Alex Rodriguez is currently in the process of doing something very rude. He's making things awkward for the Yankees by continuing to play fairly well and coming close to breaking MLB records, including Willie Mays' home run record of 660. One would think the Yankees would be happy to have a contributing player like A-Rod, but for legal and financial reasons they are not acknowledging A-Rod's achievements. But don't think Dan Shaughnessy and Bob Raissman haven't noticed that A-Rod is stealing the spotlight by breaking records and don't think they don't see this as another strike against A-Rod. If he had any morality then he would play poorly and not break any records so Shaughnessy and Raissman could rip him for being a complete waste of money. Instead, they don't even get to take cheap shots at A-Rod, so they have to work to find something he's done wrong.
I'll start first with Dan Shaughnessy, who thinks A-Rod is making things awkward for the Yankees playing well and trying to break records. Why does A-Rod insist on the Yankees making things awkward by not recognizing his achievements so they don't have to pay him bonuses for breaking MLB records?
Alex Rodriguez is approaching Willie Mays on the all-time home run list and his own team won’t acknowledge this fact.
For legal and financial reasons. They don't want to pay him when he breaks records, so they want to show they didn't publicize A-Rod breaking records and hope they don't have to pay him.
A-Rod
is baseball’s pariah. He is the bubonic plague. Hating on A-Rod is one
of America’s favorite parlor games. Even in his own organization.
He's seen as a pariah mostly within his own organization, outside of the Yankees players of course. I've not read anything from a source on the Yankees actual team (it's usually a source in the organization, not the players) that says negative things about A-Rod. Who cares though? Because sportswriters like hating on A-Rod, this means most of America hates him. Dan Shaughnessy speaks for us all.
It’s weird to see him in uniform again. It’s weird to see him in the
Yankee locker room, where he dresses next to Jacoby Ellsbury, a
tremendous talent who never gets particularly close to his teammates.
I'm sorry not sorry that it's weird. No one cares how you feel, Dan.
The beloved Yankee stars are all gone. Bernie Williams. Andy Pettitte.
Jorge Posada. Mariano Rivera. Finally, Derek Jeter. But A-Rod is back.
He is back because the Yankees still owe him a giant bag of money ($61
million through 2017). He is back because he served his one-year
suspension. He is back because he’s got nowhere else to go.
He is back because, despite all of his cheating and transgressions, he is wanting to help the Yankees win baseball games without making a huge deal about it. A-Rod has not searched out controversy or tried to defend any of his actions. I think the media resents this in a way. They don't want a silent A-Rod, because they can't rip on a silent A-Rod for things he says.
A-Rod wasn’t available for interviews before Friday’s marathon. He
bolted past his clubhouse stall once, but couldn’t say anything because
his mouth was full of mouthwash.
“That’s his new trick,’’ said a Yankee beat writer. “He’s got the
mouthwash going and can’t say anything when he brushes past you.’’
If A-Rod doesn't want to talk to reporters then he doesn't have to. Sorry, that's life. If he wants to do a "trick" by having mouthwash in, that's fine, because he's not obligated to talk to the media after the game. In fact, if I were A-Rod then I would make it a point to not speak with the media that clearly doesn't like me and clearly is going to try and twist my words to mean something they don't or mangle them in such a fashion to where that sportswriter can get a column bashing me out of it.
It is awkward for Hal and Hank Steinbrenner (this is one of those times we could really use Boss George’s bombast).
It's the "If only George Steinbrenner were alive then he would fix everything that's wrong with the Yankees" pining. It's cute and fun, but I don't seem to recall George Steinbrenner always doing a heck of a lot to fix what's wrong with the Yankees and often he was the source of the organization's problems. Revisionist history is something sportswriters love to participate in when they are discussing the Yankees and George Steinbrenner. He has become a symbol for something that he really wasn't when he was actually alive.
It is awkward for Yankee GM Brian Cashman and manager Joe Girardi. It is
awkward for A-Rod’s teammates. And it is awkward for the Yankee PR
staff, one of the best in the business. They don’t quite know how to
acknowledge A-Rod without appearing to celebrate his deeds.
It sucks it's awkward, but the only ones who are making it awkward is the Yankees organization who refuses to acknowledge A-Rod's achievements. They could end the awkwardness and just bite the bullet to celebrate him, but they won't do it.
There was a time when the Yankees were hoping A-Rod would become the
all-time home run king. He was like Tiger Woods marching toward Jack
Nicklaus’s 18 major titles. A-Rod had a chance to be the first 800-homer
guy. And he would do it as a Yankee.
But that was before he got caught cheating and lied. And cheated again.
And lied again. And sued everybody, including his own union.
A-Rod did sue his own union. He also was sort of right to do that. MLB used the Biogenesis lawsuit as a way to collect documents and not redress any sort of injury that was alleged in the basis of the lawsuit. That's my view at least. MLB gathered evidence behind the illusion of the Biogenesis lawsuit and MLB also violated confidentiality with leaks in the case. A-Rod doesn't think the union sufficiently defended him in this situation. Saying, "he sued his own union" is a much more salacious way of saying that A-Rod didn't think his rights as a member of the union were being protected like they should be. If your employer was using what you perceived to be bogus means to collect evidence against you, then wouldn't you probably be a little salty if you believe your union didn't protect you sufficiently and defend you against your employer? I know I would.
Now there is no club-sanctioned celebration when he hits a home run. There is embarrassment.
So now there is complaining that A-Rod has done something wrong when he hits a home run.
And
it’s going to be really embarrassing sometime soon when he hits his
seventh home run of the season and passes Mays for fourth on the
all-time list.
This is the same Willie Mays who was a team source for amphetamines, right?
Willie Mays is a baseball treasure, but I always laugh at how the greenie use of the previous generation of baseball players is glossed over. Hank Aaron was passed by Barry Bonds for the home run record. I think we are past the point of being embarrassed when older generation greats have their records passed by players tied to PED's.
A-Rod is owed a $6 million bonus every time he passes these magic
markers. It is believed that the Yankees intend to withhold the bonus
and take the matter to arbitration.
The Yankees believe that if it can be proven that the milestones are not
marketable because they are tainted, the ball club will not have to pay
the bonuses.
“We are very, very careful in not marketing these milestones,’’ said a high-ranking Yankee official.
But if the Yankees are admitting they aren't marketing these achievements and they have a clear motive to save money by not marketing these achievements, then why should A-Rod not get his $6 million? Simply because the organization chooses not to market A-Rod's achievement, well that's not his problem. The Yankees signed a contract and if they choose not to market A-Rod, that's great, but it doesn't mean he isn't entitled to the $6 million as designated in his contract.
Again, we have all done things wrong. Maybe even done things wrong twice, but if you put yourself in A-Rod's shoes for a minute then it's easy to get why he wouldn't be happy the Yankees are going to withhold money from his contract for achievements. If my employer withheld money from me after I believe I did my time for a wrongdoing, then I would be unhappy. I understand the Yankees' point of view too. No team wants to market a false record. Well, some MLB teams do and that's their choice.
The only mention was in the daily notes where a small A-Rod section
disclosed that he is fifth on the all-time homer list. There was no
mention of A-Rod needing five to tie Mays.
A-Rod can no longer play shortstop or third base.
He can still play third base if he needed to. This is why he was practicing fielding ground balls at third base during spring training. Not to steal Chase Headley's job, but to be prepared to play the position if he was needed.
He’s a full-time DH
who experimented at first base in spring training. He can’t run. He’s
limited.
So, he's a full-time DH like other full-time DH's who can't really do much else outside of hit?
The Yanks have not hit the road yet, so A-Rod has heard a lot of cheers and not many boos.
Unless he's paid attention to the noises coming from the pressbox of course. Sportswriters who love being up on their pedestal are booing A-Rod every chance they get.
That
will change Monday night when the Yankees play the Orioles at Camden
Yards. The Yankees come to Boston on Friday, May 1. That should be good.
While also slightly ironic given the fact prominent Red Sox players haven't exactly been clean over the past decade.
Maybe that’ll be the weekend that A-Rod hits No. 661 to vault Mays.
I can see the Daily News headline now: “Pay Day Kid Passes Say Hey Kid; Nobody Notices’’.
"Pay Day Kid"? Dan Shaughnessy is calling A-Rod the "Pay Day Kid." Yeah, blame A-Rod for signing a contract that he and the Yankees agreed was his market value. It's all A-Rod's fault and we all know Dan Shaughnessy would never take more money from the "Boston Globe" if they offered it to him. Dan is too good for that, plus he may have already done that but his salary is private.
A-Rod is back. It’s a big bowl of awkward.
It is and it's because the Yankees are working hard to make it that way. I don't not blame A-Rod for his part, but the Yankees signed the contract, the contract hasn't been voided, and so if they don't choose to market A-Rod then that is their choosing. This would all just be easier if A-Rod would stop performing well enough to break MLB records. If A-Rod would just hit .150 and not have an extra base hit then there would be no awkwardness and the media could rip him for his lousy performance. That's what Dan Shaughnessy wants to do anyway.
Bob Raissman has also noticed that A-Rod has screwed everything up by insisting on not playing so poorly and daring to break MLB records. For Bob, he's a little confused that ESPN and Fox are paying so much attention to A-Rod. It's perfectly fine for Raissman to have written about A-Rod three times from March 14 to April 15, but it astounds him when other media outlets try to pay attention to A-Rod. They are just proving his marketability, which is a big no-no.
The lines were strikingly similar. Both were spoken while the camera was on Alex Rodriguez.
“I think there’s a PED fatigue among fans,” Tom Verducci, working with
Harold Reynolds and Joe Buck, said Saturday during FS1’s Red Sox-Yankees
telecast. “It’s not why they come to the ballpark.”
Less than 24 hours later, Curt Schilling attempted to explain why Yankee
fans have quickly gravitated back to A-Rod’s corner. “Part of it too is
fatigue. That (Biogenesis/PED) story was fatiguing,” Schilling said
early in ESPN’s telecast of the Sunday night series finale. “I think
everyone is tired of it. They want to move on, including Alex.”
I think that Tom Verducci and Curt Schilling are both correct. Of course, most sportswriters won't ever realize this because they are too busy taking hardline stances against PED use and continuing to beat the PED horse into the ground. Yes, PED's are an issue (which is why MLB has a drug policy), and yes, those players who take PED's are cheaters. After a while, it's exhausting to talk about it and debate it. This is part of the reason I post these "What A-Rod Has Done Wrong Today" posts, to show how these sportswriters dream of different things that A-Rod has done wrong in place of simply writing another column obliterating him for twice getting caught using PED's. There is PED fatigue and sportswriters try to talk around this fatigue by talking about how A-Rod is marketing poison or how he shows up at training camp early AND DOESN'T EVEN TELL THE YANKEES! All these things that A-Rod has done wrong goes back to his PED use, which I am betting the general public is tired of discussing. I know I am. So a villain becomes a sort of anti-hero.
During spring training, commissioner Rob Manfred called on MLB’s
national TV partners to help market baseball’s young stars. Yet during
the first weekend of the season, the spotlight was on a 39-year-old
tainted drug abuser (who Manfred helped bust) returning from a season in exile.
I disagree the focus was on A-Rod. Maybe from the perspective of a sportswriter like Raissman who is paid to cover A-Rod, but as the fan of a team that isn't the Yankees I only heard about A-Rod when I went searching out information about him or read a column from a New York-based sportswriter.
It just wasn’t what the network voices had to say about him. It was what
the cameras allowed us see. The coverage did not reach total Love-In
status, but pretty close.
Yes, how dare MLB Network talk about A-Rod a lot and choose to keep the focus on what Rodriguez was doing. Don't they know it is the New York media's job to saturate the airwaves with coverage of A-Rod? The New York media are the only ones allowed to discuss A-Rod all the time and at length. It's fine for Bob Raissman to write about A-Rod three times in a month, but when MLB Network discusses A-Rod then they are simply giving the spotlight to someone who doesn't deserve it. Or is it that Raissman doesn't like any coverage of A-Rod that isn't negative coverage?
On Sunday night, a number of Yankees met with kids from the Harlem
Little League but ESPN only showed A-Rod speaking with them and signing
autographs.
This was an image-softening moment. Team A-Rod could not have orchestrated this heartwarming session any better.
ESPN should have shown A-Rod spitting in the face of these kids and then slipping his phone number to each child's mother in the hopes of having a quickie after the game was over. But NOOOOO, ESPN had to show A-Rod in a light that wasn't negative. That's not allowed.
There also were regular-guy shots of Rodriguez interacting with
teammates in the dugout. On Saturday, Fox zoned in on A-Rod awkwardly
attempting to play first base — another sympathetic sequence.
Except A-Rod was really being a regular guy in the dugout. It's not like Team A-Rod has forced his teammates to like him. And A-Rod playing first base is a story, like it or not. It seems that Raissman's real issue is any media coverage of A-Rod that isn't considered openly antagonistic or negative. That shows a bias in Raissman's coverage of A-Rod and that he seems to have a sort of an agenda.
It all was food for the “fatigued.” While Rodriguez came off clumsy playing first, Fox’s pictures also told a story of a guy who said he would do anything for his team actually backing up his words — and doing it while risking on-field embarrassment.
How dare Fox show A-Rod playing a position he doesn't normally play! Fox is showing A-Rod helping and this appeases the "fatigued"! Fox should not even have acknowledged who was playing first base.
It's ridiculous when these networks have agendas when covering players. Cover A-Rod in a negative fashion or don't cover him at all. The only agenda Fox should have is an agenda that Bob Raissman agrees with.
Yet all these pictures, all this bright spotlight, plays into another controversy rolling up fast on Rodriguez and the Yankees.
So the general argument being made by Raissman is that the media is on A-Rod's side? This is a real argument being made?
Fox’s MLB reporter Ken Rosenthal, twice on Saturday’s telecast and once on the pregame, detailed how Yankees suits “do not intend” to pay Rodriguez any of the $6 million HR milestone bonuses.
Oh no, look how the media is covering this story. Trying to make the public feel bad for A-Rod because the Yankees signed a contract stating he would get $6 million when he passed Willie Mays on the all-time home run list and now they are trying to renege on this deal. What's the point of mentioning this, other than to get the focus on A-Rod? It's not news, even though every other media outlet has reported it as news and Bob Raissman himself will discuss this story right now.
But the Yankees will contest the payments. In fact, they do not even include his pursuit in the press notes under the heading of “upcoming Yankee milestones.”
As Rosenthal said, they consider Rodriguez, after the PED use and the year ban, “an unmarketable player."
That's better. Feed that A-Rod is unmarketable and don't try to show him in a positive light. Much better.
Buck contradicted the Yankees’ assertion. “To me he is, by far, the most interesting player — good or bad — the Yankees have,” Buck said. “And an organization that has its own television network (Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network), well, people want to know what this guy does. ... Every A-Rod at-bat is an event, whether he’s hitting .300 or zero.”
And yet, Joe Buck insists on continuing to focus his attention on A-Rod. What's the obsession Fox has with Rodriguez? Okay, back to Bob Raissman talking about A-Rod at length.
John Kruk provided evidence after Schilling gushed about how good A-Rod looks and how wonderful it is seeing him back in competition. “Yeah, I’ll bet the Yankees are tickled about it too,” Kruk said sarcastically.
Except, A-Rod does look good after taking a year off from baseball. Raissman can call it "gushing" all he wants. A-Rod took a year off from baseball at the age of 38 and has come back to be a productive player (so far) at the age of 39. It's being acknowledged, regardless of whether Bob Raissman prefer the conversation to be solely a negative one.
And, more importantly, how might any future coverage, with A-Rod as the positive focal point, play into the bonus clause dispute if it ever goes to arbitration?
I like how Bob Raissman claims noticing A-Rod is hitting the ball well, showing him playing first base and saying that fans are tired of the PED discussion is "positive" coverage for A-Rod. Apparently observing his actions on the baseball field and commenting on them is seen as positive coverage, as opposed to being seen as the Fox baseball crew simply doing their job as analysts.
If A-Rod is so “unmarketable,” Dan Shulman, ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” play-by-play voice wouldn’t say the “fans are back in his corner,” would he? Aren’t these fans the ones who would be purchasing Rodriguez milestone merchandise from the Yankees?
The Yankees are only saying he is unmarketable to stick it to him and save a few dollars. That's the only reason they call him unmarketable.
And if A-Rod was so “unmarketable” why would YES be airing promotional spots for the Orioles series featuring A-Rod at the plate?
If A-Rod were unmarketable, would Bob Raissman be talking about A-Rod at every possible opportunity?
And if he continues to drive the ball, how far could Rodriguez juice YES’ ratings, which are expected to take a hit in this Yankees season of ifs? Those numbers will help quantify his marketability, right?
Yes, the Yankees want to save $6 million, so they pretend A-Rod isn't marketable in some form or another. Bob Raissman has already acknowledged why the Yankees are trying to not pay attention to A-Rod breaking records, yet he seems to be confused as to why they aren't acknowledging A-Rod breaking records.
Then again, if his bat cools off, these networks, the ones would gave him such a rousing reception, may experience another form of Alex Rodriguez fatigue.
Which Bob Raissman would love because he doesn't like it when A-Rod gets any attention that isn't negative attention. Simply acknowledging A-Rod is about to break an MLB record or showing him on the field when he isn't failing miserably is seen as "positive" coverage of A-Rod. Raissman will only stand for negative coverage or no coverage of A-Rod at all.
Showing posts with label two for one. Show all posts
Showing posts with label two for one. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2015
Saturday, April 19, 2014
3 comments Milwaukee Brewers Fans Give Ryan Braun an Ovation, Mayhem Ensues
Fans will usually cheer players from their team no matter what. There are obviously exceptions to this rule. For example, a player who is underachieving won't be cheered if his struggles continue, but usually these players are booed after making another out or doing something stupid. In general, fans of Team X will cheer for one of their team's players no matter what. This includes even if this player has been suspended for PED use. Apparently this shocks many sportswriters. Two sportswriters who are shocked are Jay Mariotti and Jim Caple. Jay Mariotti isn't just shocked, he's disgusted, while Jim Caple thinks the fans need to teach Ryan Braun a lesson.
I'll start first with Jay Mariotti, who just got done throwing up at the site of Brewers fans cheering Ryan Braun as he was introduced.
My first thought was to contact Stephen Glass. Or Lance Armstrong.
Neither of them would likely speak to you. No one cares to speak with you.
Or Pinocchio.
He's a fictional character and he probably wouldn't speak to you even if he were real. Maybe Jay would yank Pinocchio by his hair until he promised to speak with him.
Or other people whose lives have been ruined by lying and a public eye that won’t grant them mercy.
Jay knows how it feels to be wrongly accused of something, but he didn't lie about being innocent of the charges he pled guilty to. He totally was innocent.
Ryan Braun walked to home plate for the first time since he was revealed as a cheating, lying, performance-enhancing-drug-taking miscreant. He should have been booed vigorously,
No team's fans are going to boo Ryan Braun vigorously in this instance. Dodgers fans cheered Manny Ramirez when he came back from suspension, A-Rod even got some cheers in Yankee Stadium and no one likes A-Rod. A team's fans will cheer for players on their team until they are proven to not be good at playing baseball. That is what can get a player booed. Yet, Jay acts like this is new information which he knows is not true. There have been various instances of a player who used PED's getting cheered by his home crowd once he returns from suspension.
having used a successful drug-test appeal in 2012 to concoct a story that blamed a Milwaukee urine-sample collector who supposedly sabotaged Braun because he was anti-Semitic and a Cubs fan.
