DeMaurice Smith was furious. I don’t blame him. But does he know how I feel? Does he even care?
The NFLPA boss was all-in with Jon Gruden’s sacking as Raiders coach. Gruden’s revealed racist, sexist and otherwise hateful missives would not be quietly indulged, especially by the African-American head of the pro football players’ union.
Gruden had racially targeted Smith, which left Smith livid and Gruden gone. Good.
But what do Smith and his organization quietly allow?
This past Sunday, career-long reprobate and now public anti-semite and veteran receiver DeSean Jackson was in town with the Rams.
He was granted the double-standard free-pass treatment from media and NFL officialdom. It’s a double-standard so transparent and common as to make the fair-minded respond with a this-is-how-it-is shrug. I still can’t. And won’t.
Jackson disseminated a quote incorrectly attributed to Adolf Hitler, along with the Jew-bashing ravings of lunatic Louis Farrakhan, to support his position that Jews have been mandated to enslave blacks.
As a Jew, I missed that meeting. What I know is the N-word was banned from my parents’ house and then mine. And as a minority, I’ve never oppressed one.
Jackson then made one of those sorta, kinda apologies that he didn’t “intend” to hurt anyone’s feelings, that’s-not-who-I-am deals — much like Gruden’s, except Jackson plays on, Gruden is past tense.
Did it matter to the NFLPA’s Smith that other black athletes came out in support of Jackson’s insidiously ignorant, bigoted claim? That Eagles teammate Malik Jackson, in buttressing DeSean Jackson, cited hate-monger, fringe lunatic and career Jew-baiter Farrakhan as an “honorable man” and an inspiration?
Did it matter to Malik Jackson or to Smith that, before a room filled with cheering Nation of Islam black men, Farrakhan sexually degraded all black women with, “How many times, sisters, have you said no and you mean yes all the time”?
Clearly not enough for Smith to repudiate any NFLPA member’s public support for Farrakhan or Hitler. Gruden, on the other hand …
Smith joined no less than Roger Goodell in his indulgent silence of the revolting, repulsive anti-semitism. But Goodell will put his name and title to publicly condemn and punish anti-black racism by whites — real, imagined or wishful.
But that’s the bag we’re in, and we’re suffocating. The advocates and practitioners of genuine fair play and equality have no voice, no clout. And the quest for equality through inequality remains a frightened fool’s or political demagogue’s mission.
So DeSean Jackson played here Sunday, his recent history as an ignorant bigot ignored, his history as a Giants killer emphasized. Heck, on Fox, announcers Adam Amin and Mark Schlereth were delighted that he’s still catching passes. What a guy!
But he only defamed Jews by relying on Hitler and Farrakhan as his sources of credibility. No big deal.
Thursday, 32-year Sacramento Kings TV voice Grant Napear, 62, filed a wrongful termination suit against his former radio station — the Kings’ station — on which he hosted a talk show.
With the protests over George Floyd’s death still raging, DeMarcus Cousins, a former Kings player with a reputation for rotten conduct and a known disregard for Napear — it was mutual — asked him about the Black Lives Matter movement. Napear tweeted back. “All lives matter — every single one!”
Aha! Racist! Gotcha!
But in a rush to gutless judgment, the station fired Napear as a racist, bowing to the myopic, Marxist-led and since-discredited BLM organization, rather than simply ignoring it. The Kings accepted Napear’s resignation the next day — before he could be fired.
Since then, Kings broadcasts have added Matt Barnes, a disreputable NBA player tough to suffer as he played for 11 teams in 13 years despite arrests and suspensions.
Given a program to co-host on Showtime, he remained what the cable network apparently embraced him for: his vulgar, N-word spouting presence. His co-host, NBA reprobate Stephen Jackson — arrests, suspensions, a lead role in that infamous 2004 Pacers-Pistons mob brawl — was hired for equally appealing charms.
Stephen Jackson not only supported DeSean Jackson’s antisemitic bilge, he threw in some of his own.
Showtime is owned by Viacom/CBS. You know what happened to Stephen Jackson after that? Right. Nothing, not a thing.
So DeSean Jackson left town after Sunday’s game, suffering not a word of spoken or written hard truth. But NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith was personally stung by Gruden’s bigotry? Ya don’t say?
Isles broadcasters make sure you’re not ‘board’
Thursday, on one of those MSG channels, Islanders analyst Butch Goring and the replay crew presented a strong show-and-tell: Goring criticized Islanders defender Adam Pelech for not forcing the Blue Jackets’ forwards toward the near boards.
As Goring noted, Pelech allowed the forward a more dangerous opportunity from nearer and more flush to the goal. It was a concise, applicable and appreciated session.
And it got me to wondering why Rangers MSG telecasts don’t try to present similar, rather than a steady beat of analyst Joe Micheletti pointing to Rangers players and saying, “Good job,” “Good play,” “Good effort.”
We’re lost within the Disenchanted Forest. Not only has Aaron Boone demonstrated that he’d do everything in his power to find a way for the Yankees to lose — over and over — Brian Cashman rhetorically asked why he’d fire Boone only to replace him with the same kind of manager. Nurse!
Cashman said he was left impressed by Giancarlo Stanton’s performance in the postseason — “he was a beast” — and in other important games.
“I guess,” writes reader Mark Dantonio, “I only watched the unimportant games.” As for the postseason, it lasted one game.
All I know is that if analytics calls for the sustained presence of Gary Sanchez, the removal of relief pitchers who just struck out the side on 11 pitches, and swinging into the shift trying to reach the 161st Street subway station on 0-2 counts, I’d use the Analytics Guide Book as kindling.
More injuries? More games!
In an effort to better protect fighters, boxing reduced championship bouts from 15 to 12 rounds in the 1980s.
With football now so brutally dangerous to its players, Roger Goodell’s NFL has added a game, to make it 17 regular-season games, and is on the precipice of making it 18. Must be another one of those”good investment” things, like the NFL’s gambling partners encouraging fans to make parlay bets.
The scandal involving covertly photographed shots of topless cheerleaders is on the boil within the NFL’s Washington franchise brings to mind a question I’ve often asked: Why do NFL teams need cheerleaders? I’ve never seen any that actually led a cheer, only those who make sure to show TV cameras their cleavage.
Were they unaware of how little they would be expected to wear?
By rule, Camden High School was disqualified from the N.J. football playoffs following an on-field brawl last Saturday, in which three of its players were ejected.
Two years ago, six spectators were arrested, two wounded and a 10-year-old shot dead when a local beef turned into a gunfight at a Camden HS football game. Camden was playing Pleasantville that night, the school it brawled with last Saturday.
