Sports

NFL boor just norm for TV

A look at Bartolo Colon’s head could give people an idea of when he began juicing. (
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Although it’s far too late to do anything about, it’s still worth considering how we got here.

Warren Sapp made the radio rounds this week pushing his new book. As are many of us, he’s hurting for scratch. Unlike many of us, he’s apparently hurting despite years of fame and fabulous fortune.

Sapp recently filed for bankruptcy. A court filing showed that despite a multi-gig monthly income of $115,000 and assets totaling $6.5 million, he couldn’t meet payments for things such as child support and alimony. Sapp has two children from his estranged wife and four other children from four other women.

Listed among his remaining assets were 240 pairs of Nike Air Jordan sneakers and a $1,200 lion skin rug.

Yet, judging from this week’s radio appearances, he remains a slick, keepin’-it-real smart guy.

Beyond and before that, though, Sapp stood as a steady representative of our sports “culture” in steady decline. Actually, “decline” doesn’t cut it. Make it, our sports “culture” floored in reverse.

Even among the criminal-enriched football “program” at the University of Miami, Sapp made sure to stand out as a loud-mouthed, extra-bad dude.

Throughout his NFL career, he again made sure to do whatever it took to make a “name” for himself.

He did his best to invite and ignite brawls — even during pregame warmups. He was consistently flagged and fined for unsportsmanlike conduct, including excessive and unnecessary brutality. There were even physical episodes with game officials and an in-game ejection.

And so, the moment he retired, two NFL-sanctioned TV shows, eager to sell “attitude” rather than a sport, hired Sapp. He became a regular on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL” — where he almost immediately met the terms of his engagement with a sexist, homophobic slur — and on the NFL Network.

And ABC was happy to select Sapp to perform on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Of course, Sapp’s only one of many similar examples of what, for the last 35 years, TV has identified, promoted and presented as sports’ preferred acts. Bad is good, worse is even better.

It’s not Sapp’s fault. He just played the game — and at all stops — the way it’s now supposed to be played if one’s looking to stand out in a crowd for all the wrong reasons, the same reasons that inspire TV execs, from the NFL to MTV, to exclaim, “He’s the guy for us!”

Colon cops: Just use his head!

For those who can apply common sense to common physiology, they’d know that it’s almost impossible to conclude Bartolo Colon began juicing just this season.

After all, as noted here last season when he pitched for the Yankees, whose head grows (and grows and grows) well after entering adulthood? Not yours, not mine.

One comparative, neck-up look at Colon photos from early in his career was all it took to reasonably conclude something was up, that his head was becoming the size of a medicine ball.

Also makes you wonder why a valued pitcher such as Colon is annually so expendable, having played for eight teams in the last 10 years while going 106-81. Did teams figure it was just a matter of time before what was impossible to ignore showed up in a test?

* Something went wrong in the control room during Mike Francesa’s show Tuesday, so on the air he began to scold and try to humiliate his team before throwing it, with disgust, to commercials.

Francesa had done similar before, and he no doubt thinks this reaffirms his standing among listeners as a big shot.

But, as always, he’s wrong. All he did for himself, Tuesday was reaffirm his status as a self-important, ungracious bully, the kind only fools would mistake for a big shot.

And it wasn’t lost on some listeners that while he mocked his crew, asking them why they’d try to repair something while he’s “on the air,” his seconds might have asked the same of him.

* Twice, in the last three weeks, the wonder has surfaced: What percentage of those who watch pro golf on TV understand just how good these guys are and how many now exist?

The Ocean Course at Kiawah, where the PGA Championship was played, is routinely cursed by good golfers — single-digit handicaps — for being impossible, for their inability to break 90. Yet, for the PGA the course was stretched to 7,700 yards and 21 players shot par or under.

Same kind of thing with Bethpage Black. That so many yesterday finished well under par is incredible. For crying out loud, 5-foot-7 Brian Harman, a hardly known 25-year-old from Georgia, shot six-under!

White’s faith never got Tebow treatment

The late Reggie White was as verbally and demonstratively religious as Tim Tebow.

White was praised for it, admired for it, respected for it.

He was never, ever mocked for it, not even after he created a brief tempest when he condemned homosexuality from a pulpit.

Yet Tebow’s religiosity is relentlessly ridiculed by fans, media, NFL opponents and late-night TV show hosts.

Why the radical difference in treatment?

* Joe Girardi had a brief hassle with a heckler during his in-the-tunnel postgame news conference Wednesday in Chicago. Girardi handled it neatly and quickly, walking over to firmly tell the guy to get lost — no cussing was heard — then returning to continue to answer the question, as if nothing had happened.

Yet, in an “on-the-fly editorial decision,” YES, which seems illogically frightened of the Yankees’ front office — perhaps for good reason — chose not to air the episode.

* Don’t waste debate or sleep on this Skip Bayless/Derek Jeter thing: Bayless’s job at ESPN is to provoke and sustain what-if interest and imbecilic debate among dimwits.

For what it’s worth, Phil Hughes’ media accessibility and gentlemanly comportment remains constant, after wins and losses, good games and bad. And that should be worth something.

* CBS’s Marv AlbertRich Gannon team will work two of the first three Jets telecasts, Game 1 home vs. Buffalo and Game 3 at Miami. … Brent Musburger has signed a multi-year extension with ESPN.

* Student-Athletics: Recall December’s indoor street brawl between the Cincinnati and Xavier basketball teams? Xavier’s Dezmine Wells was hit with a four-game suspension. This week, Wells was expelled for “a serious violation of the Code of Student Conduct,” which CBS’s website reported was “a sexual episode.”