Used to be it was just the weather. Now homosexuality is the other thing everyone talks about but no one can do anything about.
On Friday, the same week heterosexual male sports fans were served their annual celebratory testosterone-booster — Sports Illustrated’s hide-the-swimsuit issue (this one with Kate Upton’s DDs in 3-D HD on the front) — pro soccer player and U.S. national teamer Robbie Rogers declared he’s gay.
As the latest athlete of note to do so, Rogers reprised a debate indelicately debated by 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver and other NFLers in those two barren weeks before the Super Bowl, when any issue, including Randy Moss’ rightful place in history, serves as a time and space filler.
Revelations of homosexuality inspire a primary question that, upon reflection, is the silliest of them all: Can straight athletes co-exist with homosexual teammates?
They already have — and for decades! Announcing one’s homosexuality doesn’t mark the moment one becomes one!
After all, regardless of anyone’s religious, political, social or visceral position on homosexuality, virtually everyone, whether they know it or not, knows at least one person — someone dear to them — who is gay.
And, regardless of the straight person’s position on homosexuality — even if they believe there’s a “cure” for the “disease” — few would purposefully do anything to hurt their beloved gay friend/family member or deny their right to happiness.
The problem and the solution are seated so closely to each other — just minutes away — that debating the issue seems a colossal waste of time. It’s just a matter of time before everyone knows what they logically should have figured a long time ago.
The “Some of my best friends …” preamble, whether we know it or not, is already true, always has been true.
Gays in the military? I figure there have been — and on both sides — since our Revolutionary War. Same with every sport, A to Z, then back.
So why get stuck between floors, or on a floor below? Robbie Rogers said he’d had enough, so he came out, stood up; take your best shot.
I admire him. He said he’s giving up the game of soccer — for now — to figure it all out. I wish him only happiness. I’d share a soccer ball, a locker room and a foxhole with him.
He is, after all, a brave man.
Big ‘Plus’ for TV on weekend
Over the weekends, MSG-Plus throws on these out-of-market, out-of-mind college games that occasionally become the compelling watch of the weekend.
On Saturday, it carried Houston-Tulsa (a Fox Sports Net telecast), which Tulsa won in three OTs because Houston scored five points — an uncontested two, a steal, a 3 at the horn — in the last 5.5 seconds of regulation! Unreal!
Veteran play-caller Ron Thulin, in a wonderful self-scold, said we would think by now he would have learned it ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Second Place: Third period of Penguins-Sabres on NBC on Sunday. As NBC showed in a fabulous taped get, Ryan Miller, Buffalo’s U.S. Olympic goalie, so often was so good, all the Pens could do was roll their eyes then smile.
* PEDs, Kids, PEDs: Too much smoke now from Ryan Braun. As the first guy to beat MLB’s drug rap — with what I regarded as a reasonable application of physical, statistical and practical evidence to reach a reasonable doubt — circumstantial evidence has shifted reason.
His lawyer had to hire Miami clinic operator Anthony Bosch, a self-described biochemist who does not have a medical license, according to ESPN, to back Braun’s innocence? Why not hire a credible doctor, someone you would eagerly cite in an official defense?
What would Bosch provide? “As a health-care wannabe with a history of failed business ventures, I was engaged, for a fee, by Braun in exchange for my expertise”?
Meanwhile, Jose Canseco is appearing in TV ads for a pill, “HT,” which, the ad claims, stands for Higher Testosterone, which, Canseco claims, before performing an on-camera arm-flex, “supports increased testosterone.”
The tone, images and choice of anabolic baseball crusher Canseco — the application of straight math and common sense — seem designed for fools to figure HT is loaded with the illegal.
$30 mil for PSL-pusher commish? Roger that!
NFL Team owners must have been so grateful to Roger Goodell on behalf of PSL sales in 2011 his pay for that year was doubled to $30 million.
Perhaps that’s all it takes for the commissioner to look the other way while the Jets and Giants, in an instant, priced out tens of thousands of multi-generation, all-weather customers, then, in the Jets’ case, as quickly ate through 20-plus years of ticket waiting lists.
Ah, what money can’t do.
Billy Hunter, lawyer and former district attorney, (finally) was fired Saturday as boss of the National Basketball Players Association. He had no idea it’s unethical to direct NBPA dough to a failing bank run by his son, place family on the payroll and make secret, multi-million dollar deals, as detailed in a union-commissioned report conducted by the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Anyway, this Sunday still is “Kids’ Day” at the Nets game in Brooklyn, even if it switched to night because money — ESPN’s, in this case — is all it takes for a sport to tell sports-minded kids (and their folks, after buying tickets) to go to hell.
* WFAN’s Evan Roberts went two-for-two on Saturday: 1) the Kevin Youkilis “always be a Red Sock” tempest was silly, and 2) it gave us an opportunity to see that Red Sox, singular, at least here, is spelled s-o-c-k.
Reader Jim Marron: To borrow from Youkilis, if Timothy Dolan becomes Pope, will he say, “I’ll always be a Cardinal”?
* If CBS Sports and its growing CBS Sports Network are to distinguish themselves from ESPN and the rest of the poll-arized, they can’t report that Wisconsin, favored at home Sunday, beat Ohio State in an “upset.” They have to know better.
* The ads on WFAN for a telecast of a heavyweight fight feature David Price, “a 6-foot-8 giant.” Hey, he could be the world’s largest troll.
* Sure, it seemed like more, but Nielsen reports the two weeks before this Super Bowl held 462 hours of pre-Supe TV coverage. Seriously, Nielsen kept track.
* Last time Fred Wilpon said the Mets had no money problems was just after Bernie Madoff was nailed. Wilpon claimed Madoff losses were just a drop in the Mets’ bucket. He later amended that to costing “half-a-billion dollars, cash money.” … True or Ridiculous? Monmouth University of central New Jersey has joined the Big South football conference. Answer: Yes.