Sports

Vaccaro: NYRR head deserves to be fired for blaming media over canceled marathon

It Wasn’t enough that the New York Road Runners couldn’t bring themselves to do the right thing, couldn’t see that cancelling the New York Marathon was the only proper course of action once Hurricane Sandy ransacked the city that has given the race — and the organization — its name and its fame.

No. Now, on top of serving as Mayor Bloomberg’s clueless consigliere on this whole matter, the NYRR sends a letter to the 47,000 people scheduled to run the race — so many of whom, as amateurs who actually call New York home, know first-hand just how preposterous the idea of holding this race, at the time, would have been.

And who does the letter blame?

“It became increasingly apparent that the people of our … area were still struggling to recover,” the letter reads, in part. “That struggle, fueled by the resulting extensive and growing media coverage antagonistic to the marathon and its participants, created conditions that raised concern for the safety of both those working to produce the event and its participants.”

Shame on the NYRR. Shame on Mary Wittenberg, the NYRR’s heartless president and CEO, for allowing this absurd drivel to stand as the NYRR’s official explanation. Shame on her for fouling the legacy of Fred Lebow, a native of Romania but a true guardian of this city, the man who made the Marathon such a proud annual staple — and a man who, certainly, would have understood his beloved race’s proper place at a time like this.

Blame the media? Please. I wish the media could take the credit for making a fool like Wittenberg understand how wrong it was to pursue running this race. The media? It was a public outcry, an opinion raging in the name of common sense and common decency — and flying in the face of the arrogance embodied by the NYRR.

If the NYRR was smart, today would be Wittenberg’s last day on the job. If the NYRR isn’t smart, the Marathon’s sponsors should threaten to withdraw until new leadership is in place.

Antagonistic to the marathon and its participants? No, the media — and 99 percent of this city — were antagonistic to the NYRR and its tone-deaf co-conspirators. And you damn well believe we would be again. And will be. Until Wittenberg — the deafest of the tone-deaf — is gone.