Jay thinks Braun should never have called someone a Cubs fan if that person wasn't really a Cubs fan. Show some morals.
We waited for the barrage of dissent in his return to Miller Park after serving a 65-game suspension last season. And waited. And waited.
Waited and waited? Brewers fans didn't get a chance to boo or cheer Braun until the first game of the season that was in Milwaukee. Braun got cheered in his first at-bat with the Brewers during the 2014 season. What the hell was Jay waiting for and when did Jay expect Braun to get booed during a time period where he didn't play a game at Miller Park?
Until suddenly, disturbingly, there was nothing but a standing ovation for Braun, this from a town that should have a grip on Midwestern values
Even though he has lived in the Midwest, Jay still adheres to the strict homogenous stereotype about Midwestern values that every person in that large region should have.
not to mention a stronger perspective about athletes who abuse integrity.
Why should Brewers fans have a stronger perspective about athletes who abuse integrity compared to every other MLB team that would cheer for their own team's player in this situation?
They could have let months, weeks, even a few days pass before showering him with warmth. Instead, in his first game back, they supported him.
Wait, what? Why would Brewers fans waiting a few weeks before showering Braun with warmth have made any difference in whether cheering Braun is right or wrong? What kind of weird opinion on athletes that abuse integrity does Jay have? It's fine to cheer for a player who used PED's as long as the fans have punished the player for a certain length of time by not cheering for him? Is this the "stronger perspective" Jay is discussing? Jay says to force these athletes into a purgatory of types AND THEN cheer for the athlete and show support for his having used PED's.
Said Brewers teammate, Jonathan Lucroy, per USA Today: “It was good for him, he needed that. It was important for him to know that he’s still loved here, and wanted. This isn’t New York. The fans here are pretty forgiving. He screwed up, acknowledged it, and that’s all you can do.’’
The fans in New York are pretty forgiving too if that athlete can still produce at a high level. If A-Rod could crank out 35 home runs and 110 RBI's while batting .305 and being super-clutch then Yankees fans would find it in their heart to forgive him.
When the passion of civic and team allegiance overwhelms the common-sense rationale of what’s right and wrong ethically in America, you wonder about the state of fandom in the 21st century. What the hell is wrong with those people, anyway?
Exactly, these fans should have waited a few weeks and then let their civic and team allegiance overwhelm their rationale what's wrong and right. Instead of immediately determining what their morals think is right and wrong and forgiving Braun (as the fans seemed to do), they should allow their morals to slowly erode over a period of a few weeks and then forgive Braun for his actions. It's much better that way.
At least Braun, the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2011, has a history of good performance in Wisconsin. Mind explaining how new Baltimore slugger Nelson Cruz, Braun’s partner in crime in the Biogenesis scandal, was greeted with chants of “Cruuuuuuuuz!’’ at Camden Yards every time his name was announced?
I love Jay Mariotti's writing. He preaches to Brewers fans about what's right and wrong and how they need stronger integrity, but he's only arguing the Brewers fans gave away their integrity too soon. They should have waited a while and then handed their integrity in. Jay preaches about right and wrong, but really it's about further punishing the player for his actions. There's no right and wrong for Jay in this situation, it's about the fans being responsible for punishing Braun. Now Jay says that at least Braun was good at playing baseball with Milwaukee compared to Nelson Cruz only joining the Orioles this offseason, as if a player's affiliation with a prior team and good performance with his previous team mitigates his use of PED's. This is part of what is so fake with Jay Mariotti. He preaches about right and wrong, but he's not worried about right and wrong. He's worried about the fans punishing Braun sufficiently for taking PED's, Braun's actions after taking PED's, and whether the fans have a right to cheer Braun because he performed well for their specific team.
When Cruz, who served a 50-game ban, hit a go-ahead home run in a 2-1 victory over Boston, Orioles fans treated him like he was Cal Ripken Jr.
Fans generally always cheer for players who perform well for their team. I can't speak for these Orioles and Brewers fans, but they think these players have served the sentence that was (then) mandated based on an agreement between the player's union and MLB. These two players have done their time and they are eager to move on because Cruz/Braun are on their team. Baseball fans have learned to live with ambiguity.
Even Barry Bonds, despised in Pittsburgh when he left for San Francisco in 1992, heard his share of cheers mixed with boos at PNC Park, where some brainiac invited him to present Pirates star Andrew McCutchen with his 2013 NL MVP award.
Bonds left Pittsburgh 20 years ago. It's water under the bridge at this point. Plus, Bonds left because the Pirates wouldn't sign him to a market value contract, not because Bonds demanded he leave the city of Pittsburgh.
When even a few folks are cheering the all-time PED rat in Pittsburgh, something clearly is askew with the human condition.
Yeah, but Pirates fans waited twenty years and seven years after Bonds' retirement to cheer him. Didn't Jay indicate that was enough time for Brewers fans to start cheering Braun again? So what's his issue with Pirates fans cheering for Bonds other than the fact Jay doesn't even believe the things he writes of course?
Wait until the Cardinals return to St. Louis and new shortstop Jhonny Peralta, also suspended in the Biogenesis case, is cheered at Busch Stadium. I’m not sure five minutes passed at the start of free agency before the Cardinals, known for their organizational dignity, handed Peralta a $53 million deal.
Peralta signed with the Cardinals in late November. Free agency started three weeks before this.
It’s stunning, if also inexplicable, how the public can hold Rodriguez in such disdain during his season-long suspension while other disgraced players are forgiven.
While I agree with Jay on this strawman argument, I also can't help but remember Jay Mariotti is one of those in the public who holds Rodriguez in such disdain.
In his final year as commissioner, Bud Selig truly should be ashamed for not trying harder to curtail steroids use 20 years ago. But when he sits in the ballpark in his hometown and watches the ovation for Braun, it lets Selig off the hook. And that should never, ever happen.
So now the Brewers fans not cheering for Ryan Braun isn't about right or wrong, isn't about punishing Ryan Braun for his actions, but it is about punishing Bud Selig for his role in being complicit during the Steroid Era? So Brewers fans shouldn't cheer for Ryan Braun (at least not yet...wait a few weeks apparently) so they can punish Bud Selig. I get the feeling Jay doesn't even really understand what he did not like about Brewers fans cheering for Ryan Braun so he's throwing all of his reasons into one big pile where they are starting to not make very much sense.
“Fans are fans. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,’’ said Selig, per the Associated Press. “He’s their hometown player and it was a wonderful reaction. I wish everybody well.’’
I think Bud Selig realizes hometown fans tend to cheer for hometown players in situations such as this and there is nothing he can do about it. The fans pay for their ticket and have a general right to cheer for who they want to and when.
A wonderful reaction?
Excuse me while I hurl.
If he has to hurl Jay must have just gotten done proofreading this column. Jay doesn't like that the Brewers fans cheered for Ryan Braun. I'm not sure he knows why he doesn't like it. Jay goes from saying it's about right and wrong, then says "well Brewers fans should have waited longer," and then says they shouldn't have cheered at all to punish Bud Selig. Not well done at all, Jay.
Jim Caple thinks it is the responsibility of the fans to not cheer for Ryan Braun and teach these PED users a real good lesson. He also has some ideas to ensure MLB players don't have incentive to use PED's again, which is an impossibility as long as baseball players are receiving compensation for their on-field performance.
On Opening Day in Milwaukee, Ryan Braun returned from last season's 65-game suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs and received a loud standing ovation from the hometown crowd. On Tuesday night, a fan ran onto the field to try to high-five him. For those two games, Braun earned roughly $124,000 of a contract that guarantees him at least $117 million in pay.
So ... that'll really teach him not to do it again, huh?
It's NOT the job of the fans to teach these players a lesson for using PED's and lying about it. It's not the fans' deal. MLB and the player's union have worked out an agreement where the players get punished for using PED's. The fans don't have to continue punishing the players beyond this agreed-upon span of games. The fans are those being entertained. We are the customer, not those responsible for the punishment of our favorite team's employees.
At spring training, when Braun addressed the media about his use of PEDs, he said he made a "mistake." That's not accurate. Braun did not make a "mistake." He cheated.
He made a mistake by cheating. That's clearly what he meant.
Milwaukee's welcoming response for Braun angers me, though, because he was caught after PEDs were firmly and officially banned, not just frowned upon. And he'd already narrowly averted a previous ban because of a technicality.
The technicality was that the drug collector didn't follow the correct procedures when collecting Braun's sample. The steps in the drug agreement were violated by the collector, and even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to the general public, these are the steps in the process agreed upon by the player's union and MLB.
If we -- media, fans, players, the league and teams -- truly want to rid the game of PEDs, then we must thoroughly punish players when they are caught breaking the rules.
It's not the job of the fans to punish the players. The fans are the customer. It's the job of MLB and the player's union to work out punishments for players who choose to use PED's.
Baseball addressed this last week by toughening the punishments for PED cheats, including banning them from playing in the postseason in a year in which they are suspended. Which is good, but we also should not then reward them with four-year, $52 million new contracts, as the Cardinals did with Peralta over the winter.
This isn't right though. The punishment is the suspension and I would be fine with not allowing players to collect their current contract amount for that season, but it seems to me that preventing a player from earning money in the future is far too draconian.
As long as players know that even if they're suspended, they still will receive multimillion-dollar contracts and the adoration of their hometown fans, what is the incentive not to cheat?
Even if the punishment was a lifetime ban from playing baseball in the majors there would still be incentive to cheat. As long as players get paid money and can earn more money for a better performance then there will always be an incentive to cheat. I recognize it's fun to criticize fans for cheering for these players who have used PED's, but fans aren't responsible for punishing the players. Even if the hometown fans didn't cheer these players they would still want to cheat in order to make more money.
I don't believe first-time offenders should be banned for life, but I want them to truly get the message that PED use is not tolerated. Here's how to send it:
Get caught cheating, and not only are you suspended without pay (as is currently the case), but your current contract should be voided.
So the solution will be to reward the player by allowing him to become a free agent? Of course not, that would be silly. Jim Caple has an idea to prevent Stephen Strasburg from intentionally failing a drug test so he could make $200 million on the free agent market.
When you return from the suspension, you also should lose whatever negotiating leverage you've accrued. You should not reach free agency until at least one full year after you otherwise would be eligible.
So what happens when a player two years from free agency outperforms his contract by making two straight All-Star Games and then fails a drug test? He's suspended the requisite 80 games, then comes back and plays at a high level. Fine, he's not a free agent, but what will the result in arbitration be? Will the arbitrator not allow the player to get a raise? Doubtful. Plus, this player now has an additional two more years of arbitration after that, which means his value will continue to rise. How do teams combat a young player's value from rising? By signing that player to a long-term contract. So the solution of allowing the player one more year before he hits free agency could give MLB teams more incentive to give this player a long-term contract. No MLB team is going to let a great young player just walk because he failed a drug test. Teams always want these players to prove they can return and play well after a suspension. If a player proves that, then giving that player an additional year of arbitration could very well give a team more incentive to hand that player a long-term contract.
But oh, Jim Caple is not done.
So that your team, which might have looked the other way at rumors of your PED use, does not benefit, it should not retain rights to your service beyond when it normally would. If that time frame expires before you are eligible for free agency,
Which should happen in every instance of a player being caught using PED's since that player won't reach free agency until a year after that player is otherwise eligible. I think I'm confused. Teams always have a player's rights until he hits free agency and if free agency is pushed back one year then every player who has signed a contract or is still eligible for arbitration would not have his rights retained by his current team during this additional year of arbitration that Jim Caple has changed to essentially a year of restricted free agency.
you should go into a "cheaters' draft" in which each team, in reverse order of record, can pick you or not. Teams could choose only one cheat per winter. Hopefully, there never would be occasion for a second round of the cheaters' draft.
If I'm reading this correctly, teams will be punished for their players using PED's by losing the rights to these players and not having a chance to negotiate a new contract with these players. This doesn't seem right at all. I'm glad these PED cheaters aren't allowed to be free agents until a year after they normally would have been eligible and Caple's solution to make this happen is to essentially make these PED cheaters a free agent, even if a free agent with restricted options. Also, this idea of not allowing a team to retain the rights to a player suspended for PED use gives MLB teams even more incentive to sign these players to a long-term contract. This is the second time one of Jim Caple's solutions ends up rewarding the PED user by giving his current team more incentive to give him a long-term contract. We all know long-term contracts to players who have used PED's makes sportswriters howl with anger.
But fans also will boo an opponent who wins the Triple Crown and donates his salary to Habitat for Humanity. It's how they regard their own team's players that is at issue.
But how to punish the fans for cheering for their hometown players. That's the problem and clearly the fans need to be punished as severely as possible.
Obviously, fans can't be forced to behave a certain way or instructed not to cheer. But there are rules that could be enacted so that a returning cheat doesn't feel as welcome as Braun and others have.
I'm sure glad these punishments don't feel petty at this point.
No walk-up or entrance music for his at-bat or relief appearance. In fact, no introduction whatsoever.
No walk-up music! That will show the players! You can take away their million dollar contracts, but not letting them listen to Rage Against the Machine before they bat will surely stop PED use by MLB player in it's tracks.
Let that silence be a reminder that he cheated. If the fans still want to cheer him, so be it. But teams shouldn't encourage an environment for applause.
What about making the player wear a dunce cap instead of a batting helmet? That will really make the player feel stupid, plus if that player gets hit in the head by a pitch and dies, who cares, that player was a fucking cheater anyway.
I would include a Hall of Fame ban, but any player who tests positive for PEDs isn't going to get 75 percent of the BBWAA vote anyway.
Ok...I don't think this is a guarantee that the current way PED users are treated will be the same way PED users are treated in the future.
Sure, there are flaws in these suggested measures. For one thing, there would need to be some ways to prevent teams from manipulating the rules just to get out of an expensive contract.
The Yankees are very sad that Jim Caple is on to them.
But that and other issues could be ironed out.
"These are my ideas and my solutions, but I'll let others iron out the problems with my ideas and solutions. I've done my part."
It's always nice when sportswriters want a problem solved, propose ideas to fix this problem and then don't care enough to iron out solutions to the problems their new idea presents.
I'm all for giving a player a second chance after he makes "mistakes."
The player just can't keep his current contract and the collective bargaining agreement between the player's union and MLB will be violated in order to ensure this player is punished through not being allowed to be a free agent. Also, the player's walk-up music will be taken away in an effort to be as petty as possible. But otherwise Jim Caple is all for second chances.
But to really discourage the use of PEDs, players also must know that when they come back, all will not be forgotten, all will not be forgiven, and life in baseball will not be the same.
But after the player serves his suspension, isn't allowed walk-up music, and gets pimped out to one of the worst teams in MLB for one season before he becomes a free agent then life in baseball will be the exact same. That's the part Caple doesn't have a solution for. He wants a solution that permanently hurts a player who has used PED's, but that's just not possible outside of never allowing the player to play in the majors again.
I'll start first with Jay Mariotti, who just got done throwing up at the site of Brewers fans cheering Ryan Braun as he was introduced.
My first thought was to contact Stephen Glass. Or Lance Armstrong.
Neither of them would likely speak to you. No one cares to speak with you.
Or Pinocchio.
He's a fictional character and he probably wouldn't speak to you even if he were real. Maybe Jay would yank Pinocchio by his hair until he promised to speak with him.
Or other people whose lives have been ruined by lying and a public eye that won’t grant them mercy.
Jay knows how it feels to be wrongly accused of something, but he didn't lie about being innocent of the charges he pled guilty to. He totally was innocent.
Ryan Braun walked to home plate for the first time since he was revealed as a cheating, lying, performance-enhancing-drug-taking miscreant. He should have been booed vigorously,
No team's fans are going to boo Ryan Braun vigorously in this instance. Dodgers fans cheered Manny Ramirez when he came back from suspension, A-Rod even got some cheers in Yankee Stadium and no one likes A-Rod. A team's fans will cheer for players on their team until they are proven to not be good at playing baseball. That is what can get a player booed. Yet, Jay acts like this is new information which he knows is not true. There have been various instances of a player who used PED's getting cheered by his home crowd once he returns from suspension.
having used a successful drug-test appeal in 2012 to concoct a story that blamed a Milwaukee urine-sample collector who supposedly sabotaged Braun because he was anti-Semitic and a Cubs fan.
Jay thinks Braun should never have called someone a Cubs fan if that person wasn't really a Cubs fan. Show some morals.
We waited for the barrage of dissent in his return to Miller Park after serving a 65-game suspension last season. And waited. And waited.
Waited and waited? Brewers fans didn't get a chance to boo or cheer Braun until the first game of the season that was in Milwaukee. Braun got cheered in his first at-bat with the Brewers during the 2014 season. What the hell was Jay waiting for and when did Jay expect Braun to get booed during a time period where he didn't play a game at Miller Park?
Until suddenly, disturbingly, there was nothing but a standing ovation for Braun, this from a town that should have a grip on Midwestern values
Even though he has lived in the Midwest, Jay still adheres to the strict homogenous stereotype about Midwestern values that every person in that large region should have.
not to mention a stronger perspective about athletes who abuse integrity.
Why should Brewers fans have a stronger perspective about athletes who abuse integrity compared to every other MLB team that would cheer for their own team's player in this situation?
They could have let months, weeks, even a few days pass before showering him with warmth. Instead, in his first game back, they supported him.
Wait, what? Why would Brewers fans waiting a few weeks before showering Braun with warmth have made any difference in whether cheering Braun is right or wrong? What kind of weird opinion on athletes that abuse integrity does Jay have? It's fine to cheer for a player who used PED's as long as the fans have punished the player for a certain length of time by not cheering for him? Is this the "stronger perspective" Jay is discussing? Jay says to force these athletes into a purgatory of types AND THEN cheer for the athlete and show support for his having used PED's.
Said Brewers teammate, Jonathan Lucroy, per USA Today: “It was good for him, he needed that. It was important for him to know that he’s still loved here, and wanted. This isn’t New York. The fans here are pretty forgiving. He screwed up, acknowledged it, and that’s all you can do.’’
The fans in New York are pretty forgiving too if that athlete can still produce at a high level. If A-Rod could crank out 35 home runs and 110 RBI's while batting .305 and being super-clutch then Yankees fans would find it in their heart to forgive him.
When the passion of civic and team allegiance overwhelms the common-sense rationale of what’s right and wrong ethically in America, you wonder about the state of fandom in the 21st century. What the hell is wrong with those people, anyway?
Exactly, these fans should have waited a few weeks and then let their civic and team allegiance overwhelm their rationale what's wrong and right. Instead of immediately determining what their morals think is right and wrong and forgiving Braun (as the fans seemed to do), they should allow their morals to slowly erode over a period of a few weeks and then forgive Braun for his actions. It's much better that way.
At least Braun, the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2011, has a history of good performance in Wisconsin. Mind explaining how new Baltimore slugger Nelson Cruz, Braun’s partner in crime in the Biogenesis scandal, was greeted with chants of “Cruuuuuuuuz!’’ at Camden Yards every time his name was announced?
