To avoid the as-seen-on-TV public relations fiasco that the NBA Player’s Association brought on itself during the 1998 lockout, here are some helpful, keepin’-it-real tips for the rank-and-file during this stressful, contract-less time:
1) Don’t be seen in public arriving anywhere in a stretch limo. A simple town car should be sufficient.
2) Keep all bling and blazz to a minimum — even hidden from view if the pieces are less than the size of a pizza. And instead of arriving at negotiations — or anywhere else around town — wearing five-karat diamond earrings, you can’t go wrong with the simple gold studs.
3) Reduce public ridicule by assiduously avoiding any Latrell Sprewell-type comments/tweets/texts about NBA team owners trying to “take food off my family’s plates.” And lose all analogies that would compare NBA team owners with pre-Civil War plantation owners and the players with slaves. Go with the minimum-wage analogies, instead.
4) Before entering negotiations or union briefings, put all guns on safety.
5) Throw something on the bargaining table that’s so absurd that it makes both sides pause … then laugh, thus breaking the ice. For example, demand something on behalf of NBA fans, say, the price of tickets must be reduced or that must-buy preseason games be eliminated from season subscription plans. Shout, “Power to the people!”
Everyone will get a good laugh from that, then both sides will come together in the realization that they’re really on the same side.
6) No more $-sign tattoos until the CBA is approved.
7) The NLRB is not a summer league.
8) Don’t lawyer-up if you hear a call for a forensic accountant.
9) Don’t murder the messenger.
10) Take it easy on Jim Dolan. You know him; he’ll sign anyone, anything.
11) No running with scissors.
Believe it or not: Badgers show some mercy
Perhaps Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema had a conscience implant during the offseason. Given a chance to run up the score against UNLV Thursday on ESPN, he didn’t. Instead of winning by 70, he settled for 51-17. Unusual for him.
But good for him, and for Badger fans, who thus far this season don’t have to reach for rationalizations.
Speaking of running up the score, UConn has received a commitment from Connecticut high school QB star Casey Cochran. The kid’s dad, Jack Cochran, is a successful but itinerant high school football coach who is so infamous for running up scores that he inspired a 50-point sportsmanship rule among the state’s football-playing high schools. In 2006, Cochran’s New London team regularly won by 50 or more, including 90-zip, precipitating a postgame brawl. Seems as if Casey would be better off at UConn playing basketball for Jim Calhoun, a master of kick-’em-when-they’re-way-way-down student-athletics.
* The prevailing nature of TV criticism is that the targets often explain or dismiss all criticisms as crazy or naive, or as evidence of the critic holding a personal grudge or hidden agenda.
For nearly two seasons we’ve been on YES’ back for its indiscriminant and inflexible use of the third inning to showcase the “I’m-over-here” in-stadium reports of Kim Jones, regardless of what she has to say and what’s going on in the game.
But Wednesday night that changed. As Jones began her third-inning feature, the Red Sox, down 1-0, began a rally with consecutive hits. YES wisely shelved Jones’ report to focus on the game. Imagine that! Jones returned to finish in the fourth.
So, better late than never, it can be done!
* Our “sports culture” has reached the almost-out-of-denial point in which teams and leagues are forced to politely threaten patrons to behave, to drink only two at a time — before driving home.
The Buffalo Bills are the latest, having begun a “Make Mom Proud” campaign to keep the booze-muscled from ruining it for only the slightly buzzed, as well as the semi-sober and their semi-sober kids.
The slogans include, “This is a family event, so watch your mouth or you’ll catch a lot of heck.”
The best, though, is, “Don’t Make Me Come Up There.”
Of course, NFL stadia could stop selling beer and liquor. Yeah, and I could be Lipitor, Son of Parenthesis, Ruler of the Universe!
Yanks-Sox a ‘long’ time rivalry
The recent three-game Yankees-Red Sox series totaled 261⁄2 innings and was played in 11 hours, 37 minutes. We’ve seen azalea’s bloom in less time. The five-game 1969 Mets-Orioles World Series was played in 11 hours, 43 minutes — and included a 10-inning game.
* Sam Ryan, most recently a highly credible CBS Sports regular, has joined MLB Network as a studio host and reporter.
* Tennis’s U.S. Open has become another one of those New York “too” things — too expensive to attend, and its best match-ups are played on TV too late to watch.
* Every time we hear someone speak of a game then say, “When we get back, we’re going to break it down,” it seems to be spoken by those who won’t because they can’t.
* Mark Sanchez has returned to Southern Cal. ESPN Radio’s Los Angeles station, 710-AM, will carry all this season’s Jets’ games.
* Stamford High School has named its football field in honor of Andy Robustelli, the Stamford native and Giants great who passed in May.
* University of Miami President Donna Shalala, the former Carter and Clinton White Houses appointee, was so busy talking down to everybody about how she cleaned up the football program the last few years that she failed to see — or didn’t want to see — what was going on right in front of her.
* Funny, how the definition of “class” has changed in sports. It used to be applied to those who carried themselves well, always did and said the right things on and off the field. Now, a class act is applied to anyone who “has never been in trouble, never been suspended or arrested.”