WHAT is the shelf life of sensitivity? How long does it take for a fresh, dramatic perspective to grow stale?
With the resumption of baseball after the Sept. 11 attacks, MLB and its players very publicly and poignantly elevated the seventh-inning stretch, creating a daily/nightly memorial.
As patriotic songs were played, the players stood silent and still. They removed their hats, some carrying the logos or letters of fire and police departments.
They told us that this was a demonstration by the relatively famous in respectful and humble appreciation of the relatively anonymous who had died. These moments, in the wake of 9/11, players told us, testified to their new and lasting, count-their-blessings perspective.
We were additionally reminded by the wish-fullest thinkers that baseball, as it has in past times of war, provides America a needed respite from worry and grief. Baseball, after all, is inextricably tethered to the American fabric. Beautiful stuff.
Well, time’s up!
Less than a year later, the players, with a minimum salary of $200,000, an average salary of $2.3 million and a nonexistent drug-testing policy apparently padding their stats and residual earnings, are preparing to strike. Again. Yep, once again, as you’re being priced out, they’re not getting their fair share.
This threat comes at an unusually bad time for team owners. Post-9/11 security restrictions have allowed them to exploit the attacks to sell – at sickening mark ups – food and drink items that patrons once could carry in.
From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam, they can’t sell four cents worth of soda for four bucks without a ballgame in the house.
*
Mistakes that are undetectable to many can be a credibility killer to many others. Thursday, as ESPN aired a clip of David Duval lofting a shot toward the pin from thick, tall greenside rough at the British Open, “SportsCenter” anchor Suzy Kolber told us that Duval made a nice “chip.”
A chip, a low-running shot, would have left Duval in the same rough. Duval’s shot was a pitch. Such mistakes are common among sports anchors, often because they’re too occupied trying to deliver hip, pithy lines than actually learning the subject matter.
In the same report on the Open, ESPN’s indiscriminate application of its “Bottom Line” info/advertising insert was again on display. As putting highlights were shown, both the ball and the hole were hidden from view at the bottom of the screen.
*
WFAN’s Chris Russo and Mike Francesa last week reprised their simplistic grasp of social issues (that don’t affect them) when they said that private golf clubs that exclude any combination of women, blacks and Jews is no big deal. The excluded, they said, should just join clubs that do allow them memberships.
In other words, don’t fight bigotry, bow to it, feed it, perpetuate it. In Russo and Francesa’s world if the neighborhood tap water becomes polluted, the solution’s easy: Move. If the school down the street doesn’t want “your kind” just find a school that does. Problem solved.
That exclusionary, bigoted golf clubs inspired the creation of “Jewish clubs,” “Italian clubs” and “Irish clubs” that, in turn, discriminate – exclusion born of exclusion – is apparently lost on them.
The PGA Tour once, by written decree, excluded Blacks. Hey, no problem, right, fellas? Black players should’ve just found a pro tour that allowed blacks. Jackie Robinson felt the hate of bigots? Then he should’ve played Negro League ball. Problem fixed.
*
Hackers take heart. While much was made of Tiger Woods’ 81, Saturday, Colin Montgomerie’s scorecard for the first three rounds read 74, 64, 84. A 10-stroke swing for the better was followed by a 20-stroke swing for the worse.
Sporting News Radio (WSNR, 620-AM, here) now airs a show about sports collectibles on weekend mornings. Actually, it’s only advertised as a show for hobbyists. In fact, it’s a full-length infomercial – everything’s for sale. Hurry, hurry, hurry! And the next honest sports collectibles infomercial we see or hear will be the first.
But even minimal broadcasting standards have vanished.
While it’s one thing to sell advertising, it’s quite another for reporters to wear it. Rich Lerner, The Golf Channel’s lead reporter from the British Open, appeared in clothing covered with commercial golfwear/equipment logos. Endorsement deals have become a major issue within golf, one that TGC reports on.
*
During yesterday’s Mets-Reds Ch. 11 telecast, both Keith Hernandez and Tom Seaver mentioned their grandchildren. Yikes.