I love Jay Mariotti's writing. He preaches to Brewers fans about what's right and wrong and how they need stronger integrity, but he's only arguing the Brewers fans gave away their integrity too soon. They should have waited a while and then handed their integrity in. Jay preaches about right and wrong, but really it's about further punishing the player for his actions. There's no right and wrong for Jay in this situation, it's about the fans being responsible for punishing Braun. Now Jay says that at least Braun was good at playing baseball with Milwaukee compared to Nelson Cruz only joining the Orioles this offseason, as if a player's affiliation with a prior team and good performance with his previous team mitigates his use of PED's. This is part of what is so fake with Jay Mariotti. He preaches about right and wrong, but he's not worried about right and wrong. He's worried about the fans punishing Braun sufficiently for taking PED's, Braun's actions after taking PED's, and whether the fans have a right to cheer Braun because he performed well for their specific team.
When Cruz, who served a 50-game ban, hit a go-ahead home run in a 2-1 victory over Boston, Orioles fans treated him like he was Cal Ripken Jr.
Fans generally always cheer for players who perform well for their team. I can't speak for these Orioles and Brewers fans, but they think these players have served the sentence that was (then) mandated based on an agreement between the player's union and MLB. These two players have done their time and they are eager to move on because Cruz/Braun are on their team. Baseball fans have learned to live with ambiguity.
Even Barry Bonds, despised in Pittsburgh when he left for San Francisco in 1992, heard his share of cheers mixed with boos at PNC Park, where some brainiac invited him to present Pirates star Andrew McCutchen with his 2013 NL MVP award.
Bonds left Pittsburgh 20 years ago. It's water under the bridge at this point. Plus, Bonds left because the Pirates wouldn't sign him to a market value contract, not because Bonds demanded he leave the city of Pittsburgh.
When even a few folks are cheering the all-time PED rat in Pittsburgh, something clearly is askew with the human condition.
Yeah, but Pirates fans waited twenty years and seven years after Bonds' retirement to cheer him. Didn't Jay indicate that was enough time for Brewers fans to start cheering Braun again? So what's his issue with Pirates fans cheering for Bonds other than the fact Jay doesn't even believe the things he writes of course?
Wait until the Cardinals return to St. Louis and new shortstop Jhonny Peralta, also suspended in the Biogenesis case, is cheered at Busch Stadium. I’m not sure five minutes passed at the start of free agency before the Cardinals, known for their organizational dignity, handed Peralta a $53 million deal.
Peralta signed with the Cardinals in late November. Free agency started three weeks before this.
It’s stunning, if also inexplicable, how the public can hold Rodriguez in such disdain during his season-long suspension while other disgraced players are forgiven.
While I agree with Jay on this strawman argument, I also can't help but remember Jay Mariotti is one of those in the public who holds Rodriguez in such disdain.
In his final year as commissioner, Bud Selig truly should be ashamed for not trying harder to curtail steroids use 20 years ago. But when he sits in the ballpark in his hometown and watches the ovation for Braun, it lets Selig off the hook. And that should never, ever happen.
So now the Brewers fans not cheering for Ryan Braun isn't about right or wrong, isn't about punishing Ryan Braun for his actions, but it is about punishing Bud Selig for his role in being complicit during the Steroid Era? So Brewers fans shouldn't cheer for Ryan Braun (at least not yet...wait a few weeks apparently) so they can punish Bud Selig. I get the feeling Jay doesn't even really understand what he did not like about Brewers fans cheering for Ryan Braun so he's throwing all of his reasons into one big pile where they are starting to not make very much sense.
“Fans are fans. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,’’ said Selig, per the Associated Press. “He’s their hometown player and it was a wonderful reaction. I wish everybody well.’’
I think Bud Selig realizes hometown fans tend to cheer for hometown players in situations such as this and there is nothing he can do about it. The fans pay for their ticket and have a general right to cheer for who they want to and when.
A wonderful reaction?
Excuse me while I hurl.
If he has to hurl Jay must have just gotten done proofreading this column. Jay doesn't like that the Brewers fans cheered for Ryan Braun. I'm not sure he knows why he doesn't like it. Jay goes from saying it's about right and wrong, then says "well Brewers fans should have waited longer," and then says they shouldn't have cheered at all to punish Bud Selig. Not well done at all, Jay.
Jim Caple thinks it is the responsibility of the fans to not cheer for Ryan Braun and teach these PED users a real good lesson. He also has some ideas to ensure MLB players don't have incentive to use PED's again, which is an impossibility as long as baseball players are receiving compensation for their on-field performance.
On Opening Day in Milwaukee, Ryan Braun returned from last season's 65-game suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs and received a loud standing ovation from the hometown crowd. On Tuesday night, a fan ran onto the field to try to high-five him. For those two games, Braun earned roughly $124,000 of a contract that guarantees him at least $117 million in pay.
So ... that'll really teach him not to do it again, huh?
It's NOT the job of the fans to teach these players a lesson for using PED's and lying about it. It's not the fans' deal. MLB and the player's union have worked out an agreement where the players get punished for using PED's. The fans don't have to continue punishing the players beyond this agreed-upon span of games. The fans are those being entertained. We are the customer, not those responsible for the punishment of our favorite team's employees.
At spring training, when Braun addressed the media about his use of PEDs, he said he made a "mistake." That's not accurate. Braun did not make a "mistake." He cheated.
He made a mistake by cheating. That's clearly what he meant.
Milwaukee's welcoming response for Braun angers me, though, because he was caught after PEDs were firmly and officially banned, not just frowned upon. And he'd already narrowly averted a previous ban because of a technicality.
The technicality was that the drug collector didn't follow the correct procedures when collecting Braun's sample. The steps in the drug agreement were violated by the collector, and even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to the general public, these are the steps in the process agreed upon by the player's union and MLB.
If we -- media, fans, players, the league and teams -- truly want to rid the game of PEDs, then we must thoroughly punish players when they are caught breaking the rules.
It's not the job of the fans to punish the players. The fans are the customer. It's the job of MLB and the player's union to work out punishments for players who choose to use PED's.
Baseball addressed this last week by toughening the punishments for PED cheats, including banning them from playing in the postseason in a year in which they are suspended. Which is good, but we also should not then reward them with four-year, $52 million new contracts, as the Cardinals did with Peralta over the winter.
This isn't right though. The punishment is the suspension and I would be fine with not allowing players to collect their current contract amount for that season, but it seems to me that preventing a player from earning money in the future is far too draconian.
As long as players know that even if they're suspended, they still will receive multimillion-dollar contracts and the adoration of their hometown fans, what is the incentive not to cheat?
Even if the punishment was a lifetime ban from playing baseball in the majors there would still be incentive to cheat. As long as players get paid money and can earn more money for a better performance then there will always be an incentive to cheat. I recognize it's fun to criticize fans for cheering for these players who have used PED's, but fans aren't responsible for punishing the players. Even if the hometown fans didn't cheer these players they would still want to cheat in order to make more money.
I don't believe first-time offenders should be banned for life, but I want them to truly get the message that PED use is not tolerated. Here's how to send it:
Get caught cheating, and not only are you suspended without pay (as is currently the case), but your current contract should be voided.
So the solution will be to reward the player by allowing him to become a free agent? Of course not, that would be silly. Jim Caple has an idea to prevent Stephen Strasburg from intentionally failing a drug test so he could make $200 million on the free agent market.
When you return from the suspension, you also should lose whatever negotiating leverage you've accrued. You should not reach free agency until at least one full year after you otherwise would be eligible.
So what happens when a player two years from free agency outperforms his contract by making two straight All-Star Games and then fails a drug test? He's suspended the requisite 80 games, then comes back and plays at a high level. Fine, he's not a free agent, but what will the result in arbitration be? Will the arbitrator not allow the player to get a raise? Doubtful. Plus, this player now has an additional two more years of arbitration after that, which means his value will continue to rise. How do teams combat a young player's value from rising? By signing that player to a long-term contract. So the solution of allowing the player one more year before he hits free agency could give MLB teams more incentive to give this player a long-term contract. No MLB team is going to let a great young player just walk because he failed a drug test. Teams always want these players to prove they can return and play well after a suspension. If a player proves that, then giving that player an additional year of arbitration could very well give a team more incentive to hand that player a long-term contract.
But oh, Jim Caple is not done.
So that your team, which might have looked the other way at rumors of your PED use, does not benefit, it should not retain rights to your service beyond when it normally would. If that time frame expires before you are eligible for free agency,
Which should happen in every instance of a player being caught using PED's since that player won't reach free agency until a year after that player is otherwise eligible. I think I'm confused. Teams always have a player's rights until he hits free agency and if free agency is pushed back one year then every player who has signed a contract or is still eligible for arbitration would not have his rights retained by his current team during this additional year of arbitration that Jim Caple has changed to essentially a year of restricted free agency.
you should go into a "cheaters' draft" in which each team, in reverse order of record, can pick you or not. Teams could choose only one cheat per winter. Hopefully, there never would be occasion for a second round of the cheaters' draft.
If I'm reading this correctly, teams will be punished for their players using PED's by losing the rights to these players and not having a chance to negotiate a new contract with these players. This doesn't seem right at all. I'm glad these PED cheaters aren't allowed to be free agents until a year after they normally would have been eligible and Caple's solution to make this happen is to essentially make these PED cheaters a free agent, even if a free agent with restricted options. Also, this idea of not allowing a team to retain the rights to a player suspended for PED use gives MLB teams even more incentive to sign these players to a long-term contract. This is the second time one of Jim Caple's solutions ends up rewarding the PED user by giving his current team more incentive to give him a long-term contract. We all know long-term contracts to players who have used PED's makes sportswriters howl with anger.
But fans also will boo an opponent who wins the Triple Crown and donates his salary to Habitat for Humanity. It's how they regard their own team's players that is at issue.
But how to punish the fans for cheering for their hometown players. That's the problem and clearly the fans need to be punished as severely as possible.
Obviously, fans can't be forced to behave a certain way or instructed not to cheer. But there are rules that could be enacted so that a returning cheat doesn't feel as welcome as Braun and others have.
I'm sure glad these punishments don't feel petty at this point.
No walk-up or entrance music for his at-bat or relief appearance. In fact, no introduction whatsoever.
No walk-up music! That will show the players! You can take away their million dollar contracts, but not letting them listen to Rage Against the Machine before they bat will surely stop PED use by MLB player in it's tracks.
Let that silence be a reminder that he cheated. If the fans still want to cheer him, so be it. But teams shouldn't encourage an environment for applause.
What about making the player wear a dunce cap instead of a batting helmet? That will really make the player feel stupid, plus if that player gets hit in the head by a pitch and dies, who cares, that player was a fucking cheater anyway.
I would include a Hall of Fame ban, but any player who tests positive for PEDs isn't going to get 75 percent of the BBWAA vote anyway.
Ok...I don't think this is a guarantee that the current way PED users are treated will be the same way PED users are treated in the future.
Sure, there are flaws in these suggested measures. For one thing, there would need to be some ways to prevent teams from manipulating the rules just to get out of an expensive contract.
The Yankees are very sad that Jim Caple is on to them.
But that and other issues could be ironed out.
"These are my ideas and my solutions, but I'll let others iron out the problems with my ideas and solutions. I've done my part."
It's always nice when sportswriters want a problem solved, propose ideas to fix this problem and then don't care enough to iron out solutions to the problems their new idea presents.
I'm all for giving a player a second chance after he makes "mistakes."
The player just can't keep his current contract and the collective bargaining agreement between the player's union and MLB will be violated in order to ensure this player is punished through not being allowed to be a free agent. Also, the player's walk-up music will be taken away in an effort to be as petty as possible. But otherwise Jim Caple is all for second chances.
But to really discourage the use of PEDs, players also must know that when they come back, all will not be forgotten, all will not be forgiven, and life in baseball will not be the same.
But after the player serves his suspension, isn't allowed walk-up music, and gets pimped out to one of the worst teams in MLB for one season before he becomes a free agent then life in baseball will be the exact same. That's the part Caple doesn't have a solution for. He wants a solution that permanently hurts a player who has used PED's, but that's just not possible outside of never allowing the player to play in the majors again.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
8 comments Jay Mariotti Thinks John Calipari is Wrong for Following the Rules; Advises Jabari Parker to Stay in School Because I'm Sure That's What Jay Would Choose to Do in Parker's Situation
Jay Mariotti normally knows a sleaze when he sees one. After all, when looking in the mirror everyday he sees a guy who seems to be pretty sleazy himself. So Jay writes that John Calipari is a sleaze and just generally does a hit-job on Calipari for following the rules set out by the NBA for when collegiate players can declare for the NBA Draft. Also, while doing a hit-job on Calipari he advises Jabari Parker of Duke (coached by Coach K, who by the way, has had two one-and-done players over the last three years and will probably have another this year, along with potentially two more next year) to stay in school. Why? I would have no idea. Mitch McGary, Nerlens Noel, and Marcus Smart are great examples of why staying in school as "the right thing to do" more often than not is the financially dumb thing to do.
I don't know what else I should expect from a guy who has an issue with Barack Obama filling out a bracket. It seems Obama knows more about college basketball players than Jay does, which means Obama spends most of his time talking basketball and not running the country. It doesn't annoy me that Obama fills out a bracket and then goes on ESPN to reveal his bracket. It's all a part of efforts, like appearing on "Between Two Ferns" and Michelle Obama appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Kimmel," to appeal to "the kids" and further an agenda/program they have. Obviously Obama isn't furthering a program by filling out a bracket, but I chalk that up appealing to "the kids" and trying to seem down-to-earth. Either way, it's sort of silly to get up in arms about Obama filling out a bracket. It's needless, but not a huge drain on his time.
I'll start with Jay's column about what a jerk John Calipari is. I feel like I end up defending Calipari more often than I would like to, but simply because many sportswriters seem to think it's his fault the NBA has instituted the one-and-done rule. Calipari didn't think of the rule and is on record as saying he doesn't like it. He simply plays within the rules of the one-and-done rule and that irritates writers like Jay Mariotti for some reason.
Don’t bother conducting a scientific poll. Without debate, John Calipari is the most loathed man in college basketball, primarily because what he preaches is not college basketball but something you’d have seen Kevin Trudeau hawking about college basketball on a 3:30 a.m. TV informercial (Note: Trudeau was just sentenced to a 10-year prison sentence for consumer fraud).
AND JOHN CALIPARI SHOULD BE IN JAIL FOR CONSUMER FRAUD TOO! HE SELLS TO RECRUITS THAT HE WILL GET THEM DRAFTED BY THE NBA AND THEN HE DOES THAT, WHICH IS DEFINITELY FRAUD!
Under the phony premise that his players are his only real priority as a coach — his leadership book, to be strategically released in time for the Final Four, is called “Players First’’ — Calipari is on an evangelical soapbox to prove he can point one-and-doners immediately to the NBA while they try to win a quickie NCAA championship for Kentucky.
Except for the fact Calipari has won a championship while placing his players into the NBA after one season, this definitely could be considered fraud. It's also pure speculation to state that Calipari doesn't care about his players. I can't read minds and Jay Mariotti can't read minds, but Calipari's disappointment with the performance of his 2012-2013 Kentucky team was pretty obvious when he spoke about how his team lacked discipline. I guess that wasn't sincere enough for Jay.
Of course, all he’s doing is playing to the soft academic weaknesses of teenaged hoops prodigies — “Gee, if I play for him, I can blow off school and be in the NBA the following June,’’ goes the thought process — so St. Cal can pick the players he wants and annually reload his assembly line of talent.
He doesn't pick the players he wants. He just beaten by Duke for a recruit from Ohio and he has missed out on several other recruits and he lost out on the #1 point guard in the 2014 class to SMU. Yes, recruits want to play for Kentucky to get drafted, but top recruits also choose to play for other schools who can also get them to the NBA after one season in college. Student-athletes are required by NBA rules to stay in college for a year, spend a year overseas or petition the NBA to allow them to enter the NBA Draft if they can prove they are a year removed from their high school graduation. As I've said many, many times before, one-and-done is an NBA rule not an NCAA rule.
Once he won a national championship with two such one-and-doners (Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) two years ago, Calipari had his street cred.
Actually, he won it with three one-and-done players, including Marcus Teague. But what are facts, even facts that could further prove Jay's point? He's got no time to look this shit up. Research is for bitches and bitches get grabbed by their hair when they are acting up.
“We don’t just play college basketball,’’ St. Cal announced as the season began. “We ARE college basketball.’’
Calipari has a lot of bravado, which may be annoying, but certainly doesn't make him a sleazeball.
No, you are a feeder system — for the grateful NBA,
Every college basketball program is a feeder system for the NBA, not just Kentucky basketball. Some colleges feed the NBA more than others, but NCAA basketball is set up as a feeder system for the NBA. So criticizing Calipari and the Kentucky program for being a feeder system to the NBA is a bit disingenuous. They aren't alone in this regard.
And until this past Sunday, a whole lot of us were delighted to see Kentucky, a season after failing to reach the NCAA tournament, struggling with maturity, cohesion and listening issues and appearing ready to exit early from this year’s tournament.
Of course Kentucky was a #8 seed, so an "early" exit would most likely the first round, unless Wichita State had gotten upset in the first round by Cal Poly.
Imagine: Only months after suggesting his team might be the first ever to go 40-0, St. Cal was taking 10 losses into the Midwest Regional. He was a walking embarassment — petulantly blowing off a post-loss press conference, complaining his team was “the most overanalyzed team in the history of sports’’ (didn’t he suggest Kentucky might go 40-0?), then complaining that his players were “counting on me too much.’’
Wait. Players First, right?
The fact Jay can't spell "embarrassment" correctly and that Calipari is sort of a hypocrite for talking about how Kentucky was overanalyzed aside, Calipari wasn't saying he didn't want to coach or care about his players, but he is commenting that his players were waiting on him to provide instructions rather than simply going out on the court and playing to their ability.
And those same players were counting on Calipari too much when they needed him most? Opinions were mounting that he was the next one done at Kentucky, eyeing the New York Knicks.
This isn't Calipari's fault. There is no indication he has attempted to pursue the New York Knicks job. Jay seems to have a double standard for head coaches, because I don't read about him criticizing Tom Izzo for having any iota of interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers job a few years ago nor the fact Izzo keeps getting connected to the Pistons job. Jay also doesn't seem to mind that Coach K has almost taken an NBA job twice (that we know of) during his coaching career. But hey, these two coaches like their players and Calipari is always looking for something better, right? That's the narrative.
Some were demanding his ouster, sensing St. Cal was much more a recruiting con man than an actual coach. His daughter, Erin, defended him on Twitter: “People saying my dad should be fired, he won 81% of his games @ UK. Coach K 79% Duke. Roy Williams 78% @ UNC. Pitino 74% @ UL … #forreference.’’
We waited for the crash.
Instead, Calipari’s parachute opened.
He got his team to play very well against Wichita State and the Harrison twins realized, "Hey, if we drive to the basket a lot I'm not sure very many guards in the country can stop us!"
While presumed future NBA stars Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker were flaming out of the tournament with eyesore performances, Calipari watched in bliss as the embattled twin brothers, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, combined for 39 points and lottery pick Julius Randle contributed his usual double-double in eliminating a 35-0 force that nearly won the national title last April.
These presumed future NBA stars are coached by Bill Self and Coach K, both coaches who have coached one-and-done players before, yet get a free pass from Jay because they haven't coached enough one-and-done players. There apparently is a limit on how many one-and-done players a coach can have before he no longer cares about them as people.
