, except home — because Kemp chose not to run. Too late, Kemp turned it on, but was forced out at home.

Kemp definitely should have been running in this instance, but I have no idea how Kemp's inability to hustle on this play means he was playing new-age baseball. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what new-age baseball is.

He injured his ankle in an awkward half-slide that wouldn’t have been necessary had he run, as per Baseball Fundamentals 101, in the first place.

Again, Matt Kemp should have hustled, but it's just so incredibly ridiculous to say Matt Kemp got injured or deserved to get injured because he didn't hustle on this play. It's actually sort of disturbing that Phil Mushnick has this line of thought. I'm not sure how physical injury is the appropriate punishment for not hustling or not following "Baseball Fundamentals 101."

That’s why Kemp, 2011 MVP runner-up, will not play this postseason.

Because he got injured, which was completely deserved obviously. I get the feeling Phil Mushnick is the type of person who actually gets excited and happy when a player gets hurt. He's the guy cheering when Matt Schaub gets injured, because Schaub wasn't playing very well and getting hurt is the best possible punishment for this transgression of not playing old-school football.

Two plus two equals four? Sometimes. It’s not for everyone.

This references the opening paragraph of this column which read:

Two plus two has become a matter of “Depends on how ya look at it,” “What’s it to you?” and even “Don’t go there.”

Me being a new-age, minimalist this just seems like a bunch of bullshit gibberish to me written by a bitter, old-school writer. If I were Phil Mushnick I would say his punishment for such terrible writing would be to get hit by a taxi.

Now Phil takes great pains to tell us that having a dead son doesn't mean Adrian Peterson is a good person. Because when an athlete's son dies, it's usually that exact moment when it is appropriate to remind us that athlete isn't a good person...sort of like Peterson doesn't deserve our sympathy because he's not Mother Teresa. God, Phil Mushnick is the worst.

We in the media — especially those working event broadcasts — have a horrible habit of blindly or wishfully reporting great achievers are additionally blessed: They’re great humans.

I know! I hate it when broadcasters accentuate the positive and don't constantly harp on the negative. That's why Phil Mushnick is here though, to constantly focus on the negative and put dead babies in perspective by reminding us the baby's father wasn't perfect.

Among many others, we did it with Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong.

The problem is the media made Tiger and Lance Armstrong look good BEFORE their dastardly deeds were publicly known and later turned on them once these deeds were found out, while talking positively about Adrian Peterson when his son has died is a completely and totally different thing. That is unless Phil Mushnick thinks having a child out of wedlock (when not being married yourself) is the same thing as cheating on your wife multiple times with multiple women and using PED's to win multiple Tour de France titles while ruining the reputation of anyone who dared to out you as a cheater. I'm guessing Phil Mushnick thinks it's all the same.

Last year, we began to do it with Adrian Peterson, before, and then after, he was selected the NFL’s MVP. With every big game — 2,037 running yards worth — the media bloated his profile: There runs Superman, a super guy, too.

Again, is a couple of days after his son dies the best time to point out Adrian Peterson isn't perfect and to point out the adulation the media gives athletes? Phil Mushnick must be a blast to share Thanksgiving dinner with.

"Now that we are all gathered here at the table, let's talk some more about how Carol has forgiven Bob for cheating on her with his secretary."

“We talked with him after practice, and let me tell you this and that about Adrian Peterson.” “Adrian Peterson still finds time to do charity work in the Twin Cities area.” Blah, blah and blah. Good equals goodness.

This has nothing to do with Adrian Peterson or his son dying. But don't worry, Phil ties in Peterson's lack of goodness to his son's death soon enough.

In 2009, he was busted for driving 109 mph in a 55 mph zone. He dismissed that as no big deal, which was doubly disturbing — his older, full brother was killed by a reckless driver.

Notice how Mushnick writes "older, full brother" so he can inform us that Peterson had a half-brother, which means the lineage of divorce or children out of wedlock was passed down to Peterson from his parents.

Last summer, Peterson was in a club when he and friends were informed that it was closing time, past 2 a.m. Apparently, Peterson and pals felt they would decide when it was time to close. The police report noted three cops were needed to subdue Peterson.

It's a good thing Phil doesn't believe Peterson plays new-age, minimalist football or else he would say that Peterson deserved to have his son die for not hustling enough during football games.

Of course, we all have to operate from are our own set of values, our personal sense of right from wrong. Perhaps, given current standards among NFL players — mostly college men, no less — Peterson qualifies as a man of good character.

Just like compared to other sportswriters, Phil Mushnick's writing is shittier and more bitter.

And it’s sickening the NFL’s latest MVP, hours after his son died — allegedly murdered — declared he was “ready to roll,” ready to play football.

"Allegedly murdered." No, maybe Adrian Peterson's son is walking around South Dakota somewhere and this is all a joke.

Jokes aside, I'd be interested to hear how it was an accident that Peterson's son was killed. Unless the alleged assailant is going to state he was just "standing his ground" against a two year old, I can't see how this won't be murder. Maybe it is possible to accidentally beat-up a two year old while playing.

Different players respond to trauma in different ways. If Phil Mushnick doesn't know that, then fuck him. Brett Favre played a Monday Night Football game (purely for the attention of it if you ask me) after his father died and I'm pretty sure no one wrote it was sickening that Favre dared to be on the football field at that point. Yes, a dead child is different from a dead parent, but not so different for Favre to be heroic when he played and it be sickening for Peterson to play.

Me? I’d be fighting for breath, my knees weak with grief, demanding to know why, who, how.

