One of modern sports’ more unfortunate credos is, “It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.”
Wrong. Bragging is bragging, regardless.
Perhaps that’s why Shaquille O’Neal was and likely will remain a unique figure. He had a gift: He would incessantly brag about himself, yet, at some point, make sure to throw in a self-putdown, as if to remind all, but especially himself, that conceit is not a virtue.
Chatting with Stephen A. Smith on 1050 ESPN Radio after announcing his retirement, O’Neal ticked off his career accomplishments while volunteering that every one established him, as he put it, as “a true legend.”
Then, perhaps realizing that he was beginning to sound like a runaway braggart, he threw in, and not a moment too soon, that among his few regrets “were those 5,000 free throws I missed.”
O’Neal’s charm again shone through, again won the day, again left the listener disarmed and smiling. He was good at knowing when to throw in a wink.
As a commercial star, O’Neal, early in his NBA career, was headed in the wrong direction. That he broke a backboard or two became the only reason to distinguish O’Neal from other XXXL salesmen.
And that he and his agents were so eager to portray him as a one-trick-vandal, was sad, especially as playground and driveway rims began to be ripped down in emulation and celebration of O’Neal.
That the media, marketing strategists and even the NBA pushed these images — as basketball courts became useless as basketball courts — seemed criminal.
But O’Neal would grow to demonstrate that he’s a bright, diverse guy — even a pretty good movie actor — although some media still preferred to package and present him as a circus act.
Leave it to ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” last week, to choose then to display O’Neal’s all-time “highlights” and include, near the top, the time he ripped the entire basket down at the Meadowlands, plus his insensitive and unclever insistence that the Sacramento Kings be called the “Sacramento Queens.”
Yeah, ESPN loved that stuff. Still does. But it seems that on the day O’Neal called it a career, ESPN missed the point. After Shaquille O’Neal stopped growing, he grew to be a lot more and a lot better than that.
A prisoner of Yankees radio torture
Trapped. Like a rat. No way out. Saturday night, I had to take a short car ride home, a hostage forced to listen to a few minutes of the Yankees-Angels on radio. Noooo!
At 3-1, Yankees, the top of the seventh began, according to John Sterling, with Angels’ outfielder Howie Kendrick making a spectacular catch, perhaps saving a home run off a blast by Nick Swisher!
There was no live call of the play as the WCBS broadcast was in a taped commercial while Swisher batted. That’s right, there aren’t enough commercials read during live play — standard commercials wreck Yankees broadcasts, too.
Worse, but hardly unexpected, was that upon checking the TV tape, Sterling’s delayed description was, at best, inadequate. Batting left-handed Swisher hit a high fly to the opposite field, where Kendrick made the catch moving toward the wall; but nothing close to robbing Swisher of a home run.
The only one who was robbed was Sterling, deprived of hollering his home-run call, which, we all know, is always a matter of maybe.
Suzyn Waldman’s read of scores from other games was obligatory and flat, perhaps designed to mention the sponsor rather than provide info. She simply mentioned that Texas had shut out Cleveland, 4-0, then on to the next score.
One of the basics in professional scoreboard-reading is to note the winning pitcher in a shutout. In this case it wasn’t worth her time to mention that Derek Holland threw a complete game?
Finally, Sterling noted that the Angels have declared this game “a sellout,” even though, he added, “looking around, I see empty seats in the upper deck.”
Funny, Sterling always sees “packed houses” in Yankee Stadium, even when the Yankees don’t declare a sellout. And for all his “looking around” in Anaheim, in The Bronx he can’t see all those empty seats right down there in front of him.
Ten minutes was all it took, all it ever takes. Can there be worse radio in big-league baseball than that presented by the New York Yankees? Can, “I was so close to home and stuck listening to the Yankees game” get you out of a speeding ticket?
Even on the air, Giorgio’s still a real kick
As a loved or loathed star in Italy then with the Cosmos, Giorgio Chinaglia was never shy to state his version of the truth. Nothing has changed.
He and Charlie Stillitano are hosts of “The Football Show” on SiriusXM. Wednesday, talk turned to Barcelona’s 3-1 overwhelming of Manchester United to win the UEFA Champions League title. Stillitano mentioned that Barcelona’s 5-foot-6 Argentine superstar, Lionel Messi, is much like 1980s 5-5 Argentine superstar Diego Maradona.
GC: “Don’t compare Messi to Maradona, please.”
CS: “Everyone else has, Giorgio.”
GC: “Everyone else is an idiot.”
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More good stuff from John Flaherty during Yankees-Angels, yesterday on YES. After Mark Trumbo homered on Bartolo Colon’s first pitch of the third to make it 2-1, Yankees, Flaherty guessed that the Angels were done taking Colon’s first-pitch fastball. He was right. And the Angels ended the inning with two more hits and another run.
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Lookalikes: Submitted by many — Donnie Walsh and J. Edgar Hoover.
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Chris Evert — alert, confident, candid as an analyst — has joined ESPN for Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
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MLB’s “This Week In Baseball,” Saturday before FOX’s Cubs-Cardinals, included a nice tribute to longtime Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan, the former catcher and a sustained rarity in that he’s a highly successful pitching coach who never pitched.
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The Mets’ 5-0 win over the Braves, Saturday, was played in 2:19. To put it in Cockney, “Shock a me life.”
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So what happens if Scott Cousins
doesn’t try to smash the ball free from Buster Posey? He’s branded “soft,” a player who puts himself ahead of the team.
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Isn’t there a job that James Dolan could do that would be less harmful, something in Homeland Security?