Calipari, understand, has a bad hip. It didn’t stop him from leaping and hopping by the bench as the buzzer sounded.
Clearly he is faking this bad hip. John Calipari commits consumer and insurance fraud. Arrest this man immediately!
The purists almost had their man nailed to the wall, at long last.
The idea of "purists" in the college basketball game is laughable. Nearly all coaches end up taking on one-and-done players at some point. Even Tom Izzo took on Gary Harris who easily could have gone pro last year if he had been healthy all season. It's the nature of the game. Jim Boeheim has guys who are going to go one-and-done, Roy Williams has had players go one-and-done...it's just how it is now.
“If wins are relief, it’s time for me to retire. This was great joy in seeing a group of young men come together and start figuring this out. It took longer than I’d hoped,’’ Calipari said. “This team and what people said about this team — all we’ve done all year is continue to get better. Like every team, you hit a hole when you don’t play well. But they believed in themselves.
“I just wish we had another month of the season, because we’re getting better every day.’’
How selfish of Calipari to say "we" as if he is part of the team. There he goes trying to take credit for what his players do on the court. It's clear by these quotes that Calipari doesn't care about his team and only wants to steal the spotlight from his players.
Remember, Kentucky rallied and nearly stole the SEC title game two weekends ago from Florida, the tournament’s No. 1 seed and clear favorite to reach the Final Four out of the South Regional. There might be seven NBA futures on this team. Nothing is more dangerous in March — and April — than pro-skilled players emerging as one with the stakes at their highest.
Imagine how good Kentucky would be if John Calipari actually cared about his players and didn't treat them as disposable goods by tossing each freshman out the door after one year so that they may achieve their goal of entering in the NBA Draft and becoming a millionaire? It's a shame Calipari puts these student-athletes in a position to achieve their dreams.
It was Willie Cauley-Stein, the sophomore forward, who said last week that Kentucky would “shock the world,’’ adding, “There’s a lot of people that don’t think we can make a run at it. And you know, a lot of people don’t want to see us make a run at it.’’
These people are better known as "Jay Mariotti." And what is this? A highly-recruited player who is a sophomore at Kentucky and didn't go to the NBA Draft? I thought Calipari kicked all of his freshman out so new freshmen could take their place? My world is spinning.
“Here’s what happened with my team,’’ Calipari said. “They now are putting themselves in a position where they’re accepting roles how they have to play. So we’re becoming a better team. Individuals are losing themselves into the team, so they’re playing better and more confident.
Hence what Calipari meant by stating his players were counting on him too much. They were waiting for him as the coach to put them into a certain role or worried about Calipari correcting the issue of not playing as a team when it is only the Kentucky players themselves who could correct this.
We love most March stories because they are embraceable, charming. Nothing is warm and fuzzy about St. Cal and the rise of his one-and-doners.
It doesn't have to be warm and fuzzy, but the high level at which they play the game could be appreciated. It was pretty cool to see the Harrison twins finally seem to understand they could dominate if they wanted to. Again, it's unfair to blame Calipari for recruiting the players he does. He is looking for a recruiting edge and his edge is that he coaches for a highly publicized school where he helps these basketball recruits get drafted into the NBA. Calipari wouldn't have to recruit these players if they could go straight to the NBA, but they can't. I recognize it's fun to hate Kentucky and hate Calipari, but let's put the blame where it belongs. Calipari isn't abusing the system any more than he is following the rules set out by the system. But of course writers like Jay Mariotti hate the one-and-done rule and naturally Calipari is a villain for not educating these players (and obviously if Calipari had not recruited him then Anthony Davis would have stayed in college for all four years, right?) and then dumping them into the NBA...which just so happens to be where these recruits want to go anyway.
Do not forget that he is the only coach who had to vacate two Final Four appearances because of NCAA rules violations, the first at UMass because Marcus Camby took money from an agent, the second at Memphis because Derrick Rose allegedly had someone else take an SAT test for him.
Calipari doesn't have a clean history. This is true.
At the center of Calipari’s self-righteous rampage through the sport is a familiar question:
I don't understand how Calipari is being self-righteous. If anyone is being self-righteous it is Jay Mariotti for claiming Calipari is the devil for taking advantage of a rule that nearly every other college coach would take advantage of if given the opportunity.
Should college athletes be paid? Again, they are being rewarded with full-ride scholarships that, if they chose to stay the full four years instead of one, are worth beyond $200,000 at many schools.
Yeah, but if someone decides to stay one year and enter the NBA he has the chance to earn much more than that in real money in one year, not over four years.
Should they also be paid a stipend out of the disgustingly mammoth pot now shared by the NCAA, the TV networks and the programs themselves? Certainly. But that won’t stop the cries of 21st-century slavery.
It may not stop those cries, but it would certainly feel more fair. A stipend also probably wouldn't stop John Calipari from recruiting one-and-done players nor prevent these players from choosing to go to the NBA after one year in college if they feel they are ready.
And that won’t stop “heroes’’ like John Calipari from swooping in and protecting these kids, Players First,
I'm not sure Calipari has ever claimed he is protecting his players. He claims he is teaching those student-athletes who enter his program how to play defense and succeed at playing the game of basketball. If this leads to the NBA, then so be it.
even when you know and I know that he’s another scam artist trying to win in a filthy sport.
Other than his past vacated Final Four appearances I fail to understand how John Calipari is a scam artist. In fact, he delivers on what his players want him to do more often than nearly every other college basketball coach. Players enter his program wanting to play in the NBA and Calipari puts them in the NBA.
Now Jay talks about how Jabari Parker can set a grand example by choosing to stay in school for one more year as opposed to entering the NBA Draft. I think Marcus Smart, James Michael McAdoo, and Mitch McGary have already set the example by choosing to stay in school. Nerlens Noel has set the example of why an athlete that has a chance to get drafted should do so. Get paid, that's the best example, because the longer you stay in college the more chances scouts get to pick you apart.
If this isn’t how Jabari Parker wants his college career to end — breaking down in tears, trying to explain the unexplainable — then he does have an option. He can stay in college.
And then wait another year for scouts to pick apart his bad defense or suffer an injury? No thanks.
He can defy the one-and-done expectation, remain at Duke for his sophomore season, tell the NBA and the agents and the TV networks and the shoe companies that they can wait until he’s good and ready.
Because we wouldn't want Parker to be chewed up and spit out by shoe companies and evil agents. He needs to stay in school where he can continue playing basketball for free and have his image marketed without any compensation in return, all while having nothing to gain in terms of his draft position from staying one more year. That sounds like a much better plan.
Does he realize what a glorious statement that would be, rejectng immediate millions and saying yes to one more year of the college experience?
I do, because other college basketball players have done it. Jabari Parker would in no way be the first college basketball player to reject going to the NBA to come back and play another year in college. Harrison Barnes did it, Marcus Smart did it, Mitch McGary did it, as did Perry Jones III, Isaiah Austin, Terence Jones (from evil Kentucky!), Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, James Michael McAdoo, Gary Harris, Glen Robinson III, and other players over the past decade have done the same. What's interesting about this list is that of those players that have already been drafted few actually improved their draft position by staying in school longer (except maybe Terence Jones). I don't know where Cauley-Stein/Harris/Robinson will go or if they will declare, but I already know from mock drafts I've seen that Robinson doesn't appear to be going in the first round like he may have last year.
“Incompletion,’’ he told ESPN when asked to reflect on his Duke career, after the stunning loss to Mercer in his first and maybe only NCAA tournament game.
Is it possible such a bitter disappointment will impact his decision on whether to enter the NBA draft, where he could be the No. 1 pick? “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do,’’ he said, adding that he “didn’t care about the rankings’’ of draft projections.
Then Parker admitted that the emotion of the moment may be affecting his decision-making, which is a small little point that Jay cares to leave out. What could be gained from coming back to school that could not be gained from playing in the NBA? All that Parker can do is improve his stock to where he is definitely the #1 pick, with the trade-off of possibly suffering an injury or having a down year that causes his stock to fall. Just look at where Marcus Smart is now. He made the "right" decision to stay in school and now he's a guy who can't lead his team to an NCAA Tournament win and the incident at Texas Tech has his maturity called into question. Can he make his teammates better? Can he shoot the three-point shot better? The "right" decision hasn't helped him reach his goal of being drafted early and playing in the NBA.
There is no set mandate that a gifted basketball player must turn pro simply because he might be drafted first. It’s clear Parker’s game and confidence level need work, dogged as he was by 4-of-14 shooting, four turnovers and four personal fouls while continuing to have well-scrutinized defensive issues against a Mercer team showing no mercy.
And if Parker stays at Duke then NBA scouts are going to see those defensive lapses and question whether Parker can defend at the NBA level. That's assuming Parker stays healthy of course. Parker had a horrendous NCAA Tournament and he doesn't have to turn professional, but the risk-reward and examples of past players who have come back to do the "right" thing by staying one more year show that Parker may not have anywhere to go but down. I firmly believe if a college basketball player is projected to go in the Top 5 of the draft, then 9 times out of 10 it is in his best interest to enter the draft.
If he looked like a polished NBA product only two weeks ago against North Carolina,
And you know, he looked like an NBA product most of the entire college basketball season as well.
he since has faded into a funk, perhaps feeling the burden of trying to lead Duke at least into the Final Four.
Or perhaps he is simply hitting the "freshman wall" that freshmen tend to hit, especially freshmen who are expected to be the best player on their team on a nightly basis. Or perhaps Parker was tired from having to play the power forward position (and some center) during most of the season when his natural position is small forward. Besides, the burden that Parker may have felt has nothing to do with whether he should go to the NBA or not.
The best player since LeBron James is Kevin Durant, right? About a dozen other post-LeBron standouts come to mind, right? Yet that didn’t stop the ridiculous hype for Parker and Andrew Wiggins, who avoided his own second-round exit as he and Kansas fended off Eastern Kentucky.
Then Wiggins and Kansas lost in the next round to Dayton. Was it due to Wiggins being in a funk and trying to carry the burden of leading Kansas to at least the Final Four? Well, Wiggins better not go to the NBA until he can carry the burden of leading an entire team to the Final Four.
Just the day before, Parker had spoken about winning a national title. “The only way you can leave a legacy and you can leave behind memories is by winning a championship,” he said. “I know we just came up short (in the ACC tournament). I’ve got to try to do something big now.’’
Has to do something big now? He has been hearing, no doubt, the comparisons to Carmelo Anthony in terms of their offensive machinery and identical 6-8, 235-pound frames. Mike Krzyzewski, his coach, tried to temper the link before the Mercer game.
And the only way Parker can no longer hear these comparisons is to stay in college for more than one year. After that, there will be no more Carmelo Anthony comparisons ever.
Here is the most annoying part about Jay Mariotti encouraging guys like Jabari Parker to stay in school and to state that's the "right" thing to do. That annoying part is I don't believe Jay Mariotti or any of these other sportswriters would have passed up a big payday in the same situation just to stay in school and do the right thing. If ESPN had called Jay while he was in college (assuming ESPN was big when Jay was in college) during his sophomore year and said, "If you skip the last two years of college we will hire you now," does anyone really think Jay would have stayed in college for two more years? I highly doubt he would have. This same thing goes for these other sportswriters who encourage college athletes to pass up a payday in order to stay in college for one more year. Does anyone really think if the roles were reversed that sportswriter would pass up making money in order to stay in college?
“Jabari’s going to be an outstanding pro, but he’s right now in the process of development,’’ he said. “To compare the two now, there is no comparison. But in three, four, five years, Jabari, I think, will be a franchise player. He’ll be a 25-points-a-game scorer in the NBA. But he’s still developing.’’
Just because Parker is still developing doesn't mean the best place for him to develop is in college basketball and not the NBA. It's fun to get paid while developing. It's no fun to do it for free, unless Parker really cares that much about an education. Which in that case, he can always come back to Duke to get his degree anytime he wants.
The most responsible decision he could make would be to stay.
Is it though? Ask Marcus Smart how being "responsible" paid off for him. Ask Mitch McGary how being "responsible" and coming back for his sophomore year when his value was at an all-time peak after the 2013 NCAA Tournament worked out. In terms of finances, it is not responsible to stay in school. If Parker is projected to go in the Top 5 of the draft he should definitely go to the NBA. I have a hard time seeing how staying in school and potentially hurting his draft stock is responsible.
I could think of no worse fate than Parker turning pro, being drafted by the god-awful Philadelphia 76ers and being expected to lead that franchise to the promised land in an overly demanding sports town. Just 19, he surely would struggle at times in his rookie season, whereas another season at Duke under Krzyzewski would better prepare him for the NBA —
Yes, but declaring for the NBA Draft would mean Parker is actually in the NBA and he would learn to lead a franchise by actually leading a franchise that doesn't have any other leaders, where the team can be built around him and Michael Carter-Williams/Nerlens Noel. If anything, having Noel back there would do wonders to offset Parker's defensive deficiencies and help ease his transition to playing defense at an NBA level. Yeah, I bet Jay didn't think about that did he?
and give him a chance to redeem himself in March.
And how much money does redeeming himself in March make for Parker and his family again?
That also would be a gift to Coach K,
Because the one thing Coach K needs more of is gifts. He already has four Top-50 players in the 2014 class committed to Duke and has one Top-20 recruit for the 2015 class committed to Duke. Who will be around to save Coach K when Jabari Parker is gone?
He had a health scare earlier this month, not the first time, and maybe the best plan is to coach two more seasons at Duke, coach the U.S. Olympic team to a third gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and retire.
I don't understand why Jabari Parker shouldn't go to the NBA because he needs to give Coach K a gift and be around for Coach K's final years as a basketball coach at Duke. This doesn't make sense to me. Why does the impending retirement of a head coach mean one of that coach's players has a responsibility to stay in school? I don't see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand.
It wasn’t his best coaching performance this season, with his players lagging defensively and lapsing on fundamentals.
And of course if Coach K isn't teaching his players the fundamentals and how to play defense why wouldn't Jabari Parker stick around to take advantage of this shitty teaching when he could be in the NBA making money? Come on Jay, you say Parker will learn more staying in college and then state you don't think Coach K did a good job coaching this year. It can't be both ways. Parker isn't very good on defense yet, so why would he stick around if Coach K let his players lag on defense? That's not going to help Parker improve.
Besides Jay is wrong, Coach K didn't do a poor job coaching the entire season. There wasn't a quality center on the roster, the three seniors were disappointments or non-contributors, and the two players he built the team (Hood/Parker) around were weak on defense and had to play out of position too often. Part of the reason these two players were so weak on defense is they played out of position for most of the season (especially Parker). Either way, if Jay thinks Coach K did a shitty job coaching, then I don't see how it is responsible at all for Parker to come back for his sophomore year.
Is it time for to wonder if Harvard’s Tommy Amaker, one of his many protegees, is the best man to replace him?
Remember when this column was about Jabari Parker setting an example by not leaving for the NBA? What ever happened to that?
Everyone knows Chris Collins is going to be the man to replace Coach K. Collins is a great recruiter and just has to prove he can coach. So far, he's done a pretty damn good coaching at Northwestern.
Soon enough, he will be visiting another young man to discuss the future. If he tells Jabari Parker to follow his heart, that artery will lead him back to Durham.
Unfortunately, this is a case of the heart leading Parker wrong. If he's projected to be a Top 5 draft pick then Parker should absolutely enter the NBA Draft. Just take a look at recent players who have chosen to stay for their sophomore year and where they were drafted the year after. It's not a list that tells me it is responsible to stay for another year in college if the ultimate goal is to be drafted as high as possible in the NBA Draft. This is just another example of a sportswriter unconscionably encouraging an amateur athlete to hold off on getting paid when this isn't the same decision this sportswriter would make in the same situation.
Jay Mariotti sucks and it would be responsible for Sports Talk Florida to not allow him a forum to give his trolling opinions.
I don't know what else I should expect from a guy who has an issue with Barack Obama filling out a bracket. It seems Obama knows more about college basketball players than Jay does, which means Obama spends most of his time talking basketball and not running the country. It doesn't annoy me that Obama fills out a bracket and then goes on ESPN to reveal his bracket. It's all a part of efforts, like appearing on "Between Two Ferns" and Michelle Obama appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Kimmel," to appeal to "the kids" and further an agenda/program they have. Obviously Obama isn't furthering a program by filling out a bracket, but I chalk that up appealing to "the kids" and trying to seem down-to-earth. Either way, it's sort of silly to get up in arms about Obama filling out a bracket. It's needless, but not a huge drain on his time.
I'll start with Jay's column about what a jerk John Calipari is. I feel like I end up defending Calipari more often than I would like to, but simply because many sportswriters seem to think it's his fault the NBA has instituted the one-and-done rule. Calipari didn't think of the rule and is on record as saying he doesn't like it. He simply plays within the rules of the one-and-done rule and that irritates writers like Jay Mariotti for some reason.
Don’t bother conducting a scientific poll. Without debate, John Calipari is the most loathed man in college basketball, primarily because what he preaches is not college basketball but something you’d have seen Kevin Trudeau hawking about college basketball on a 3:30 a.m. TV informercial (Note: Trudeau was just sentenced to a 10-year prison sentence for consumer fraud).
AND JOHN CALIPARI SHOULD BE IN JAIL FOR CONSUMER FRAUD TOO! HE SELLS TO RECRUITS THAT HE WILL GET THEM DRAFTED BY THE NBA AND THEN HE DOES THAT, WHICH IS DEFINITELY FRAUD!
Under the phony premise that his players are his only real priority as a coach — his leadership book, to be strategically released in time for the Final Four, is called “Players First’’ — Calipari is on an evangelical soapbox to prove he can point one-and-doners immediately to the NBA while they try to win a quickie NCAA championship for Kentucky.
Except for the fact Calipari has won a championship while placing his players into the NBA after one season, this definitely could be considered fraud. It's also pure speculation to state that Calipari doesn't care about his players. I can't read minds and Jay Mariotti can't read minds, but Calipari's disappointment with the performance of his 2012-2013 Kentucky team was pretty obvious when he spoke about how his team lacked discipline. I guess that wasn't sincere enough for Jay.
Of course, all he’s doing is playing to the soft academic weaknesses of teenaged hoops prodigies — “Gee, if I play for him, I can blow off school and be in the NBA the following June,’’ goes the thought process — so St. Cal can pick the players he wants and annually reload his assembly line of talent.
He doesn't pick the players he wants. He just beaten by Duke for a recruit from Ohio and he has missed out on several other recruits and he lost out on the #1 point guard in the 2014 class to SMU. Yes, recruits want to play for Kentucky to get drafted, but top recruits also choose to play for other schools who can also get them to the NBA after one season in college. Student-athletes are required by NBA rules to stay in college for a year, spend a year overseas or petition the NBA to allow them to enter the NBA Draft if they can prove they are a year removed from their high school graduation. As I've said many, many times before, one-and-done is an NBA rule not an NCAA rule.
Once he won a national championship with two such one-and-doners (Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) two years ago, Calipari had his street cred.
Actually, he won it with three one-and-done players, including Marcus Teague. But what are facts, even facts that could further prove Jay's point? He's got no time to look this shit up. Research is for bitches and bitches get grabbed by their hair when they are acting up.
“We don’t just play college basketball,’’ St. Cal announced as the season began. “We ARE college basketball.’’
Calipari has a lot of bravado, which may be annoying, but certainly doesn't make him a sleazeball.
