There are times — too many — when I despise ESPN. I despise what it has become, not what it should be and remain.
I despise the way in which, without any reasonable justification, they have chosen to destroy the sport instead of protecting and preserving it.
Sunday night, I loathed ESPN seconds after I turned it on to watch it – to attempt – the Tigers game against the Yankees at the Little League World Series complex in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
It began with a collection of outlandish moving images of Major League players in all sorts of lewd performances—bat throwing, “look at me” poses, and postgame narcissistic behavior, none of which came anywhere close to an image of an actual baseball player—which segued into moving images of Little League players mimicking the imagined behavior of their MLB mentors.
This was outrageous, but not surprising considering that ESPN has been so persistent in trying to devalue and disparage the LLWS since it first used a radar gun on 12-year-old pitchers asked about their favorite Disney movie.
Was/is ESPN not aware that there is an umpire shortage – a crisis – in youth baseball leagues from coast to coast as trained umpires flee to avoid further encounters with the obnoxious kids of the ESPN era and the vulgar, threatening and often violent parents, coaches and spectators?
Does ESPN even care? Clearly and repeatedly: It doesn’t care.
People who were rarely seen or heard of in the past trying to destroy sports and the children’s sense of sport are now a dime a dozen, and ESPN has a proven record of standing by and supporting them.
These referees have better things to do now than to be verbally abused during their free time that they used to devote to the children. I have heard from dozens of them and all of them have pointed out the anti-social messages being conveyed to the children and broadcast on television, with ESPN being mentioned first.
On Monday, it was back to the LLWS, where ESPN’s voices still spoke as if the games were being played by professionals, and kids who did Superman poses when they reached first base were rewarded with slow-motion replays.
And let’s not forget Rob Manfred – the man at the top who put MLB games behind paywalls, who allowed Nike to buy up great traditions by introducing garish, ugly, now-street-ready uniforms, and who turned extra-inning games into scratch-off tickets – all of whom had a hand in advertising campaigns that sold MLB to kids through videos of major league players acting like professional wrestlers.
The greatest sport of all, and it was destroyed from within.
SNY makes fun of tasteless first pitch call at Camp Day
So a week later, there is still not a word of remorse from the Mets or MLB for honoring a young TikTok oral sex teacher in front of tens of thousands of children at a Camp Day afternoon game.
Not even one of them”If we didn’t offend anyone…” Standard phrases.
So it never happened!
The team’s only hint of this came in veiled, sarcastic terms from the SNY booth.
On Monday, O’s first baseman Ryan Mountcastle was seen picking up a passing handkerchief and stuffing it into his back pocket.
Keith Hernandez: “Oh, I wouldn’t touch that Kleenex! Oh, he put it in his back pocket! Is he crazy?!”
Gary Cohen: “You don’t know where the Kleenex was. … I mean, with some of the personalities that were on the field at that home game, you just don’t know.”
Be that as it may, on Wednesday the Mets were back in the game after Jess Winker’s game-winning home run.
Winker went too far even by exaggerated standards. He stopped to pose, stare into the Mets’ dugout and toss his helmet long before he reached first base. Then, long after it was time to calm down, he cursed into SNY’s Steve Gelbs’ crowd microphone.
Not that yelling or the display of obscenity in its most public form (see: Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s recent salute at second base at Yankee Stadium) is condemned under Commissioner Rob Manfred. Hey, if what the Mets did with Camp Day didn’t prompt MLB to require teams to shower with lots of soap, it stinks from the head down.
On Tuesday, Aaron Boone delivered his latest repetitive critique of his bullpen on YES’ Yankees preseason, referring to “matchups” as if he had a copy of the script. He has often spoken of his relievers being “lined up” — ready to go in the right order — regardless of their effectiveness or the circumstances.
This has long driven Yankees fans into the arms of a straitjacket. Boone is increasingly concerned about his next pitcher, to the detriment of his current one. That’s why Boone “lined them up” in the right order before the game even started, as if they were all at their best in every game.
And like many other MLB managers over the past decade, he has based his games on wishful thinking rather than the reality of the here and now.
A bunch of nonsense: Deion angry at CBS
Maybe I’m easily fascinated by the suspicious or suspicious of the fascinating, but Deion Sanders being excluded from the CBS press conference for vaguely accusing him of abandoning his “project” reminded me that you should never trust television or Division I college coaches.
Last season, CBS’s “60 Minutes” featured Sanders in two full song-and-dance routines with no difficult questions, in which he was able to describe himself as a direct recipient of God’s words to win football games. God finished the show 4-8.
So why should Sanders award CBS for his displeasure and not for his gratitude? And who investigates the investigative news programs that give credit to a proven fraud like Sanders two Palsy-Walsy profiles on national television within a few months?
After hearing Steve Kerr’s speech to the Democrat emphasizing integrity, civility and leadership, reader Joe Nicoletti asks if Kerr knows Draymond Green, one of his Golden State players of the past decade.
Not only is it now legal to bribe athletes to attend college through NIL resolutions—the college part is an inside joke—but fans and alumni can now form a 501(c) corporation to make the “donated” bribe money tax-deductible.
It’s All a Hoax, Continued: Late in Sunday’s PGA Memphis Classic on NBC, Ch. 4 aired a news report: “From WNBC Storm Team 4.” The report indicated the expected strength of a storm that the NWS – National Weather Service – said was moving in. So, other than cheap, dishonest advertising, Ch. 4’s Storm Team had nothing to do with it.
Reader Guy Kipp: “Why do directors believe for a second that viewers are interested in seeing what the commentators eat during a game?” And why waste a camera and maybe a tape recorder on that?
As an occasional guest on Mets broadcasts this season, Daniel Murphy was pretty good. Relaxed, attentive, entertaining, and succinct. I still remember Mike “Lost Tapes” Francesa’s expert comment that Murphy would never make it in the major leagues. His career batting average was .296.
