BILLION-dollar college and pro sports should be facing quarantine due to the epidemic of serious lawlessness among their athletes, so we can take some comfort in knowing the crime wave is not without its comical moments.
Last week, University of Maryland running back Wes Brown was suspended following his arrest for assault on a police officer, illegal wiretapping of police conversations and theft.
According to a Baltimore Police report, Brown — who last season as a freshman ran for 121 yards against North Carolina State and this year was expected to start — was being questioned by police when he swung at one officer, then fled. He soon was apprehended. Additionally, the police have identified Brown as a “person of interest” in a shooting.
But that’s not the funny part. Here it is:
“We are extremely concerned that one of our student-athletes, Wes Brown, was arrested Wednesday evening,” said a Maryland spokesperson. “This is a matter that we take very seriously.”
LOL! Well, at least we’ve got that going for us! The University of Maryland takes the arrest of one of its full-scholarship players for assaulting a police officer, and also being a person of interest in a shooting “very seriously.”
If TV-moneyed, big-time sports colleges really took such matters seriously, let alone very seriously, those capable of committing such crimes wouldn’t be recruited in the first place. You know, just as a safety precaution for non-athlete students and staff, not to mention the reputation and standing of the college as an institution of higher learning.
It’s not as if Maryland and 100 other Division I football and basketball schools haven’t had many opportunities to learn such lessons, over and over … and over.
I suppose it’s a matter of personal perspective. Some folks don’t much care what it takes for their team to play in the NCAA Tournament or go to a bowl game. On the other hand, my folks worked hard and saved their money to send me to college to earn a degree, not to be robbed, beaten or shot.
Courting foreign players all in the game
The sustained angst about the paucity of Americans among the world’s best men’s tennis players rarely, if ever, includes this: American colleges, in their expensive quest to win events that otherwise aren’t worth a damn to society, recruit and nurture players from far away, providing scholarships and training that might otherwise be awarded to U.S. kids.
This year’s NCAA Division I men’s singles champ was Ohio State’s Blaz Rola. He’s from Slovenia. His teammates include a German and a Netherlander.
Virginia won the men’s team championship. Its roster includes two Guatemalans, an Englishman and a recruit from Hong Kong. Runner-up UCLA had players from France, Brazil and Japan.
* Good Stuff I: Josh Lewin, on the radio before Saturday’s Mets game in Milwaukee, reported starter Shaun Marcum and Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo were tight when both were with Milwaukee. He added Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker made them a gag phone message, a call of Marcum homering off Gallardo. “Now,” said Lewin, “it can happen.”
Good Stuff, II: Yesterday, on YES, after late-1960s Yankees pitcher Stan Bahnsen was mentioned, Paul O’Neill said Bahnsen is the uncle of his best friend from high school and they once stayed at Bahnsen’s nice home in Florida. That, O’Neill said, led him to conclude that MLB players can lead a pretty sweet life.
Love that kinda stuff; sure beats stats!
* On Friday, SNY’s Gary Cohen, generally strong on history, blew a tire when he said Larry Doby “came out of Camden, N.J.” Yikes! Doby, the first AL African–American (66 years ago, Friday), was born in Camden, S.C., then famously raised in Paterson, N.J.
* Nice get by Michael Kay yesterday: Regardless of circumstances — even a blown save — “It’s very rare” to see Joe Girardi go out to talk with Mariano Rivera, but in this case, with a man on second, Girardi wanted him to walk J.J. Hardy.
* Reader Bob Malarkey wonders if CBS’ Verne Lundquist is in trouble for recently referring to a “game-ending hit” rather than “a walk-off.” When Lundquist is released from re-indoctrination camp, Bob, we’ll ask him.
A sitting ovation in Bronx
A Fellow with a long business relationship with the Yankees noticed something during Friday’s game — in which the Yanks came from a run down to beat the Orioles — that we had forgotten.
In old Yankee Stadium, he said, a ninth-inning rally would have included the can’t-miss TV sight of all the fans, including those behind the backstop and up close along the baselines, standing and hooting and hollering and doing what fans do on behalf of their beloved home team.
Friday? Well, for starters, a ton of those seats remain too expensive to have been occupied, yet those fans in view, and several rows deep, just sat there. Even with the bases loaded, one out, score tied. You could hear the excitement from the less expensive seats, but none of it was in view.
“Guess, when you spend $850 for a seat,” the fellow said, “you wanna sit in it the entire way.”
* Interesting stat shown by YES and read by Michael Kay during Saturday’s game: Robinson Cano has 317 doubles since 2006, the most in the majors.
That’s good, I guess, even great. But … how is it that a fellow with great power, especially to the gaps, and good foot speed has so many doubles, yet so few triples? Since the start of last season, Cano, who twice had seven triples in a season, has 65 doubles, one triple.
Could it be he no longer chooses to run particularly hard? Nah. If general manager Brian Cashman claims he doesn’t notice it, how could we?
* It’s 8 a.m. Saturday morning; no better time to hear a thorough wrap from the night before on ESPN Radio’s national “SportsCenter” update.
But it’s ESPN, thus sports finished second to promotion, including a Stephen A. Smith sound bite and what’s coming up in HD on ESPN. Who pitched the Tigers’ shutout of Cleveland? No room for that.