No, you are a feeder system — for the grateful NBA,
Every college basketball program is a feeder system for the NBA, not just Kentucky basketball. Some colleges feed the NBA more than others, but NCAA basketball is set up as a feeder system for the NBA. So criticizing Calipari and the Kentucky program for being a feeder system to the NBA is a bit disingenuous. They aren't alone in this regard.
And until this past Sunday, a whole lot of us were delighted to see Kentucky, a season after failing to reach the NCAA tournament, struggling with maturity, cohesion and listening issues and appearing ready to exit early from this year’s tournament.
Of course Kentucky was a #8 seed, so an "early" exit would most likely the first round, unless Wichita State had gotten upset in the first round by Cal Poly.
Imagine: Only months after suggesting his team might be the first ever to go 40-0, St. Cal was taking 10 losses into the Midwest Regional. He was a walking embarassment — petulantly blowing off a post-loss press conference, complaining his team was “the most overanalyzed team in the history of sports’’ (didn’t he suggest Kentucky might go 40-0?), then complaining that his players were “counting on me too much.’’
Wait. Players First, right?
The fact Jay can't spell "embarrassment" correctly and that Calipari is sort of a hypocrite for talking about how Kentucky was overanalyzed aside, Calipari wasn't saying he didn't want to coach or care about his players, but he is commenting that his players were waiting on him to provide instructions rather than simply going out on the court and playing to their ability.
And those same players were counting on Calipari too much when they needed him most? Opinions were mounting that he was the next one done at Kentucky, eyeing the New York Knicks.
This isn't Calipari's fault. There is no indication he has attempted to pursue the New York Knicks job. Jay seems to have a double standard for head coaches, because I don't read about him criticizing Tom Izzo for having any iota of interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers job a few years ago nor the fact Izzo keeps getting connected to the Pistons job. Jay also doesn't seem to mind that Coach K has almost taken an NBA job twice (that we know of) during his coaching career. But hey, these two coaches like their players and Calipari is always looking for something better, right? That's the narrative.
Some were demanding his ouster, sensing St. Cal was much more a recruiting con man than an actual coach. His daughter, Erin, defended him on Twitter: “People saying my dad should be fired, he won 81% of his games @ UK. Coach K 79% Duke. Roy Williams 78% @ UNC. Pitino 74% @ UL … #forreference.’’
We waited for the crash.
Instead, Calipari’s parachute opened.
He got his team to play very well against Wichita State and the Harrison twins realized, "Hey, if we drive to the basket a lot I'm not sure very many guards in the country can stop us!"
While presumed future NBA stars Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker were flaming out of the tournament with eyesore performances, Calipari watched in bliss as the embattled twin brothers, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, combined for 39 points and lottery pick Julius Randle contributed his usual double-double in eliminating a 35-0 force that nearly won the national title last April.
These presumed future NBA stars are coached by Bill Self and Coach K, both coaches who have coached one-and-done players before, yet get a free pass from Jay because they haven't coached enough one-and-done players. There apparently is a limit on how many one-and-done players a coach can have before he no longer cares about them as people.
Calipari, understand, has a bad hip. It didn’t stop him from leaping and hopping by the bench as the buzzer sounded.
Clearly he is faking this bad hip. John Calipari commits consumer and insurance fraud. Arrest this man immediately!
The purists almost had their man nailed to the wall, at long last.
The idea of "purists" in the college basketball game is laughable. Nearly all coaches end up taking on one-and-done players at some point. Even Tom Izzo took on Gary Harris who easily could have gone pro last year if he had been healthy all season. It's the nature of the game. Jim Boeheim has guys who are going to go one-and-done, Roy Williams has had players go one-and-done...it's just how it is now.
“If wins are relief, it’s time for me to retire. This was great joy in seeing a group of young men come together and start figuring this out. It took longer than I’d hoped,’’ Calipari said. “This team and what people said about this team — all we’ve done all year is continue to get better. Like every team, you hit a hole when you don’t play well. But they believed in themselves.
“I just wish we had another month of the season, because we’re getting better every day.’’
How selfish of Calipari to say "we" as if he is part of the team. There he goes trying to take credit for what his players do on the court. It's clear by these quotes that Calipari doesn't care about his team and only wants to steal the spotlight from his players.
Remember, Kentucky rallied and nearly stole the SEC title game two weekends ago from Florida, the tournament’s No. 1 seed and clear favorite to reach the Final Four out of the South Regional. There might be seven NBA futures on this team. Nothing is more dangerous in March — and April — than pro-skilled players emerging as one with the stakes at their highest.
Imagine how good Kentucky would be if John Calipari actually cared about his players and didn't treat them as disposable goods by tossing each freshman out the door after one year so that they may achieve their goal of entering in the NBA Draft and becoming a millionaire? It's a shame Calipari puts these student-athletes in a position to achieve their dreams.
It was Willie Cauley-Stein, the sophomore forward, who said last week that Kentucky would “shock the world,’’ adding, “There’s a lot of people that don’t think we can make a run at it. And you know, a lot of people don’t want to see us make a run at it.’’
These people are better known as "Jay Mariotti." And what is this? A highly-recruited player who is a sophomore at Kentucky and didn't go to the NBA Draft? I thought Calipari kicked all of his freshman out so new freshmen could take their place? My world is spinning.
“Here’s what happened with my team,’’ Calipari said. “They now are putting themselves in a position where they’re accepting roles how they have to play. So we’re becoming a better team. Individuals are losing themselves into the team, so they’re playing better and more confident.
Hence what Calipari meant by stating his players were counting on him too much. They were waiting for him as the coach to put them into a certain role or worried about Calipari correcting the issue of not playing as a team when it is only the Kentucky players themselves who could correct this.
We love most March stories because they are embraceable, charming. Nothing is warm and fuzzy about St. Cal and the rise of his one-and-doners.
It doesn't have to be warm and fuzzy, but the high level at which they play the game could be appreciated. It was pretty cool to see the Harrison twins finally seem to understand they could dominate if they wanted to. Again, it's unfair to blame Calipari for recruiting the players he does. He is looking for a recruiting edge and his edge is that he coaches for a highly publicized school where he helps these basketball recruits get drafted into the NBA. Calipari wouldn't have to recruit these players if they could go straight to the NBA, but they can't. I recognize it's fun to hate Kentucky and hate Calipari, but let's put the blame where it belongs. Calipari isn't abusing the system any more than he is following the rules set out by the system. But of course writers like Jay Mariotti hate the one-and-done rule and naturally Calipari is a villain for not educating these players (and obviously if Calipari had not recruited him then Anthony Davis would have stayed in college for all four years, right?) and then dumping them into the NBA...which just so happens to be where these recruits want to go anyway.
Do not forget that he is the only coach who had to vacate two Final Four appearances because of NCAA rules violations, the first at UMass because Marcus Camby took money from an agent, the second at Memphis because Derrick Rose allegedly had someone else take an SAT test for him.
Calipari doesn't have a clean history. This is true.
At the center of Calipari’s self-righteous rampage through the sport is a familiar question:
I don't understand how Calipari is being self-righteous. If anyone is being self-righteous it is Jay Mariotti for claiming Calipari is the devil for taking advantage of a rule that nearly every other college coach would take advantage of if given the opportunity.
Should college athletes be paid? Again, they are being rewarded with full-ride scholarships that, if they chose to stay the full four years instead of one, are worth beyond $200,000 at many schools.
Yeah, but if someone decides to stay one year and enter the NBA he has the chance to earn much more than that in real money in one year, not over four years.
Should they also be paid a stipend out of the disgustingly mammoth pot now shared by the NCAA, the TV networks and the programs themselves? Certainly. But that won’t stop the cries of 21st-century slavery.
It may not stop those cries, but it would certainly feel more fair. A stipend also probably wouldn't stop John Calipari from recruiting one-and-done players nor prevent these players from choosing to go to the NBA after one year in college if they feel they are ready.
And that won’t stop “heroes’’ like John Calipari from swooping in and protecting these kids, Players First,
I'm not sure Calipari has ever claimed he is protecting his players. He claims he is teaching those student-athletes who enter his program how to play defense and succeed at playing the game of basketball. If this leads to the NBA, then so be it.
even when you know and I know that he’s another scam artist trying to win in a filthy sport.
Other than his past vacated Final Four appearances I fail to understand how John Calipari is a scam artist. In fact, he delivers on what his players want him to do more often than nearly every other college basketball coach. Players enter his program wanting to play in the NBA and Calipari puts them in the NBA.
Now Jay talks about how Jabari Parker can set a grand example by choosing to stay in school for one more year as opposed to entering the NBA Draft. I think Marcus Smart, James Michael McAdoo, and Mitch McGary have already set the example by choosing to stay in school. Nerlens Noel has set the example of why an athlete that has a chance to get drafted should do so. Get paid, that's the best example, because the longer you stay in college the more chances scouts get to pick you apart.
If this isn’t how Jabari Parker wants his college career to end — breaking down in tears, trying to explain the unexplainable — then he does have an option. He can stay in college.
And then wait another year for scouts to pick apart his bad defense or suffer an injury? No thanks.
He can defy the one-and-done expectation, remain at Duke for his sophomore season, tell the NBA and the agents and the TV networks and the shoe companies that they can wait until he’s good and ready.
Because we wouldn't want Parker to be chewed up and spit out by shoe companies and evil agents. He needs to stay in school where he can continue playing basketball for free and have his image marketed without any compensation in return, all while having nothing to gain in terms of his draft position from staying one more year. That sounds like a much better plan.
Does he realize what a glorious statement that would be, rejectng immediate millions and saying yes to one more year of the college experience?
I do, because other college basketball players have done it. Jabari Parker would in no way be the first college basketball player to reject going to the NBA to come back and play another year in college. Harrison Barnes did it, Marcus Smart did it, Mitch McGary did it, as did Perry Jones III, Isaiah Austin, Terence Jones (from evil Kentucky!), Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress, James Michael McAdoo, Gary Harris, Glen Robinson III, and other players over the past decade have done the same. What's interesting about this list is that of those players that have already been drafted few actually improved their draft position by staying in school longer (except maybe Terence Jones). I don't know where Cauley-Stein/Harris/Robinson will go or if they will declare, but I already know from mock drafts I've seen that Robinson doesn't appear to be going in the first round like he may have last year.
“Incompletion,’’ he told ESPN when asked to reflect on his Duke career, after the stunning loss to Mercer in his first and maybe only NCAA tournament game.
Is it possible such a bitter disappointment will impact his decision on whether to enter the NBA draft, where he could be the No. 1 pick? “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I’m going to do,’’ he said, adding that he “didn’t care about the rankings’’ of draft projections.
Then Parker admitted that the emotion of the moment may be affecting his decision-making, which is a small little point that Jay cares to leave out. What could be gained from coming back to school that could not be gained from playing in the NBA? All that Parker can do is improve his stock to where he is definitely the #1 pick, with the trade-off of possibly suffering an injury or having a down year that causes his stock to fall. Just look at where Marcus Smart is now. He made the "right" decision to stay in school and now he's a guy who can't lead his team to an NCAA Tournament win and the incident at Texas Tech has his maturity called into question. Can he make his teammates better? Can he shoot the three-point shot better? The "right" decision hasn't helped him reach his goal of being drafted early and playing in the NBA.
There is no set mandate that a gifted basketball player must turn pro simply because he might be drafted first. It’s clear Parker’s game and confidence level need work, dogged as he was by 4-of-14 shooting, four turnovers and four personal fouls while continuing to have well-scrutinized defensive issues against a Mercer team showing no mercy.
And if Parker stays at Duke then NBA scouts are going to see those defensive lapses and question whether Parker can defend at the NBA level. That's assuming Parker stays healthy of course. Parker had a horrendous NCAA Tournament and he doesn't have to turn professional, but the risk-reward and examples of past players who have come back to do the "right" thing by staying one more year show that Parker may not have anywhere to go but down. I firmly believe if a college basketball player is projected to go in the Top 5 of the draft, then 9 times out of 10 it is in his best interest to enter the draft.
If he looked like a polished NBA product only two weeks ago against North Carolina,
And you know, he looked like an NBA product most of the entire college basketball season as well.
he since has faded into a funk, perhaps feeling the burden of trying to lead Duke at least into the Final Four.
Or perhaps he is simply hitting the "freshman wall" that freshmen tend to hit, especially freshmen who are expected to be the best player on their team on a nightly basis. Or perhaps Parker was tired from having to play the power forward position (and some center) during most of the season when his natural position is small forward. Besides, the burden that Parker may have felt has nothing to do with whether he should go to the NBA or not.
The best player since LeBron James is Kevin Durant, right? About a dozen other post-LeBron standouts come to mind, right? Yet that didn’t stop the ridiculous hype for Parker and Andrew Wiggins, who avoided his own second-round exit as he and Kansas fended off Eastern Kentucky.
Then Wiggins and Kansas lost in the next round to Dayton. Was it due to Wiggins being in a funk and trying to carry the burden of leading Kansas to at least the Final Four? Well, Wiggins better not go to the NBA until he can carry the burden of leading an entire team to the Final Four.
Just the day before, Parker had spoken about winning a national title. “The only way you can leave a legacy and you can leave behind memories is by winning a championship,” he said. “I know we just came up short (in the ACC tournament). I’ve got to try to do something big now.’’
Has to do something big now? He has been hearing, no doubt, the comparisons to Carmelo Anthony in terms of their offensive machinery and identical 6-8, 235-pound frames. Mike Krzyzewski, his coach, tried to temper the link before the Mercer game.
And the only way Parker can no longer hear these comparisons is to stay in college for more than one year. After that, there will be no more Carmelo Anthony comparisons ever.
Here is the most annoying part about Jay Mariotti encouraging guys like Jabari Parker to stay in school and to state that's the "right" thing to do. That annoying part is I don't believe Jay Mariotti or any of these other sportswriters would have passed up a big payday in the same situation just to stay in school and do the right thing. If ESPN had called Jay while he was in college (assuming ESPN was big when Jay was in college) during his sophomore year and said, "If you skip the last two years of college we will hire you now," does anyone really think Jay would have stayed in college for two more years? I highly doubt he would have. This same thing goes for these other sportswriters who encourage college athletes to pass up a payday in order to stay in college for one more year. Does anyone really think if the roles were reversed that sportswriter would pass up making money in order to stay in college?
“Jabari’s going to be an outstanding pro, but he’s right now in the process of development,’’ he said. “To compare the two now, there is no comparison. But in three, four, five years, Jabari, I think, will be a franchise player. He’ll be a 25-points-a-game scorer in the NBA. But he’s still developing.’’
Just because Parker is still developing doesn't mean the best place for him to develop is in college basketball and not the NBA. It's fun to get paid while developing. It's no fun to do it for free, unless Parker really cares that much about an education. Which in that case, he can always come back to Duke to get his degree anytime he wants.
The most responsible decision he could make would be to stay.
Is it though? Ask Marcus Smart how being "responsible" paid off for him. Ask Mitch McGary how being "responsible" and coming back for his sophomore year when his value was at an all-time peak after the 2013 NCAA Tournament worked out. In terms of finances, it is not responsible to stay in school. If Parker is projected to go in the Top 5 of the draft he should definitely go to the NBA. I have a hard time seeing how staying in school and potentially hurting his draft stock is responsible.
I could think of no worse fate than Parker turning pro, being drafted by the god-awful Philadelphia 76ers and being expected to lead that franchise to the promised land in an overly demanding sports town. Just 19, he surely would struggle at times in his rookie season, whereas another season at Duke under Krzyzewski would better prepare him for the NBA —
Yes, but declaring for the NBA Draft would mean Parker is actually in the NBA and he would learn to lead a franchise by actually leading a franchise that doesn't have any other leaders, where the team can be built around him and Michael Carter-Williams/Nerlens Noel. If anything, having Noel back there would do wonders to offset Parker's defensive deficiencies and help ease his transition to playing defense at an NBA level. Yeah, I bet Jay didn't think about that did he?
and give him a chance to redeem himself in March.
And how much money does redeeming himself in March make for Parker and his family again?
That also would be a gift to Coach K,
Because the one thing Coach K needs more of is gifts. He already has four Top-50 players in the 2014 class committed to Duke and has one Top-20 recruit for the 2015 class committed to Duke. Who will be around to save Coach K when Jabari Parker is gone?
He had a health scare earlier this month, not the first time, and maybe the best plan is to coach two more seasons at Duke, coach the U.S. Olympic team to a third gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and retire.
I don't understand why Jabari Parker shouldn't go to the NBA because he needs to give Coach K a gift and be around for Coach K's final years as a basketball coach at Duke. This doesn't make sense to me. Why does the impending retirement of a head coach mean one of that coach's players has a responsibility to stay in school? I don't see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand.
It wasn’t his best coaching performance this season, with his players lagging defensively and lapsing on fundamentals.
And of course if Coach K isn't teaching his players the fundamentals and how to play defense why wouldn't Jabari Parker stick around to take advantage of this shitty teaching when he could be in the NBA making money? Come on Jay, you say Parker will learn more staying in college and then state you don't think Coach K did a good job coaching this year. It can't be both ways. Parker isn't very good on defense yet, so why would he stick around if Coach K let his players lag on defense? That's not going to help Parker improve.
Besides Jay is wrong, Coach K didn't do a poor job coaching the entire season. There wasn't a quality center on the roster, the three seniors were disappointments or non-contributors, and the two players he built the team (Hood/Parker) around were weak on defense and had to play out of position too often. Part of the reason these two players were so weak on defense is they played out of position for most of the season (especially Parker). Either way, if Jay thinks Coach K did a shitty job coaching, then I don't see how it is responsible at all for Parker to come back for his sophomore year.
Is it time for to wonder if Harvard’s Tommy Amaker, one of his many protegees, is the best man to replace him?
Remember when this column was about Jabari Parker setting an example by not leaving for the NBA? What ever happened to that?
Everyone knows Chris Collins is going to be the man to replace Coach K. Collins is a great recruiter and just has to prove he can coach. So far, he's done a pretty damn good coaching at Northwestern.
Soon enough, he will be visiting another young man to discuss the future. If he tells Jabari Parker to follow his heart, that artery will lead him back to Durham.
Unfortunately, this is a case of the heart leading Parker wrong. If he's projected to be a Top 5 draft pick then Parker should absolutely enter the NBA Draft. Just take a look at recent players who have chosen to stay for their sophomore year and where they were drafted the year after. It's not a list that tells me it is responsible to stay for another year in college if the ultimate goal is to be drafted as high as possible in the NBA Draft. This is just another example of a sportswriter unconscionably encouraging an amateur athlete to hold off on getting paid when this isn't the same decision this sportswriter would make in the same situation.
Jay Mariotti sucks and it would be responsible for Sports Talk Florida to not allow him a forum to give his trolling opinions.
If
this isn’t how Jabari Parker wants his college career to end — breaking
down in tears, trying to explain the unexplainable — then he does have
an option. He can stay in college.
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/parker-would-set-grand-example-by-staying/#pyL4E7hLjsXRQtOa.99
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/parker-would-set-grand-example-by-staying/#pyL4E7hLjsXRQtOa.99
Don’t
bother conducting a scientific poll. Without debate, John Calipari is
the most loathed man in college basketball, primarily because what he
preaches is not college basketball but something you’d have seen Kevin
Trudeau hawking about college basketball on a 3:30 a.m. TV informercial
(Note: Trudeau was just sentenced to a 10-year prison sentence for
consumer fraud).
