Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

Sports

Scrub-way series! Yanks-Mets coverage tops week’s meltdowns

Bandage me gently, warm the bed pan and make it an oral thermometer. National Nurses Week ended Monday, and not a day too soon!
Nurses! … These voices in my head!

At the close of Monday’s Heat win against the Nets, TNT’s Brian Anderson, previously regarded as being on our side, let us in on this: “Miami has not lost back-to-back playoff games since 2012!” How time flies.

1) Why would anyone give him that to read to a national audience? 2) Why would he read it? 3) You don’t think they’re out to get us?

On YES’s Mets at Yankees, Monday, a full screen Yankees promo read, “Our Tradition, Your History.” That explained why the Yanks were wearing two-tone caps (now on sale!).

The bloom is off Bud’s interleague rose. What Bud Selig described as the Yankees’ “affordable” seating went unused, unwanted and un-bought for Mets-Yanks.

Either that, or, to borrow from Yankees management’s explanation, many thousands, on consecutive nights, chose to watch a Mets-Yanks game on big-screen TVs from a luxury restaurant rather than from up-close seats.

But this preposterous, greed-soaked-and-soiled story — now in its fifth consecutive season — remains seen, never spoken.

Yanks at Mets? Wednesday’s best seats apparently were abandoned by thousands who stood in line to buy Subway $5 footlongs for $14. Yanks-Mets is now such a costly, worn novelty that the Mets sold tickets through a Mets caps promotion.

But nothing recedes like excess. Monday, Gary Cohen talked himself out of a Vin Scully-like keeper. As Curtis Granderson batted for the Mets, Cohen said, “Granderson has hit 64 home runs in this ballpark.” Seconds later, Granderson blasted one. “Sixty-five,” said Cohen. Perfect! Beautiful!

If only he’d left it at that. He then hollered his signature, “It’s outta here!” sacrificing his great call to indiscriminate self-serving gimmickry and self-mimicry. Occupational hazard. Pity.

Donald Sterling sits for an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.CNN/AC360
Pitiful, too, was CNN’s interview with Donald Sterling, America’s latest Grand Dragon designee, an 80-year-old kook with a taste for 30-year-old arm-candy who record then distribute their private chats.

Not that those among the rush-to-certain-judgments (see: Duke lacrosse team) were inclined to correct or even doubt themselves — to tidy the mess they left — but if there were a question to whether Sterling’s an indelicate, confused old man with, as his wife of 57 years claimed, dementia, this TV session provided evidence.

He’s so shot that in referencing Magic Johnson he kept saying, “He has the AIDS,” as if it were “the gout” or “the clap.” Pathetic.

But he’s white and rich and privately blabbed something racist. Thus, he gave the NBA an opportunity to enact a quick public relations execution, despite knowing that Sterling’s trouble is that he’s troubled, a condition a West Coast sports TV exec told me was worsened by the death of his son.

While it’s too late for compassion, after watching that interview forget if he said something ugly about any race, ethnicity or religion. Ask yourselves two practical questions:

1) Was his relationship with fabulist V. Stiviano — her latest name — based in genuine mutual affection or did it reinforce reasonable suspicions about a rich, age-vulnerable old man hooked up with a buy-me-that, daddy 30-year-old?

Had Sterling been your father wouldn’t you have logically figured he was losing his way because he was losing his mind?

Compassion? He didn’t qualify. And if he now does, too late and too bad. Richard Williams, father, coach and inspiration of Venus and Serena, who spewed hateful racist and religious tirades, was respectfully explained and excused as “eccentric.”

The mayor of Philadelphia demanded the Eagles fire receiver Riley Cooper after he was overheard using the N-word. But when Delmon Young, who’d pleaded guilty to a drunken, hate-screaming 2012 assault of a man he mistook as Jewish, signed with the Phillies, Mayor Nutter was good with that.

The media shoveled scorn on Cooper. Fine. Yet, he committed no crime. Young played 14 nationally televised postseason games after his conviction. Not a damned word.

Mike FrancesaBrigitte Stelzer
How can two sets of rules serve equality? How can the fair-minded abide by such rules? When did sports eliminate fair play?

NBA Commissioner Silver apologized to Magic Johnson for Sterling’s comments about him. For what, artlessly saying that he ran around having unsafe sex?

After Johnson, in 1991, revealed that he’s HIV-positive, he accepted an appointment from President Bush to serve on a national HIV/AIDS advisory panel.

Two years later, Johnson ripped Bush for not doing enough to fight the diseases. That made big news. But it made tiny, dimly lighted news that Johnson had not attended a single meeting held by that panel!

We’re so lost, the only reliable guy left is Mike Francesa. This week he continued to doom home favorites, touting the Bruins and Pens. Takes a special man to make sage predictions about everything he knows nothing about.

The Mets, he did know, had no shot vs. the Yankees because they can’t hit. Two games, two wins, 21 runs and 24 hits later …

Monday, Francesa claimed that SNY (Mets) has banned its talent from WFAN (Yankees). And it wasn’t so much that SNY flatly denied it — Bob Ojeda had just been heard on WFAN — it was more a case of knowing that Francesa disregards the truth as below him.

Next day, he said SNY changed its mind, as if it buckled beneath Francesa’s pressure. Nonsense. That was Francesa’s way of “admitting” he was wrong — there never was a ban!

The Heat haven’t lost consecutive playoff games since 2012. Hmmm. Has it been that long? Nurse!

Eyes wide o‘Pen’

Sports Illustrated: Credit this catch to reader Mike Logerfo: Late in the Rangers’ 5-1 Game 5 win, NBCSN caught Pens’ coach Dan Bylsma shouting across the ice, likely to get a linesman or ref’s attention. He then held up his swipe board, drew two side-by-side circles — eyes? — then violently crossed them out, indicating sudden blindness.

The second First Lady of hockey, after Lady Byng, was Shirley Fischler. Stan’s wife of 46 years died of cancer, Tuesday, at 74.
If not for his offense, LeBron James would be admired for his defense.

With playoff games belonging to NBC since Round 2, how does MSG not have 30-year Voice of the Rangers Sam Rosen on its pre and post shows?

ESPN’s Jeannine Edwards Monday from Pimlico reported that California Chrome had been “heard coughing.” Hay fever?

Among AL leaders in saves? Why it’s good old reliable (Joe) Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan Detroit!