I’ve rolled it around in my head and in my columns for years, only to reach what I consider a logical and indisputable conclusion:
You can’t successfully pursue justice through injustice, or advocate equality by advocating inequality. Impossible. Can’t be done.
It’s not limited to sports. Hardly.
Last week was — and remains — infuriating. My wife, who caught the Broadway theater bug when she was a child growing up in Jersey City, was headed to see a show with a friend when she asked me this:
“Do you think it’s safe to wear my Star of David [necklace] into Manhattan?”
I was incensed. It had come to this. NYC in 2024 had begun to resemble and be reassembled into Munich, 1933. And Vichy France, 1940.
Again, I was infuriated.
But perhaps the worst part was that I couldn’t come up with the right answer. Safety or surrender? Courageous victim or capitulation?
She wore it but kept it hidden. Good grief, it had come to that.
Yeah, I know, I’ve heard it for years: Being anti-Zionism doesn’t necessarily mean you’re anti-semitic.
But don’t tell me. Tell the wild-eyed extremists — mostly Muslims, welcomed to live in western democratic countries that are incompatible with radical Islamic beliefs, activities and intolerance, who all over the world have been attacking and murdering Jews because they are Jews, not Israelis.
And I thought about our politicians, “progressive” cable TV hosts, New York attorneys general Alvin Bragg and Letitia James — elected law enforcers and protectors of the law-abiding — and college presidents who have allowed such hatred to be resurrected on their campuses and their watches.
James still hasn’t answered the question: If she supports biological men playing and dominating female sports, how is it that biological women don’t excel at men’s sports?
It’s a matter of both justice and equality, no? What’s justifiably equal in a stacked deck? It’s not a political question, it’s a common-sense question to which no good answer exists.
This week some relief from the extreme madness was evident when Thom Brennaman, formerly a solid Fox NFL and MLB play-by-play man, was hired by the CW Network, mostly seen here on Ch. 11, to call college football, if there’s still such a thing as college football.
Brennaman was sacked by Fox four years ago when was caught on a hot microphone — he thought he was off the air — being a one-of-the guys wiseguy, speaking a slur for homosexuals.
He was sick about it. His many apologies seemed sincere as he offered no excuses, begged for no mercy and requested no sanctuary based on decades of good, clean work. He took it standing up.
And after his career so suddenly ended — his ability to make a living doing what he does best fully disabled for four years — last week he expressed only gratitude for being given a second chance.
Perhaps CW execs are willing to risk being called homophobic.
And that got me back to considering all the inequities and injustices in his business, the one I’ve written about since 1982.
I thought about ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, now paid $18 million per, plus commercial endorsement money, for serving as the network’s center stage race-hustling, starved-for-attention, phony urban-accented and rotten guess-spewing, see-through clown.
And I thought about ESPN, at the New York Times’ tacit urging, dumping Doug Adler for a racist comment that he never spoke — not even close — and how ESPN didn’t bother to know, or didn’t want to know, that Adler annually volunteered to teach tennis to poor black kids when he was in D.C. to call tournaments.
Then I thought about a post-Brennaman and post-Adler episode when ESPN’s Robert Griffin III — a black man, ex-NFL QB then a football analyst — accidentally called the Eagles Jalen Hurts a “jigaboo” on the air.
Know what ESPN did about that? Nothing. Griffin was allowed to carry on as if it had not happened.
But Brennaman was sentenced to four years. Adler got life.
My wife, loving mother, grandmother, rescue dog mom, compliant recycler of cans and bottles and maker of superb turkey chili, returned home safely. She hadn’t been accosted or assaulted for being a Jew.
Then I thought about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers — Islamic brothers who murdered 13, wounded hundreds and left 17 without limbs then shot three police officers, one fatally.
One of the brothers, Dzhokarhar Tsarnaev, was apprehended after being shot and wounded. He was rushed to the hospital — Mt. Sinai Hospital, founded and funded by Jewish philanthropists — where he recovered to stand trial.
Wonder how many of those pro-Hamas college campus, Main Street protesters, and statute and synagogue vandals wish those brothers had done worse. Or, true to their convictions, better.
Extra rest doesn’t matter
Reader Don Reed suggested we measure the need for “fully rested” bullpens in explaining why effective relievers are yanked after an inning.
Reed wrote that we just check the box scores of last Friday’s games, the first played after most pitchers had a minimum of four days’ rest during the All-Star break.
Well, it was senseless business, as usual. In Cleveland’s 7-0 win over the Padres, a total of seven relievers were used, four of them allowing zero runs in an inning before they were pulled. Marlins 6, Mets 4 totaled 11 pitchers.
So by Saturday, the day after the All-Star break, well-rested bullpens were again afflicted, needlessly limited by anal-lytics.
NBC’s genuine Olympics spirit can soon be seen on bills. Just before the Games were scheduled to begin, it raised the cost of Peacock by two bucks per month.
Too many crowd shots on SNY’s Mets telecasts. How about fewer shots of sleeping babies, kids with cotton candy and excessively bearded beer-pounding patrons, and a few more of where the outfield is playing?
Non-sports Graphic of the Week supplied by Fox News: “Kamala Harris Could Be Oldest Elected Female President.” Hmmm.
Time to take a ‘sick’ day, Suzyn
At 77 and after two decades in the Yankees radio booth, what does Suzyn Waldman have to lose? Next month, scheduled to call three games with Craig Carton — who mercilessly and even cruelly trashed her when he was on WFAN — she should call in sick, or about to be.
Pop Quiz: Name the Knicks’ star who appeared on a 1974 episode of Candid Camera. Answer below.
In early March, Temple University vowed a thorough investigation of at least three highly suspicious basketball results that pointed to game-fixing by members of the team betting on opponents. The results of that probe are also suspicious as none, after nearly five months, has been revealed.
Still rooting hard for Dick Vitale’s recovery from cancer treatment. For all his bombast and bluster, he was always a soft touch. Never said no to a charity. In fact, he often joined their teams.
Answer: Jerry Lucas.
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