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/nothing-admirable-about-the-calipari-way/#HyFb5ltwwGFkuBIb.99
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/nothing-admirable-about-the-calipari-way/#HyFb5ltwwGFkuBIb.99
Saturday, March 8, 2014
3 comments Phil Mushnick and Mitch Albom Want You Off Their Lawn With That Loud Modern Music
Mitch Albom and Phil Mushnick crave the old days in music. Phil craves the times when marching bands play at halftime and Mitch misses the Beatles, though they have been gone for over 40 years and 50% of the members are dead. Either way, music today just doesn't measure up to music from the good old days. This is something every adult has said for the last 100 years so it's obviously true. I will start off first with Phil Mushnick missing a marching band performance at the Super Bowl halftime. I personally hate marching bands because they are part of a parade and I hate parades. Parades seem very useless to me. It's just a group of people walking down a street slowly and I'm not sure why this should interest me, but I recognize it interests other people.
I’m about to waste your time and mine by making a Super Bowl suggestion so sensible that it’s completely out of the question, even laughable:
Bruno Mars' halftime show got higher ratings than the Super Bowl itself. So this sensible suggestion of Phil's isn't sensible and only laughable in that the current halftime format (which I admittedly rarely watch) seems to work well for the majority of people. Just because I don't watch it doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Instead of sustaining this protracted course in which Super Bowl halftimes have become pop-culture musical variety shows for tapered target audiences and with performances often infused with dubious value, why not restore and reward a great tradition of football by allowing marching bands to perform?
Because it's not 1967 and viewers won't watch to watch a marching band perform. It's bad enough the Super Bowl tends to get older, safer acts to the point I would fully expect a hologram of Frank Sinatra to perform at next year's Super Bowl, but few things are going to turn an audience off faster than watching a marching band. Sorry, I think it's true. The Super Bowl wants to keep their audience, not lose it to alternative programming.
Not just any marching bands, but to borrow from an old song, the best bands in the land!
Not to dump on marching bands, but I'm guessing the typical Super Bowl viewer cares as much about seeing the best marching bands in the world perform as they would care to see the two best chess masters squaring off at midfield during halftime.
And rather than risk being dismissed as an old-timer who doesn’t regard, say, twerking, as appropriate for a national audience tuned in to watch a ballgame, I first wrote this Super Bowl marching band suggestion years ago.
Nobody twerked during the Super Bowl, buddy. Bruno Mars put on a pretty good show and the Red Hot Chili Peppers showed up long enough to remind the viewers why they weren't the main halftime show. It's Anthony Keidis' mustache. No one wants to see that for 15 minutes during halftime.
In, for example, the marching bands of Ohio State University and Southern University (the “Human Jukebox”) marching band, we’re blessed with two of the most entertaining and spellbinding acts ever to respond to a whistle.
I appreciate marching bands that are good at their job, but the NFL has tried marching bands at halftime only to lose viewers to alternative programming. So from a programming perspective it doesn't make sense to have marching bands at halftime. That's what the halftime show is all about, keeping viewers from turning the channel.
OSU’s is a massive, high-tech operation that blows minds with its fantastic full-field reenactments of such things as a Mickey Mouse — scores of marching musicians form Mickey and take him for a walk — to an end zone-to-end zone Pac Man game. One watches in awe, applauds in awe.
I fell asleep just hearing about this. It's nothing against the technical aspect of marching bands that's the problem, it's that viewers aren't going to tune into watch a marching band and will go to alternative programming. If Phil Mushnick doesn't understand this then he shouldn't be writing about sports entertainment for a living.
I have never seen a fan at a football game walk out on or cease watching a good marching band — even if it means saving the bathroom for the start of the third quarter.
Then Mushnick must have not attended a football game in the last 20 years. I'm leaving at halftime to take a piss if I have to go to the bathroom. Also, it's not the fans at the game who would turn off the marching band. They have paid for a ticket and are sort of stuck as a result. It's the viewers on television who just have to use this modern technology called "the remote control" to go to another channel for 20 minutes.
And I have seen fans double-back — abandon their trip to the food and drink stands — after catching a glimpse of a good marching band.
(Deep sigh) Again, if Phil doesn't get that the halftime show isn't about those fans attending the game and that it is about the viewers at home then he is terribly incompetent at his job and perhaps should be fired. Maybe he could travel all around the country and watch the marching bands he enjoys watching so much. It's about viewers at home, not the fans at the game.
The likelihood of a marching band halftime performer intentionally grabbing at his crotch — as did Michael Jackson in 1993 — or the staging of a female breast jailbreak — Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, 2004 — is small.
There are ways to have a "family" Super Bowl halftime show without losing 50% of the viewers.
As family entertainment goes, the above marching bands are successfully designed to thoroughly entertain your families, as opposed to the Manson Family.
I think the best sign that Phil Mushnick isn't dealing with reality and is living in a non-existent past is that he just dropped a "Manson Family" reference. It's not the family that needs to be entertained halftime, it's the guy at home with the remote control.
But again, no shot. That’s not how America rolls these days. We roll downhill, faster and faster and faster.
Yes, the prevalence of halftime shows with such current troublemakers like Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen is a sure sign America is going downhill faster and faster. What would Ed Sullivan say if he saw these rowdy hooligans performing at the biggest football event of the season?
I hope the NFL does get a marching band next year. I hope that marching band is from Ohio State and I hope that marching band does a formation that ends up forming a penis and a breast with the marching band dotting the nipple of the breast. What would Phil say then?
Then Mitch Albom tells us why the Beatles are still the best. When Mitch isn't too busy attacking the service industry or giving a lecture on caring, Mitch is jamming to "She Loves You." Maybe if a few members of the service industry would sing a few bars of "When I'm Sixty-Four" then Mitch would not treat them like shit.
This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” There were TV specials and nostalgic articles. And if I were in my teens today, I might ask, “What’s the big deal?”
Actually my response is that the Beatles were a great band, but a band that is remembered mostly through nostalgia to where the band serves more as a cultural milestone rather than a band who made great music. Yes, they made great music and some crappy music, but nostalgia!
So let me explain why the Beatles actually are worth commemorating. Let’s start with this: Fifty years later, their music is still better than today’s.
This is an opinion, not a fact. Let's start with that.
Yep. I said it. I won’t take it back. If Katy Perry wants to argue, bring it on. If Lady Gaga takes exception, I’ll raise it. If Justin Bieber wants to …
Forget it. That’s not even fair.
I'm not sure anyone who isn't a teeny-bopper would argue that any of these artists are better than the Beatles. Also, I doubt any of these artists know who Mitch Albom is so they would not argue.
The Beatles were better. Their song construction, their melody lines, their harmonies, their lyrics, their inventiveness,
You mean they were inventive in the way they stole a whole bunch of shit from blues artists before them (as did many other bands) and invented the era of boy bands?
their breakthrough use of symphonic instruments — all done at a time when if you got it wrong, you had to record the whole thing again, you couldn’t just fix it with a computer key — combine to make the seven years the Beatles recorded together the richest production of pop music ever created by a group.
Ever.
They were great for a short period of time. I prefer my bands to be together a little bit longer, as well as put out music for longer than a four year period that I wouldn't classify as "boy band" music. And yes, I think the Beatles were a boy band at first, but did they later branch out.
And, let’s admit it, there has been hysteria since then. Heck, the Monkees had it at their concerts. So did the Osmonds, Jackson 5, David Cassidy, Menudo, Hanson, Boyz II Men and Bieber.
None of their music resonates the same way.
Partially because there aren't middle-aged white men sportswriters writing about going to see the Jackson 5, David Cassidy, or Hanson in concert. The Beatles had fans in men and women and many Baby Boomers are still writing and keeping the nostalgia for the Beatles alive. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the music resonates now because it resonated then with people who are in a position to write to a large audience.
Also, it makes sense that Mitch Albom, who is in his mid-50's doesn't think Hanson's music resonates like the Beatles music does. This isn't really telling me anything.
You see, young person, what the Beatles did was take their influences — Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Elvis — and morph them all into their own early sound. Songs like “From Me to You” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” were bright, tight and catchy rock ’n’ roll, but they were wholly different from other songs coming out.
The fact the Beatles were different when they came out doesn't mean no other band has made music wholly different from other songs that have come out since then.
When mimic bands began popping up, the Beatles quickly moved into more significant and signature work, songs you really couldn’t imagine anyone else doing. “Here, There and Everywhere.” “Norwegian Wood.” “Drive My Car.”
What other band can Mitch imagine singing "Mmmmbop," "Motown Philly" or "End of the Road"? I'm just asking for the sake of argument. I can't imagine another bad singing those songs.
Three years after the suits, ties and mop-top haircuts of the Sullivan show, they were exploring corners of pop music no one had ever tried, creating thematic albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” that featured French horns and trumpets and timpani drums. Later, they would bring in sitar music. Cellos. Violas. Listen to “Eleanor Rigby” — released in 1966! — and tell me, what other artist of their time could have done that?
I don't think anyone would argue the Beatles didn't create a lot of interesting and good music, but the fact they created good music 40+ years ago doesn't mean there has been no music in the interim that was just as inventive nor does it mean their music is better than any other band who has ever put out music.
yet it is catchy and memorable and people around the world still sing the line, “Ahhh, look at all the lonely people,” which is probably more poetic than anything Kanye West ever has written.
Though Mitch Albom doesn't know because he's not familiar with Kanye West's music. He just knows the Beatles music is better because that's his position and doesn't care to question whether it's true or not. It's his reality, so it must be true.
yet they never stopped creating rock ’n’ roll (“Back in the USSR”) or folk song satire (“Piggies”) or cabaret-like melodies (“When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”) or achingly beautiful ballads like “Blackbird” or “Something” or “Let It Be.”
Honestly, if a band just recorded those last three songs, couldn’t it retire?
If a band just recorded those last three songs they would be a band that only got played on easy listening stations. Those are all non-rocking songs. So if the Beatles only recorded those three songs they would be better known as a band called Bread and played only alongside Dan Fogelberg.
And while they never played as a foursome after 1970, people know their songs 44 years later, they can sing along with dozens — not one — and they are remade as often as someone gets up the courage.
Apparently someone gets up the courage every other day, because the Beatles have been covered a lot.
I can tell you as a former musician who played in countless cover bands, you always shied away from doing Beatles tunes, because their sound was so unique, the audience inevitably found fault with your version.
Mitch, it could just be that your countless cover bands sucked. And what would the common denominator in these bands be? You.
But the fact that so many big artists have recorded “Yesterday,” “Michelle” or “And I Love Her” — to name a few — shows the timelessness of John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s songwriting.
How many other artists will record a Lady Gaga, Kanye West or Katy Perry hit? They won’t, because those are often great records, not great songs.
Yeah, no one covers Lady Gaga.
No one at all.
While I respect the Beatles, the fact their songs get covered repeatedly is the result of their cultural impact and doesn't necessarily mean their music is better than music that has been made since they broke up.
Play the single notes of “Yesterday” on a piano or a guitar, it’s still beautiful. Play the single notes from “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, it sounds like torture.
Again, this is an opinion. To a generation who grew up on Eminem's music, the single notes from "Lose Yourself" are recognizable and beautiful in it's own way.
So we’re not crazy, young person, not foolishly nostalgic, nor lost in the past.
And yet, this column is based entirely on nostalgia for a time that Mitch believes to be better than present time, which again, is something nostalgic adults have probably been doing for 100 years now. Fans of Bob Wills thought Chuck Berry's music was not very good, fans of Elvis didn't think the drug-fueled music from the 60's was very good, fans of 70's music didn't think the synthesized music of Depeche Mode and the arena rock of Def Leppard was real rock and roll, fans of Bon Jovi and the Eagles didn't understand the draw of grunge, and fans of Dave Matthews Band don't think Katy Perry is real music either. It's how it goes.
We were just blessed to have a truly great musical band to soundtrack our younger years, one that is not embarrassing to listen to today.
It is embarrassing to dismiss all good music since that time and say simply because the Beatles have been covered frequently this means their music is better than any other band's music since then. The only thing that should be embarrassing is to write a column where you lie, but Mitch Albom would never do that.
Is that worth a small fuss 50 years later? As the Beatles might answer, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just because it's worth remembering them 50 years later doesn't mean the music back then is better than music that has been made since then.
I’m about to waste your time and mine by making a Super Bowl suggestion so sensible that it’s completely out of the question, even laughable:
Bruno Mars' halftime show got higher ratings than the Super Bowl itself. So this sensible suggestion of Phil's isn't sensible and only laughable in that the current halftime format (which I admittedly rarely watch) seems to work well for the majority of people. Just because I don't watch it doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Instead of sustaining this protracted course in which Super Bowl halftimes have become pop-culture musical variety shows for tapered target audiences and with performances often infused with dubious value, why not restore and reward a great tradition of football by allowing marching bands to perform?
Because it's not 1967 and viewers won't watch to watch a marching band perform. It's bad enough the Super Bowl tends to get older, safer acts to the point I would fully expect a hologram of Frank Sinatra to perform at next year's Super Bowl, but few things are going to turn an audience off faster than watching a marching band. Sorry, I think it's true. The Super Bowl wants to keep their audience, not lose it to alternative programming.
Not just any marching bands, but to borrow from an old song, the best bands in the land!
Not to dump on marching bands, but I'm guessing the typical Super Bowl viewer cares as much about seeing the best marching bands in the world perform as they would care to see the two best chess masters squaring off at midfield during halftime.
And rather than risk being dismissed as an old-timer who doesn’t regard, say, twerking, as appropriate for a national audience tuned in to watch a ballgame, I first wrote this Super Bowl marching band suggestion years ago.
Nobody twerked during the Super Bowl, buddy. Bruno Mars put on a pretty good show and the Red Hot Chili Peppers showed up long enough to remind the viewers why they weren't the main halftime show. It's Anthony Keidis' mustache. No one wants to see that for 15 minutes during halftime.
In, for example, the marching bands of Ohio State University and Southern University (the “Human Jukebox”) marching band, we’re blessed with two of the most entertaining and spellbinding acts ever to respond to a whistle.
I appreciate marching bands that are good at their job, but the NFL has tried marching bands at halftime only to lose viewers to alternative programming. So from a programming perspective it doesn't make sense to have marching bands at halftime. That's what the halftime show is all about, keeping viewers from turning the channel.
OSU’s is a massive, high-tech operation that blows minds with its fantastic full-field reenactments of such things as a Mickey Mouse — scores of marching musicians form Mickey and take him for a walk — to an end zone-to-end zone Pac Man game. One watches in awe, applauds in awe.
I fell asleep just hearing about this. It's nothing against the technical aspect of marching bands that's the problem, it's that viewers aren't going to tune into watch a marching band and will go to alternative programming. If Phil Mushnick doesn't understand this then he shouldn't be writing about sports entertainment for a living.
I have never seen a fan at a football game walk out on or cease watching a good marching band — even if it means saving the bathroom for the start of the third quarter.
Then Mushnick must have not attended a football game in the last 20 years. I'm leaving at halftime to take a piss if I have to go to the bathroom. Also, it's not the fans at the game who would turn off the marching band. They have paid for a ticket and are sort of stuck as a result. It's the viewers on television who just have to use this modern technology called "the remote control" to go to another channel for 20 minutes.
And I have seen fans double-back — abandon their trip to the food and drink stands — after catching a glimpse of a good marching band.
(Deep sigh) Again, if Phil doesn't get that the halftime show isn't about those fans attending the game and that it is about the viewers at home then he is terribly incompetent at his job and perhaps should be fired. Maybe he could travel all around the country and watch the marching bands he enjoys watching so much. It's about viewers at home, not the fans at the game.
The likelihood of a marching band halftime performer intentionally grabbing at his crotch — as did Michael Jackson in 1993 — or the staging of a female breast jailbreak — Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, 2004 — is small.
There are ways to have a "family" Super Bowl halftime show without losing 50% of the viewers.
As family entertainment goes, the above marching bands are successfully designed to thoroughly entertain your families, as opposed to the Manson Family.
I think the best sign that Phil Mushnick isn't dealing with reality and is living in a non-existent past is that he just dropped a "Manson Family" reference. It's not the family that needs to be entertained halftime, it's the guy at home with the remote control.
But again, no shot. That’s not how America rolls these days. We roll downhill, faster and faster and faster.
Yes, the prevalence of halftime shows with such current troublemakers like Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen is a sure sign America is going downhill faster and faster. What would Ed Sullivan say if he saw these rowdy hooligans performing at the biggest football event of the season?
I hope the NFL does get a marching band next year. I hope that marching band is from Ohio State and I hope that marching band does a formation that ends up forming a penis and a breast with the marching band dotting the nipple of the breast. What would Phil say then?
Then Mitch Albom tells us why the Beatles are still the best. When Mitch isn't too busy attacking the service industry or giving a lecture on caring, Mitch is jamming to "She Loves You." Maybe if a few members of the service industry would sing a few bars of "When I'm Sixty-Four" then Mitch would not treat them like shit.
This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” There were TV specials and nostalgic articles. And if I were in my teens today, I might ask, “What’s the big deal?”
Actually my response is that the Beatles were a great band, but a band that is remembered mostly through nostalgia to where the band serves more as a cultural milestone rather than a band who made great music. Yes, they made great music and some crappy music, but nostalgia!
So let me explain why the Beatles actually are worth commemorating. Let’s start with this: Fifty years later, their music is still better than today’s.
This is an opinion, not a fact. Let's start with that.
Yep. I said it. I won’t take it back. If Katy Perry wants to argue, bring it on. If Lady Gaga takes exception, I’ll raise it. If Justin Bieber wants to …
Forget it. That’s not even fair.
I'm not sure anyone who isn't a teeny-bopper would argue that any of these artists are better than the Beatles. Also, I doubt any of these artists know who Mitch Albom is so they would not argue.
The Beatles were better. Their song construction, their melody lines, their harmonies, their lyrics, their inventiveness,
You mean they were inventive in the way they stole a whole bunch of shit from blues artists before them (as did many other bands) and invented the era of boy bands?
their breakthrough use of symphonic instruments — all done at a time when if you got it wrong, you had to record the whole thing again, you couldn’t just fix it with a computer key — combine to make the seven years the Beatles recorded together the richest production of pop music ever created by a group.
Ever.
They were great for a short period of time. I prefer my bands to be together a little bit longer, as well as put out music for longer than a four year period that I wouldn't classify as "boy band" music. And yes, I think the Beatles were a boy band at first, but did they later branch out.
And, let’s admit it, there has been hysteria since then. Heck, the Monkees had it at their concerts. So did the Osmonds, Jackson 5, David Cassidy, Menudo, Hanson, Boyz II Men and Bieber.
None of their music resonates the same way.
Partially because there aren't middle-aged white men sportswriters writing about going to see the Jackson 5, David Cassidy, or Hanson in concert. The Beatles had fans in men and women and many Baby Boomers are still writing and keeping the nostalgia for the Beatles alive. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the music resonates now because it resonated then with people who are in a position to write to a large audience.
Also, it makes sense that Mitch Albom, who is in his mid-50's doesn't think Hanson's music resonates like the Beatles music does. This isn't really telling me anything.
