THERE oughta be a real-deal National Sports Fans Appreciation Day, a day when all sports businesses join to salute fans for hanging in there, no matter how much garbage we’re forced to endure.
We all should be given a “free gift,” say, the chance to buy Mets-Yanks tickets with the purchase of 12 other games. Once upon a time, before you had to pay for free gifts, all gifts used to be free. That’s what made them gifts.
“Free gift” is not only a redundancy, it now has a redundantly opposite meaning. Sports Illustrated’s TV ads pitch “free gifts” – but they cost a lot of money.
Anyway, last week, in the wake of Sebastian Telfair’s suspension for gun possession, several readers – sports fans – felt it revealing that the NBA sees fit to have a “firearms policy” that one can violate.
(“Jones, a former first-round NBA draft pick, was sentenced to five years for the armed robbery, but first must serve a two-game suspension.”)
However, while violating the league’s firearms policy is a serious matter, we’re a lot more interested in the NBA’s ammunition policy.
Hey, the Nets once ran a “Guns For Tickets” come-on. The season ticket holders we knew gave their tickets to that game to their brothers-in-law.
It’s all a matter of deeper perspective. Or as Mark Jackson, during Friday’s Nets-Knicks on YES, said, “Hey, Marv, Herb Williams could be 15-38!”
See what we mean? Gosh, we love Mark Jackson.
Reader Ken Doak has that kind of perspective. Noting last week’s story about an autistic kid hitting a bunch of three-pointers near the end of a game, Doak reasoned that if that kid played for or against Murry Bergtraum H.S., things would have been much different.
Bergtraum’s coach would have sent that kid in with the instructions to either keep away from the ball or do nothing else with it except pass it to the kid who’d already scored over 100 points.
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Ahh, and then there’s ESPN. It doesn’t matter how insulting, everything on ESPN is now a sell.
The lead to Saturday afternoon’s 1050 ESPN Radio-NY news update – we were foolish enough to anticipate fresh news – was provided by Bob Gallerstein, who excitedly asked, “Can the Knicks rebound from last night?”
He meant rebound from Friday’s loss to the Nets with a win against the Wizards. That night. On 1050-ESPN Radio. Home of the Knicks! That was the lead news-break story.
Alas, the Knicks could not rebound – to go to 16-39, as opposed to 15-40. Either way, 1050 chose to lead with a sell designed to excite the single dullest fan among us. And he’s not that stupid!
Mike Klau, a Knicks fan and reader from Manhattan, noted that Friday’s game was on ESPN, YES and MSG, “Yet the Knicks are unwatchable on all three.”
That’s would have made a better lead story on 1050 ESPN Radio: “Can Mike Klau rebound from last night?”
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ESPN’s TV side, Saturday, reminded us that if Tiger ain’t in it, golf fans can go fly a Tom Kite. After four hours of coverage and with three of the four quarterfinal matches from the World Match Play still alive (two were in OT), ESPN bolted for the start of Duke-Temple. That was Davis Love III out there, not Tiger Woods I.
During Duke-Temple, ESPN’s director got what he deserved. After a tough call against the home team, he went into the stands – just in time for a close-up of a young punk standing and twice making an obscene gesture. Given ESPN’s altered perspectives, that director might’ve clinched Employee of the Month.
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Friday, we saw U.S. Olympic giant slalom gold medalist Julia Mancuso on the medal stand, listening to the National Anthem. It was a very nice moment that NBC had shown us, even if it was on half-a-day delayed tape.
Watching and listening to that Olympic moment was sweet and dream-like. We felt a veil of warmth and comfort upon us. But perhaps that was the bedspread. And perhaps that’s because we woke up in time to see Mancuso wearing her giant slalom gold medal while the National Anthem played. And perhaps that was because it was midnight!
And then we went back to sleep. We signed off the way TV years ago signed off – with the National Anthem. And then we dreamed about a free gift with the purchase of every gold medal, a giant salmon.
