The Hypocrisy Of Costas

Bob Costas and other sportswriters get social issues wrong.

Identity Politics Infect NASCAR and the NFL

The biggest story in sports right now before the beginning of Speedweeks at Daytona, and less than two weeks after the Superbowl, is Michael Sam, a defensive lineman looking to enter the NFL Draft. he said in an interview earlier this week that he is homosexual, and it's naturally set off a wave of congradulatory messages from Barack Obama (though Sam's father was naturally troubled by the news) to Robert Kraft, who stated he'd like the Patriots to draft Sam if he can help them win. Sam led the SEC in sacks (11.5) and tackles for loss (19).    Some scouting reports, though, paint him as basically a one-trick pony, who struggled at the Senior Bowl against more-NFL-caliber tackles.  


Therein lay what I suspect is the real reason why Sam is making being homosexual an issue.


The standard line "His orientation doesn't matter" has been trucked out to defend him, but the fact he is the one bringing being gay into the discussion indicates it does matter; it paints him as someone to whom being gay is more important than being a football player, and the NFL has already had to deal with a strikingly similar issue in Jonathan Martin, to whom being weaker and whinier than his teammates was more important than football.   When some quotes attributed to unnamed NFL GMs were published, NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith reacted angrilly (calling them "gutless"), an illustration of the utter dishonesty that exists in discussing such issues.


The blunt truth that no one dares state is Sam's lifestyle is wrong.   Homosexuality has no biological reason to exist, and the constant assertions that "you don't choose to be gay" will never ring true no matter what junk science is cited in its defense.    Here is the hypocrisy at work - if Sam had stated that he is a smoker, he would be criticized in the media for it; that homosexuality is not a healthier alternative is ignored because as Michael Graham once wrote, it "doesn't feel right" to criticize on that score.   We tell smokers, "Change."   Why not also say that to gays?  Because it "doesn't feel right?"


What Sam is doing here is laying down a gauntlet - he's telling the league "You have an obligation to draft me because I am gay."   In short, his lifestyle is his entitlement to be drafted into the NFL.   And it is implicit in the varied media coverage of this whole issue - one hazards to find negative coverage of Sam anywhere; the premise in all coverage now is that he should be drafted by the fact of him saying he's gay.


########



The entitlement mentality that is identity politics is also at work in criticisms of Richard Petty for comments belittling Danica Patrick's racing ability - she would win only if "everybody else stayed home."   Petty also noted "If she were a male, nobody would ever know if she showed up at a racetrack."


Having followed racing and thus had to witness Patrick's career, it is impossible to see where Richard Petty is saying anything particularly inaccurate.   In 226 combined NASCAR, ARCA, and Indycar races she has led a shade over 200 total laps entering 2014 and posted just eight top five finishes.   Her one win in Indycars was a split-squad race against a truncated field won on fuel mileage at Motegi.   And she's done this with quality racecars - Rahal Racing, Andretti Autosport, Hendrick/Stewart, etc.   She has gotten a lot to work with and done very little with it.


The blunt truth here again is the fact of her identity - being a woman is her credential to race.   And it's even more blatant with Danica - she famously posed for soft-porn photography to promote herself before joining Indycar. 


Yet if that is stated, the one making the statement is treated as the enemy.   Such is what identity politics entails - suppression of truth.    There's nothing about being gay that's to be proud of, yet Michael Sam clearly is more proud of that than of football; being a woman remains Danica Patrick's credential to race, despite nearly ten years proving she's not entitled to anything.

Gil And Gino Behind The Mic

Gil And Gino Behind The Mic - a two hour retrospective on the career of Patriots radiocasters Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti.

Hard Knocks Theme

Can the NFL Change Its Game, Legally Speaking?

Sports Law professor Jeffrey Standen looks at the effort by the NFL to "change the game," pertinent given the smear campaign now being waged against Gregg Williams and the 2009 New Orleans Saints.

Fred Cusick's original call of Bobby Orr's goal 5/10/1970

This is the radio call (WBZ-FM) of Bobby Orr's immortal 1970 Stanley Cup series winner.

The Hartford Whalers "Brass Bonanza"

With the official name-change of the AHL's Hartford Wolfpack (the 2000 Calder Cup champs as such) to the Connecticutt Whale, Hartford gets back some of the flavor of its most famous sports team.

The Danica Patrick-ization Of Sports

Take Back the Sports Page? Pro sports is a battle the feminazis can't win.

The Alleged Up-The-Ass 103

We of course don't know if this list is the actual one, but for whatever it is worth, here is the alleged list of 103 MLB players who tested positive for shooting up the ass with steroids back in 2003. This was the test the Players union hoped would produce a lot of false positives - of course it didn't.

Bob Ryan Out-Shanks Shaughnessy

The Dan Shaughnessy Blog does a great job dissecting the absurdities of Dan Shaughnessy writing, and when appropriate they also include deserving writers like Tony Massaroti and his ludicrous attack on the Patriots and their fanbase in the wake of Matt Walsh's testimony to the NFL.