You see, young person, what the Beatles did was take their influences — Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Elvis — and morph them all into their own early sound. Songs like “From Me to You” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” were bright, tight and catchy rock ’n’ roll, but they were wholly different from other songs coming out.
The fact the Beatles were different when they came out doesn't mean no other band has made music wholly different from other songs that have come out since then.
When mimic bands began popping up, the Beatles quickly moved into more significant and signature work, songs you really couldn’t imagine anyone else doing. “Here, There and Everywhere.” “Norwegian Wood.” “Drive My Car.”
What other band can Mitch imagine singing "Mmmmbop," "Motown Philly" or "End of the Road"? I'm just asking for the sake of argument. I can't imagine another bad singing those songs.
Three years after the suits, ties and mop-top haircuts of the Sullivan show, they were exploring corners of pop music no one had ever tried, creating thematic albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour” that featured French horns and trumpets and timpani drums. Later, they would bring in sitar music. Cellos. Violas. Listen to “Eleanor Rigby” — released in 1966! — and tell me, what other artist of their time could have done that?
I don't think anyone would argue the Beatles didn't create a lot of interesting and good music, but the fact they created good music 40+ years ago doesn't mean there has been no music in the interim that was just as inventive nor does it mean their music is better than any other band who has ever put out music.
yet it is catchy and memorable and people around the world still sing the line, “Ahhh, look at all the lonely people,” which is probably more poetic than anything Kanye West ever has written.
Though Mitch Albom doesn't know because he's not familiar with Kanye West's music. He just knows the Beatles music is better because that's his position and doesn't care to question whether it's true or not. It's his reality, so it must be true.
yet they never stopped creating rock ’n’ roll (“Back in the USSR”) or folk song satire (“Piggies”) or cabaret-like melodies (“When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”) or achingly beautiful ballads like “Blackbird” or “Something” or “Let It Be.”
Honestly, if a band just recorded those last three songs, couldn’t it retire?
If a band just recorded those last three songs they would be a band that only got played on easy listening stations. Those are all non-rocking songs. So if the Beatles only recorded those three songs they would be better known as a band called Bread and played only alongside Dan Fogelberg.
And while they never played as a foursome after 1970, people know their songs 44 years later, they can sing along with dozens — not one — and they are remade as often as someone gets up the courage.
Apparently someone gets up the courage every other day, because the Beatles have been covered a lot.
I can tell you as a former musician who played in countless cover bands, you always shied away from doing Beatles tunes, because their sound was so unique, the audience inevitably found fault with your version.
Mitch, it could just be that your countless cover bands sucked. And what would the common denominator in these bands be? You.
But the fact that so many big artists have recorded “Yesterday,” “Michelle” or “And I Love Her” — to name a few — shows the timelessness of John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s songwriting.
How many other artists will record a Lady Gaga, Kanye West or Katy Perry hit? They won’t, because those are often great records, not great songs.
Yeah, no one covers Lady Gaga.
No one at all.
While I respect the Beatles, the fact their songs get covered repeatedly is the result of their cultural impact and doesn't necessarily mean their music is better than music that has been made since they broke up.
Play the single notes of “Yesterday” on a piano or a guitar, it’s still beautiful. Play the single notes from “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, it sounds like torture.
Again, this is an opinion. To a generation who grew up on Eminem's music, the single notes from "Lose Yourself" are recognizable and beautiful in it's own way.
So we’re not crazy, young person, not foolishly nostalgic, nor lost in the past.
And yet, this column is based entirely on nostalgia for a time that Mitch believes to be better than present time, which again, is something nostalgic adults have probably been doing for 100 years now. Fans of Bob Wills thought Chuck Berry's music was not very good, fans of Elvis didn't think the drug-fueled music from the 60's was very good, fans of 70's music didn't think the synthesized music of Depeche Mode and the arena rock of Def Leppard was real rock and roll, fans of Bon Jovi and the Eagles didn't understand the draw of grunge, and fans of Dave Matthews Band don't think Katy Perry is real music either. It's how it goes.
We were just blessed to have a truly great musical band to soundtrack our younger years, one that is not embarrassing to listen to today.
It is embarrassing to dismiss all good music since that time and say simply because the Beatles have been covered frequently this means their music is better than any other band's music since then. The only thing that should be embarrassing is to write a column where you lie, but Mitch Albom would never do that.
Is that worth a small fuss 50 years later? As the Beatles might answer, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just because it's worth remembering them 50 years later doesn't mean the music back then is better than music that has been made since then.
Monday, January 27, 2014
3 comments Richard Sherman Is Just Really, Really Dangerous
I'm sure most people saw Richard Sherman's post-NFC Championship game interview with Erin Andrews. If you didn't, Sherman freaked out and talked junk about Michael Crabtree after the game and said Crabtree was a sorry receiver. I'm surprised Gregg Easterbrook doesn't agree since Crabtree is the cause of the 49ers struggles under Mike Singletary due to the "Crabtree Curse." Either way, this interview gave sportswriters a chance to hop up on their pulpit and state that Sherman is a bad sport and probably the worst person in the world. I have two such columns today, one from "Slate" and one from the incomparable Jay Mariotti.
First, "Slate" asks why "everyone" is celebrating Sherman's behavior. Of course one look at social media and the various columns written about Sherman's outburst tells me that not "everyone" was celebrating Sherman's behavior, but I guess it's easier to spit a column out when based on a somewhat false premise like this one.
In the waning moments of the NFC title game, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman made a heady play to send his team to the Super Bowl, tipping a pass into the air so his teammate could intercept it. A few seconds later, Sherman pantomimed a “choke” sign in the direction of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. He then razzed San Francisco receiver Michael Crabtree, patting his butt and offering a mocking handshake. (Crabtree responded with a frustrated shove to Sherman’s helmet.) Once the game was over, Sherman proclaimed to Fox sideline reporter Erin Andrews, “Well, I’m the best corner in the game! When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you’re gonna get! Don’t you ever talk about me!”
I thought it was funny because it was a football player unfiltered. Also, it taught a very valuable lesson about talking crap about Richard Sherman. Don't do it.
It took only a few seconds for Twitter to begin yelling back at Sherman. ESPN’s Mike Greenberg joined a slew of others who called the Seattle corner “classless.”
But remember, the premise of this column is that "everyone" is celebrating Sherman's behavior. It turns out that's not true and the author admits that in his column. (deep sigh)
Soon, a second wave of punditry emerged to right these initial wrongs. Forbes noted that Sherman had graduated second in his high school class and gone to Stanford, “So not only is he not a fool, odds are he’s smarter than you and me.”
Ah yes, a summary of the events seems to be taking up the first part of this column while I patiently wait for how "everyone" celebrated Sherman's behavior and why this was so wrong. Just killing time...
A YouTube video circulated in my Twitter feed like a piece of pro-Sherman agitprop, demonstrating Sherman’s intellectual approach to the game and the value he places on hard work and preparation.
Whether Sherman takes an intellectual approach to a football game and how hard he works is sort of irrelevant in terms of whether his outburst was appropriate or not. It seems like a way to simply defeat the "Richard Sherman is an idiot thug" comments that were going around immediately after the interview. Taking that one event and deciding Sherman is a thug, while using his film viewing and game preparation as an example to frame the incident in one definitive manner or another seems irrelevant to me. A so-called thug can still prepare really well for a football game, while a studious person who takes an intellectual approach to the game can still say something publicly he regrets. Ask Peyton Manning about his "idiot kicker" comment a few years ago for proof of this.
Others focused on the racial dynamics. In a piece titled “Richard Sherman and the Plight of the Conquering Negro,” Deadspin’s Greg Howard argued that Sherman had become “a proxy for the black male id” and that condemnations of him were “based on the common, very American belief that black males must know their place.” The Nation’s Dave Zirin alluded to “stomach-churning racial coding” and described Sherman as “an archetype that has been branded a threat as long as African-Americans have played sports.”
Boy, it's taking a minute to get to the point isn't it?
I will gladly allow that the sight of middle-aged, white sportswriters evincing disgust at the brash behavior of a young, black athlete is depressingly familiar. I also shudder to align myself with the smarmy snobs who use a loaded term like “classless” in talking about a guy who grew up the son of a garbage man in Compton, Calif.
The second someone writes disgust at potentially aligning himself with another group of people, there's always a good chance that person is about to align himself with this group of people.
But can I draw a line here?
I’d like to request that we stipulate a few basic notions.
What follows are nine basic notions, so the author actually wants to draw nine lines here and not just one.
The first six points are basically that Sherman was being dick no matter where he went to school or how well-read he was. I agree. He was being a dick. I don't know if it was being a bad sport though and I'm not sure "everyone" is celebrating his behavior.
7. It turns out that Sherman and Crabtree have history—Sherman’s brother alleges that Crabtree tried to fight the Seahawks player at a charity event. Most of Sherman’s defenders haven’t bothered to mention the existing personal feud. But to be clear: While the prior beef adds some context, those two wrongs don’t make what Sherman did right—or, more precisely, not dickish.
No, but it does point out the background on why Sherman seemed so angry at Crabtree and felt the need to rub it in when he made the biggest play of his NFL career on a pass intended for Crabtree. I think the line I would like to draw is if two players have a previous feud then there's a good chance the bad blood will spill over to the field and also spill over into an interview done two minutes after the bad blood on the field has ended. Emotions were still running high at that point.
8. Talking smack in the lead-up to a contest, or in the middle of it, is permissible. It falls into the hallowed tradition of gamesmanship. Dancing on graves after the battle has been won is dickish.
How the hell does this make sense? So Richard Sherman could have called Michael Crabtree a mediocre receiver and a sorry receiver PRIOR to the game in an interview, but once he's backed up his words after the game has concluded he can't point out how correct he was? How is dancing on graves after the game dickish if it simply backs up the smack that was talked prior to the start of the game? I can't figure out how gamesmanship prior to the game in an interview is fine, but gamesmanship after the game isn't fine...especially since Sherman seemingly backed up his feelings about Crabtree.
9. And this is the most delicate of these notions but needs to be addressed: Whatever archetypes may be conjured by the specter of white people tsk-tsking a black man who loudly brags alongside a blond woman, those uncomfortable overtones don’t change the fact that, in this case, in that moment, the man was being a dick.
No, but why is it okay for Sherman to be a dick before the game has started?
I also recognize that the despicable, racist language being lobbed at Sherman needs to be shouted down, aggressively. But that doesn’t mean that Sherman was acting in a commendable manner when he wrapped his hands around his neck to signal that Colin Kaepernick choked. Or when he needlessly taunted Michael Crabtree
Actually, this "needless taunting" took place during the game so it's perfectly fine according to notion #8. Right, talking smack in the middle of the game is permissible. That's what Sherman did by pointing out Kaepernick choked and by taunting Crabtree. Try your best to stick to the rules (sorry, "notions") you have made up.
Why can’t we say that Sherman is probably a great guy who did not act like one in the moments after the NFC championship game?
Despite the author's attempts to push reactions towards "He's a thug!" or "He's a great guy!" I think most people do think Sherman is a great guy who didn't act like a nice guy after the game. That being said, it was still funny to see a professional athlete call out an opponent immediately after the game like that.
So let’s glorify Sherman for what deserves glory: his amazing performance on the field, and his accomplishments off it. He doesn’t deserve to be virulently attacked for his actions at the tail end of the NFC title game, but please let’s not celebrate them
I'm not sure his actions are being celebrated, but Sherman's adrenaline was still pumping after the game and he said what he thought when he was immediately interviewed upon the game ending. This is why the media waits to speak to athletes in the locker room after games, so the athlete can shower and prepare responses to questions asked.
As Sherman wrote: “[I]t was in the moment, and it was just a small part of the person I am.” Yes—a small, dickish part of who he is.
I'm still confused how it's okay to show gamesmanship during a football game according to notion #8, but Sherman was out of line for taunting Kaepernick and talking junk to Crabtree immediately after the great play by Sherman was over. Isn't that supposed to be permissible? I guess gamesmanship is fine unless the gamesmanship isn't fine.
Now Jay Mariotti urgently tells us about the dangers of Richard Sherman, and in such a caring fashion, he gives Pete Carroll unsolicited advice. The title of this column is "Carroll Must Realize Dangers of Sherman Tank." This is a reference to Sherman's March through the South after the Civil War I would presume, except Jay must have failed history because tanks were invented until the 20th century. But hey, it's a catchy title for a column isn't it? Actually, it really isn't catchy either.
Without intervention, the screaming loon who assaulted America’s senses with a post-game slam rant would have been devoured by the media throngs awaiting him in New York. Sherman was ready to attempt a Super Bowl takeover next week, but his coach, understanding how such a daily farce could distract the Seahawks and leave his player vulnerable to untold viral controversies, moved quickly to corral the Sherman Tank.
Simply because Richard Sherman made one comment after the game about Michael Crabtree doesn't mean he was looking to take over the Super Bowl. The media has the ability to control the viral controversies that they attempt to start, but I know that would take self-control and the need to not chase controversies which result in easy stories to write, so that's not an option.
Nothing can destroy a team in its proudest moment, Carroll knows, quite like a media maniac obsessed with himself.
Jay Mariotti understands this because he looks in the mirror everyday at someone who fits this description perfectly.
If Sherman proceeds with more stunts like his already-infamous Fox interview with Erin Andrews — and we can’t assume he won’t until next week is over — he may have been recalled as the idiot who buried his team with his mouth in the world’s media capital.
I think Jay is taking this a little far. Sherman simply called out Crabtree in an interview. He hasn't done anything like this in his previous two seasons in the NFL, so I don't think this one interview is a preview of an entire Super Bowl week of Sherman running his mouth and telling the entire world which receivers are mediocre and which are not. Let's not run too far with this story and make it more than it is.
“We try to stick to Rule No. 1, which is always protect the team. It’s the rule we live by. You always represent us. In a time like that one, it was a little bit representing yourself. How we handle it is we try to grow and learn and work our way through who we are and figure out who we want to be. This was an extraordinary learning opportunity. You’ll see some benefit from it.”
This is great advice from Pete Carroll that Richard Sherman didn't heed. It's unfortunate, but his comments to Erin Andrews after the NFC Championship game wasn't a prelude to more hi-jinx during Super Bowl week. Of course Jay Mariotti has to make it seem like Richard Sherman is a loose cannon who is liable to say anything at any point, even though this hasn't been proven to be true. Jay tries to be as extreme as possible, it's part of what makes his writing style so wonderful that no major mainstream news outlet cares to employ him.
“I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates … That was not my intent,” Sherman said in a text message to ESPN.
Earlier, Sherman said, “Obviously I could have worded things better and could obviously have had a better reaction and done things differently. But it is what it is now, and people’s reactions are what they are.”
“But people find it easy to take shots on Twitter, and to use racial slurs and bullying language far worse than what you’ll see from me. It’s sad and somewhat unbelievable to me that the world is still this way, but it is.”
As a Stanford guy, Sherman knows the meaning of hypocrisy.
And he is a flaming hypocrite.
Says the sportswriter who trashes mainstream and large organizations like ESPN and FoxSports after desperately trying to get them to hire him prior to taking this job writing for Sports Talk Florida that probably gets 500 hits a day judging by the complete lack of comments on Mariotti's columns. But here is how Sherman is a hypocrite. Be prepared.
He’s complaining about “bullying” language? Just what would he call his rant on Crabtree, a lullaby?
I'm guessing Jay didn't do well in school as it pertained to "Reading Comprehension." Sherman isn't saying his rant wasn't a form of bullying, he was saying the slurs and language aimed at him is FAR WORSE than what you'll see from him. He's saying what he said after the game may have been wrong at the time, but those who took offense to his statement about Crabtree are using stronger and much more hurtful language that he classifies as bullying.
Of course, what mean things Sherman said to Crabtree wasn't known until a few days after the NFC Championship ended. I'm not sure this counts as "bullying." Listen to Sherman "bullying" Crabtree after the game.
The Super Bowl media game is old hat to him, as it is with Broncos coach John Fox and executive John Elway, and their overall equilibrium could be a major deciding factor as we see how Sherman and other flamboyant Seattle players handle the attention siege.
Somehow Jay Mariotti has managed to take these comments by Richard Sherman and turn them into the entire Seahawks team calling out their opponents and making statements they will regret all through Super Bowl week. Walter Thurmond has stated Welker's hit on Talib was uncalled for, but only the most desperate sportswriter (and ESPN did this) could say he "blasted" Welker.
What else did Carroll tell him? “There’s some stuff in there I think you should think about and did you really want it to come out the way it did and talk our way through that,” he said. “And he didn’t. He didn’t feel right about that. There were a lot of great things that happened (Sunday) night and we’re talking about some other stuff.”
Officially now, the Seahawks are hateable.
I actually like them better because of this. I appreciate an NFL player willing to tell his true opinion on an opponent every once in a while. At a certain point, constant comments about Crabtree would be overboard and get boring, but a quick peek behind the curtain of trash talk was a little refreshing to me.
They’re as loud and boisterous as their decibel-busting, mini-quake-shaking fans. Their architect, Carroll, escaped USC as the building was burning down and the NCAA was swooping in, and he also has this annoying way of saying “cool” a whole lot when he’s 62 years old.
It seems Jay Mariotti is desperately clinging to the "good versus evil" narrative for the Super Bowl. The Broncos are of course "good" and the Seahawks are "evil."
Then there’s Sherman, the most vocal member of Seattle’s Legion of Boom, who may not be able to himself in making enemies and spewing noise.
I guess Sports Talk Radio can't afford an editor for Jay. Read that sentence again. It makes not of sense.
As you will discover these next two weeks, he is the face of this upstart franchise, full of dread,
I don't understand how the Seahawks are full of dread. They don't seem to be full of dread at all. They seem eager to play Peyton Manning and the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
adorned with dreads and armed with a big head.
Oh, so that's why. Jay wants accuracy and the ability of his readers to comprehend what he is writing to fall by the wayside in favor of rhyming and cutesy writing tricks. I'm guessing he learned this from Rick Reilly during his time at ESPN.
We all remember Sherman, of course, for approaching Tom Brady after a victory and asking him, “You mad, bro?” Then he tweeted of Brady, referring to secondary mate Earl Thonas,
Quick! I need an editor now!
I'm not sure who Earl Thonas is, but I do know Earl Thomas plays safety for the Seahawks.
“He told me and earl to see him after the game when they win … I found him after ….” What Sherman does is turn in-game verbal jousting into warfare.
Actually, it seems like Sherman takes trash talk prior to the game and reminds the person talking the trash after the game is over that he backed up his bravado. I'm not saying I enjoy it all the time, but it's fun once and a while.
And that leads us to ask: Is he possibly going to be dumb enough to say something that will tick off Manning, who has more than enough motivation as it is to win this Super Bowl for his personal legacy?
The sports media can only hope that Sherman says something about Manning and they will certainly be baiting Sherman all week to say something negative about Manning so it can be blown up into a huge story.
Not only are the allegiance roles drawn definitively — Manning as the sentimental favorite, the Seahawks as the loudmouths in his way —
Idiot writers just prefer putting narratives into a box where everything makes sense and there is zero nuance involved with these storylines.
Said Crabtree of Sherman: “He’s a TV guy, I’m not a TV guy,” Crabtree said. “He didn’t make any other plays in the game … But he made a good play there. He can keep talking. You make one play and you talk? Good play.”
