The difference between Roger Goodell and my late mother — and I suspect most mothers — is that my mother would not have allowed Marshawn Lynch a third opportunity to disgrace The Game, his family and himself by grabbing at his crotch after scoring.
Especially on, of all stages, the Super Bowl. After all, that stuff should belong to the halftime show.
Unlike Goodell, my mother would have sent Lynch to his room before he could again remind America how far it has come. Instead, for a second time this season, Goodell docked Lynch the equivalent of after-school snack money.
As for Lynch not talking to the media, the feeling’s mutual. If he asked me for the time I wouldn’t answer him.
Check that. I would ask him: “Why do you insist on creating for yourself and family a legacy as a professional low-life, a creep for posterity? You’ve no self-respect, no grasp of common decency?” Or, “Does being a complete jerk come easily or naturally?”
That such issues now arise within of all things, sports — that the nation, Sunday, is prepped to see if Lynch goes for his genitals — is an unsealed indictment as to how low we’ve sunk, how much sports’ titular leaders will indulge on behalf of a strategy of hopeful, frightened negligence.
This week the NBA fined — again — the Clippers’ Matt Barnes for “directing inappropriate language toward a fan.”
Yet, Drake, a rapper whose pornographic, violent, lowest-of-inappropriate language — including the reflexive use of “N—-r” — is written, recorded and performed before tens of thousands, and, of course, sold, will be the NBA’s honored celebrity at next year’s All-Star Game.
My mother wouldn’t have allowed that, either. Not as part of basketball. She liked basketball.
And while the NFL took four days to fine Lynch a second time this season for lewd public conduct, its marketing arm was crafting a five-photo collage of the Seahawks’ NFC Championship win over the Packers.
One of the chosen photos was of Lynch’s hand-on-crotch end zone act. The collage sold for $150 online through the NFL Store.
And so Sunday makes for the latest most new-age of new-age sports championships. Two teams loaded with players and coaches who are tough to root for. Bill Belichick lacks integrity? Heck, had Pete Carroll not bolted USC while it was being nailed for cheating on his watch, it’s unlikely he’d be Seattle’s coach!
And for every Russell Wilson, there seems to be two Marshawn Lynches.
Storm yields a TV snow-stopper
OK, so the meteorologists erred on the side of caution. Monday and Tuesday’s small-flakes storm still made for us a local TV star, the kind sports TV execs should study when hiring analysts: Joe Esposito, ex-NYPD cop and now NYC’s Commissioner of Emergency Management.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday he was all over TV, and was he good! Calm but direct, informal yet informative, pleasant but firm — 100 percent believability sans fancy talk, such as sans. What we wouldn’t do for, say, a plain-talk football analyst like Joe Esposito!
Still, he was a bit too polite. He might’ve added that in addition to everyone else who should stay off the roads rather than risk or worsen dangerous conditions, so should those TV news folks who drove around in cars to remind everyone to stay off the roads.
But this “calamity,” the instant Mike “The Meteorologist” Francesa declared it was going to be huge, had no shot. Recall his expert, lost tape tout that Sandy wouldn’t be more than a windy drizzle.
While we’re hip to what it takes for a team’s analyst to fill and kill time, sometimes silence — give ambient arena noise a shot — is the way to go. At 2-0 Islanders, Tuesday, Rangers on the power play, late second, MSG’s Rangers’ analyst Joe Micheletti:
“If they [Rangers] could find a way to get a goal, last minute of the second period in which they’ve played really well — 18 shots in the period — and try to cut the Islander lead to one goal going into the third period, boy, we’d be in for a heckuva third period.”
And if the guy seated next to me at the game leaned over and told me that, I’d watch that third period from the bar.
Yank’ed back & forth
Took 10 years to get used to the Yankees playing on Ch. 9 instead of Ch. 11; vice-versa for the Mets. Now the Yanks are back to 11, with 20 games per starting this season. That’s like learning how to spell Krzyzewski the day he retires. Between Mets and Yanks, Ch. 11 will air at least 40 games.
Speaking of Coach K, this may come as a shock to ESPN, but Duke had some very good teams before he was hired. In fact, Cameron Indoor Stadium is named for highly successful coach Eddie Cameron, not Cameron Diaz.
The late Power Memorial Academy wasn’t just known for HS basketball. NBCSN, Saturday, 4:30-6:30, has the Armory Track Invitational from the beautifully refurbished 169th St. Armory. Scheduled to run is U.S. Olympian Matthew Centrowitz, whose world-class dad, Matt, set all Power’s distance records in the early ’70s.
During the Pro Bowl, ESPN’s Jon Gruden said he was pleased Tony Romo had an injury-free season.
Reader Mike Ogle wonders if Gruden just makes stuff up or whether he considers Romo’s broken ribs and “that pesky broken back” [transverse process fractures that caused him to miss a November game] akin to the sniffles.
Frank Nobilo, good man, has joined CBS as an analyst. The New Zealander who lives in Orlando will continue to work for Golf Channel.
An SEC story that made no next-day news — from what I saw — on ESPN’s SEC Network: Two Vanderbilt football players, Tuesday, were convicted of raping an unconscious 21-year-old woman in a player’s dorm room. Two other players alleged to have been involved — the rape was photographed, videotaped — await trial.
Not that broadcast journalism is expected, but CBS’s Clark Kellogg, former Ohio State star, before calling Sunday’s Indiana-Ohio St. telecast, gave a pep talk to the Ohio St. team. Given his position and profession, he couldn’t have passed? Where’s CBS’s producer?
Reader Ed English found it fitting that CBS News, this week, previewed Charlie Rose’s so-long interview with Bud Selig — as Selig sat in an empty Yankee Stadium.