The crying shame of it all is that ESPN could have been the best thing to happen to American sports. Instead, it has senselessly, purposefully and relentlessly become the worst.
Consider what ESPN has done with and to the Little League World Series, an event that should be treated softly and simply as per the common sense treatment of kids at play.
Twenty years ago, ESPN began to exploit 12-year-old LLWS participants to ask questions that would produce answers that served as in-game advertising. Favorite movie? Favorite TV show? Favorite sportscaster? Favorite vacation spot?
If the kid gave a Disney, ABC or ESPN answer, bingo! — it appeared in a graphic. It was transparently cheap and disgusting, but ESPN was just getting started.
After a kid pitcher was hit hard early and pulled, he broke down, crying. He tried to hide in the corner of the dugout. But an ESPN camera followed him, live, made sure to focus on him as he sobbed.
As if that wasn’t cruel enough, that night’s “SportsCenter” included video of that kid crying his eyes out so anchor Rich Eisen, high on “ESPN Attitude,” could make the cinematic crack, “There’s no crying in baseball!”
With school coming, consider the damage ESPN likely did to that kid.
Soon, LLWS telecasts included speed guns to measure fastballs, stats to compare them to noted major leaguers and serious, endless analysis — the kind that has rendered ESPN’s Late Sunday Night Baseball rough on the central nervous system.
Last year, a posing home run bat-flipper on the New Jersey team met with ESPN’s full and repetitive approval. This week, the same happened with a home-run bat-flipper on Hawaii’s team.
Even among children, ESPN advocates and rewards rank public immodesty within team sports.
Sunday night, in what will appear as an annual public-relations ploy to shroud MLB’s abandonment of children in pursuit of prime-time TV money, MLB and ESPN teamed to present the second Early Sunday Night Baseball game in conjunction with the LLWS in Williamsport, Pa., this one Mets-Phillies.
And who was starring in ESPN’s booth for this wholesome night of bonding the Little and Major Leagues? Why, drug-fueled slugger and chronic liar, Alex Rodriguez, a proud hire of ESPN and Fox as their centerpiece MLB analyst.
And who was seen playing BFF in the booth with Rodriguez during Sunday’s telecast? Why, it was Uncle Rob Manfred, the commissioner who claims that kids are The Game’s top priority despite years of greed-driven TV decisions to the contrary — including the exclusion of kids from watching the World Series, unless they’re working the night shift.
So there were Rodriguez and Manfred joined in smiling friendship and the glow of MLB’s annual we-love-kids gimmick.
In 2013, when the Yankees wanted no part of Rodriguez, didn’t want to pay the lying drug-cheat the millions left on his contract — before selling tickets to an A-Rod celebration game and naming him a consultant — Manfred, as top assistant to Bud “I Saw Nothing!” Selig, took a hard stand.
After Rodriguez comically claimed he was suing MLB to fight his drug suspension “in the interests of the next 18-year-old coming into the league,” Manfred answered:
“This latest, sad chapter in Mr. Rodriguez’s tarnished career is yet another example of this player trying to avoid taking responsibility for his poor choices. Given the disappointing acts that Mr. Rodriguez has repeatedly made throughout his career, his expressed concern for young people rings very hollow.
“Mr. Rodriguez’s use of PEDs was longer and more pervasive than any other player, and when this process is complete, the facts will prove it is Mr. Rodriguez and his representatives who have engaged in ongoing, gross misconduct.”
Sunday night, the commissioner demonstrated the courage of his conviction. Wednesday night, ESPN was still at it, focusing on signs held in the crowd during a LLWS game, signs noting the presence of “ESPN.”
SNY points out Bautista loafing is run-of-the-mill
OK, so the Mets lost, 2-1 in 13 innings to the Giants on Monday because shortstop Amed Rosario collided with inexperienced left fielder Dominic Smith, causing a pop fly to fall from Rosario’s glove.
Smith has been an easy target, thus took the hit. The Mets’ 2013 first-round draft pick arrived in the bigs untrained in fundamental fundamentals — as if that’s his fault.
Yet, had Rosario performed a fundamental — catching with both hands, thus securing the ball in his glove with his bare hand …?
Reader Joe Dobies suggests Smith deserves credit. Had Yoenis Cespedes been playing left, Dobies reasons, he’d barely have made a move toward the infield.
The inexcusably diminished state of baseball played at its highest-paid level escapes no one except big league managers, general managers and those entrusted to instruct farm teams.
At 1-1 in the ninth in Monday’s game, Jose Bautista, hitting .202, swung and missed, strike three, at a ball in the dirt that escaped the catcher. But Bautista, recently praised by Mets manager Mickey Callaway for his “great at-bats” and inspirational presence for young Mets, didn’t care. Again. He headed to the dugout. Again.
On SNY, what Callaway seems to miss was seen and spoken.
Gary Cohen: “Bautista makes no effort to run to first. That has become a pattern with Jose. … I just don’t understand a veteran player, why he would not make an effort in a tie game in the ninth inning to run to first base.”
Ron Darling: “It’s not only Jose. That has become the standard around the leagues. The standard used to be to run to first, now the standard is not to run. … The only thing that would change your behavior is if something’s said to change your behavior.”
Another Mickey comes to mind, and how the 1941 Yankees-Dodgers World Series flipped on a ninth-inning, two-out swinging strike three that eluded Brooklyn catcher Mickey Owen, turning a 4-3 win into a 7-4 loss because Tommy Henrich ran to first.
But, you know, The Game has changed. Just hitting the ball with two strikes is becoming an ancient art. Sunday, seven White Sox pitchers struck out 16 Royals; 27 outs, 16 strikeouts. Guess all seven, despite allowing six runs, were “on.”
No time for timeouts
All these TV and radio shows examining the Jets’ new players, the team’s wants, needs and chances, yet one issue has not been addressed, an issue since coach Todd Bowles was hired in 2015:
Bowles’ impractical clock management at the close of each half. He has shown a preference to save timeouts for when or if the Jets get the ball back, a few seconds left, rather than call time to prevent opponents from milking the clock to almost nothing.