Then Phil Mushnick would think about all of the things he did during that past week and determine if he did something wrong that made his son die, then upon realizing he is perfect, immediately blame the child's mother for living a new-age, minimalist lifestyle that killed their son.

Then, I suspect, I’d seethe with rage, swearing retribution. I even think I’d take off a day or two from work. Maybe a week.

People deal with trauma and grief in different ways. Brett Favre played football when his dad died, Adrian Peterson played football after his son died, while the same reaction can't be expected from every professional athlete. But because Adrian Peterson's reaction wasn't the same reaction that Phil Mushnick would have, this clearly makes Peterson a bad person.

The suspect in the beating murder of Peterson’s 2-year-old is the boyfriend of Peterson’s “baby mama” — now the casual, flippant, detestable and common buzz-phrase for absentee, wham-bam fatherhood.

"Baby mama" is the detestable, flippant, buzz-phrase for an absentee father that Phil Mushnick just used. He could have used any other term he wanted to describe Peterson's relationship to the child's mother, but Phil chose to use "baby mama," which is a term he finds detestable and flippant, yet he insists on using it anyway. No one has made Mushnick use this term, yet he chooses to use it anyway, despite claiming he detests the word.

With his resources, how could Peterson, the NFL’s MVP, have allowed his son to remain in such an environment? Did he not know, or not care? Or not care to know? Or not know to care?

Well first off, before I check in with real life "reality" and do the fact-finding that Phil Mushnick didn't care to do, it's important for Mushnick to know the courts greatly favor the mother when it comes to custody in situations like this. Not being married to the child's mother, Peterson would have had to prove the environment was so toxic to the child's well-being that he be given full custody of the child in order to look out for the child's welfare in a way the mother could not. Considering (a) the relationship between Peterson and the child and the relationship between the child's mother and the alleged assailant was new and (b) usually a bad boyfriend who doesn't live with the child isn't grounds for a judge to find the environment toxic enough to remove the child from the mother's custody and give that child to Peterson, it's hard to fault Peterson for not taking action in this case. It could have been many months before Peterson could have sued for full custody and this been granted, so if the relationship between the baby's mother and the accused was new, it wouldn't have mattered if Peterson "allowed" his son to remain in the environment. There's nothing that could have been done.

Apparently Phil Mushnick is under the impression Adrian Peterson can just go kidnap his son and bring him back to live with him by unilaterally determining the child is growing up in an unsafe environment. This would make him a good person? The legal reality is that it isn't easy to just take away a child from that child's mother, but Phil Mushnick doesn't deal with reality when he is busy doling out blame.

So back to the real-life reality for a minute. Adrian Peterson had just found out the child was his, so he didn't have time to kidnap the child or start court proceedings.

Peterson couldn’t have provided his son a better life, a longer life?

What a moron. Peterson was helping the child out financially, but it's NOT UP TO HIM as to who gets custody of the child. A person can't just walk before a judge and say, "I make a shit-ton of money, so I deserve custody of the child," while the judge just sits there drooling while nodding in agreement. If Adrian Peterson can provide his son a better, longer life then the court will say, "Sounds good, here's your child support payment for that better life you want your child to lead and any visitation agreement is between you and his mother. Have a good day."

Money can’t buy love, but having signed a $96 million deal, he could not have provided his child — 

I like how Phil is trying to blame Peterson for his son's death. That's perfect. Phil Mushnick's complete idiocy when it comes to the court system is hilarious. Courts nearly always side with the mother in terms of permanent custody. If Peterson wanted joint custody, that's fine, but no court is taking the child away from his mother unless it is given an excellent reason to do so. I'm not entirely sure the mother having a boyfriend with a criminal record is justification in this case. That would be for a court to decide, which takes time, and time isn't what Peterson had to get this done before his son was killed.

apparently his second from a “baby mama” — 

For someone who hates that word, Phil Mushnick sure loves using it doesn't he?

a safe home?

Absolutely, that's why Peterson would have paid child support, to financially support the child and provide the financial security he could provide if he and the mother were together. If Peterson wants joint custody, that's perfect too, but a court isn't going to just hand the child to Peterson because he's wealthier than the mother of the child.

But given Peterson’s father did hard time for drug money laundering maybe we’re both stuck with the values in which we were born, raised.

What an asshole. I would love to have Mushnick explain exactly what he thinks Adrian Peterson should have done. He just found out he had this child and it's suddenly his fault for the mother of the child choosing to be in relationship with a person who ended up (allegedly) beating the child to death. Of course, it's Peterson's fault for trusting the child's mother to make good decisions. Peterson should have magically gotten full custody of a child he knew existed for two months using his money as a reason he gets custody. Money is a reason to pay child support, not get custody of a child.

On Friday, Peterson said he was “focused” on football. On Sunday, he played. But it’s not as if murder doesn’t now regularly afflict the NFL.

Yes, murder happens all the time in the NFL. It's pretty much a daily thing.

Maybe Peterson’s son is just one more stands-to-reason murder victim, just another child born to just another “baby mama,”

This is Mushnick's third time using this term he claims to detest. And no, Peterson's son isn't just another child born out of wedlock. His son is a child who got caught in a bad situation and paid for it with his life. There's very little that Peterson could have done to police from Minnesota who the child's mother is in a relationship with, because that's just not how it works from a legal and reality standpoint.

one more kid who never had a shot, anyway. Maybe, by now, even if we can’t accept it, we can expect it.

Yeah, good job killing your son, Adrian Peterson. Phil Mushnick thinks his blood is on your hands because you aren't a good person and won't kidnap a child you learned existed two months ago. I bet Mushnick thinks this is Peterson's punishment for having a child out of wedlock.