Sports: December 2007 Archives

I'll try to avoid hyperbole here, but let's just say that the NFL's decision to air Saturday night's historic match-up between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants on broadcast TV is a victory for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the American Way, freedom, quality entertainment and all things noble and decent.

Oh, yes, and it's also a victory for big government, but let's not try to focus on that part, OK?

As a native New Englander and a Patriots fan, I am thrilled. This Saturday night I have a family party to attend, so I'll need to tape the game and watch it later. Unfortunately, had the game only been on the NFL Network, as originally scheduled, I wouldn't have been able to tape it, as said network is unavailable in my area. And because I can't watch this one live, the sports bar wasn't an option.

But now, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come to my deliverance, decreeing that the game -- in which the Pats can finish off an undefeated season, while shattering various offensive records along the way -- will be on both NBC and CBS!

Of course, Goodell was nudged by some of my least favorite people in government -- Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), who basically threatened the league with a congressional hearing and/or losing its anti-trust exemption if it didn't agree to put this game on broadcast TV. And as a conservative, it's hard to cheer this kind of heavy-handed government intrusion into the private sector, especially when all that's at stake is entertainment.

But well, heck, I'm no libertarian, and this is big-H history in the making! So hooray for big government! Not since Congress wiped out the 55 mph speed limit has it done something that I can specifically point to as directly improving the quality of my life. And this may top even that! Why, this ought to push Congress' approval rating up into the thirties!

So thanks to the senators, and thanks to the commissioner. And one last thing ... Are you ready for some football?!?

OK, me neither. But that won't stop me from plugging this very funny ESPN story. It's penned by none other than my brother-in-law, who spent a whole day following around Tiger Woods, and who has documented the experience for all the world to read.

Readers may recall my struggling -- as a native New Englander and a Patriots fan -- with the team's fate following the "Spygate" brouhaha back in September. I didn't think what the team did was right, but I suspected that it wasn't much different from what every other team does all the time. And now, to wit, we learn that the very franchise that blew the whistles on the Pats' videotaping -- the New York Jests -- was itself video-taping the Pats. Newsday reports:

According to league sources familiar with the situation, the Jets were caught using a videotaping device during a game in Foxborough last season that resulted in the removal of a Jets employee. After Gillette Stadium officials saw him using the recorder early in the game, he was told to stop and leave the area. He had been filming from the mezzanine level between the scoreboard and a decorative lighthouse in an end zone. The camera was not confiscated by the Patriots or stadium security.

Tuesday night the Jets admitted that they did videotape the game and their employee was confronted, but said they had permission from the Patriots to film from that location.

Note: Whether or not the Jests had the Patriots' permission to tape is irrelevant. League rules clearly state: "no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game" -- regardless of what the host team says.

That the Jests did have the Pats' permission only suggests what a scoundrel NY coach Eric Mangini really is: Apparently he and New England coach Bill Belichick (as well, no doubt, as many others) did the exact same thing, with one another's tacit approval. But then Mangini backed out of this gentlemanly arrangement and stabbed his one-time mentor in the back (again).

And this is why -- we can only hope -- the Patriots will absolutely demolish, humiliate, and utterly shame the Jests this Sunday!

OK, just had to get that out. Back to your usual FF programming ...

Thinking back to last night's Hatton-Mayweather fight in Vegas, which the British press practically billed as a do-over of the American Revolution -- and which, ha-ha, ended with the same result, with a knockout of the Brit Hatton by Michigan man Mayweather in the tenth round. Wouldn't it be nice if they got Campaign 2008 over with so quickly? Brangelina, David Beckham and the rest of the celeb contingent could grab their choice seats, Don King could lead the GOP cheering section with his American flags, then the two top candidates could go in the ring and duke it out. May not be very civilized, you might say. But below-the-belt hits and all, the boxing ring is not too far removed from the political arena:

The Sean Taylor murder ignited what has to rank as the dumbest, wrong-headed orgy of stereotype laced speculation in living memory. The instant the Washington Redskins all-pro safety was gunned down in his suburban Miami-Dade County home, a pack of talking head sports analysts, writers, and fans filled the airwaves and newsprint with their see I told you so pontifications that Taylor’s alleged thug life style did him in.

The initial accounts of his murder fed ample fuel to the contention of the self-styled experts that the supposed self-destructive ghetto culture has done in countless numbers of young black males. Taylor, of course, was the latest, but by no means the only tragic example of that. They insisted without a shred of evidence that the break-in at his home was not random, that he was a target, and that the killing was a hit.

The initial news accounts were a heavy handed pile on of Taylor’s misdeeds, run-ins and altercations with the law. Subsequent news accounts dropped the obsessive itemizing of the full litany of Taylor’s missteps. But they still managed to do a sneaky broken record sounding reminder that Taylor had had past problems with the law. That further imprinted in much of the public’s skulls that Taylor was a bad guy and that there had to be a direct connect between his past, that really wasn’t past, and the murder.

There were two tragedies in the Taylor murder. The first is the murder itself. It snuffed out the life of a talented, promising, young man who was well on his way to becoming a solid role model and leader for his teammates and other young players, and in time may well have been that same solid role model off the field as well.

The second is that for an enraging instant it gave the legions of know it alls the irresistible chance to point the blame finger at the killer lifestyle that supposedly ensnares all young black males, and that included Taylor. Fortunately, the arrests of the suspects and their confession of what actually happened that fateful evening at the Taylor home gives lie to that notion. But even in Taylor’s death, and even after the truth came out about it, the truth is still a casualty to stereotypes. Witness this, every news account of the arrests, confessions, and background information on the suspects was still punctuated with the reminder of Taylor’s scrapes with the law. The thug life fascination with black males is still very much alive and kicking in some press rooms, and beyond.