IF I were NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol, I’d invest in a food-taster for Joe Morgan. And fast. Someone keeps spiking his pineapple juice.
Friday, during Game 3 of the NLCS, Morgan suggested, at length, that Bobby Valentine might have left Kenny Rogers in Game 2 too long – long enough to allow a second home run in the sixth inning – because bench coach Bruce Benedict, usually at Valentine’s side, had replaced suspended Cookie Rojas as third-base coach.
When he finished his treatise, Morgan actually credited himself with stating, during Game 1, that Benedict’s absence from the dugout could cost the Mets. The Rogers episode, it seemed to Morgan, proved his theory correct.
Great theory, except for one small detail: When Rogers was pitching during Game 2, Benedict, like all third-base coaches when their team is in the field, was in the dugout! *THE METS quickly reported to NBC and NBC quickly reported to us Friday night that Mike Piazza suffered a “mild concussion” in his first-inning collision with Bret Boone.
That was a remarkable report given the fact that such a diagnosis was made in a matter of seconds.
Furthermore, if you’ve followed the concussion trail in sports of late, the one thing that physicians who specialize in head trauma have made clear is that there’s no such thing as a mild concussion. By definition, a concussion – a contusion of the brain caused by the outside of the brain’s sudden impact with the inside of the skull – can’t be mild. THE POST’S sports editor, Greg Gallo, insists that no matter how commonplace the street use of the word “s*cks” has become, and regardless of the point I’m trying to make, I can’t spell out the word in this section, not as it relates to its street usage.
While he’s well aware that the word now broadly means bad or disdainful in its slang application, it remains a profane application because it’s an expression derived from the same word and meaning that arrived not long ago as a colloquialism for oral sex.
While the boss and I often disagree, his position on this one is indisputable. The slang application of s*cks, no matter how it’s popularized then rationalized, should remain beneath us.
Yet, in two commercials that ran during the eighth inning of Fox’s Game 2 ALCS coverage, that very word was heard in its street form. And it’s no coincidence that both of the commercials – an adidas/Yankee spot and an ad for NFL-licensed video game – are geared toward younger consumers.
As social standards continue to crumble beneath the weight of an anything-for-a-buck shock-pop culture, increased public use and acceptance of the word serves as a symbol of a diminished society. After all, why say “stinks” when you can ratchet up the look-what-we-can-get-away-with level by saying, “s*cks.”
Worse, still, is that people who should know better now intentionally speak the word into open microphones.
Johnny Miller, NBC’s superb golf commentator and a devout Mormon, this year used the expression on the air. Quoting PGA star Tom Lehman after a second-place finish, Miller said that Lehman told him that “second-place s*cks.” Lehman, it’s worth noting, is also a deeply religious man.
Another extremely religious man is Fox Sports’ avuncular anchor, James Brown. Recently, as host of Fox’s “World’s Funniest” bloopers show, Brown applied the word “s*cks” in its street form as if he’d been saying it on TV throughout his broadcasting career.
In other words, I now can’t quote exactly what Johnny Miller or James Brown say on TV. And I now can’t quote exactly what’s spoken within commercials geared toward young sports fans that appear during the ALCS. At least until further notice. *THE MET and Yankee postseasons have served to shroud a story that normally would be huge in this town:
The Knicks, fully realizing that Latrell Sprewell is no less inclined toward criminal behavior than before he put the choke on P.J. Carlesimo, are now considering whether to sign him to a long-term deal worth in excess of $75 million.
Hmmm. Is it impolite to mention that Sprewell’s post-Carlesimo “contrite era” is as littered with street hassles and lawlessness as his pre-Carlesimo era? Or is smacking into a car while speeding onto a freeway from an exit lane evidence of a guy who sees the error of his ways?
Is it impolite to remind the Knicks that they’re negotiating for the long-term services of a fellow who can’t make a phone call to explain his absence to the team that’s currently paying him $9 million per?
While the Knicks and Knick fans keep indulging Sprewell, he still doesn’t get it. As long as he can score 20 points per game or until he’s incarcerated (or again put under house arrest), there will always be plenty of fresh stuff to indulge.
In acquiring Sprewell, the Knicks cut a deal with the devil. Such compromise is now pro forma in a sports world that exchanges integrity for wins.
But to re-sign Sprewell in view of continuing hard evidence that he remains unwilling to choose right over wrong isn’t renewing its deal with the devil, it’s stepping on the devil’s tail. *BASED on “SportsCenter’s” unqualified treatment of post-season stats, there must be some interesting debates ’round the water cooler in Bristol. You know, spirited give and take about who’s better, Jim Thome or Babe Ruth, Kevin Millwood or Bob Gibson? *FROM reader Andy Baumgarten: In 1951, Bobby Thomson’s homer inspired broadcaster Russ Hodges to holler, “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant!”
Today, the same event would inspire Hodges to scream, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! … And the Dodgers win the wild card!”