Not for a moment should we be deluded into thinking professional athletes have the exclusive rights to an inflated sense of entitlement. Bill Belichick, future Hall of Fame Patriots coach, for example, apparently lives in a world in which the sun revolves around him.
Monday, the day after the Pats lost the AFC Championship in Denver, he said the cross-field, side-body, full-speed, pick-block Denver receiver and ex-Pats star Wes Welker put on cornerback Aqib Talib — knocking Talib from the game — was downright dirty. “One of the worst plays I’ve seen,” Belichick said.
The Boston Globe accompanied that story with photos from the game, one of which was taken by longtime Globe photographer Jim Davis.
Davis, in an unfortunate way, is lucky to still be at it — still have his career — given he was the unsuspecting victim of one of one of the worst things I’ve ever seen on a football field.
After a Jan. 7, 2007, Patriots playoffs win over the Jets, while following Belichick across the field as Belichick strode toward Jets coach Eric Mangini, Davis was suddenly and unexpectedly attacked, his large camera shoved into his face so hard that his face was bruised. He might’ve lost an eye and his livelihood in this unprovoked battery — the senseless, mindless assault of a credential-carrying man-on-the-job.
The whirling, suddenly and inexplicably enraged perpetrator had to go out of his way to find someone — anyone — to attack. He found Davis.
The perp was Bill Belichick. He should have been arrested and prosecuted for an unprovoked assault, perhaps a felonious one. But he got away with an apology. Davis didn’t pursue it. His bosses let it go, too.
And so Monday, when Belichick claimed Welker’s block on Talib was the worst thing he ever had seen on a football field, he got me thinking as to the worst thing I ever had seen on a football field.
The first thing I thought of, so help me, was what Bill Belichick, for no good reason perhaps other than that he’s Bill Belichick, did to that photographer.
NBA doesn’t take time off to honor MLK
For those who can recall where they were and what they were doing when they learned that Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered and martyred — I was 15, in my father’s office listening to a radio bulletin — the very notion that one day Dr. King’s legacy, as per Martin Luther King Day, would be exploited to play NBA games — including one in Memphis, the city in which King was gunned down — would seem a sick, even racist joke.
But here we are, aren’t we?
A league comprised of predominantly African-American players was to spend the day reflecting on King’s life and achievements — by playing basketball.
TNT paid its deep respects by nationally televising four games. ESPN and NBA TV each televised one.
In Madison Square Garden, patrons honored King’s legacy by booing the Knicks and purchasing 10 cents worth of beer for nine bucks.
Apparently the NBA’s best story of the season — the starless Suns picked for dead last place and with a rookie coach, Jeff Hornacek, are 24-17 playing up-tempo, team ball — has been widely ignored by TV because of just that: No stars.
Wednesday, as a six-point home underdog and with starting guard Eric Bledsoe recently lost to knee surgery, the Suns blew out the 33-7 Pacers, 124-100. Three Suns scored 20 or more points, nine had at least one assist, six had at least one steal.
There’s no better NBA story to be told, yet it’s not being told. What, with Kobe and LeBron and whammer-jammer slam-dunks followed by bad-guy stares at the TV camera beneath the basket, there’s apparently no room.
Nurses! In addition to being a WFAN regular since 1993, Bob Heussler has been the radio voice of Fairfield University baskets for the past 25 years. On Feb. 8, the Stags, at home against Rider, will hold “Bob Heussler Bobblehead Day,” preceded by a reception.
Proceeds from both the game and the outside purchase of the Bob boobleheads will be donated to the Fairfield School of Nursing. Marcia, Heussler wife and mother of their two sons, was a 20-year operating room nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In 2011, at 53, she died of cancer. Event details here.
Smith had forgotten pick
- Incidentally, not that Richard Sherman would remind us, but the name of the Seahawks linebacker who made that end-zone interception of Sherman’s tipped pass — an interception that deprived the Niners of one or two more shots — is Malcolm Smith.
- With the Yankees having added players whose salaries roughly equal the Mets’ entire payroll, reader Nicholas Longo asks if Mayor de Blasio will address this within his next “tale of two cities” speech.
- A marriage proposal: FOX and FS1 now have lots of college football and basketball, and next year will begin carrying golf’s U.S. Opens. Tim Brando, having just departed CBS, is a credible voice — studio and play-by-play — of all three sports. So?
- Gee, there’s a lot of Bobby Knight in Jim Harbaugh. But it’s tough to lift, let alone throw, an entire bench.
- Having been shut out of this year’s PSL Stadium Super Bowl, even the biggest suckers among Jets PSL holders now know the Jets’ phone reps’ promise to provide them first crack at all stadium events was a close-the-deal lie.
- Press Release of the Week: “CBS Sports Radio Will Broadcast Over 75 Hours of Super Bowl Programming.” Reads more like a warning.
- I erroneously reported here, Friday, that Sherman was selected for that purposefully ugly headphones commercial after his gross misconduct following the NFC Championship. In fact, the commercial was produced before the game, which actually furthers my point that his behavior is calculated, orchestrated.
- Michael Kay’s ESPN Radio-NY simulcast on YES — replacing Mike Francesa’s — will begin Feb. 3.
- Steroid-enabled — where would he be without them? — Arnold Schwarzenegger will be appearing in Super Bowl commercials.
- Australian Open: Leave it to ESPN to have five on-site speakers to analyze a match played by two people.
- Reader Lou Dudka suggests that because the NFL’s networks now feature so many game-day panelists and analysts they “should stack ’em, like on Hollywood Squares.”
- Seems everyone’s waiting for Francesa’s Super Bowl pick so they can go the other way. Hey, if there’s one tout with the ability to move the line … Omaha!
- Lookalikes: Given recent NHL events, a reprise — John Tortorella and Alf.