Bored? Given that a lot of baseball around here has disappeared behind take-us-for-granted paywalls, we need to find something fun to do.
How’s this: Let’s spend the week asking sports-minded folks if they find ESPN’s top man, Stephen A. Smith, representative of why they watch ESPN or now assiduously avoid ESPN.
Do those in your milieu find Smith loaded with applicable insights, superior knowledge and clever takes on the sports he addresses?
Or are they more likely to hear and see him as just another boastful empty fraud, in his case one who has adopted the theatrical persona of a stereotypical holy-rolling preacher man but with conspicuous grammatical deficiencies?
Not that ESPN shot-callers know bad from worse, and seeing that the odds are not available on ESPN Bet, I’m gonna guess that those who find Smith to be a loud, transparent, tired act given to race-reliant hustles while shouting fabricated facts, far outnumber those who who’d even consider that he has a flake of credibility.
And there will be those surveyed who recall that Smith didn’t always speak with heavily nuanced, grammatically deficient cultural declarations, but chose to be heard as more of a button-down professorial type who preferred to be heard as scholarly, an educated adult.
But that was before he became reliant on race and racism — some real but often wishfully imagined — as a self-sustaining and self-enriching gimmick and shield.
Last week came word that Smith, near the end of his five-year, $60 million ESPN deal, has been offered $18 mill per year to stick — a ton, but far less than the $25 million per his agent reportedly has asked.
But with CBS paying Tony Romo nearly $180 million for 10 years of seasonal work and NBC now paying unpopular know-it-all Cris Collinsworth $12.5 million per for seasonal work — and to remain an unpopular gasbag — why not?
What I know for sure is that if I had done, even once, what Smith regularly does on and for ESPN — broadcast fabrications as facts — my words would have served as my professional obituary.
So much to choose from. But two favorites:
Prior to a 2018 Chiefs-Chargers prime-time game, Smith, who had previously provided indisputable evidence on national TV that his knowledge of football was predicated on rotten guesswork, cited two match-ups on which viewers should focus.
One was between players who were out with injuries, another included a Chiefs player who was no longer on the Chiefs.
In 30 “First Take” seconds he shouted that we should focus on four players, three of whom were ineligible to play. My thesaurus, stapler and sorry soul, never to return, would have been hauled out by security. And good riddance, I earned it.
Yet his knowledge of football was witnessed long before when he scolded the Jets for not trying a game-ending field goal on third down because, “Had they missed it, they could try again on fourth down.”
But some don’t qualify for disqualification.
Then there was Smith’s polemic on behalf of all blacks after the Nets hired Steve Nash as their coach:
“Ladies and gentleman, there’s no way around it: This is white privilege. This does not happen for a black man. No experience on any level as a coach, and you get the Brooklyn Nets job?”
Fact is — not that Smith much cares about facts — at the time, nine black men with no experience had been hired as NBA head coaches, including those who played locally thus were hard to miss. They included Mark Jackson, hired by the Warriors, and Jason Kidd — who, in fact, was named head coach of the Nets nine days after he retired!
And did not Doc Rivers, Paul Silas and Bill Russell — Smith claims Russell to be among his all-time heroes — not count?
No problem, Stephen A., carry on carrying on!
But ESPN is both weak and woke, thus Smith is likely to be paid the money he wants as opposed to the money he has earned. Then he can resume his factually bereft race and assorted baloney hustles, continue as the voice, face and disgrace of lost-at-sea ESPN.
Where else would Smith land? Fox would make a nice fit. It’s already loaded with ex-player and ex-coach creeps and facts-fabricating hosts posing as experts.
But there’s always room — and money — for one more.
Nicely done! SNY guys call out Machado loafing
Even in an age of badly diminished winning fundamentals, the overpaid and underachieving Padres regularly stand out.
In the top of the seventh of the first game of last weekend’s three-game sweep by the Mets, career laggard Manny Machado, who’d already struck out twice, jogged out a ground ball leading off in a game San Diego was losing, 2-1. The ball was fumbled, thus had Machado run, he likely would have been safe.
It did not pass unnoticed by SNY’s Gary Cohen and Ron Darling, who said that though Machado has had a leg injury, he always runs toward first as if he doesn’t give a rat’s retina.
But why expect more from a guy being paid $30 million per year, $300 million over 10?
The sweep was completed Sunday, when Padres third baseman Donovan Solano jogged to first on a grounder.
Oh, I nearly forgot the modern rationale: “The game has changed.”
But not for everyone. Boston’s Jarren Duran leads the majors with 10 triples. He runs hard out of the box on every batted ball. He’s also fun to watch play baseball. Imagine that!
Any players busted for gambling last week? Seems it was a clean few days.
Tuesday the Cowboys announced that a Vegas-based gambling, er, “gaming” enterprise has become “an official partner of the Dallas Cowboys.”
NFL fans can now lose their money playing slot machines decorated in Cowboys logos.
“Hi, I’m Jerry Jones. There are ATM machines conveniently located at all entrances. How about another drink?”
Time for some John flattery
For all the four-seam, exit velocity, pitch-leverage blather within Yankees telecasts, I’ll still take John Flaherty — every time, too. He allows us to relax and watch. He speaks concisely, alertly, knowledgeably and doesn’t try to razzle or dazzle us.
And no transparently forced belly laughs at the mildly, at most, amusing.
It’s disappointing to see him on YES’ pregame studio show as that means he won’t be working the game. On games, some more than three hours, he sits beside us — not facing us or talking down to us — thus he doesn’t provoke the acids in our central nervous systems.
Think Fox would suffer scorn if, at a fraction of the cost, it replaced disreputable phony Alex Rodriguez or Every Pitch Inspector John Smoltz with Flaherty? Neither do I.
Hail, hail the gangwear’s here! Relocated to Utah, its NHL franchise will wear predominantly black uniforms.
Iowa State last week revealed its new black uniforms. ISU’s colors are cardinal and gold. But only since 1899.
I erred her, last Sunday, attaching sportswriter Frank Graham, Jr.s line, “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye” to 1927 Yankee Mark Koenig. As several readers pointed out, it was written about teammate Bob Meusel.
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