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Try as one might, one can’t shame the shameless. They’re buoyed by impunity thus have immunity.
Just before the MLB lockout was settled, Yankees president Randy Levine made soulful stops at WFAN and ESPN Radio-NY to testify to his love for The Game and its fans, and how the mere thought of losing games made him physically ill.
Sure. And I’m Scallion Creamcheese, the exotic dancer.
At the same time, the Yanks were plotting, or already had determined, to remove all of its previous Ch. 11 games, at least 21, from its free TV access, selling them as the exclusive, exploited property of a paid subscription Amazon streaming service, a greedy design that will remove Yankees’ games from view as MLB continues to bleed viewers.
But which of his interviewers are going to swat him — call him out — for such an ugly and conspicuous incongruity? Michael Kay, who has more conflicted interests than a fox who owns a string of KFCs? The WFAN boys and girls on the Yankees’ flagship station?
Levine grew sick by the thought of no baseball? Here’s what nauseates me: Since 2009, with the opening of new Yankee Stadium, the can’t-hide sight of thousands of empty good-to-best seats persists because they’re too damned expensive. Has Levine missed that? Kay, too?
How is it that such a glaring, sustained and baseball-mortifying reality has gone ignored by all but fans, year after year? It’s none of the sports media’s business?
Still, fellows such as Levine and Rob Manfred pose as concerned populists, advocates in service to baseball’s devoted fans — as if fans don’t, by now, recognize that they’re being played as just-in yokels grabbing a cab at JFK.
Why must sports fans now always go it alone? Where are those to call obvious B.S. on a Levine, a Manfred, a Roger Goodell, the NCAA and its obedient TV partners? Why isn’t Steve Cohen bashed for the Mets selling their second game of the season, this Friday night’s game, exclusively to Apple TV’s streaming subscription operation?
Say good night, Gracie.
MLB rule return causes extra trouble
The best-laid plans of mice, men and Mushnicks …
Something happened Thursday night, something I think is worth sharing.
In the late afternoon, I filed my Friday column, one lamenting the loss of future memorable extra-innings games to Rob Manfred’s beer league softball game rules to have MLB’s extra innings continue to begin with a cheap gimmick: a chosen runner on second base.
As a prime example of the kinds of thrilling games that will be lost to this, another institutionalized betrayal of The Game, I cited Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS, that sensational 16-inning game, Mets at Houston.
At 8:55 p.m., I received a text from editor Drew Loftis: “Call ASAP.” That game in Houston? We have a problem.
Loftis explained that the lead item had to be killed or given an extensive rewrite for the second edition as there is no designated runner extra-innings rule in playoff games.
Yep, like the bright lights at the NFL, there are two sets of OT/extra-innings rules, one for the regular season to determine which teams enter the postseason, the other to determine postseason winners.
At first, I resisted. Can’t we just add that the rule is only for regular-season extra-innings games? You know, fudge it, force it?
Nah, you lazy bum, that won’t cut it. The comparison is bogus. But then I realized that there are so many memorable extra-innings regular-season games played by the Mets and Yankees to choose from, the task, even on a second deadline, would be easy.
And that July 4, 1985 “Rick Camp Game,” a 16-13, 19-inning Mets win in Atlanta, came instantly to mind. Forced to bat, pitcher Camp hit his only MLB homer, an 0-2 pitch off Tom Gorman, to tie the game in the 18th. Fireworks at 4 a.m. celebrated the Fifth of July after a totally insane but natural game.
So I swapped one extraordinary extra-innings game for another. There is no baseball fan anywhere, no matter how old they’re trending, who can’t recall several such games. They’re keepers.
Yet MLB — despite the self-destruction that’s killing baseball through nine dreary, snail’s-pace, analytics-choked innings — has chosen elective surgery to remove a healthy organ come the 10th.
Record labels don’t always tell the whole story
My favorite stat appeared in a school website headline written by a Division III sports information director after his school lost, 81-0. The SID wrote that in the game a kid broke the team’s single-game record for number of kickoff returns. Brilliant!
Ahh, stats. For years we were told that Princeton basketball either leads the nation or is among the leaders in defense based on average points allowed. Gospel. But that stat and status had almost nothing to do with Princeton’s defense and everything to do with its deliberate, clock-killing offense. But bogus facts die hard, if at all.
Now to the Knicks’ Evan Fournier, who, on March 23, broke John Starks’ single-season record for 3-point shots made. Fournier, previously jabbed for his inability or disinclination to play defense, was roundly applauded by media for his sharpshooting achievement.
But was it a team-helpful achievement? Given that the Knicks were 11 games worse than what they were at the same time last season, well, it’s a team game right? Or was.
In his next three games, Fournier added six more 3s to his record. He did that by shooting 6-for-28, 21 percent. The Knicks won all three, so I guess it didn’t hurt. Wednesday, he was 6-for-8 from 3 — sweet! — yet the Knicks lost by 11.
Ever consider that we know more from watching TV than the manager does from the dugout or GM watching from above?
I’m convinced by the obvious: No Yankee suffered more from analytics — in the form of falling in love with that short right-field fence in Yankee Stadium, especially on two-strike pitches — than Brett Gardner.
As Gardner began to fancy himself a lefty slugger, his home runs did increase, but his batting average plummeted, his 100-plus strikeouts — so often with men on — became routinely insufferable and his greatest asset — his speed — was minimized.
But either no one at the top noticed, did anything about it or were good with it as per a computer-delivered spreadsheet.
By the way, reader Herb Eichen notes that last season there were 1,071 fewer stolen bases than throughout the 2011 season, a 44 percent decrease. Analytics rule!
Kevin Burkhardt replacing Joe Buck as Fox’s lead NFL game voice is a good move. Burkhardt is an amiable, modest, prepared presence — off the air, too — who years ago, as SNY’s roving in-game Mets reporter, engendered good faith by cleaning up infrequent mistakes. Now to reject those irrelevant stats Fox hands him to read during NFL telecasts.
Love that photo of Tom Thibodeau in Friday’s Post. He’s in his traditional all-black Knicks/Nike-logo sideline ensemble.
The sky has fallen: The New England Sports Network (NESN) has dropped two daily sports news program in favor of come-on sports gambling shows.
If Werner is the official net-cutting ladder of the NCAA Tournament, reader Richard Monahan asks the name of the official scissors.
I don’t care if Tiger Woods plays in the Masters, I’m more concerned that, as a matter of public safety, he gets a ride, to and from.
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