It’s often better to be known by one’s enemies than their friends.
Thus the big winner from Thursday’s desperate-for-attention ESPYs was Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who was forced to just sit there as 43-year-old host and media-entitled career brat Serena Williams attacked him for his conservative Christian sensibilities expressed by Butker, a Catholic, to a Catholic college’s graduating class.
Williams disagreed with Butker’s family-first take on parenting and motherhood, thus he would suffer her angry, direct and classless condemnation.
And to that ESPN’s audience of intolerant pro-tolerance sycophants and panderers applauded or otherwise indulged Williams’ verbal ambush, a scene reminiscent of the U.S. Open when Williams screamed at a lineswoman, “I swear to God I’ll f—ing take the ball and shove it down your f—ing throat!”
That, and countless other highly public episodes of rotten, childish and even threatening behavior — win or lose — were ignored by ESPN’s lead tennis voices, fellow tantrum-tosser John McEnroe and Chris Evert, and virtually all media during Williams’ ungracious and ungrateful “farewell tour.”
For crying out loud, this woman, antithetical to common decency and even minimal sportsmanship, was portrayed as a role model!
I don’t know Harrison Butker’s parents, but I’m familiar with Williams’ father, Richard Williams — the father of nine children from four mothers and a loud-mouthed, race-baiting miscreant unashamed to utter anti-white and anti-Jewish slurs.
Sports Illustrated, which lost a lot of credibility and subscribers among know-better readers when it named Serena “Sportsperson of the Year,” attributed Richard’s bigotry to his “flakiness.”
And there’s evidence that her petulance and self-entitlement persists in the active form of other female tennis pros who have no compunction in acting like on-court louts. To that unfinished end, she likely remains inspirational, a genuine role model.
The pandering persists, thus why else would ESPN choose her to host an awards show that celebrates and rewards sports?
But we were long conditioned by ESPN to expect the worst from ESPN, like “Manny being Manny.”
The only surprising thing about this ESPYs was that LeBron James wasn’t chosen Father of the Year.
Back afta this Francesa foul-up
It’s likely becoming too easy for the Funhouse folks who compile and share the bogus genius of sports media know-it-all/gasbags such as Colin Cowherd and Mike Francesa at the @BackAftaThis account on Twitter, er, X.
Last week, @BackAftaThis found Francesa doing what he does best: not only being consistently wrong, but being instantly, comically and colossally wrong.
On his “I’ll Never Host a Podcast” podcast, he spoke of the chances of a Yankee hitting two home runs in a game:
“You’re gonna be waiting a long time for someone other than [Juan] Soto or [Aaron] Judge to get it done.”
Well, “a long time” lasted about two hours, as Ben Rice that day hit three homers.
Georgia will soon swap nicknames with Georgia Tech to become “The Ramblin’ Wrecks.”
Last week, there two more arrests of UGa football recruits for reckless driving. That’s four just this offseason.
The team’s total arrests for reckless driving — including one that caused a player fatality and the death of a football staffer — has been difficult to keep current. But the number the past two years now is at least 24, according to the Athens (Ga.) Banner Herald.
Head coach Kirby Smart, who at $13 million per does only what the “school” allows him to do, is known for handling such matters “internally.”
Regardless, Georgia is again ranked No. 1 by ESPN’s dutiful automatons — no questions asked, no answers needed.
We’ve lately tuned in to Mets telecasts to hear that their bullpen is exhausted, as if that’s a matter of bad fortune as opposed to managerial design.
So Thursday, the Mets led the Nationals, 5-0, after six, when Carlos Mendoza brought in new guy Phil Maton, who made one, two, three with two strikeouts on 10 pitches. And then he was pulled.
In a 7-0 final, Mendoza used five pitchers. Why? I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.
I’m a soccer fan. I admit it. As Maynard G. Krebs said, “I’m not bad, just weak.”
But as I watch all these international championship matches, I can’t help but wonder: If Julinho, the player, is hollering at Hans, the referee, and Hans hollers back, in what language or languages are they hollering?
It’s like when Gary Sanchez went to the mound to talk matters over with Masahiro Tanaka. Both relied on interpreters, one Spanish-to English, the other Japanese-to-English. Still, both covered their mouths with their gloves to make sure no one could see what the were saying.
Money for players, not for stadium
Apparently impressed by the taxpayer-funded, loan-enabled $250 million debt accrued by Rutgers’ Big Ten Fever-Stricken athletic department — a bridge loan too far — Penn State has borrowed $700 million to improve Beaver Stadium.
With NIL payments and other come-hither, survival-of-the-wealthiest gifts to football recruits, I’d fire the loan officer.
Michael Kay recently threw one of his on-air, self-serving fits when his ESPN-NY radio show included an ad for SNY that unsurprisingly pitched the Mets’ announcers as the best in the business — as if Kay was shocked by such puffery in an advertisement.
Thursday, during the Yankees game on YES — imagine: a Yankees game on YES! — Kay dutifully and enthusiastically read a promo for another competitor: the All-Star Game “on Fox!”
It might be over before it starts for Fox’s new, hideously overpriced — 10 years, $375 million — lead analyst Tom Brady. He has sought broadcasting advice from NBC’s hideously overpaid and wildly unpopular blowhard analyst Cris Collinsworth.
That’s like taking singing lessons from Yoko Ono.
ESPN’s Wimbledon “coverage” is again “look what we can do!” TV. And it’s always about the last thing or the next thing — the sell — rather than what we tuned in to watch and what ESPN paid for and promoted: live tennis.
The view of good matches is split-screened to see big names warming up for their coming match or for interviews with a just-finished winner who is “happy to advance.”
As per the NBA’s unreal world salaries, nothing recedes like excess. Especially those excesses — greed — unabashedly spoken in public.
Paul George, at 34 his best NBA All-Star years likely in the past tense, says he rejected the Clipper’s three-year, $150 million renewal to sign with the 76ers, as L.A. didn’t include a no-trade clause nor the four-year, $212 million the Sixers dangled. Thus, he said, the offer was “disrespectful.”
He said this on his own podcast as if he anticipated “Amen to that!” from an audience populated with those who can no longer afford to attend NBA games.
Before he signed with Philly, George’s career NBA salary totaled a disrespectful $305 million.
Perhaps that’s why reader Ed McKenna, after hearing that LeBron James had “opted out” of his Lakers contract, wrote it’s a good idea: “I’m opting out, too.”
