Since I was a kid, I’ve been asking, “How come?” Until I hit, oh, 13, the answer was the same: “Because I said so.”
Now? That’s a logical answer compared with none at all. So, how come?
How come the Mets, from Bernie Madoff to Jessica Mendoza, hire those with divided interests? Mendoza will remain an objective ESPN MLB analyst and evaluator of baseball talent while serving the Mets as an inside analyst and evaluator of baseball talent? The Mets and ESPN’s audience will share her findings?
Mendoza arrives — when she has the time — with the support of new general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, who until recently served as the agent to many MLB players, including Yoenis Cespedes, who, in exchange for the $110 million Van Wagenen negotiated, has demonstrated divided interests but not much in baseball.
How come King Kong Bundy’s obituaries ignored the newly discovered fact — see: suspended 22-year voice of Iowa basketball Gary Dolphin — that his nickname was/is racist?
How come spring training has become the place to get hurt rather than get ready?
How come WFAN’s John Jastremski can enthusiastically provide his personal commercial endorsement to a sports gambling site without warning listeners that the chances of losing their money are greater than winning?
How come, post-Craig Carton, Jastremski doesn’t take care to take care of his name and reputation? How come WFAN doesn’t insist upon that from its on-air employees?
How come everything — even flat stuff — continues to roll under the refrigerator?
How come taxpayer-funded state colleges ceaselessly recruit full-scholarship athletes from far-flung places to the exclusion of home-state kids?
The University of South Florida’s women’s basketball roster includes three from Latvia, two from Portugal and one each from Spain, Denmark and Italy. How many from Florida? One.
How come, if a white Lakers season-ticket holder/celebrity posted a racist, vulgar, message about the Lakers — one laced with the N-word and the suggestion that the team depart via “slave ship” — he or she would rightly be Page 1 news, a national pariah and the Lakers would cancel his or her subscription, but when Snoop Dogg, at 47 a pornographer with a long arrest record, does such he’s indulged?
While we’re at it, how come Adam Silver allows NBA players, mostly college men, to refer to one another via highly public “social” media as “n—-s”? Or are they adhering to the good, proper context for such a term?
How come PGA players, as heard on TV, are allowed to play golf balls that “find the bottom of the cup”?
How come tickets sold to what was sold as an NBA game — Saturday’s Nets-Heat — wasn’t a basketball game, but a 76 3-point-attempt farce in a 29-point blowout?
How come the big, breaking news story on local TV continues to be winter weather during winter? And don’t forget to panic!
How come WFAN pays Aaron Boone and Mickey Callaway, among others, to speak with Mike Francesa when Francesa tells them what he thinks? Why doesn’t FAN save money by pretending they’re on the phone?
How come basketball telecasts don’t come with team color decoders? Sunday on FS1, St. John’s played at DePaul. The Red Storm wore blue, the Blue Demons wore white. The graphics showed St. John’s to be the team in red, DePaul the team in blue. Read that back to me.
And we still want to know how come Gary Sanchez and Masahiro Tanaka — Sanchez speaks Spanish, Tanaka speaks Japanese — cover their mouths with their mitts when conversing on the mound. Do opponents employ lip-readers fluent in multiple languages or is it a case of mutual halitosis?
And how come Whoppers and Big Macs look so much better on TV than in person? How come, if I tear a picture of either from a magazine and present it at the corresponding counter with, “I’ll have one of these,” they’d think I was Chicken McNuts?
Home-plate posers ‘running’ out of triples
While not covered in analytics, what’s the quickest way to third base? If you replied, “by first running to first and second,” that answer, technically correct, is obsolete.
In 2012, Bryce Harper, as a rookie — before he became a home plate-poser — had nine triples. Two seasons ago, he had one. Last season, none.
Twice in his career Robinson Cano, now a full-time wait-and-see jogger, had seven triples. In the past seven seasons he has a total of six.
In his first full season, 2011, Giancarlo Stanton had five triples. In the next seven seasons, as a home plate-poser, he has had a total of five.
In 2014, Yasiel Puig had nine triples. In the next four seasons, as a home plate-poser, he has a total of eight.
So, kids, don’t forget to do as Uncle Rob Manfred says: Don’t run, just stand there and pose and preen! Flip the bat — in case you hit a home run! That’s baseball the fun way!
After tennis analyst Doug Adler lost two years to the preposterous, New York Times-generated claim that he called Venus Williams a “gorilla” — he’d clearly admired her “guerilla tactics” — Adler returns to ESPN March 31, via its Longhorn Network, to call the Baylor-Texas matches.
Adler’s wrongful termination suit against ESPN was recently settled out of court, reconciliation included. His near-instant firing — and the subsequent loss of all his other tennis gigs, as well as the heart attack he soon suffered following the bogus defamation — is among the most shameful cases of cowardly media silence in cruel service to a colossal, conspicuous lie.
And The Times, after one if its tennis writers made the reckless claim via social media, still has not touched the story — as if it had nothing to do with it and it’s unworthy of readers’ attention.
Flex wrecks plans
He did the driving, but reader Steve Murphy was taken for a ride. Last Friday he traveled 100 miles to see his alma mater, Siena, play Canisius in Buffalo. He arrived for the 7 p.m. start only to learn that the game had been “flexed” to 9 p.m. for ESPNU.
Butch Goring continues to be unapologetically candid about the Islanders. On MSG, Tuesday, he put the knock on Mathew Barzal for a defensive failure against Ottawa. A replay appeared of Barzal lagging behind the play. See it, say it, show it.
Has there ever been a time when NBA players have been so eager to publicly declare they’re unhappy playing for their current team? Makes ya wanna rush out to buy tickets!