An interesting thing, I reckon, occurred over the weekend.
I received a message from Al Jazeera America, asking that I appear the next morning to discuss the Ray Rice issue. It was too late, as I didn’t retrieve the message until two days after it was sent.
But, wait a second … Ray Rice? Al Jazeera? Al Jazeera wanted my take on the Ray Rice calamity?
Even in a world gone nuts, even in a world jumping headfirst — many heads having been decapitated — into a cauldron of religious, racial, political and ideological insanity, such a request was comically perverse.
Be careful for what you ask. I have a rude habit of changing the subject, and when asked by Al Jazeera to speak about Ray Rice, I’d have thrown a changeup — or a beanball.
How could a network owned by the buy-everything, hard-core Muslim country of Qatar — an Islamic kingdom ruled by the same fabulously wealthy Al Thani family since 1871 — ask anyone about the abuse of an American woman by an American man when Qatar’s oppression and degradation of women, from the instant they’re born, is a matter of Dark Ages-through-Ottoman Empire religion, custom and law?
“Oh, yeah, that Ray Rice thing…”
Then I’d have gotten into something else, or tried.
Qatar’s not only condemned and danger-listed as a theocratic, fascist monarchy by what’s left of Western-style democracies, it’s an oil-soaked country that welcomes all — provided they work its oil and gas fields and on its building projects at slave-wages and under slave-labor working and living conditions.
Qatar also is consistently identified by the United States, among other teetering democracies, of funding and arming radical Muslims eager to inflict mass murder, as per Allah’s wishes, naturally, wherever “infidels” live, at least live for now. Islamic terror squads don’t seem to run out of money or suicide bombers.
Qatar makes every Western democracy’s terrorist list, every Western human rights inspectors’ worst list.
So what about Ray Rice?
It would have been impolitic, even impudent, but I’m sure I’d have asked my Al Jazeera host to forget Rice, for the moment, to answer my questions about the position and complicity of Al Jazeera’s ownership in events such as the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, hotels, churches, synagogues, shrines, temples, buses, trains, boats, planes and population centers from Bali to Mumbai, Germany to Argentina, the Sudan to the Philippines, Barcelona to Brussels, London to Moscow.
Qatar’s state religion is Wahhabi, also known as Salafi, Islamic sects politely called “conservative.” In practical, blood-soaked terms, they’re “extremist” or “radical.” As per most current events, Hamas, Iran and Qatar are tight. Qatar was a great friend and financier, too, of Saddam Hussein.
Tens of thousands murdered and maimed by “jihadists” — those who know an “infidel” when Islamic Republics, insurgents, cells and their ministers say they do. Yet, Al Jazeera, owned by such religionists — those who sustain ancient disregard for women as born to be neither seen nor heard — wants my opinion on Ray Rice’s two-game NFL suspension for cold-cocking his fiancée?
Funny it should ask.
Now fair is foul and foul is fair
Of pitches and pitching: Saturday during Yankees-Red Sox, John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman noted the number of strikes vs. balls thrown by Boston starter Allen Webster. That’s not an uncommon chat these days.
Next, they noted the scoreboard at Fenway Park tracks such things, giving the strike-to-balls percentage, too. All right, that’s enough!
What about balls out of the strike zone that are swung at, bunted at, fouled off, missed, hit fair? Balls become strikes! But any stat, any time.
Yogi Berra, who regularly hit home runs and doubles on pitches thrown near his eyes, is in the Hall of Fame!
Meantime, Mets’ batters continue to take first-pitch strikes, as if hitting at 0-1 is advantageous.
Sunday, with the Mets down 3-0 in the fourth, Ruben Tejada looked at strike one, right down the middle, before grounding out. Next, David Wright looked at strike one, right down the middle, before striking out.
Next inning, all three batters — Chris Young, Juan Lagares and Wilmer Flores — looked at first-pitch strikes. Tejada and Flores popped out, Lagares struck out. Next inning, Anthony Recker led off, looked at a first-pitch strike, flew out.
♦ Maybe it’s time to explain to the younger fans in your life that what happened Saturday — Joe Girardi removing Shane Greene, who was pitching well, after 4²/₃ innings and 96 pitches — once would have been regarded as bizarre or due to an injury, as opposed to standard, modern-formula baseball.
♦ The kindred spirits of Ralph Kiner and Jerry Coleman stopped by Friday on YES. David Cone, over a replay of a Brock Holt’s carom shot down Fenway’s right-field line: “And he slides into third with a stand-up triple.”
♦ Reader Chuck Newcomb suggests when a game ends on a wild pitch or a walk, it should be classified “a slink-off.”
♦ With the trade deadline having passed, the Yankees again just couldn’t pull the trigger on that John Sterling for Marcel Marceau deal.
Confirming our worst fears about ESPN
Saturday, reporting the fractured leg of Pacers star Paul George, ESPNews anchor Zubin Mehenti said, “ESPN’s now reporting that the leg injury most likely will keep him out all of this season.” If form holds, “ESPN NBA Insider Chris Broussard confirms that’s most likely the case.”
♦ Thursday, with Tiger Woods at 1-under-par but not near the lead, Golf Channel turned the first page of its leaderboard into a vertical scroll, stopping only after it got to Woods. Everyone else at 1-under? They didn’t make Golf Channel’s cut.
♦ What’s in a name? As reader Don Reed noted, Sand Paper was entered to run in the first race at Saratoga on Saturday, but Sand Paper was scratched.
♦ Reader David McBride: “I want to scream it: You can’t grade a trade [or a draft] the day it happens!” Calm down, brother! The SS Common Sense sailed, long ago, and is now lost at sea.
♦ Parking for last month’s Jay Z/Beyonce concert in Houston was $80. Seriously. It was at the home of the Astros, Minute Maid Park, thus it was more a matter of squeezing than gouging.
♦ Keith Olbermann, career leader in good-riddance TV job departures — he’s never invited to his farewell parties — has called for Roger Goodell, as per his Ray Rice ruling, to resign.