With the NFL season now officially in the books (I had the pleasure of catching only one drive of the always exciting Pro-Bowl last week), the Sports Jew is literally at a loss for words. It’s definitely my favorite sport to dissect, analytically and satirically, and with a little less than two months before Mets opening day, I’m going to have to dig a little deeper for column ideas. To mediate the situation I have created a new post category for the blog called “Jew-rotic Rants of the Week,” where I will take a few of the most notable sports stories from the past seven days to argue over or make fun of respectively. I think I got some good material for my first run at it…
What’s the difference between John Amaechi and a refrigerator?
Answer…a refrigerator doesn’t fart when you take the meat out. (I heard this offensive yet hilarious joke at work on Friday, and decided it had the wheels to start off this entry). Joking aside, considering I am not nearly as homophobic as 90 percent of the current NBA roster, Amaechi’s decision to come out last week, four seasons after he retired, was totally reasonable from my point of view. His announcement, which coincided with the release of his tell-all autobiography “Man in the Middle” last Wednesday, brought up the question of whether we will ever see a professional athlete announce his gayness while still active on a pro sports roster. This kind of suggests that what Amechi and a few other guys before him did is cowardly, or in the grand scheme of things illustrates how the world isn’t ready for a gay sports star.
For starters Amaechi is and never was a star, but rather a dime a dozen big man who would never be playing basketball if he wasn’t so abnormally tall. It doesn’t downplay the fact that Amechi waited to come out after retirement because no matter who you are, whether it’s Michael Jordan or, um…John Amaechi, being openly gay in a locker room full of straight guys is currently not a comfortable situation. It’s a sad situation indeed, but it’s also human nature. The NBA and other pro leagues are filled with athletes raised on strict Christian morals, and while I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say “thou shall not shower with tall gay British men” anywhere in the Bible, the moral questioning of the scenario would be unavoidable.
The question is, is it worth it for the incredibly small percentage of gay men in pro sports (radio and TV personalities say it’s as much as one per team, I highly doubt that) to try and convince a league of guys that its OK to play with them, or just wait until after their careers when the money is already in the bank, to come out? I would have to lean towards the latter. The truth is gay prejudice is one of the hardest types to counteract, so for now, gay men deciding to venture into pro sports may have to abide by the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy until such a drastic change of perceptions in the league occurs. But I’ve realized this topic is too dense and serious to rant about, so let’s move on…
All-Star replacements, just because…
I put so much effort into making my selections, and David Stern was poised with making the same decision of who to replace the injured Yao Ming (and Boozer as well). With two spots open I thought it wouldn’t be possible for another snub to be in order, but the omission of Elton Brand shot that down. Instead, Stern decided to go with the vastly improved Josh Howard, and Carmelo Anthony. This is what I don’t get though. If you were going to snub Anthony the first time it would have to be solely be for his suspension, considering the fact that he leads the league in scoring, an automatic All-Star selection attribute. So by that rationale, it wouldn’t matter how many injury spots open up, because it was already decided by coaches that Carmelo didn’t deserve to make the original reserves exclusively because of his suspension, right?
Even weirder is the fact that Stern is the one who has given Melo a second chance at making the squad, considering his near-dictator like rule of the NBA so far this season, which included Melo’s 15 game sit. I guess the commissioner decided that Anthony had learned his lesson enough from the ordeal, and that it would take two roster injuries for the league’s top scorer to make the team, a humbling selection indeed. Still, I feel that Brand has earned enough respect over his rock solid career in the league to get the nod, at least over an emerging star like Howard, but the Mavericks better record probably played a part. Also, Brand is averaging just below 10 rebounds this year, which has a very negative effect on a player’s stat line, even if he makes up for it in other areas (field goal percentage, blocks).
The three words I hate more than anything else are…
Pitchers and Catchers. Seriously, why do so many people attribute this meaningless day as the official start of the baseball season? More importantly they try to generate excitement around it, like fans are remotely interested in what is, in all reality, warm-ups. I’m sorry, but when I hear that it’s only 12 days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, I don’t circle the date on my calendar. I don’t watch the entire evening SportsCenter in hopes of seeing Mike Pelfrey throwing curve balls to Paul LoDuca at Tradition Field in Port. St Lucie (and yes I had to google the name of the Mets spring training field). For me, it isn’t until spring training begins in about a month or so when the season officially gains my interest, and unless you’re a beat reporter for the New York Post, the same should be said for you.
(Wait a minute…I want to be a beat writer for the New York Post. Uh, scratch that thought process. Pitchers and Catchers all the way! Bring on the pitching of baseballs and subsequent catching of them! Seriously, I want to listen to live press conferences everyday in which Rick Peterson says things like, “yeah his stuff is lookin pretty good” and “still trying to get that curve to break a little earlier.” Riveting stuff.)
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