Another legit gripe about the inexcusable flaws in the film “42”: George “Shotgun” Shuba, 88 — and one of Jackie Robinson’s Montreal Royals teammates — was the first, and only, Royal at the plate after Robinson hit his first homer in an otherwise all-white International League, April 16, 1946, in Jersey City.
In fact, the photo of that handshake, Robinson smiling, became a piece of suitable-for-framing history. The photographer seemed to know exactly what was up. Shuba and Robinson soon would become Dodgers teammates.
But the movie depicts two anonymous players greeting Robinson. That upset Shuba, 88, and his family — both forever proud of that moment.
Lawyer saw senseless sports violence coming long ago
I Used to think about Mel Narol, now and then, as events dictated. Now, as events dictate, I think of Mel Narol daily. And, while I cherished a personal and professional relationship with Mel, that ain’t such a good thing.
Narol was an NCAA basketball referee, a college lecturer, a columnist in “Referee” magazine and a Princeton-based attorney. He died, suddenly, in 2002 at 51.
In the months before he passed, Mel and I decided he had both a quintessential and terribly sad sign-of-the-times specialty law practice.
Narol specialized — the only lawyer in the country to do so, at the time — in representing rec league, Little League, Pee Wee Football, Adult Softball league and all other amateur league refs and umpires — often volunteers — who were targeted and assaulted as game officials.
And those victims found him. For advice and counseling, he was the only go-to guy. It’s not what he had in mind while in law school. No need for such lawyers.
When I first met Narol in the late 1980s, he couldn’t specialize in such lawyering because there weren’t many cases to handle. He said he would get five, six a year — a softball ump attacked by a bat-swinging hothead near St. Louis, a kid league football official chased to his car in Maryland, those kinds of things; more ugly than frequent.
Within 10 years, however, he was swamped, several calls for help per week. The sports world, at its lowest no-stakes stakes levels, had become relentlessly ugly and violent. Adult incivilities toward umpires, refs, league officials and timekeepers had become epidemic, even among mothers.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about Mel every day. A 17-year-old Little League ump assaulted by a 43-year-old father-manager in Jersey, a soccer ref head-butted and killed by a 17-year-old goalkeeper in Utah.
Mel, more than most, knew that by 2002 we had arrived at an inevitability: Those raised on taunting, trash-talking, chest-beating, put-down artistry and in-yer-face garbage — the stuff TV, radio hosts, marketing agencies, sneaker companies and even professional leagues — were so purposely pushing, had come around.
Those desensitized kids were now young fathers, and their impressionable, formative, sports years had not been good to them.
It’s now so ugly, all so wrong, that when a woman in the Miami crowd sticks an angry face and her middle finger in the face of the Bulls’ Joakim Noah, she’s a next-day sensation.
And the Bulls-Heat game, a nationally televised playoff game, was so pervaded by scowling and bad-ass incivilities, the game and that woman deserved each other.
Then again, at a girls high school basketball game, more ugly, put-down chants and shameless shouts were hollered at the visiting team than encouraging words were shouted toward the home team. Next stop: Madison Square Garden!
Reds 26-year-old outfielder Jay Bruce, an All-Star, figured he would open a Twitter account. He figured it was a good way to mix with fans, to show them he cared that they cared, to show he’s a good guy.
But when Bruce struck out five times in two consecutive games late last month, so many of the tweets he received were loaded with vulgar, vile put-downs that he was exasperated, flabbergasted, astonished.
He tried to reason with the anonymous ambushers. He answered that he’s trying hard, but there’s no reason to vandalize his attempt to demonstrate good faith.
Of course, that only made things worse. Of course.
Recent Mets Jon Rauch and Josh Thole similarly tried to tweet up a good faith relationship with fans. They came to know, a season before Bruce, it wasn’t worth their good time.
Tweeting has become a favored, almost standard device for fans, players and players’ families and girlfriends to swap nasty, obscene put-downs, and sexually explicit and often despicable messages.
Narol saw it coming, knew it was coming.
His love of basketball drew him to refereeing. He never figured as a lawyer, he would come to representing the assault victims of fellows calling balls and strikes in a game played by children or any adult who ostensibly plays “just for the fun of it” yet takes a whistle so personally that he will snap.
He didn’t figure, when he began, that the sports world would go completely nuts. But he knew it by 51, by the time he died.
I think about Mel Narol almost every day these days. And as much as I admired and leaned on him, that’s a damned shame. Today we’ll hear a chant that somebody “Sucks!”
Sterling quick to criticize
Sure, 30-year ump Tim McClelland’s delayed calls of balls and strikes can be annoying. But the last guy who should complain — John Sterling — got on his case last week. What McClelland does — he tries to get it right the first time — is something Sterling should have considered 22 years ago.
* So frequently foolish Kirk Gimenez used his SNY Twitter account to send a sexually indiscreet message to a female viewer. He came from ESPN. He might’ve been prepping for the reunion.
* What the Mets are advertising as a May special, starting at $23 per ticket, is, with tack-ons, a minimum of $31.25. The deal is not available on the day or night of the games, thus the tack-on charges virtually are assured. “Ticket” in Selig-ese, means wallet.
* Among all the local news TV sportscasters Michael Kay “chose” to have on his ESPN-NY radio show Friday, he “selected” Ch. 7’s Rob Powers, an ABC/ESPN corporate cousin. See ya!
* Just for old time’s sake, suggests reader Mike Raniewicz, a Yankees rain delay should include an episode of “Abbott and Costello.”
* We get it. Joe Theismann has conquered his “gotta go” problems. Next up for Joe: Reverse mortgages.