The Sommer Frieze

It’s a miserable day in the East today, and more is expected over the weekend. Rain and temperatures in the 40s. It isn’t as bad as Colorado was for the Phils/Rockies game but it still isn’t conducive to baseball.

There is a good chance of rain tomorrow (Friday) evening, when Game 1 is supposed to start in the ALCS.

I don’t know what to think. With my work schedule, there could be some dates where I miss most if not all of the game. Mother Nature will let me know what I miss…as the Post points out, with Fox having the ALCS, a reschedulement to Sunday means a Sunday night game, what with Fox’s commitment to the NFL. After that, how to reschedule with the travel days…the day before Game 5 would probably be taken away. All this could play havoc with the Yanks’ plans for the 3-man rotation for the ALCS. A fourth starter (Gaudin?) better stay ready. Not only that, due to the threat of rain delays, ALL long relievers (Joba, Aceves, Robertson) better stay ready.

The Yanks did make one roster move, which is the one that Post reporter Joel Sherman suggested they make. Off goes HInske. Nice power on the bench, but who was he to PH for? Guzman takes over as a second speedster. You now have Gardner and Guzman to try to beat the Angels at their own baserunning game. Not only that, but maybe the Road Runner (Gardner) can get a start being that you would still have Guzman (and Melky) on the bench now?

I love these comments in the Post regarding Rush Limbaugh and the Rams ownership. Given that NFL has (Vick, Ray Lewis, Burress, others) has sometimes stood for National Felon League, excluding Rush seems very hypocritical. Granted other owners would have to vote on him, but if he has the cash and can put up and support a team, why not him? He has the right to do so if he wants. Players also have the right to not want to play for him. Here are some of the letters today, (bold emphasis mine):

Michael Vick tortured and murdered dogs. Ray Lewis lied to cops about a murder and was glorified in some media outlets for not being a “snitch.” And Bill Belichick was caught blatantly cheating for a competitive advantage.

All are welcome in the NFL.

According to liberals, Limbaugh is not fit to own an NFL franchise because he is a white conservative.

Perhaps Limbaugh should get arrested on a gun charge. That way, he’d fit right in with the rest of the NFL.

Matthew Nugent

Staten Island

***

Who would have thought that Limbaugh owning a football team would have become a political football?

True enough, in recent years he has become something of a jerk.

So what? All that means is that he should fit right in with the NFL.

After all, Keith Olbermann broadcasts for the NFL, and he’s the biggest jerk of them all.

Gary Schwartz

Fort Lee, NJ

***

I’m doubled over laughing at those who think that Limbaugh shouldn’t buy an NFL team but that it’s OK that NFL teams are full of murderers, dog torturers, wife-beaters, druggies, punks and thugs.

What a concept.

Fran Warcholak

Pennington, NJ

My two cents…you already have some owners in sports that are jerks. Some hate the Steinbrenners, and George was kicked out of baseball….twice. Jerry Jones. Mark Cuban. Carl Pohlad (richer than the Boss but so cheap he was going to contract his own team). Huizenga ruining the Marlins after winning a World Series. The Phillies once had an owner who was kicked out of baseball for betting on his own team….to win…which was bad enough, but the guy couldn’t cash in too often. In those years the Phils were going 47-107 or thereabouts (early 1940’s). 

Ever hear of George Preston Marshall? Notes here from Wikipedia, with some bold emphasis from me:

George Preston Marshall (1896 – 1969) was the long-time owner and president of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL).

In 1932, while he was the owner of a chain of laundries in Washington, D.C., founded by his father, he and three other partners were awarded an NFL franchise for Boston. This team became known as the Boston Braves, as they played on the same field as baseball’s Boston Braves. Marshall’s partners left the team after one season, leaving him in control. In 1933 he moved the team from Braves Field to Fenway Park, changing the team nickname to the Redskins. In 1937 he moved the team to Washington.

Racism

Marshall was a very hands-on owner. For most of his tenure as the team’s owner, he frequently micromanaged the team. The notable exception was during the Flaherty era—coincidentally, the franchise’s first successful era.

However, he is best known for his intractable opposition to having African-Americans on his roster. According to professor Charles Ross, “For 24 years Marshall was identified as the leading racist in the NFL”.^[2] Though the league had previously had a sprinkling of black players, blacks were excluded from all NFL teams just one year after Marshall entered the league.

Ross asserts that Marshall propelled the NFL to institute a “color barrier” akin to that of its baseball brethren. As a result of Marshall’s prodding, owners like the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ Art Rooney (who had hired a black player on his first team and strongly professed his belief that black and white were equal to him) and the Chicago Bears‘ George Halas (who also believed that blacks should be able to play), fell into line. Of course, no one openly admitted that a racial line existed, but it was apparent that it did. Indeed, years later, Halas remained defensive of the thinly veiled policy. “The game,” claimed the legendary league founder and coach, “didn’t have the appeal to black players at the time.” Hence, from 1934 through the 1945 season, blacks, excluded from the NFL, were forced to settle for less than financially-rewarding exhibitions or semi-pro leagues.

While the rest of the league began signing individual blacks in 1946 and actually drafting blacks in 1949, Marshall held out until 1962 before signing a black player. Moreover, the signing only came when Interior Secretary Stewart Udall issued an ultimatum – unless Marshall signed a black player, the government would revoke the Redskins’ 30-year lease on the year-old D.C. Stadium (now Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium), which had been paid for by government money and was owned by the Washington city government (which, then and now, is formally an arm of the federal government). Marshall’s chief response was to make Ernie Davis, Syracuse’s all-American running back, his number-one draft choice for 1962. Davis, however, demanded a trade, saying, “I won’t play for that S.O.B.” He got his wish, as the team sent him to Cleveland for All-Pro Bobby Mitchell. Mitchell was the first African American football player to play a game for the Redskins, and he played with the team for several years, initially at running back, but he made his biggest impact at wide receiver.

…and a quote by Marshall: “We’ll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.”

But guess what? For all this, Marshall was still one of the ORIGINAL inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963.

Marshall would have a team luncheon or whatever before the season started, at which he would have his team sing “Dixie.” He even did this when Mitchell was on the team.

So as far as Rush goes…vs. Marshall, Vick, Lewis, Burress, etc.? Very hypocritical, NFL. Very Hypocritical. (…and yes, we could attack baseball as well for Cobb, Landis, Anson and many others…)