Joe Frazier, now apparently near death, years ago taught me my first significant lesson about political correctness: It’s worth nothing, less than nothing, if it points us backwards.
I was in college. Long hair, stop-the-War, power-to-the-people (right on!) college. I fit the counter-culture profile.
And that meant I was supposed to root for Muhammad Ali, not Joe Frazier. Just as Nixon Must Go!, Ali was supposed to be my/our heavyweight champion.
But there was a problem. I didn’t like Ali’s act. He boasted a lot. And he could be mean, taunting and mocking Frazier; he called him “a gorilla.” That was funny? But we were all supposed to laugh — regard Ali as cool, consider him “ours.” … But wait a second, even if I didn’t find him to be particularly likeable?
Yes.
Sure, Ali could make me laugh now and he was a great boxer, but he seemed like a social bully, a guy who would pick on someone for cheap laughs because his target stuttered or limped or was ugly. Yet, he was crowned a social champ by what I now realize was a pandering audience and media, the kind too nervous and frightened to not play along. Little has changed.
Frazier, on the other hand, was just an honest, dug-in, straight-ahead, hook-throwing fighter. He couldn’t verbally spar with Ali, couldn’t hope to compete with him in a debate. He had no known politics, no new name, no changed religion. And for some reason — politically correct reason, I suppose — that made him the uncool guy, the one to root against. Ali-Frazier fights seemed to become political referendums.
And in my late teens, a college student with lots of “McGovern” bumper stickers but no car to slap one on, I was supposed to go with the flow: “Ali! Ali! Ali!”
And I tried. But I couldn’t. I liked Frazier because — and I was almost ashamed to admit it — he seemed more like a gentleman, a sportsman. He wasn’t a bully or a put-down artist. He never asked to be turned into a clownish target — a fool — by Ali, his pack of hangers-on and by intellectuals who saw class-struggle, socio-political and racial messages and themes in Ali-Frazier fights.
I saw them as boxing matches. And I rooted for Joe Frazier. At an impressionable, vulnerable time in my life, he helped teach me to go with what was in my head and my heart, not with the tide. And, forgive the self-indulgence, I thank him for that.
Replay rules still butchered in an ‘instant’
Twenty-five years later and the most fundamental elements of football’s “instant” replay rules are still butchered.
Saturday, Army went for it, fourth-and-goal from the 1. The ball carrier was ruled down, short of the goal line. Air Force ball. Replay reviews followed.
On CBS, analyst Steve Beuerlein twice said that while the ball is not visible, he presumed it had broken the plane of the goal line, thus the officials would reverse their call to Army touchdown.
But that’s exactly why they wouldn’t — couldn’t — reverse the call. The ball wasn’t visible; there was no conclusive evidence to reverse the call!
When the ref announced the call would stand, Beuerlein was astonished, made noises about how the rule didn’t serve its purpose. Later, both he and play-by-play man Spero Dedes looked back on that play as a blown call that deprived Army of a touchdown, as if that were a fact!
* Leave it to ESPN to take some parenthetical, barely meaningful info and keep it posted on the screen during a live event, as if it were a reflection of true genius in service to enlightenment.
Saturday, throughout its coverage of the Breeders’ Cup, ABC and ESPN, during the races, included graphics giving the miles per hour that each horse was running, as if they were race cars, as if there’s no strategic design except stepping on the gas.
Naturally, the deviation was tiny — 38.7 mph versus 39.1 mph — and, get this: The horses ran faster on straightaways than on turns! Who knew?
Why not, next Breeders’ Cup, during the turns for home, have the jockeys Tweet their ESPYs picks?
* Occupy Athletic Departments: How is it that we’re all broke yet D-1 conference realignments will turn short bus trips into long, far more expensive plane flights (followed by short bus trips from airports)? Pittsburgh to Morgantown was a 70-minute ride. Morgantown to Norman, Okla.?
* 21st Century Sports Quiz: What do you call it after a non-scholarship player kicks the winning, game-ending field goal? A: That’s a walk-on, walk-off.
Injury makes Keller promo
Jets tight end Dustin Keller, yesterday, tried to hurdle a defender. He was flipped, landing on his neck/shoulder. CBS’ Phil Simms next delivered a common sense lecture about such excessively dangerous, often worthless moves. Sure enough, Keller was injured. Yet, predictably, by halftime CBS had turned video of the play into a come-and-get-it promo to watch the second half.
Hey, Moe! UConn football center Moe Petrus surely set a record Saturday against Syracuse on ESPNU. Twice in one quarter — the second — he was flagged for late hits after UConn lost the ball. Thus, the offensive center was not only flagged for two late hits in one quarter, both times he was flagged as a sudden member of the defense.
Can’t Make This Stuff Up Graphic of the Week: A CBS graphic noting Army “rushed for at least 270 yards and 2 TDs in every game this season,” was headlined, “Army Black Nights.”
Ya think folks in TV sports departments take a week off and call it their “bye week”?
Mr. Met, we hear, was one of the 15 full-timers the Mets laid off, last week. Apparently, some front office execs felt he’d become tough to deal with, that his head was getting too big.
LSU-Alabama? If ever there was a game that spoke for itself, yet CBS’ Gary Danielson caught Moose Johnston Disease. But give ESPN credit for covering it as if it were on ESPN, not CBS. Even Brent Musburger, working Kansas State-Oklahoma State on ABC, acknowledged that with LSU-Alabama over, people were just tuning in to his game.