Ryan Braun taught me something this week: Even as a kid, even with just seven TV stations and “This concludes our broadcasting day” followed by the National Anthem — the pre-infomercial period — I watched too much television.
As Braun’s new-age non-apology apology (the kind that often includes “If I offended anyone …”) was being read by anchors as it simultaneously appeared in graphics, all I could hear was Gilbert, one of Beaver Cleaver’s friends on “Leave It To Beaver.”
When Beaver was in a fix, he would confide the details to Gilbert. Then Gilbert’s eyes would widen and he’d say, “Gee, Beav, if I did that my dad would clobber me!”
Yep, if I had a crafted a statement such as Braun’s, my dad would have clobbered me, too. The, “I want to get this behind me” part would have sent him into his clobbering mode.
After all, get what behind him? Braun never said. His apology left out all the parts that counted: He 1) cheated, 2) got caught, 3) lied.
He’s not alone. Hardly. He’s just the latest.
How he can he ask for forgiveness — and suggest time might heal — if he didn’t acknowledge, to any specific extent, what he did wrong?
To that end, my dad would have been more angered by my “apology” than by what I did to warrant one.
I learned that the hard way — often I would be docked from playing baseball — but learned it before I turned 17. Actually, my dad, whose blazing blues could cut dead-center from across the kitchen, would have settled for just two words from me: “I lied.”
Ryan Braun is 29. If I issued an “apology” like that, Ryan, my dad would have clobbered me.
Teaching it’s all about $$$
Does it ever strike ex-Florida and current Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer he has a career knack for chasing after and signing young criminals?
If such a disturbing inclination doesn’t strike Meyer, does it not strike the college athletic directors, presidents and trustees who chase after Meyer — and those like him — while waving multi-million-dollar deals to recruit young criminals to their campuses as full-scholarship student-athletes?
To that repetitive end, Rutgers, New Jersey’s state-funded university, recently paid a Manhattan law firm $575 an hour to conduct an investigation. Conclusion: Rutgers’ scandalized athletic department and, by extension, its top administrative enablers, haven’t done a good job at doing a good job.
With millions already spent in contract buyouts, new contracts and legal fees — and the cost of a Rutgers education for non-athlete students on the steady rise — the state’s largest institution of highest learning needed expensive, outside help to learn right from wrong?
Meanwhile, Rutgers President Robert Barchi has been revealed to serve as a well-paid outside advisor (and stock holder) to firms that do millions of dollars of business with the university. Barchi claims it’s not a conflict of interest because, after all, he revealed those conflicts of interest during his hiring process.
Small wonder Rutgers needs outside remedial help — at $575 per hour — to be tutored in ethics.
* Wednesday, in the top of the first in Texas, the Yankees had men on first and second — maximum-effort guys Brett Gardner and 39-year-old Ichiro Suzuki — no out. Minimalist superstar Robinson Cano was at bat when catcher Geovany Soto made a scrambling block of Matt Garza’s pitch in the dirt.
On YES, Ken Singleton noted Soto’s nice block, then returned to discussing Suzuki’s career stats.
What neither Singleton nor David Cone saw or said was Cano just stood in the batter’s box, bat on his shoulder, disinterested in what was up. He demonstrated all he knew was it was a bad pitch at which he wouldn’t swing.
He made no effort to signal the runners — both fast — whether to go or hold. Even beyond the Yankees’ base coaches, he could provide the best immediate advice.
But Cano just stood there, not interested.
This Bud’s for you — at nearly 1 a.m.
Bud Selig, noble pursuer of integrity in The Game he allowed to fall into disrepute in exchange for the TV and ticket money that juiced sluggers brought, allowed last week’s Yankees-Red Sox game to begin at 8:05 on a Sunday night for ESPN money.
The game ran 11 innings and 4:46, ending at nearly 1 a.m. The Yankees, due to play the next night in Texas, arrived at dawn, then dozed through a 3-0 loss.
As reader Angelo Savino, borrowing from Michael Kay put it, “Monday, 12:17 a.m., ESPN — free baseball!”
* Mike Francesa doesn’t get enough credit — other than from Mike Francesa — for his extraordinary gifts. Consider that from 156 British Open entries, Francesa singled out just one man as the one who could not and would not win it. And that’s who won it!
* The difference between rooting interests in Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, writes Allentown, Pa.’s Bill Lipsky, can be found in what’s clearly heard through TV’s on-course microphones: “Woods hits a bad shot and curses. Mickelson hits a bad one and tells his caddy, ‘My bad.’ ”
* It was awfully nice of John Sterling to let us know, Tuesday, Rangers manager Ron Washington and the team’s trainer were leaving the mound after checking on closer Joe Nathan — especially after Sterling didn’t bother to mention that they were out there, to begin with!
* Nadir Nassry, the New Jersey State Trooper who was forced out after leading a high-speed convoy of sports cars to Atlantic City — the group included then-Giant Brandon Jacobs — claimed such misuse of police cars and state funds was/is common. He said he once similarly escorted Fox’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
* Either way, you get burned: The Mets recently confiscated a family’s SPF 50 sun lotion at the entrance, but then, from the inside, sold those folks an ounce of SPF 15 — for five bucks.
* Progress: Today, the greatness of boxer Emile Griffith, regularly witnessed on over-the-air TV during the 1960s, would be hidden from most of us, lost to pay-per-view.
* Why, asks New York City reader Don Schuman, does ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, “have two broadcasters on the radio side to explain what we can’t see, but have three on the TV side to explain what we can see?” A: Because ESPN hasn’t decided who’ll be the fourth.