What are we teaching our children?

The headline at CBS Sportline read: LeGarrette Blount suspended for season for punching taunter.

LeGarrette Blount is a college football player. He may be suspended, but he retains his scholarship and will be able to practice with the team.

Meanwhile his victim, who "asked for it" is probably contemplating suing Blount for assault. Well...he's probably not contemplating it, but lots and lots of lawyers are undoubtedly contemplating it and contacting him promising he won't have to pay a thing unless they get a sizeable settlement from the University for whom Blount plays.

A couple of weeks ago, some college coach wanted his players to shake hands with the players of the opposing team before playing the game. And sports pundits wagged their heads, saying that could never happen because, if two football teams got near each other before the game, emotions would be running so high that fights would undoubtedly break out.

What kind of human beings are our schools churning out, that "men" in college can't even shake hands with each other before a sporting contest. And of course, it's not just the athletes, most of whom wouldn't even qualify to be at that college at all, except they have the physical skills to play football.

But it's not just football players who are animals, of course. What's worse is that the fans are - sitting around in sports bars and getting drunk, and then if some poor nebbish comes in wearing a hat from another team, he's going to get stomped into a coma and the only reaction will be, "Well, he should have known better to go into a sports bar wearing that hat."

Then there's professional wrestling. I never watch that crap, but I see the commercials on TV and they are all the same, lots of over-muscled jocks preening and prancing around, lots of over-endowed women strutting around on high-heels knowing that they are no more than eye-candy and sex objects, with no respect in any gaze looking at them. And what do kids learn? Why, that it's perfectly all right to hit a referee trying to stop you from beating up on a downed opponent, it's perfectly all right stomping someone lying helpless on the ground before you, it's perfectly all right to show no sportsmanship whatever.

And then we wonder how gangs of young kids - both girls and boys - can be wandering around throwing rocks or snowballs at people, and should their victim get angry and tell them off, they'll surround him and stomp him into a coma like the animals they are.

I hate to insult animals with my analogy, by the way. Humans are worse than animals, because they have the brains to know the consequences of their actions. Sadly, they just don't care....

And that makes for a frightening world. 4,000 years of "evolution", and people are just as vicious and psychotic now as they've ever been.

Put Names on the Backs of the Shirts!

I just tuend in to the WNBA All-Star game. We've got players in white and players in orange, and not a single player has their name on the back of their shirt so the casual viewer can tell who they are.

That just irks me.

They do it in baseball - the Yankees don't condescend to put names on the backs of their shirts and have never done so. Pat Summit doesn't do it for the Lady Vols.

But when we're talking about the WNBA, a league struggling to establish itself as legitimate (because there are so many male chauvanists out there, and women chauvanists too, who don't respect it), it would help a great deal to add some name recognition to the teams.

Mark Buerhle throws perfect game

On July 23, 2009, Mark Buerhle of the Chicago White Sox threw a perfect game. ESPN showed the last inning, and it was nice to actually see some drama - the first Tampa Ray batter of that inning actually hit a homerun...except defensive substitution DeWayne Wise climbed the wall and snatched the ball back.

...then juggled it for a few seconds before gaining control!

Congrats to Buerhle.

Now, if only my Boston Red Sox can get their act together! And if only the Yankees will go on a 20-game losing streak. That would make me happy.

So Much For Good Sports

“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them,” he said. “I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor. That’s what I do. It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

LeBron James apparently doesn't even know the meaning of the phrase "poor sport."

Someone beats you - of course you go over and shake their hand! That's what being a good sport is all about. To do anything less - which is apparently what quite a few athletes feel - is just disgusting.

Big Baby Shoves Kid...or does he?

The father of the 12 year old kid whom Big Baby of the Boston Celtics pushed (and it looks like he did it accidently) wants an apology.

If you look at the video (and I really dislike the jerk who put it together - either shave off the beard or grow a moustache, you poseur!) he's running past the kid and his hand just accidently hits the kid in the back.

If you've got Kindle, you've got Jacoby Ellsbury

Last night, Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury endeared himself to a whole nation of fans when he stole home off of Andy Pettite.

Jacoby first rose to national baseball prominence during the last month of the 2007 season, when he helped the Red Sox get to the World Series and win it. His 2008 season was also excellent, although he platooned with Coco Crisp for much of the year.

After a slow start, batting wise, to 2009, Jacoby has started to hit, and his steal of home - a straight steal, not a suicide squeeze, was his tenth of the year.

Athletes go broke quicker than anybody

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153364/1/index.htm

According to a Sports Illustrated article published in March, 2009:

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.

• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

• Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well. (Last month 10 current and former big leaguers—including outfielders Johnny Damon of the Yankees and Jacoby Ellsbury of the Red Sox and pitchers Mike Pelfrey of the Mets and Scott Eyre of the Phillies—discovered that at least some of their money is tied up in the $8 billion fraud allegedly perpetrated by Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford.)

You note that they don't give the percentage of how many MLB players go broke after two years or five years. Obviously it's much less than 60%...otherwise they'd surely mention it. There's perhaps a reason for that... although as the above paragraph states, lots of baseball players invested in what they thought were wise investments with fraudsters, instead of sheer stupidity...

Three basketball players were mentioned, whose main problem is that they have a gazillion children - each by a different woman:

Children almost always complicate the issue. How to limit paternity obligations is a challenge for pro athletes. Former NBA forward Shawn Kemp (who has at least seven children by six women) and, more recently, Travis Henry (nine by nine) have seen their fortunes sapped by monthly child-support payments in the tens of thousands of dollars. Last month Henry, who reportedly earned almost $11 million over seven years in the NFL, tried and failed to temporarily reduce one of his nine child-support payments by arguing that he could no longer afford the $3,000 every month. Two weeks later he was jailed for falling $16,600 behind in payments for his child in Frostproof, Fla.

An aversion to family planning goes hand in hand with neglect of other forms of financial foresight, which can affect what happens to athletes' fortunes even after they die. Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Thomas, who died at 33 following a January 2000 car crash, had ignored the urging of his financial adviser to make a will, and his entire estate was left for the court to divide, touching off a legal battle among the five mothers of his seven children. (Of the estimated $30 million Thomas had earned in the NFL, he had only $1.16 million in valued assets at the time of his death.)

>>How to limit paternity obligations is a challenge for pro athletes.

I would think it would be very simple. Don't have unprotected sex with a woman. Use a little thing called a condom, or better still, get a vasectomy! Then you can have all the sex you want without fear that you'll have baggage hanging around your neck for the rest of your life!