I’m a masochist. Ever since the delayed return of the two Boeing Starliner astronauts, I’ve been picturing their luggage gyrating for weeks on end on the baggage carousel at Newark Airport.
Yes, I've become a grumpy old man, but the things that made me grumpy at 32 are the same things that make me grumpy at 72; I just have a lot more reasons to be grumpy now.
I can jump on the happy manure truck along with the rest of the docile and submissive people and ignore the indisputable truth: Billionaires can't be bothered to run to first base, the success of high-stakes college sports now depends on buying illiterate young people at auction, sports encourages mindless gambling before, after and during the game, and the worst performers, Draymond Green, Megan Rapinoe and Snoop Dogg, are just special guests. But I'm the one who got sent to the room for lying.
You want pandering that being bad is good? Fool gave the ball away before it crossed the goal line and performed a touchdown dance for a team losing by 24 points, so you play blind and stupid? Sorry, I'm not going to do that to either of them.
Since I began covering live sports in 1982, I have never experienced a time when dignity, reliability, honesty, civility and common sense were as lacking as they are today, and tomorrow will surely be even worse.
Sunday Exhibit A: The simple lifelong problem of watching Yankees games on television as a declining sport with declining television viewership (wow, last season's World Series had the lowest viewership in history!) is being ignored and left unaddressed.
Because of their arrogant greed, the best seats at exorbitantly priced Yankee Stadium remain empty, 20% of Yankee games are unilaterally paid for, and even independent media is silenced.
And it's not just a matter of unbridled greed, it's also a matter of quality: Yankees television coverage has far more often become a matter of abandoned standards and repeated poor judgment by people who fail to exercise good judgment year after year.
The Yankees-Rockies game on Sunday at YES had barely gone an inning when Juan Soto hit a foul ball down the third base line. That's exactly how Michael Kay described it. Paul O'Neill might have accepted that opinion and Kay's description at face value, but he had to add, “Soto hit it hard, but he didn't hit it fair.”
We already knew it, we saw it, and well, it's not a big deal – nothing that'll make you jump out of your La-Z-Boy – but it's a harbinger of what we'll have to endure for two minutes and 55 seconds.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Giancarlo Stanton's bat broke at the handle and the thick part of the bat struck home plate umpire Nick Murray in the neck, causing the umpire to try to follow the play but collapse to his knees in shock.
On the first replay, Kaye and O'Neill caught it perfectly, with gasps of “Wow!” and “Oh!”
The rest was well covered by YES cameras.
But as Marley was carted away, Kay “enlivened” the scene with a collection of sentimental platitudes and insults — his own version of the solemn “now all is clear” speech given by NFL announcers.
“You can see the anxiety on the players' faces and, of course, there are occasional altercations between players and umpires, but there is almost no one on the field who doesn't have a sense of camaraderie and everyone has certain feelings towards each other.
“They're on the same journey, they're moving a lot, they're often away from their families, and nobody wants to see anyone get hurt.”
So there were plenty of people in Kay's “YES” audience, as well as players, coaches and managers, who would love to see an umpire get hit in the neck with a broken bat. Kay went so far as to convince them that this was no laughing matter. Who would have known without Kay's help?
As Marley, who is sidelined with a concussion, was carried away in a wheelchair, Kaye added: “Everyone will be thinking of Nick Marley and hoping all is well.”
Thankfully, Kay's pancake-filled sermon brought sanity back to all the viewers who had been gleeful that Marley had fallen and stayed down.
Sunday, Exhibit B: Then, with ABC/ESPN's coverage of the Little League World Series Finals, the sounds and scenes chosen got even worse, as ESPN continued to degrade sports into a corpse for the vultures to starve.
The broadcast began with ESPN hosts lining up the U.S. team in a flurry of not-so-subtle choreography, led by an awkward, overweight 12-year-old boy who promptly got into a double play with the bases loaded and struck out with a runner on, but ESPN named him Star of the Game before the game even began.
Why turn this boy into a pre-determined fool, and try to use this game as another opportunity to emulate the self-first self-destruction of our national pastime that has been exploited by self-centered, foundationless major leaguers, is another good question with no good answer.
Play-by-play announcer Carl Labeck had no sense or feel for a game of kids playing and covered the game as if it were Game 7 of the MLB World Series. Of course, that was the case.
The ESPN-owned LLWS has been warped ever since it aired footage a few years ago of a dejected pitcher crying in the corner of his team's dugout after being ejected early from a game – a footage that was later hilariously aired on “SportsCenter,” further humiliating the pitcher.
On Sunday, ESPN also aired clips from the LLWS Home Run Derby.
And throughout the game, there were betting odds for the WNBA, preseason NFL and MLB. Couldn't ESPN have taken a break from broadcasting sports betting information for two hours? “Hey Dad, what does it mean that the Cardinals are plus-3 to beat the Broncos?”
But in keeping with ESPN's warped habit of highlighting exhibitionism during team games, regardless of the score, ESPN probably needs psychological treatment from a child psychiatrist.
On Tuesday, two days after the LLWS, I received an email from a trusted reader and friend who is the president of an upstate umpires association.
“We had to refund advance payments for 125 of the 600 games this year because of a shortage of umpires, and umpires were fed up with the cheating. [of players, coaches and spectators]”So many trained umpires have quit that we have been forced to split matches into two days to ensure there are enough umpires to cover each match.”
And Rob Manfred argues, and television increasingly proves, that the best way to attract kids — prospective parents — is to show them big leaguers swinging bats, pounding their chests, posing at home plate and engaging in other boastful, creepy antics.
And kids, you're welcome to play on my lawn as long as you don't run to first base and practice your touchdown dance.