Later, a Crabtree tweet was more biting: “`Film don’t lie… @nflnetwork @espn pull up the tape of that game and show me where this guy is the best? #fake #fake #fake.”
And of course if Michael Crabtree had said this in front of an open microphone then I'm sure everyone would be up in arms at how rude, unprofessional and dangerous these comments are, right? He's turning in-game verbal jousting into warfare!
Richard? “He wouldn’t make the top 20 of NFL receivers,” Sherman said. “If any team had a chance to pick Crabtree, they wouldn’t draft him.”
The slap on the butt? “I was making sure everyone knew Crabtree was a mediocre receiver,” Sherman said. “And when you try the best corner in the game with a mediocre receiver, that’s what happens. I appreciate that he knows that now. There has been a lot of talk from him running his mouth about me.”
What's interesting to me about this feud and Jay Mariotti writing about this feud is that Jay had his very own feud when he worked in Chicago with Ozzie Guillen. If any writers knows what it is like to exchange words with someone who doesn't like you then it is probably Jay. Of course, when Guillen fired back at Jay he chose to cower in his office and shoot his mouth off in print rather than say anything without the protection of not being in the same room as Guillen.
I wouldn’t have minded Harbaugh in New York.
It's good to know the San Francisco 49ers would have had Jay Mariotti's permission to play in the Super Bowl.
The 12th Man will be represented in New York by Richard Sherman. He can make more noise than 68,454 people combined.
"He's such an entertaining loud-mouthed black man! Dance for us all! Put on a show so I can judge you for it!"
Will he listen to his coach?
Doubtful. You know how headstrong these educated, loud-mouthed minorities can be. Always flaunting their intelligence by talking loudly and never following the directions given to them.
Carroll said. “At times they are going to make mistakes and break your heart, but if you love them, you stay with them. You give [them] the best chance to be all they can be.
“Richard is a wonderful spirit. He’s got an amazing heart, and he has great sensitivity. He goes all the way to the end of the spectrum when it comes to expressing himself.”
Which is exactly what should concern the Seahawks as Manning quietly licks his chops, ready to exploit a raging distraction.
Clearly, Jay Mariotti wants to embrace this distraction while also criticizing Richard Sherman for being dangerous. Jay thinks Richard Sherman is a jerk and hateable, but he sure likes that Sherman has given him something interesting to write about.
First, "Slate" asks why "everyone" is celebrating Sherman's behavior. Of course one look at social media and the various columns written about Sherman's outburst tells me that not "everyone" was celebrating Sherman's behavior, but I guess it's easier to spit a column out when based on a somewhat false premise like this one.
In the waning moments of the NFC title game, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman made a heady play to send his team to the Super Bowl, tipping a pass into the air so his teammate could intercept it. A few seconds later, Sherman pantomimed a “choke” sign in the direction of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. He then razzed San Francisco receiver Michael Crabtree, patting his butt and offering a mocking handshake. (Crabtree responded with a frustrated shove to Sherman’s helmet.) Once the game was over, Sherman proclaimed to Fox sideline reporter Erin Andrews, “Well, I’m the best corner in the game! When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you’re gonna get! Don’t you ever talk about me!”
I thought it was funny because it was a football player unfiltered. Also, it taught a very valuable lesson about talking crap about Richard Sherman. Don't do it.
It took only a few seconds for Twitter to begin yelling back at Sherman. ESPN’s Mike Greenberg joined a slew of others who called the Seattle corner “classless.”
But remember, the premise of this column is that "everyone" is celebrating Sherman's behavior. It turns out that's not true and the author admits that in his column. (deep sigh)
Soon, a second wave of punditry emerged to right these initial wrongs. Forbes noted that Sherman had graduated second in his high school class and gone to Stanford, “So not only is he not a fool, odds are he’s smarter than you and me.”
Ah yes, a summary of the events seems to be taking up the first part of this column while I patiently wait for how "everyone" celebrated Sherman's behavior and why this was so wrong. Just killing time...
A YouTube video circulated in my Twitter feed like a piece of pro-Sherman agitprop, demonstrating Sherman’s intellectual approach to the game and the value he places on hard work and preparation.
Whether Sherman takes an intellectual approach to a football game and how hard he works is sort of irrelevant in terms of whether his outburst was appropriate or not. It seems like a way to simply defeat the "Richard Sherman is an idiot thug" comments that were going around immediately after the interview. Taking that one event and deciding Sherman is a thug, while using his film viewing and game preparation as an example to frame the incident in one definitive manner or another seems irrelevant to me. A so-called thug can still prepare really well for a football game, while a studious person who takes an intellectual approach to the game can still say something publicly he regrets. Ask Peyton Manning about his "idiot kicker" comment a few years ago for proof of this.
Others focused on the racial dynamics. In a piece titled “Richard Sherman and the Plight of the Conquering Negro,” Deadspin’s Greg Howard argued that Sherman had become “a proxy for the black male id” and that condemnations of him were “based on the common, very American belief that black males must know their place.” The Nation’s Dave Zirin alluded to “stomach-churning racial coding” and described Sherman as “an archetype that has been branded a threat as long as African-Americans have played sports.”
Boy, it's taking a minute to get to the point isn't it?
I will gladly allow that the sight of middle-aged, white sportswriters evincing disgust at the brash behavior of a young, black athlete is depressingly familiar. I also shudder to align myself with the smarmy snobs who use a loaded term like “classless” in talking about a guy who grew up the son of a garbage man in Compton, Calif.
The second someone writes disgust at potentially aligning himself with another group of people, there's always a good chance that person is about to align himself with this group of people.
But can I draw a line here?
I’d like to request that we stipulate a few basic notions.
What follows are nine basic notions, so the author actually wants to draw nine lines here and not just one.
The first six points are basically that Sherman was being dick no matter where he went to school or how well-read he was. I agree. He was being a dick. I don't know if it was being a bad sport though and I'm not sure "everyone" is celebrating his behavior.
7. It turns out that Sherman and Crabtree have history—Sherman’s brother alleges that Crabtree tried to fight the Seahawks player at a charity event. Most of Sherman’s defenders haven’t bothered to mention the existing personal feud. But to be clear: While the prior beef adds some context, those two wrongs don’t make what Sherman did right—or, more precisely, not dickish.
No, but it does point out the background on why Sherman seemed so angry at Crabtree and felt the need to rub it in when he made the biggest play of his NFL career on a pass intended for Crabtree. I think the line I would like to draw is if two players have a previous feud then there's a good chance the bad blood will spill over to the field and also spill over into an interview done two minutes after the bad blood on the field has ended. Emotions were still running high at that point.
8. Talking smack in the lead-up to a contest, or in the middle of it, is permissible. It falls into the hallowed tradition of gamesmanship. Dancing on graves after the battle has been won is dickish.
How the hell does this make sense? So Richard Sherman could have called Michael Crabtree a mediocre receiver and a sorry receiver PRIOR to the game in an interview, but once he's backed up his words after the game has concluded he can't point out how correct he was? How is dancing on graves after the game dickish if it simply backs up the smack that was talked prior to the start of the game? I can't figure out how gamesmanship prior to the game in an interview is fine, but gamesmanship after the game isn't fine...especially since Sherman seemingly backed up his feelings about Crabtree.
9. And this is the most delicate of these notions but needs to be addressed: Whatever archetypes may be conjured by the specter of white people tsk-tsking a black man who loudly brags alongside a blond woman, those uncomfortable overtones don’t change the fact that, in this case, in that moment, the man was being a dick.
No, but why is it okay for Sherman to be a dick before the game has started?
I also recognize that the despicable, racist language being lobbed at Sherman needs to be shouted down, aggressively. But that doesn’t mean that Sherman was acting in a commendable manner when he wrapped his hands around his neck to signal that Colin Kaepernick choked. Or when he needlessly taunted Michael Crabtree
Actually, this "needless taunting" took place during the game so it's perfectly fine according to notion #8. Right, talking smack in the middle of the game is permissible. That's what Sherman did by pointing out Kaepernick choked and by taunting Crabtree. Try your best to stick to the rules (sorry, "notions") you have made up.
Why can’t we say that Sherman is probably a great guy who did not act like one in the moments after the NFC championship game?
Despite the author's attempts to push reactions towards "He's a thug!" or "He's a great guy!" I think most people do think Sherman is a great guy who didn't act like a nice guy after the game. That being said, it was still funny to see a professional athlete call out an opponent immediately after the game like that.
So let’s glorify Sherman for what deserves glory: his amazing performance on the field, and his accomplishments off it. He doesn’t deserve to be virulently attacked for his actions at the tail end of the NFC title game, but please let’s not celebrate them
I'm not sure his actions are being celebrated, but Sherman's adrenaline was still pumping after the game and he said what he thought when he was immediately interviewed upon the game ending. This is why the media waits to speak to athletes in the locker room after games, so the athlete can shower and prepare responses to questions asked.
As Sherman wrote: “[I]t was in the moment, and it was just a small part of the person I am.” Yes—a small, dickish part of who he is.
I'm still confused how it's okay to show gamesmanship during a football game according to notion #8, but Sherman was out of line for taunting Kaepernick and talking junk to Crabtree immediately after the great play by Sherman was over. Isn't that supposed to be permissible? I guess gamesmanship is fine unless the gamesmanship isn't fine.
Now Jay Mariotti urgently tells us about the dangers of Richard Sherman, and in such a caring fashion, he gives Pete Carroll unsolicited advice. The title of this column is "Carroll Must Realize Dangers of Sherman Tank." This is a reference to Sherman's March through the South after the Civil War I would presume, except Jay must have failed history because tanks were invented until the 20th century. But hey, it's a catchy title for a column isn't it? Actually, it really isn't catchy either.
Without intervention, the screaming loon who assaulted America’s senses with a post-game slam rant would have been devoured by the media throngs awaiting him in New York. Sherman was ready to attempt a Super Bowl takeover next week, but his coach, understanding how such a daily farce could distract the Seahawks and leave his player vulnerable to untold viral controversies, moved quickly to corral the Sherman Tank.
Simply because Richard Sherman made one comment after the game about Michael Crabtree doesn't mean he was looking to take over the Super Bowl. The media has the ability to control the viral controversies that they attempt to start, but I know that would take self-control and the need to not chase controversies which result in easy stories to write, so that's not an option.
Nothing can destroy a team in its proudest moment, Carroll knows, quite like a media maniac obsessed with himself.
Jay Mariotti understands this because he looks in the mirror everyday at someone who fits this description perfectly.
If Sherman proceeds with more stunts like his already-infamous Fox interview with Erin Andrews — and we can’t assume he won’t until next week is over — he may have been recalled as the idiot who buried his team with his mouth in the world’s media capital.
I think Jay is taking this a little far. Sherman simply called out Crabtree in an interview. He hasn't done anything like this in his previous two seasons in the NFL, so I don't think this one interview is a preview of an entire Super Bowl week of Sherman running his mouth and telling the entire world which receivers are mediocre and which are not. Let's not run too far with this story and make it more than it is.
“We try to stick to Rule No. 1, which is always protect the team. It’s the rule we live by. You always represent us. In a time like that one, it was a little bit representing yourself. How we handle it is we try to grow and learn and work our way through who we are and figure out who we want to be. This was an extraordinary learning opportunity. You’ll see some benefit from it.”
This is great advice from Pete Carroll that Richard Sherman didn't heed. It's unfortunate, but his comments to Erin Andrews after the NFC Championship game wasn't a prelude to more hi-jinx during Super Bowl week. Of course Jay Mariotti has to make it seem like Richard Sherman is a loose cannon who is liable to say anything at any point, even though this hasn't been proven to be true. Jay tries to be as extreme as possible, it's part of what makes his writing style so wonderful that no major mainstream news outlet cares to employ him.
“I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates … That was not my intent,” Sherman said in a text message to ESPN.
Earlier, Sherman said, “Obviously I could have worded things better and could obviously have had a better reaction and done things differently. But it is what it is now, and people’s reactions are what they are.”
“But people find it easy to take shots on Twitter, and to use racial slurs and bullying language far worse than what you’ll see from me. It’s sad and somewhat unbelievable to me that the world is still this way, but it is.”
As a Stanford guy, Sherman knows the meaning of hypocrisy.
And he is a flaming hypocrite.
Says the sportswriter who trashes mainstream and large organizations like ESPN and FoxSports after desperately trying to get them to hire him prior to taking this job writing for Sports Talk Florida that probably gets 500 hits a day judging by the complete lack of comments on Mariotti's columns. But here is how Sherman is a hypocrite. Be prepared.
He’s complaining about “bullying” language? Just what would he call his rant on Crabtree, a lullaby?
I'm guessing Jay didn't do well in school as it pertained to "Reading Comprehension." Sherman isn't saying his rant wasn't a form of bullying, he was saying the slurs and language aimed at him is FAR WORSE than what you'll see from him. He's saying what he said after the game may have been wrong at the time, but those who took offense to his statement about Crabtree are using stronger and much more hurtful language that he classifies as bullying.
Of course, what mean things Sherman said to Crabtree wasn't known until a few days after the NFC Championship ended. I'm not sure this counts as "bullying." Listen to Sherman "bullying" Crabtree after the game.
The Super Bowl media game is old hat to him, as it is with Broncos coach John Fox and executive John Elway, and their overall equilibrium could be a major deciding factor as we see how Sherman and other flamboyant Seattle players handle the attention siege.
Somehow Jay Mariotti has managed to take these comments by Richard Sherman and turn them into the entire Seahawks team calling out their opponents and making statements they will regret all through Super Bowl week. Walter Thurmond has stated Welker's hit on Talib was uncalled for, but only the most desperate sportswriter (and ESPN did this) could say he "blasted" Welker.
What else did Carroll tell him? “There’s some stuff in there I think you should think about and did you really want it to come out the way it did and talk our way through that,” he said. “And he didn’t. He didn’t feel right about that. There were a lot of great things that happened (Sunday) night and we’re talking about some other stuff.”
Officially now, the Seahawks are hateable.
I actually like them better because of this. I appreciate an NFL player willing to tell his true opinion on an opponent every once in a while. At a certain point, constant comments about Crabtree would be overboard and get boring, but a quick peek behind the curtain of trash talk was a little refreshing to me.
They’re as loud and boisterous as their decibel-busting, mini-quake-shaking fans. Their architect, Carroll, escaped USC as the building was burning down and the NCAA was swooping in, and he also has this annoying way of saying “cool” a whole lot when he’s 62 years old.
It seems Jay Mariotti is desperately clinging to the "good versus evil" narrative for the Super Bowl. The Broncos are of course "good" and the Seahawks are "evil."
Then there’s Sherman, the most vocal member of Seattle’s Legion of Boom, who may not be able to himself in making enemies and spewing noise.
I guess Sports Talk Radio can't afford an editor for Jay. Read that sentence again. It makes not of sense.
As you will discover these next two weeks, he is the face of this upstart franchise, full of dread,
I don't understand how the Seahawks are full of dread. They don't seem to be full of dread at all. They seem eager to play Peyton Manning and the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
adorned with dreads and armed with a big head.
Oh, so that's why. Jay wants accuracy and the ability of his readers to comprehend what he is writing to fall by the wayside in favor of rhyming and cutesy writing tricks. I'm guessing he learned this from Rick Reilly during his time at ESPN.
We all remember Sherman, of course, for approaching Tom Brady after a victory and asking him, “You mad, bro?” Then he tweeted of Brady, referring to secondary mate Earl Thonas,
Quick! I need an editor now!
I'm not sure who Earl Thonas is, but I do know Earl Thomas plays safety for the Seahawks.
“He told me and earl to see him after the game when they win … I found him after ….” What Sherman does is turn in-game verbal jousting into warfare.
Actually, it seems like Sherman takes trash talk prior to the game and reminds the person talking the trash after the game is over that he backed up his bravado. I'm not saying I enjoy it all the time, but it's fun once and a while.
And that leads us to ask: Is he possibly going to be dumb enough to say something that will tick off Manning, who has more than enough motivation as it is to win this Super Bowl for his personal legacy?
The sports media can only hope that Sherman says something about Manning and they will certainly be baiting Sherman all week to say something negative about Manning so it can be blown up into a huge story.
Not only are the allegiance roles drawn definitively — Manning as the sentimental favorite, the Seahawks as the loudmouths in his way —
Idiot writers just prefer putting narratives into a box where everything makes sense and there is zero nuance involved with these storylines.
Said Crabtree of Sherman: “He’s a TV guy, I’m not a TV guy,” Crabtree said. “He didn’t make any other plays in the game … But he made a good play there. He can keep talking. You make one play and you talk? Good play.”
Later, a Crabtree tweet was more biting: “`Film don’t lie… @nflnetwork @espn pull up the tape of that game and show me where this guy is the best? #fake #fake #fake.”
And of course if Michael Crabtree had said this in front of an open microphone then I'm sure everyone would be up in arms at how rude, unprofessional and dangerous these comments are, right? He's turning in-game verbal jousting into warfare!
Richard? “He wouldn’t make the top 20 of NFL receivers,” Sherman said. “If any team had a chance to pick Crabtree, they wouldn’t draft him.”
The slap on the butt? “I was making sure everyone knew Crabtree was a mediocre receiver,” Sherman said. “And when you try the best corner in the game with a mediocre receiver, that’s what happens. I appreciate that he knows that now. There has been a lot of talk from him running his mouth about me.”
What's interesting to me about this feud and Jay Mariotti writing about this feud is that Jay had his very own feud when he worked in Chicago with Ozzie Guillen. If any writers knows what it is like to exchange words with someone who doesn't like you then it is probably Jay. Of course, when Guillen fired back at Jay he chose to cower in his office and shoot his mouth off in print rather than say anything without the protection of not being in the same room as Guillen.
I wouldn’t have minded Harbaugh in New York.
It's good to know the San Francisco 49ers would have had Jay Mariotti's permission to play in the Super Bowl.
The 12th Man will be represented in New York by Richard Sherman. He can make more noise than 68,454 people combined.
"He's such an entertaining loud-mouthed black man! Dance for us all! Put on a show so I can judge you for it!"
Will he listen to his coach?
Doubtful. You know how headstrong these educated, loud-mouthed minorities can be. Always flaunting their intelligence by talking loudly and never following the directions given to them.
Carroll said. “At times they are going to make mistakes and break your heart, but if you love them, you stay with them. You give [them] the best chance to be all they can be.
“Richard is a wonderful spirit. He’s got an amazing heart, and he has great sensitivity. He goes all the way to the end of the spectrum when it comes to expressing himself.”
Which is exactly what should concern the Seahawks as Manning quietly licks his chops, ready to exploit a raging distraction.
Clearly, Jay Mariotti wants to embrace this distraction while also criticizing Richard Sherman for being dangerous. Jay thinks Richard Sherman is a jerk and hateable, but he sure likes that Sherman has given him something interesting to write about.
Without
intervention, the screaming loon who assaulted America’s senses with a
post-game slam rant would have been devoured by the media throngs
awaiting him in New York. Sherman was ready to attempt a Super Bowl
takeover next week, but his coach, understanding how such a daily farce
could distract the Seahawks and leave his player vulnerable to untold
viral controversies, moved quickly to corral the Sherman Tank.
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/carroll-must-realize-dangers-of-sherman-tank/#8XJQWmSkcdcB2pHW.99
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/carroll-must-realize-dangers-of-sherman-tank/#8XJQWmSkcdcB2pHW.99
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