Leon Russell sang it better than I can write it:
“The vultures fly around me. Come and take me home. Can’t tell the bad from the good, I’m out in the woods; yeah, I’m lost in the woods.”
Q: When is the logical, decent time to start a weekend MLB game in NYC in April? 1 p.m., no?
Well, four weekend April night games are scheduled — two Yankee Sunday 8:05 numbers for ESPN, two Saturday 7:10 jobs for SNY’s Mets.
Baseball’s gold standard, on Bud Selig’s watch, remains gold. Patrons now can choose between being taken for granted and going to hell.
Shucks, given the NCAA’s slaves-to-TV-money scheduling of this Tournament, weekend afternoon games — logical times for games played by “student-athletes” and attended by students — have largely been lost to Midnight March Madness, a dare to the natural senses to stay awake.
We’re lost in the woods.
Why would it be shocking if DeSean Jackson, is affiliated with a gang, and thus likely to be party, witness or have knowledge of blood and body-bag crime? At this point, in a world gone nuts, there must be dozens of NCAA, NFL and NBA players who belong to drugs-guns-murder street gangs, young women’s auxiliaries included.
The next basketball game-fixing scandal almost certainly will be a “mob” enterprise, but from a different “syndicate” — a street gang (if it hasn’t already happened). “Omerta,” as per gang-bangers, is childishly known as “don’t snitch.” But violators suffer similar results: They become dead people, friends and/or family often included.
It’s very effective and easily done.
The condition of money-mutilated college sports placed Jackson, on full scholarship, at prestigious Cal-Berkeley, where, perhaps, he first met Crips in the library or when invited to play on their intramural softball team.
Jackson’s an enormously talented receiver or no one would care if he lived — maybe even to 30 — or died.
But if his off-field act tilts toward the criminal, his on-field conduct is a form of premeditated, first-degree assault on his sport. He’s among the NFL’s most self-involved post-catch me-dancers, exceedingly self-impressed, regardless of the score or other pertinent team circumstances.
The Jets remain interested, regardless? If so, no surprise. The Woody Johnson Jets have shown an eagerness to pursue every talented creep who becomes available as a matter of can’t-indulge-him-any-longer expendability.
Why would the Jets, who, with the NFL’s blind approval, sold millions of dollars in PSLs through bogus advertisements and sales-rep lies, value anyone’s integrity?
New Jet Michael Vick, a felon, tweeted support of his ex-Eagles teammate: “Want to wish my bro [Jackson] much success where ever he land his next opportunity.” [cq]
He’s another who should avoid tweeting rather than universally suggest that he’s another college man — Virginia Tech — with literacy issues. Why not just call Jackson, wish him luck?
(By the way, that HBO “Real Sports,” with the segment on the hideously bogus degrees now “earned” by uneducated, even illiterate scholarship athletes at big-time football and basketball colleges, re-airs on HBO and HBO2, all week. But only go out of your way to watch if you prefer ugly truths to Rah! and Rah!)
Anyway, Manhattan basketball coach Steve Masiello’s career advancement — he was bolting for South Florida (the college, not the climate) — was stopped by a PIT maneuver (Pursuit Intervention Technique), when Homeboy Security revealed his college degree is in Applied Imagination.
Big deal. The 2010 election for U.S. Senator from Connecticut was between Richard Blumenthal, who only imagined he served in Vietnam, and gutter acts-reliant pro wrestling czarina Linda McMahon, who, stressing her commitment to, of all people, children, claimed her degree is in Education (it’s in French).
How do such folks, running for such significant offices, get such significant things about themselves wrong?
In January, NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, minutes after being sworn in, took credit for a heart-breaking New York Times series about a homeless family. The Times then responded she had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Why would better be expected, let alone demanded, of a college coach?
Can’t find my Medal of Honor. It’s lost in the woods.
Not enough quality time from CBS
SILLY CBS: With 3:10 left in the first half of Louisville-Kentucky, Greg Anthony reported, “it’s “a two-possession game.” Good thing he did. Otherwise, writes reader Jeff Butler of Stratford, Conn., “I might not have stuck around for the end.”
Two minutes later — 21 of them left in regulation — Anthony, who again might have allowed the score to speak for itself, said it’s “a one-possession game.”
Good CBS: With 9.6 seconds left and Michigan up one over Tennessee, a replay quickly appeared clearly showing a ref to have been correct: A Michigan player’s foot slid out of bounds after taking an inbound pass.
Bad CBS: With :24 left, Michigan up three and the ball in play, we were shown the Vols’ bench!
Sad CBS: In slo-mo, CBS showed a player on Tennessee’s bench celebrating a field goal in new-rage fashion — grabbing at his genitals.
»There’s a harsh, name-selective bully-edge to NBC’s Johnny Miller that, well, kinda stinks. Saturday, as little-known Andrew Loupe, one off the lead, took repeated practice swings, Miller coldly said, “If every guy on Tour played like him, I’d quit announcing.” Peter Jacobsen next said that Loupe’s group is “in position,” meaning he wasn’t holding up play.
»Not to hold Mike Francesa up to ridicule — who has the strength? — but his capacity to turn favorites into outright losers is phenomenal. Another authoritative tout: Five-point favorite Louisville will beat Kentucky.
»Before yesterday’s Bruins-Flyers shootout on NBC, sportscaster-laureate Doc Emrick recited the individual shootout stats of the goalies and skaters, then added, “That’s the history, not the prophecy.”
»Seems like only yesterday “run-outs” were called “fast breaks.” Wait, it was only yesterday!
»Reader Bryan Gero watched the 1977 Yankees-Dodgers World Series on ESPN Classic. “Got to see a complete game [by Ron Guidry] and a triple [by Davey Lopes]. Like seeing Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster in the same photo!”