Joe Franklin, the TV and radio talk-show host and NYC character who died in January at 88, would walk into a crowded room scoping for a target or two to lecture.
“Young man,” he’d say to his mark, “the secret to success in my business, and in any business, is sincerity. Understand — nothing matters more than sincerity.
“And once you learn to fake sincerity …”
Imagine the high-fiving and joy-jumping up at ESPN, the other day, when its shot-callers closed the deal to honor Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner with its annual Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
The ESPY Awards shows, from their 1993 debut, have made for standard ESPN viewing in that they’re so much less — so self-promotional, so much cheesier — than they could’ve and should‘ve been. In its mission to target and serve young, wise-guy audiences, the ESPYs quickly became and stayed a non-qualifier as anything special.
And so, with ESPN eager to make a splash at this year’s ESPYs, next month, which will be televised by ABC, what better way than to land Jenner, and present him/her as the special guest star under the transparently bogus guise of his/her above-and-beyond courage?
It’s not as if Jenner is without courage. It’s more that whatever courage he/she may have has been lost to or hidden by all the attention he/she can muster, including photo and video shoots of his/her Vanity Fair glamour makeover.
I’m not sure if that takes courage, but it does take lots of lights, cameras, makeup and wardrobe consultants. Perhaps we’re just unfamiliar with the kind of courage it takes to abandon one’s dignity on behalf of any life-altering decision.
Besides, if not for Jenner, the Ashe Courage Award may have gone unrewarded as undeserving of anyone else attached to sports. Maybe it was Jenner or no one.
But ESPN, under the Disney banner, is in its third decade of being a radical mixed messenger service and rationalization center — of being full of it. ESPN’s Jimmy Swaggart’s booth down at the Boom Boom Room.
And just as it didn’t matter to ESPN what happened to Ray Lewis’ blood-soaked white suit after those two guys were stabbed to death, it didn’t matter that Jenner, following his driving role in a late February car crash that killed a woman — Jenner’s negligence is suspected — is still the target of a wrongful death suit, and could end up with a vehicular manslaughter charge.
But ESPN couldn’t wait. It had to strike while Jenner’s hot.
Although the ESPYs have been a desperate enterprise in which ESPN male “talent” is encouraged to publicly demonstrate their leering, sexist side, the Jenner part of the show will be slathered in phony respect and admiration, as if it’s legit and from the heart.
As Bob Costas Thursday told Dan Patrick, the whole thing carries the stench of “a crass exploitation play.”
And it’ll work. Doesn’t matter if Jenner’s being saluted by ESPN with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award or by Barnum & Bailey with its annual Bearded Lady Sideshow Award, it’ll draw a crowd.
As for more traditional ESPN sexism, last week also brought the latest sophomorics from Stephen A. Smith, who sees bigotry in every window but not in the mirror.
Smith, having noted that a Women’s World Cupper may have blanched at a free kick toward her head, on SportsCenter said female players “may not want to mess up their hair.”
Geez. That’s not merely sexist, it’s stupid, unfunny and childish.
But Smith, growing practiced at apologizing — he was suspended for suggesting some women deserve a good beating from their men — apologized. Sorta. Kinda.
In another of those contingency apologies, Smith seemed to portray himself as a victim of his own popularity, his own greatness.
“As usual,” he tweeted, “something I’ve said is gaining steam, so let me address this right now.” He then wrote that he’s sorry.
So it wasn’t so much that he cracked a terribly stupid, unfunny “girl joke” on ESPN, it’s at least partially ESPN’s fault for hiring him, thus allowing him a forum from which his words can “gain steam.”
NY clubs winning, but fans losing
As seen on SNY Sunday, the Mets and Yanks have lots in common. Two first-place teams with lots of empty seats behind the backstops during games played on nice weekend afternoons.
If only he had a sense of humor about himself. … Friday, Mike Francesa, as per rumors about Milwaukee’s Aramis Ramirez to the Mets, declared Ramirez shot; too old, slow bat, etc. That night, Ramirez was 3-for-4 — three doubles, five RBIs.
Mike Emrick, after stopping to inhale during frantic, non-stop back-and-forth during Game 5 of Chicago-Tampa Bay, Saturday: “Somebody call time!”
And now women’s national soccer teams swap trash talk. Surely, no one’s more pleased by this than the enterprising folks at Nike.
WFAN update man Mike McCann is always good for a little more. Saturday morning he reported the woman who’d been hit in the head by a broken bat at Fenway, eight days earlier, had been released from the hospital.
The Jets continue to be run like a landfill. On June 3, PSL/season-ticket holders were emailed with a come-on to upgrade their seats in exchange for the opportunity to “talk with Jets decision makers including GM John Idzik, Head Coach Rex Ryan, and others.” Idzik and Ryan were fired Dec. 29.
Stats a whole lot of nothing
Stop with the stats! Saturday after Buck Showalter challenged a call during Yanks-O’s on Fox, Kenny Albert dutifully noted Showalter has won six of his 12 challenges this season.
Is that good? Bad? Or so irrelevant to even speak?
It’s the same silliness heard on NFL telecasts. All challenges aren’t the same; they’re not all based on conviction. They come in many flavors, from “Terrible call!” to “Well, maybe,” to “nothing to lose” because “you never know.” That’s the folly about “getting it right.”
Same telecast, analyst Tom Verducci noted a player’s paucity of hits “on two-strike counts.”
When did two-strike counts become a stand-alone reality? When did an 0-2 pitch — often a “waste-pitch” — become the same as a 3-2 pitch?
In a world gone nuts, let the record show that Friday during the halftime and postgame shows from the USA-Sweden Women’s World Cup match, Fox’s on-site studio panel presented five people, five “experts.”
Fox twice presented five people to dissect, discuss, diagram, distill, digest, disambiguate and disembowel a 0-0 game.