But now Boston Globe writer Bob Ryan outdoes Shaughnessy (and Ron Borges) with a bitter and illogical attack on Bill Belichick It is worth some comment.

Ryan seems incensed that Belichick "still hasn't fessed up." Fessed up to what? Like so many others, Ryan refuses to understand exactly what Belichick did in Spygate. In casting that Belichick "was engaged in practices he knew were against the rules," Ryan ignores the facts about Goodell's malicious ignorance of the rulebook. Belichick was not engaged in activity he knew was against the rules - a fact Roger Goodell inadvertantly acknowledged with his comment that other teams wanted to tape, not doing so only because they felt it would be to no advantage.

Ryan also is outraged because the Patriots are "the most despised franchise" in pro sports. All that does is reflect poorly on the haters, who are as short on facts and long on vitriol as Ryan is.

Ryan is also ignorant on Watergate, to which he draws constant comparison. Watergate was not about an illegal break-in (in which nothing was stolen and no resistance to police offered) but about Democratic hate-mongering using the break-in as an excuse to persecute Richard Nixon for the crime of accomplishing more than they did, spelled out best in the book Bad News: The Foreign Policy Of The New York Times.

Ryan needs to reexamine himself here and while he's at it he can check Jeffrey Standen's examination of the Belichick-Goodell brouhaha.

Borges Gets Burned For Real

It's a week of joy for a great many members of the fanbase of the New England Patriots, because the worst excuse for a reporter to cover the Patriots has been suspended without pay from the Boston Globe for plagurizing an article from a Tacoma, WA paper.

Seeing Ron Borges crash and burn is one of those rare examples of a story developing piece by piece in rapid fashion but it is also an example of sadistic joy. Borges has been a Broadsheet Bully for many years. Some, such as Glen Ordway of WEEI Radio in Boston, have stated that Borges is driven by a hard agenda, but that at least some of his critics are also agenda-driven in that they use his anti-Bill Belichick attitude as a reason on top of the plagurism to attack Borges until he is finished in media.

What those who offer this line of reasoning ignore is that Borges pushes an agenda that is contrary to reality and which in fact is detrimental to the success of the team he has covered. Bill Belichick does not cooperate with the sports media to any significant extent, because it does nothing to advance his cause - leading the Patriots to success. On the contrary, the media can help defeat a team by fostering acrimony, internal dissent, and so forth - most spectacularly seen by Dan "The Shank" Shaughnessy and his slanted reporting that helped lead to the Theo Epstein episode of late-2005.

Borges' coverage of the Patriots is aimed at discrediting their coach; that Borges has failed to do so does not stop him from this agenda. Why he pushes such an absurd agenda is a mystery. In any event Borges has let the general hate that permeates his reporting get the best of him, and for this his downfall should be greeted positively.

The Drawback Of Star Power

This look at David Beckham's foray to US soccer makes a great point about when sports teams and leagues try to emphaisze a "face of the sport/team" instead of competitive depth. Star power is a two-edged sword because the boost it can make for a sports team is ultimately short-lived and does not change that it is competitive depth and emphasis on the basics of a sport and a team, not glitterati, that make a sporting endeavor successful.

The Bad Sports Model That Is The Boston Bruins

The news that the Boston Bruins' choice to be new GM has in effect quit the job (may need to register to see story) is the most graphic display yet of the disconnect that exists between the hockey world and the universally unpopular owner of the Boston Bruins, Jeremy Jacobs.

The search for a new GM began after the firing of Mike O'Connell following one of the worst seasons in Bruins history. The disaster that was the 2005-6 season was an embarassment for the team, and in a way that put the lie to the rhetoric of Jacobs and other Bruins brass once the NHL's disasterous 2004-5 lockout was finally resolved. Having fought for the economic model under which the NHL now operates, the Bruins should have been in the best position to win a championship out of the gates. Instead the team assembled by O'Connell faltered badly early in the season and finally collapsed after the Olympic break.

The suspicion is considerable that interim GM Jeff Gorton will wind up being the official GM, a scenario that would likely confirm the universal cynicism that exists about the Bruins, a cynicism that holds that owner Jeremy Jacobs and his brass, concerned only with raking in concession profits from their ownership of the Boston Garden (both the original and the rebuilt facility of today), consistently skimp on quality personnel on and off the ice and refuse to hire managers or coaches with fresh new approaches to the game and to management of the team - "All they want is 'yes' men," as WEEI sports personality Pete Shepperd angrilly puts it.

But even if an outsider, from the Ottawa Senators management staff or elsewhere, is brought in, the issue of GM autonomy will likely still exist. And it provides a graphic case study in what not to do in pro sports. The blunt truth of the matter is that the Boston Bruins are the case study of a fundamentally flawed sports model. It used to be the Los Angeles Clippers and the Cincinatti Bengals that were the case studies of fundamentally flawed sports models, but right now that can't be said about either team.

The upshot here is that the Bruins' AHL affiliate, the Providence Bruins, are a consistent playoff team with the 1999 Calder Cup championship in their resume. Talk about little brother showing up big brother.