There are bad guys, then there are very bad guys.
Last week, Mike Francesa had the Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee on to preview the Masters. When Francesa mentioned Brooks Koepka, winner of three of the past seven majors, Chamblee issued a warning:
Koepka’s game is lately diminished, as he lost 30 pounds to appear in a photo shoot of ESPN’s naked athlete magazine issue.
After the Chamblee session ended, Francesa, armed with looted knowledge, warned of Koepka’s weight loss — no credit or sourcing of Chamblee. This became Francesa’s exclusive Mr. Inside info.
And so who was tied for the lead after the second round? Brooks Koepka. When a caller brought up Francesa’s tout off of Koepka, he took no ownership for his purloined weight-loss tip.
Only then did he credit his source, blaming Chamblee for the bad info: “I didn’t say that, that was Chamblee.”
But that’s the kind of dishonesty that routinely and almost naturally flows from this reprobate.
One could almost still hear him screaming at Chris Carlin, berating and trying to humiliate him while both were on his air a few years ago, lecturing him on responsible journalism.
Monday, the day after Tiger Woods won the Masters, Francesa said he felt especially good for his caddie, Joe LaCava, who previously looped for Fred Couples and Dustin Johnson.
Francesa: “Joey’s been someone I’ve known for a long time. He has come into this studio and sat in that studio many times.
“Now, with Tiger, he’s not allowed to talk anymore. That’s the rules. He’s just not allowed. He can’t come in and talk about Tiger, that’s just not allowed.”
That day, LaCava was interviewed on Michael Kay’s and Chris Russo’s radio shows.
And I’m grateful to the @backaftathis Twitter account as my audio and video source — and for sparing me the road rage Francesa’s “mistakes” might cause.
I’ve several times had my work looted by Francesa. One of numerous examples:
Before the NHL went to shootouts, they played an overtime to try to break ties. Each team was guaranteed a point — two to the winner, if there was a winner.
So when former Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro made a spectacular, last second “game-saving” save, I pointed out that it saved nothing.The Islanders were playing a team from the Western Conference, thus if DiPietro hadn’t made the save it would’ve meant nothing — the Isles would get a point, either way, and not lose ground to anyone in their conference. I wrote that this was “a quirk” in the format.
His next day on the air, Francesa, who cared and cares little about hockey, said he discovered “a quirk” — he even used that word — in the system, then repeated what I’d written, almost verbatim.
By then he swore he never reads this column, so it must’ve been a lie or a coincidence.
MLB abuses replay, but at least it takes forever
One would logically conclude that by now MLB would have fixed what it badly broke via replay rules. As reader Rob Karen wrote after Monday’s Mets-Phillies, to “avoid tremendous wastes of time to apply replay to what was never intended.”
Phils-Mets, an 11-inning slow-motion fiasco that ran 4:30 on a Monday night despite MLB’s decree that it was Jackie Robinson Day, was unplugged for 3:45 in the top of the eighth to determine whether Juan Lagares, ruled safe at second, was out on a manager’s challenge.
Phils second baseman Cesar Hernandez neither said nor showed anything to dispute the call. And through multiple replays Lagares appeared safe, so clearly that on SNY Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez logically complained that this delay was a colossal waste of time.
And then Lagares was ruled out! As in perhaps, maybe, Hernandez’s glove brushed Lagares’ uniform when for a microscopic second, Lagares lifted his leg off the base. There was no angle that showed the glove actually touching Lagares uniform.
But this torturously delayed dubious second opinion was deemed conclusive proof to reverse a call and to again stop and alter a game based on the use of a rule — the overwhelming application of the rule — in service to what was never intended.
Fans wanted egregiously incorrect calls to be corrected, nothing even close to this application of the microscopic maybe. There was no demand for this kind of replay, yet that’s how it’s mostly used.
But here we are and here we’ll stay, as The Game is stuck in both denial and self-destructive mode.
Besides, few remained to suffer this latest institutional absurdity. Despite an announced crowd of 32,243, the ballpark was close to empty by the top of the eighth.
Reader Philip Martin on baseball’s proposed 20-second pitch clock: “If it’s really close, can there be a replay review whether the clock ran out?” Sure! Why not?
How to cash in ‘chips’
I’m not sure what it means or how you get one — do you send away for them? — but I’d like to have a chip on my shoulder as it seems to foretell success.
On Fox’s NFL telecasts, Troy Aikman weekly explains superior achievement as the result of playing “with a chip on his shoulder.”
Recently the Nets’ Joe Harris explained his team’s Game 1 win in Philadelphia as, “For us, it was that chip on the shoulder.”
That same day, Aaron Judge explained CC Sabathia’s impressive return as “that chip on his shoulder.”I’ve read that the expression comes from 17th Century British naval yards, where those who built ships were allowed to carry home a piece of timber for their own use.
But that doesn’t quite explain its modern use. Then again, if I had a ham sandwich every morning for breakfast, my family would jump me. But if I throw an egg on it, I can justify it as “a breakfast sandwich.”
Check out John Oliver’s HBO show take on Vince McMahon’s business practices — and keep in mind that McMahon’s WWE VP is his wife, Linda, who served as head of the Small Business Administration in the Trump administration.
That steady wind from the Northwest? Through 21 games the Mariners had 132 hits and struck out 211 times. Thursday in 8½ innings, Nationals 4, Giants 2: 13 hits, 23 strikeouts, eight pitchers. Thursday, Royals 6, Yankees 1: 24 Ks.
So I guess Roger Goodell has no problem with new Jet Le’Veon Bell calling black men “n—-s” in his new rap album. Or is there a good context in which to speak that slur?
Hearing new-age gibberish on YES that Masahiro Tanaka must “establish a zone” where his pitch is “unhittable” reminded reader Joe Candela of his Little League days when “I was unhittable. We called it a wild pitch.”