Just a few blurbs from around sports:
- Major League Baseball recently denied the Houston Astros request that would allow the Astros to wear their original team uniform. That uniform, from what they were the Colt .45's, features a pistol, the Colt .45, under the word "Colts" with the "C" looking like smoke coming from the barrel. Major League Baseball doesn't want kids to see an image of a gun so the Astros will have to alter their old uniform to not feature the pistol. Ummm, okay. Does Major League Baseball really think that kids don't know what a gun is? I have seen five year-old children play Call of Duty, a popular video game on Playstation, Xbox, and the PC, which features people shooting other people. It makes no sense for Major League Baseball to deny it's history. History is what it is and you can't hide from it. Are parents supposed to tell their children that the franchise was originally named for a malt liquor? Or are they going to tell their children that the Colt .45 is a famous pistol that helped win the West? This is Texas people. I am of the opinion, you either honor history or you don't. You can't alter it. For crying out loud, the Washington Wizards used to be called the Washington Bullets in one of the most dangerous cities in North America, Washington, D.C. Did the Wizards name change reduce violence in that city? Nope. Washington, D.C. still has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Also in that same city, there is a certain football team called the Washington Redskins. The Redskins refused to change their name like St. John's University who changed their name from the Red Men to the Red Storm. Do we honestly think that people become racist because of a team name, no matter how insensitive it is? No, we don't. MLB needs to chill out. The Astros are probably going to lose 90 or more games this year and will probably not make it onto any national broadcasts. The only people seeing these uniforms will be in Texas, where it is legal to carry a concealed firearm. Someone should tell MLB that it is a Constitutional right to carry firearms in this country and that a gun in the correct hands is a useful tool that defends freedom, protects citizens, and enforces the law. By making it seem like a gun is only used by criminals and that guns are bad only adds fuel to the fire. Guns are not bad. People are bad. Maybe I shouldn't have said that because now MLB might soon ban human beings from appearing at their games.
- ESPN recently posted a headline on their mobile site that said "Chink in the Armor." I bet you can't figure out who they were talking about? That's right, Jeremy Lin and his 9 turnovers as the Knicks lost for the first time since Lin began starting. Seriously, ESPN? You didn't know that "Chink" is an offensive word used to describe Chinese people? What? No headline from them after Ryan Braun won the MVP saying "Jew the Man!"? Oh, that would be offensive. Well, ESPN, allow me to tell you, it's the same thing. ESPN has become a joke. They suspended Paul Anzinger for political comments critical of Barack Obama on his personal Twitter account saying it violated their social media policy. Azinger said "Facts: POTUS has played more golf this month than I have: I have created more jobs this month than he has: #Marthasvineyard." ESPN believes political commentary is best left to those in that field. But, if Azinger hadn't been critical of the President would he have been suspended? Nope. This same organization invites Barack Obama to fill out his NCAA brackets on air. That is political commentary, even if it isn't on social media. On June 11, 2011 ESPN personality Kenny Mayne said on Twitter "he almost rammed a car with Palin bumper sticker, with intent." Oh, he never got suspended for saying he almost committed a violent act because he saw someone with a differing political opinion but Paul Azinger can make a statement and get suspended. Oh, so political commentary only goes one way at ESPN. Sadly, there are more examples. Stephen A. Smith can go on a show and call 2008 Presidential hopeful Rudy Guiliani "a dictator as far as I'm concerned." Let me be fair for a moment, Craig James, who is considering a run in politics is a Republican but has never, as far as I have seen, crossed the line. Peter Gammons, on Dec. 22, 2000, used politics in a column, a quote from an average Joe in Boston, and was not reprimanded for it. Those words didn't have to be included in the quote. Want to read it? Here's Gammon's article. Politics didn't have to be mentioned but they were, innocently. ESPN has featured stories that center around political figures from Sarah Palin, John McCain's wife, Barack Obama's brother-in-law, and several others. I thought their policy was to leave politics aside, to let political outlets handle politics? What happened to sports and politics don't mix?
Lou Holtz had to issue an apology for making a statement that many people misconstrued. Mark May said, "you have to have leaders in the locker room to get the team and the young players to buy into what the coach is teaching you." Holtz then said, "Let's remember that Hitler was a great leader, too. There are good leaders and bad leaders." Now anyone with a brain would tell you that Holtz was not comparing Hitler to a great leader, merely that many people thought he was. Holtz was trying to say that the lesson the coach is tying to teach needs to be a good, sound one. It was about leading in the right direction. Instead of ESPN publicly backing Holtz they made him apologize on air because people misinterpreted his comments.
ESPN is a world of hypocrisy. Several of their on-air personalities have been charged with sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault and other misdeeds. That gets swept under the rug for the most part. ESPN also scripts their debate shows. Around the Horn producers have, according to Dan Shanoff, who made several appearances on the show, given the lowest ranking (or newest) guys or gals the unpopular opinion to defend. This means that Shanoff was basically pressured into saying something he didn't believe to foster debate. John Kruk has also admitted he was told by producers what to say on Baseball Tonight when he picked the Pirates to win the NL Central one year. Originally he said he was told to pick the Yankees, who were trailing the Red Sox by a large margin at one point and he said no so a deal was made that he would say the Pirates would win the NL Central. Great to see journalistic integrity, or even integrity, is something ESPN holds dear. Or not.
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