If we weren’t raised to know better, many of us would think that the title “Rev.” is attached to those who only look out of one eye and only listen with one ear.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton this week urged/warned the NFL not to allow Rush Limbaugh to buy a piece of his home-state St. Louis Rams. Armed with wishful, open-to-interpretation evidence — as a political conservative, Limbaugh must be a racist — Sharpton and Jackson put the NFL, the public and, of course, the media on notice.
(Sharpton even claimed that Limbaugh is “anti-NFL,” as if such a thing, if true, would constitute both bigotry and heresy. Or, if true, Sharpton would know or give a rat’s toenail.)
If the Revs. are experts at detecting racism — specifically, racism related to sports-franchise ownership — they missed a great opportunity, five years ago, when a piece of an NBA franchise was sold to a man who regularly calls black men “n- – – – – s,” denigrates and sexually objectifies women and is so smitten with handguns and assault rifles that he surely must be an NRA booster.
This team-owner doesn’t discreetly make private his racist words, his low regard for women or his great regard for the weaponry that stokes murderous urban violence. He has promoted all three — for the world to hear and to buy. That’s a matter of record, a matter of fact.
Jay-Z, the rapper and rap impresario, and a part owner of the NBA Nets, is among the most popular artists and influential entrepreneurs to have resurrected the “N-word,” helped return it to the mainstream when it was, at long, shameful last, nearly dead.
The Revs. Jackson and Sharpton, who apparently only hear with one ear and see with one eye, must have missed all that about Jay-Z (real name, Shawn Carter; Limbaugh, if he has a street name, keeps it to himself). Otherwise, they surely would have demanded that NBA Commissioner David Stern reject Jay-Z’s application for inclusion.
Hard to believe they could miss that, though. The Nets, after all, play in the Rev. Sharpton’s home state of New Jersey, just across the river from what the Rev. Jackson called “Hymietown.”
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At a time when it’s time to reduce the silliness, we get more. Tuesday on TBS, it wasn’t enough that we could see the Phils’ Jayson Werth swing at a pitch in the dirt. Next we had to see the computerized version.
And TBS doesn’t recognize Chip Caray should say less, not more? They are him with stats?
In Game 3 of Yanks-Twins, Caray twice marveled that Carl Pavano had just set, “A new, postseason career-high!” for strikeouts. Naturally, baseball fans — try as he does, Caray can’t drive them off — were then moved to ask how many previous postseason starts Pavano had made. The answer: Two.
But that’s OK, ESPN this week reported that the “Bucs are 0-5 for the first time since 2006.”
And every week, early in ESPN’s MNF telecasts, we’re told that at least one team’s offense “wants to stay out of third-and-long situations.” This past Monday, it was the Dolphins. Wouldn’t it be easier, by now, to name the team or teams that prefer to be in third-and-long?
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“If Reggie Jackson was Mr. October,” asks reader Ed Petrosky Jr. “who will be Mr. November?” … By the way, it’s called “Bud Selig Weather.” It blows in on greed, arrogance and neglect, followed, when it’s far too late, by regret and denial. Back before ownership of the World Series was sold to TV, it was over by mid-October, at the latest.
If the Nobel Peace Prize Committee swapped with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the Cy Young Award winner would be named in mid-April. … Speaking of awards, several years ago we told how the Dick Butkus Award, through closed captioning, appeared as the “Butt-Kiss Award.” Sunday, Brooklyn’s Richard Morley and pals were watching Yanks-Twins in a pub when the sound-recognition closed captioning identified the Yankees’ catcher as “Horse Shave Posada.”
Nothing diminishes do-gooding faster than over-doing. Somewhere, Monday night, within ESPN’s and the NFL’s salutes to Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, was Jets-Dolphins.
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Greg Gallo, 27 years with The Post, first as assistant sports editor, then as sports editor, is packing it in, effective tonight.
That this column — and columnist — was allowed to begin and then grow is, for better and worse, largely due to him.
Words can’t describe. But if they could, Gallo would remove them, with, “Write for the readers, not about something no one cares about.”
But he can’t boss me around anymore. So, thanks, Greg, thanks for everything.