In a world consumed by sack totals, wild card races, triple- doubles and what Chad Ochocinco does next, it made perfect illogical sense that the passing of Abe Pollin, last week, made scant news.
Pollin, 85 and the owner of the Washington Wizards (nee Bullets), but just for the last 45 years, quietly, modestly and wisely — he was no parts Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban or James Dolan — did remarkable things, the kind, in days devoted to Rex Ryan sound bites, easily forgotten.
How’s this? From 1973, starting with K.C. Jones, to 2000, when he began to allow Michael Jordan to call many of the shots, Pollin hired six African-American head coaches.
In 1995, as college and pro teams lined up to change uniforms, colors and logos to best profit from gang-popularized fashion, Pollin demanded that his NBA club go the other way. With violence in Washington and Baltimore daily leaving members of the young, male demographic shot dead in the streets, Pollin replaced Bullets with Wizards.
That move surely cost Pollin and the NBA a bundle. But Pollin didn’t want anyone being arraigned for murder wearing his team’s merchandise, nor did he wanted anyone murdered in (or for) his team’s otherwise worthless clothing.
Pollin made his money in the construction business and then invested it in good faith. Since 2002, the Abe Pollin Award is given annually to those who selflessly serve the D.C. community — for example, a teacher won in 2005 — as Pollin did for decades.
Among those I know who worked for or with Pollin — he also owned the NHL’s Capitals — I never heard one speak of him as anything worse than a good man.
Perhaps the only person widely known to have not gotten along with Pollin was Jordan. Their partnership in the Wizards didn’t work out. Naturally, acolytes who blindly worshipped Jordan, wishfully confusing his basketball talent with a talent for everything else, saw that as a stain on Pollin’s record. But many others knew better, and still do.
Washington-based political commentator James Carville, on his weekly Sirius/XM “60/20 Sports” Friday, saluted Pollin. “The term ‘saint’ should be reluctantly applied to people, and I don’t use it often,” Carville said. “But if there is such a thing as a saint I would say that ‘Mr. Abe’ should be considered. . . . He was a remarkably generous man.”
Yet, almost from the moment Abe Pollin died, we got busy forgetting him.
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The unfathomable has become predictable. Monday, here, I gave readers a heads-up that never-before-seen footage of Ron Swoboda‘s World Series Game 4 catch would appear within MLB Network’s show about the 1969 season, Wednesday night.
So what happens? When that footage appeared, the bottom part of the play — Swoboda caught it an inch or so off the ground — was hidden behind an info crawl along the bottom of the screen! Same thing with Tommy Agee’s second of two fantastic catches in Game 3 — the ball and catch disappeared behind that continuous graphic.
For crying out loud, is there no quality control, anywhere, no preview of how video will air?
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Speaking of preview-less presentations, NFL Network is just another bad TV mill. It’s one thing to accidentally catch a player or coach spewing a vulgarity, live, but NFLN, Thursday — Thanksgiving — made sure all heard Broncos’ coach John McDaniels screaming an F-bomb — on tape. Play-by-player Bob Papa apologized for NFLN.
NFLN’s halftime was little better than a desperate commercial/beg for the network’s further cable clearance, concluding with this from Deion Sanders: “We have some great matchups coming up.” Yup, this Thursday, Jets-Bills, next week, Steelers-Browns.
Who is TV’s best NFL tout? Comedian Frank Caliendo, gag artist on Fox’s NFL pregame show, has been a savant at picking upset specials. Last week, he selected the Raiders, outright, over the Bengals, a 10-point favorite. Speaking of which, reader Jeff Upton asks why we never see this headline: “Psychic Wins Lottery.”
The Mets last week announced they will wear a “new” pinstriped home jersey, in addition to their 40 or 50 other uniform combinations. The heart of the matter could be found in the third paragraph of the announcement: “The new pinstripe jerseys will go on sale, Friday, Nov. 27 . . .”
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If you want to gauge the state of sportscasting, consider: One day, a football play-by-player or analyst couldn’t simply say that a ball carrier or a scrambling quarterback gained or “picked up” x number of yards on the play. He instead said the man ran for “positive yardage.”
Then, because that sounded smart to him, he repeated it: “positive yardage.”
Then, some other TV and/or radio goofball copied that; he too said, “positive yardage.”
And now dozens say, “positive yardage.”
If ever we listened to a football analyst evolve from good grief to good, he’s Giants’ radio man Carl Banks. Yet, Thursday from Denver he saw fit to hit us with a bunch of “positive yardage” calls.
Remember fans: Even if you don’t put it on the ground (fumble) or lay it on the carpet (fumble), without positive yardage you can’t move the chains (get a first down), let alone take it to the house (score a touchdown).