AS MEASURING sticks go, Major League Baseball is no longer a game of inches, but a game of degrees and deep impressions.
Thus, when someone with as little credibility as John Rocker makes some claim that baseball, specifically Bud Selig, knew he was doing steroids in 2000, his claim is not easily dismissed. Not these days. Even John Rocker has more credibility than Major League Baseball.
The fact that the likes of Jose Canseco, Brian McNamee and Kirk Radomski have more drug-fighting credibility than the combined offices of Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, alleged to be the two most powerful men in baseball, makes for a stunning measurement.
And at a time when big league baseball looks more like a crime family, the team owners, to whom Selig is fully pledged, gave Selig an extension on his contract. Just look at those profits!
That’s where the word unfathomable comes from, something so low it’s immeasurable.
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Wednesday’s hearings weren’t quite as party-divided as many have claimed. While all the Republicans were seen as anti-McNamee and pro-Roger Clemens (vice versa with the Democrats), Mark Souder, Republican from Indiana, was one of the committee members who wisely refused a social meeting with Clemens days before the hearing. Souder condemned such chumminess as inappropriate.
And it was Sounder, Wednesday, who was the only Representative to ask why team owners weren’t being called to answer for their look-the-other-way role in MLB’s drug scandal. And that’s still a very good question. How did team owners miss what was obvious to everyone outside of baseball?
And only my cynical side would wonder if Souder would ask such a thing if there were a big league team in, say, Indianapolis.
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Chris Berman now seems to go out of his way to make himself an easy target. It’s a common trait among megalomaniacs, from Donald Trump to John Sterling. “SportsCenter,” always eager to do a Top 50 Something Or Other, now has Berman anchoring something called “The Greatest Highlights With Chris Berman.”
But it’s more like “The Greatest Highlights Ruined By Chris Berman.”
Truly remarkable moments – Carlton Fisk’s 1975 Series homer, The 1982 Cal-Stanford “Band Play” – are in the mix. But the actual play-by-play is removed and replaced with Berman’s call, his forced and tired shtick.
Thus, the highlights become secondary to Berman’s smothering presence. That Berman would allow himself to trample these historic highlights – exploit them in service to his relentless self-promotion – is more of the same and more of a shame than it is a surprise.
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High School Roundup: Last Saturday’s “Prime Time Shootout” at Trenton’s Sovereign Bank Arena included St. Patrick’s (NJ) vs. Oak Hill Academy (Va.), which began at 10:30, later than scheduled. It had been scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. Seriously. The organizers apparently thought it a good idea for high school kids to be out and about in Trenton at midnight and beyond.
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Chris Russo is sounding more like Mike Francesa, power-broker, every day. Wednesday, after the Congressional hearings ended, Russo attacked Conn. Republican Chris Shays for what Russo claimed was a blind-to-the-facts abuse of McNamee. Fine. Russo wasn’t alone.
But then Russo declared that as a resident of Connecticut he would now have Shays voted out of office. “I’m gonna work to get rid of Shays and get [Democratic challenger Jim] Himes in there!” Russo hollered, adopting the Mr. Big-Shot style of Francesa.
But then Russo, as Frank and Nancy Sinatra sang, went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid. Russo reverted to Russo. After pledging his full allegiance to Himes, he added, “I don’t know anything about him.”
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ESPN not only knows that its Monday Night Football productions have become salutes to excess, it plans to do a few things to reverse that runaway reality.
For starters, sideline reporters Suzy Kolber and Michelle Tafoya this season will have reduced roles, which is good for everyone, but especially for Kolber and Tafoya. Too often they were called upon to report nothing much. Proving that ESPN has sideline reporters – taking attendance – often seemed to be goal.
ESPN now plans to “send it down to” only when its sideliners actually have something of here-and-now value to report. Such judicious use of sideline reporters would be a welcomed improvement, but not nearly as much as occasional silence from the booth.
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I’m easily confused. If Andy Pettitte’s such a rock-solid, God-fearing guy, why did he allow himself to get shot up with HGH in the first place?
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Hey, Rocket, you think Wednesday was tough, wait ’til that Rusty Hardin bill shows up.