If you happen to be driving by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., this week, check out the marquee for us. We’re beginning to think it may read like one of those TV ads for Screaming Al’s AutoRama on Route 22: “Bad credit? No credit? No problem!”
Though it would be preposterous to think that a game-fixer, points-shaver or the chronically dishonest on the dark fringes of the game would be eligible for induction, the same can not be written about college coaches. They can break the rules to win — cheat — and make millions en route to enshrinement.
The only qualification is that your team won a lot more games than it lost. The “how?” of it doesn’t matter. Thus, John Calipari — current Kentucky coach who at UMass, then Memphis, left town for his next gig while his beloved “kids” suffered for violations committed on his watch — will be inducted this September.
Perhaps Calipari qualified under “All-Time Vacated Wins.” Previously inducted rules-breakers include Jim Calhoun, Jerry Tarkanian and Jim Boeheim.
But matters of much importance often don’t much matter.
The folks at Rolling Stone magazine continue to be pounded for having published a sensational but bogus story about a rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house. Yep, shame on Rolling Stone for failures of fundamental journalism. The magazine has publicly apologized.
Yet, the same scolding media — newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, Internet (joined by social and race activists, academics, politicians, organizations from the NAACP to women’s rights committees and a D.A. looking to be re-elected) — committed the same sin in 2006 when it preemptively convicted three Duke lacrosse players after they were arrested for the rape of an “exotic dancer” hired to perform at a party in an off-campus residence.
Though her credibility was dubious — she was a stripper, lap-dancer and “escort” with a conviction for stealing a taxi then leading police on a high-speed chase; an ex-boyfriend explained she was a screwball who couldn’t be believed — it didn’t matter.
The Duke players were bashed as rich, spoiled suburban kids, thus rapists. Their coach, forced to resign by association, also was demonized.
But when facts — their accuser lied — finally prevailed, the media ran for cover. There were no investigations into failures of fundamental journalism, no formal apologies. And if journalists publicly begged forgiveness for jumping to an egregiously erroneous conclusion, we would recall that.
Not that it matters, but in 2013, Crystal Mangum, the accuser thoroughly and blindly backed by the media in that case, was sentenced to 14-18 years for second-degree murder.
Golf voices Masters of their own language
I become defensive about golf during majors, such as the Masters, concerned that viewers who don’t play golf but watch the big ones might think golfers actually speak the way golf-talkers do on TV. But not only don’t we speak that way, neither, off the air, do they.
Though TV’s golf commentators frequently tell us that so-and-so “stepped in to the winner’s circle” where he “hoisted the trophy,” so help me anyone who speaks that way on a golf course eventually will have to play alone. After making a 3-footer, no one says, “Safely in the hole.” That’s too stupid to say among friends, yet people on TV speak that way to national audiences.
Oh, and golfers don’t ask, “Who’s atop the leaderboard?” Believe it or not, we ask, “Who’s winning.”
And though majors draw viewers not regularly inclined to watch golf, TV wasn’t always this way. TV, so help me, used to try to show as many players — especially those in the hunt — as possible.
As reader David Distefano put it about CBS/ESPN’s Day 1 coverage, we didn’t always “take long, romantics walks with Tiger Woods. Just watched him decide where to drop his third shot at 12, hit his shot, and then walk and walk and walk … all the way to the bridge, before we were shown another player.”
Woods, at the time, was nine back.
Free Carl Landry! The Kings forward was suspended by the NBA for one game without pay for leaving the bench during an on-court hassle against the Jazz last week.
But the Kings had just scored when a whistle sounded for a Utah timeout. Landry left the bench to meet, greet and applaud his teammates. At that point, he spotted the hassle and intervened, clearly as a peacemaker.
Seems those “limited commercial interruptions” the Masters men boast about are becoming increasing unlimited. And what would you rather do, watch the Masters, or ESPN’s Mike Tirico and Curtis Strange talk about the Masters — as it’s being played just outside their studio?
No live scores on ‘Live’
We get graphics when we don’t need them, none when we do. It now seems an annual impossibility that Golf Channel, during its on-site, pre-telecast “Live From The Masters” show, does not steadily scroll updated, changing scores.
Jon Gruden’s hyped ESPN exclusive with UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma last week began with this “question”: “I’ve been a big fan of yours for a long time.” Over and out!
Gary Cohen, on SNY on Monday, had a good one: The Mets may be 34-19 in openers, “but they won a World Series [1969] before they won an Opening Day.”
TV always demands the worst of people. In Jimmy Roberts, NBC and its Golf Channel have a superb essayist, storyteller and journalist. But on its golf-less weekends, NBC turns him into a “sports news” studio shill, pumping NBC goods while obviously ignoring big stuff NBC doesn’t own.
When we were kids, players had winter jobs then reported to spring training to get in shape for the season. Now players, who don’t need winter jobs, report to spring training then start the season on the disabled list or out for the season.
Before Brian Williams, “Let’s Be Honest” Mike Francesa had made self-aggrandizing fabrications a daily habit. Last week he reprised his claim that he identified Matt Harvey as special long before everyone else.
That’s true — if you disregard his 2012 screaming rant that ridiculed Harvey as nothing more than “hype.”
My bad, here, Monday. The NHL’s Blue Jackets do not have a black uniform. Poor excuse: That dark blue against a lighter blue trim only looked black.
NFL Network wasn’t far from having accused prostitute solicitor and same-night women assailant Warren Sapp, and convicted serial rapist Darren Sharper analyze a Cowboys defense featuring convicted woman beater Greg Hardy and convicted manslaughterer Josh Brent.
New in-game spot on Yankees radio: “This blown save brought to you by the Keep Your Shirt On Ambulance Service.”