Sports

ESPN gets exactly what they asked for with Parker

SURPRISE! ESPN’s Rob Parker (inset) was suspended for insensitive comments about QB Robert Griffin III, the kind of conduct Parker was known for before ESPN hired him. (
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We’re stuck in front of a Jack-in-the-Box — not the drive-thru, the toy. A few cranks and out pops Jack. But Jack’s grinning like Jack Nicholson — and he’s got an axe. World gone nuts, every few cranks.

ESPN’s Rob Parker on Thursday declared himself the black emperor of all black men. Parker was speaking about Redskins QB Robert Griffin III, who also is black, but perhaps not enough to meet Parker’s criteria:

“I’ve talked to some people in Washington, D.C., some people around in [Griffin’s] press conferences, some people I’ve known a long time,” Parker said. “My question, which is just a straight honest question, is: ‘Is he a brother or is he a cornball brother?’

“He’s black, but he’s not really down with the cause. He’s not one of us. He’s kind of black, but he’s not really, like, the guy you want to hang out with.”

Although declaring intimate knowledge of Griffin, Parker still was willing to administer to him his personal African-American certification test — given that Parker doesn’t know much about him:

“I want to find out about him. I don’t know, because I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiancée. There was all this talk about he’s a Republican, which there’s no information at all.”

It’s too absurd to take seriously. For starters, consider that ESPN identifies Parker as a “journalist.” As if.

The tempest over Parker’s comments, directed at Parker, are badly aimed. Parker was just meeting — and exceeding — the terms of his engagement. He was hired to be an outspoken black man — no credibility required.

Given Parker’s track record, there was no other reason to have hired him. And to that end, he was a perfect fit.

The extended story on Parker shows he is a self-exposed, nomadic (failed) print and broadcast sports journalist whose primary stock-in-trade is his transparent, often race-based pot-shotting. Thus, it stands to reason ESPN would be foolish enough to provide him with a regular forum.

ESPN has characterized Parker’s wild-headed, bigoted spew about Griffin as “inappropriate” — another example of ESPN ignoring context. In Parker’s case, it’s highly appropriate, given that he specializes in such worthless, senseless, obligatory bomb-throwing.

Besides, it’s not as if Parker committed the unpardonable ESPN sin of innocently using the phrase “chink in the armor” in a report referencing Jeremy Lin.

Parker has demonstrated comical genius in getting things dead wrong. In 2008 he was suspended by the Detroit News after he reported — on a TV station, no less — that Michigan State QB Kirk Cousins, now Griffin’s backup, was involved in a brawl. At the time of that brawl, Cousins was with his family — in church!

Parker claimed three anonymous sources — two would have done it — for his bogus info.

Friday, ESPN suspended Parker, pending “a full review.” What review? He was just doing his job — and very well! Leave the brother alone, you cornballs!

Rutgers acts angry at Rice after hiring angry coach

World Gone Nuts: In May, 2010, Rutgers hired Mike Rice as its basketball coach. Rice came from Pittsburgh’s Robert Morris University, where he was known — it was hard to miss — for his stomping, cursing, raging in-game conduct.

Ten months later, after Rutgers lost a close one in the Big East Tournament, a basketball fan wrote a polite letter to Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti, suggesting Rice’s excessive behavior toward his players and the refs — and in public view and earshot — is neither in Rice’s nor Rutgers’ best interests.

Pernetti politely answered that Rice’s “enthusiasm and temperament is exactly what I was looking to hire, and I won’t ask him to change.”

Thursday, Pernetti announced Rutgers had suspended Rice for three games and fined $50,000 for in-game misconduct. He also will undergo anger-management counseling.

* World Gone Nuts, continued: Ever notice how the small of the back is located directly opposite the large of the stomach? Well, there’s now a direct correlation between avarice for TV money and the decline in common decency.

In time, the inevitable loss of sports’ best friends — ticket buyers — will be too late to correct. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell already senses that decline, but has blamed it on TV’s terrific, high-definition coverage. Well, he got the “TV” part right.

The ticket purchaser, once the most significant person in any enterprise, has become the biggest sucker. A look at the league’s national TV (8:20 p.m. ET or later starts) outdoor game schedule for this week — mid-December — furthers the tale:

Cincinnati at Philadelphia, Thursday night; San Francisco at New England, tonight.

Other nationally televised outdoor night games this month included or will include the Giants at Washington, Detroit at Green Bay, Houston at New England and San Francisco at Seattle. The Bills this season will not be playing outdoors in Buffalo on a December night.

That TV’s interests now obliterate those of ticket buyers — who once could reasonably expect games in cold climates to begin at 1 p.m. — is now a given, more so than that ticket buyers will continue to suffer such abuse.

The NFL’s grand TV gift to itself, the NFL Network, was predicated on Thursday night games.

Prime time “flex” scheduling, which starts in Week 11, is the NFL’s polite way to describe the maltreatment of ticket buyers through the league’s pledge of full allegiance to TV money.

The NBA will play five games on Christmas Day, all for ESPN money. One or two games won’t do it.

So, on Christmas, thousands of arena workers will be leaving their homes to go to work — many to be paid peanuts for selling peanuts. Common decency now takes holidays off.

Of course, the best days to take the family to Yankees and Mets games always were Saturdays and Sundays. Now the Saturday 1 p.m. games can be moved to 4:25 for Fox money and Sunday games from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. for ESPN money.

In-house customers now are taken-for-granted saps. They follow the orders sold to TV, yet are also ordered to pay more for tickets. In other words, you have to pay more to rent the shovel with which to bury yourself. How long can that last?

* … and continued: The Seahawks, when they play the Bills today, will wear what the team describes as their “alternative wolf-grey uniforms.” Yup, the Seahawks today will be wolves.