WORLD OF TROUBLE: The Lakers’ Metta World Peace received his latest NBA-imposed suspension last week for wrapping his arm around the neck of the Pistons’ Brandon Knight. (
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What did the late Gracie Allen, also known as Mrs. George Burns, have in common with Metta World Peace, formerly known as Ron Artest?
Both relied on thoroughly fractured sense.
Gracie answers the doorbell to see a stranger, who says, “Mrs. Burns, I believe you’re expecting Jack Goodman.”
“No, I’m not, but my husband is.”
“Good, that’s who I am.”
“Oh, no you’re not. He’s upstairs. If you’re anybody, you must be Jack Goodman.”
In September 2011, Artest became Metta World Peace. The Lakers’ 6-foot-7 forward, formerly of St. John’s, the Bulls, Pacers, Kings and Rockets, has had some, well, issues, throughout his NBA career. Here’s a look (with some timeline help from the Los Angeles Times):
January 2003: Suspended three games, fined $35,000 for smashing a Madison Square Garden courtside TV monitor.
January 2003: Suspended four games for making obscene gestures at the Miami crowd and for shoving Heat guard Caron Butler into the stands.
March 2003: For the second time in a week, suspended for exceeding the flagrant-foul limit; this time the victim is the Celtics’ Paul Pierce. Days earlier it was the Sixers’ Eric Snow.
March 2004: Suspended for elbowing Portland’s Derek Anderson.
April 2004: Suspended for leaving the bench during a hassle in a playoff game.
May 2004: Fined for making obscene gestures in a playoff game.
November 2004: Suspended for the rest of the season after being the antagonist in one of the ugliest brawls in U.S. sports history: Pacers’ players against Pistons’ fans. His suspension results in a loss of roughly $5 million in pay.
April 2006: Suspended for Game 2 of a playoff series for throwing an elbow in Game 1.
July 2007: Suspended for the first seven games of the season after a no-contest plea to domestic battery.
April 2011:
STOP THE MUSIC! Artest wins the NBA’s 2010-11 Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, for public service on behalf of mental-health awareness.
May 2011: Nine days after winning the citizenship award, Artest smacks the Mavericks’ 5-foot-11 guard, Jose Barea, in the face during garbage time in a playoff game. Artest is suspended for the next game.
September 2011: Artest changes his name to Metta World Peace.
April 2012: Decks the Thunder’s James Harden with an elbow. Harden suffers a concussion. World Peace suspended for seven games.
February 2013: Last week, suspended, according to the NBA, “for grabbing Brandon Knight of the Pistons around the neck and striking him in the jaw.”
Yep, world gone mad. No matter how often he places NBA players at physical risk or how regularly he creates an on-the-job hazard, the NBA is stuck with him.
After all, how would it look if the league finally forever banished the winner of its good citizenship award as an uncontrollable detriment to The Game?
World Peace has neurological issues that cause him to lose it? Well, I can sympathize with that — as long as he’s not returned, three or so times a week, to both the stages and prompts of his uncontrolled, 10-plus-years condition!
What will it take for the NBA to protect its players from such a player? A $100 million negligence lawsuit?
It brings to mind the issues of Dodgers and Yankees pitcher Steve Howe. His recidivist illegal drug use was diagnosed as a mental condition that prevented his ability to distinguish right from wrong. Again, I can sympathize with that … but if that’s his case, don’t hand him a baseball and tell him to throw it 93 mph, inches from peoples’ heads!
Howe didn’t change his name, but, after leaving baseball, he claimed to have heard the call, claimed to have changed his life by devoting it to doing the Lord’s work. The toxicology report on Howe’s death, in 2006 — at 48, he crashed his truck at 5:30 a.m. — showed he had been doing meth.
In Howe’s case he didn’t injure anyone else. Metta World Peace? The NBA’s Citizenship Award winner is still in there, doing what he just can’t stop doing.
Funny thing about the NBA, though. If there’s a wet spot on the court, they stop the game — so no one gets hurt. Say good night, Gracie.
Wrestling with $ports’ true value
Hey, get off the IOC’s back! In eliminating wrestling from the Olympics, it also eliminated all remaining pretense that it exists for anything more idealistic than TV rights money, especially the kind printed here — if that gig hasn’t yet been “outsourced.”
Put it this way: Had NBC insisted that wrestling be retained, it would have been. And look at it this way: NBC now can spend more time covering nearly naked women’s beach volleyball. Citius, Altius, Fortius! And Hubba-hubba!
Speaking of the importance and import of American money, now that our government has determined that to continue Saturday mail delivery would be a waste of our money, perhaps it can explain how the U.S. Postal Service chose to spend $40 million of our money to sponsor Lance Armstrong’s drug-racing team.
Heck, by the time the USPS began writing those sponsorship checks, anyone who had spent 10 bucks or 10 minutes on the sport knew what it took to win.
* If Mike Francesa, aka The Abdominal Snowman (cheap shot, I admit), is finished explaining his latest expertly spoken, colossally wrong weather forecast — he also knew Hurricane Sandy would be no big deal — he can explain his Mr. Insider tout that Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater will be “the steal” of this draft (given that Bridgewater’s not eligible for this draft).
* Sunday’s “Outside the Lines” (ESPN, 9 a.m.; ESPN2, 10 a.m.) looks hard at the need for pitchers to wear lined, protective caps. Among those interviewed are former Princeton Tiger and Met Chris Young, whose skull was fractured by an Albert Pujols shot in 2008.
* Speaking of caps, after ordering and distributing those powder blue (Crips) Phillies caps and one-color-fits-all-gangs, all-black Phillies caps, MLB-licensed cap maker, New Era and MLB can reprise their red (Bloods) Yankees caps “Gee, we had no idea” claim.
* Dave Jennings, home from the hospital after a lung-fluids issue, still fighting it out with Parkinson’s. He’s one tough, brave man. … Wow, imagine if Cardinal Dolan, baseball fan, becomes Pope. The perfect blend of Old and New Testaments. Always remember, the first line of the Bible reads, “In the big inning …”