We’re about to learn whether one of our most sage expressions — “Justice delayed is justice denied” — might not be true, or at least in need of some fixing, to add, “sometimes.”
Justice delayed is justice denied, after all, seems to refute, “What goes around, comes around.”
This week ESPN at least twice reported that NCAA basketball tournament bracketologist Joe Lunardi has declared Xavier to be on the bubble. In one of those reports ESPN said Lunardi has predicted that Xavier, among the bubbled, is a long shot.
To that end, it’s difficult to forget the Cincinnati-Xavier game, on Dec. 10. (Cue the Xavier Fight Song.)
It made quite an impression, especially the head-stomping. At the end of the game, a Xavier win, what appeared to be a prestoked, “social” media-driven, indoor street brawl erupted.
It was beyond disturbing; it looked like an on-signal prison yard riot, as if everyone was primed, ready. Just do it!
Afterward, Xavier’s Tu Holloway proudly likened his teammates to a collection of “gangstas” while expressing no regrets — only pride — for the episode, and boasts about owning the city of Cincinnati. That’s student-athletics for ya.
At the time, Xavier was 8-0.
Then the obligatory suspensions: Holloway, a starter, got one game. Dezmine Wells, a starter, recieved four games. Mark Lyons, a starter, got two games. Landen Amos, a reserve, received four games. Pretty lean sentences, given the scene.
Xavier then lost its next three — at home to Oral Roberts, and in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii to Long Beach State and Hawaii — all games it otherwise would have been favored to win.
As of today, Xavier is 18-11. It could have been 20-9 or 21-8. It could have been an easy at-large tournament selection. Now, it appears, Xavier must win the Atlantic 10 Tournament to get in as an automatic bid.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough if this is a case of justice delayed and denied, or just a case of justice delayed.
MLB careless with reputation of Brewers star
Speaking of justice, forget Ryan Braun for a second. Think about yourself. How would you like your reputation handled? Carefully or carelessly?
We don’t yet know the whole Braun story. We do know the only independent “judge” in the matter sided with Braun, the Brewers outfielder and reigning NL MVP.
And we do know that after claiming its drug testing process is unflawed, Major League Baseball is changing that process to reduce or remove obvious flaws.
But what if it were your urine sample? What if you’d tested clean, clean, then, zoom, off the charts, then quickly back to clean? And then you found out the extra super dirty sample sat around in an athletic trainer’s basement for a couple of days?
I don’t know if Braun is guilty and I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it one way or the other.
But this isn’t Barry Bonds, his head blowing up, starting to hit 65 home runs at retirement age.
This isn’t Mark McGwire more than doubling his home run output — to 70! — at the age of 35.
And this isn’t Roger Clemens choosing to be injected by his personal trainer rather than his personal doctor.
And the widespread opinion that Braun has weaseled through “a loophole” seems based on an easy and convenient wish. Braun has simply stepped through a large opening left unsealed and unguarded by MLB.
Don’t forget: Throughout MLB’s rampant performance-enhancing drug era, Bud Selig, his seconds and his bosses (team owners) were happy to look the other way while counting the gate — added charge to see Bonds — and the TV dough.
Once Selig could no longer ignore what everyone else could so plainly see, he began to try to reinvent himself as “The Commissioner Who Rid Baseball of Drugs.”
It was, of course, a public relations con.
Still is. After all, what took him so long?
To that public relations end, MLB is now very eager to work the other side of the street, to show it means business — now that it’s no longer in the PED profit-taking business.
Would you want MLB to determine your reputation? Hell, for 15 years it didn’t even care about its own reputation.
Tiger devours TV time
Last week, long after Tiger Woods was eliminated from the match play championship on Day 2, this American made it to the last day. He finished third, defeating Lee Westwood, now ranked No. 1 in the world. In the last two seasons, this fellow has won more tournaments (three) than Woods (zero) and a lot more money.
Significantly, he’s 5-foot-8, 145 pounds. He also does a ton of charity work on behalf of sick and poor kids. And in the few, brief interviews TV allows him, he seems to be a very pleasant, engaging, modest, humorous and thoroughly likeable guy who looks a bit like Robin Williams.
And, for what it’s worth, he’s now No. 4 on the FedEx points list.
By now, Mark Wilson should be one of several PGA Tour pros we’re eager to watch, root for and hear from. But he’s not Tiger Woods, thus TV simply doesn’t have the time for him; TV’s not interested. Some other time, perhaps.
* Fred Wilpon says he has sold a bunch of shares in the Mets, at $20 million apiece. All of the buyers, thus far, appear to be friends, family and business partners, including Comcast and Time Warner cable, his SNY partners. Sounds like when my sisters used to sell Girl Scout cookies to the relatives.
* We hear ESPN is looking into leasing the clubhouse at Liberty National golf course, harbor side in Jersey City, as its headquarter for the 2014 Super Bowl. If nothing else, the views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty would make a fabulous backdrop.
* Who’s the best college basketball coach in the area? Glenn Braica, perhaps? The former St. John’s assistant, in his second year at St. Francis, again did a lot with a little and was named NEC Coach of the Year. St. Francis is not an easy place to draw recruits, yet Braica’s two teams, in-conference, have gone 22-14.