I’m going to throw in with the lunatics, especially given they receive so much political and legislative support, attention and even funding, from the White House to Albany to City Hall.
In order to avoid escalating Real Estate taxes, I will now identify as a 6-year-old. The mere claim that I’m 6 should carry the day. I know my rights! Besides, let’s see the IRS toss a 6-year-old in jail for tax evasion. Hey, Turn-key! You call this chocolate milk!?
Those of us who relied upon common sense and fair play to win the day — or at least break even — are now holding losing tickets.
I thought we’d bottomed out six years ago when Fox and ESPN, both MLB partner networks, hired just-retired Alex Rodriguez — a twice-busted, drug-cheating, chronic liar — as the name and face of nationally televised baseball.
That not a word of dissent came from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told us all we needed to know about him.
But then, starting in 2018, we were quickly hit with three stories that seemed to be aberrations — too impossible to sustain as per the forces of common sense:
1) In Connecticut in 2018, a girls high school track meet included a winner and a runner-up who had formerly competed as males. Naturally, they were bigger, faster and stronger than the girls in the girls’ competition
2) CeCe Telfer, a muscular transgender woman who the previous year competed on Franklin Pierce University’s men’s track team as Craig Telfer, won the 2019 NCAA Division II 400 meter hurdles championship, crushing the seven other born-and-raised female finalists.
Franklin Pierce’s CeCe Telfer runs a race in May 2019. NCAA Photos via Getty Images
In a lengthy feature, The New York Times followed her feat, but didn’t ask any of the seven biological females in that race how they felt about competing in what appeared to the fair-minded as a fixed race.
3) Lia Thomas, who as 6-foot-1 William Thomas swimming for the Penn men’s team, was just an also-swam, won the 2022 Division I women’s 500-yard freestyle championship.
Put ’em all together and common sense would put a quick end to this, certainly before it could grow worse, not as a matter of politics, religion or even ideology, but as a matter of applied common sense.
Lia Thomas celebrates after winning an event in March 2022. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
As transexual Caitlyn Jenner and lesbian Martina Navratilova have firmly declared: right-minded advocates of minimal fair play — advocates of common sense in sports — now risk condemnation as bigots, as “homophobes” by those who refuse to see what’s impossible to miss.
But common sense has been ruled inadmissible, starting with President Biden — who, on his first day in office in 2021, released an executive order:
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room or school sports.”
Thus the President of the United States became an advocate of fixed races and bogus competitions. And if one disagreed on the matter of fundamental unfairness — especially to biological women — one was out of modern step, self-relegated to antiquity.
And now these episodes that have evaded common sense come at us in waves. Last week it was a transexual bicyclist Austin Killips who won a women’s race. Before that, wrestling, ice hockey, the pole vault, weight lifting, volleyball and the hammer throw were added to swimming and track.
Austin Killips (r.) is pictured after a race in January. BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
And they know their rights! They have the right to destroy women’s sports on behalf of women’s sports!
Our nation now has a zero-tolerance policy on common sense. Common sense, as manifested through fair play, is homophobic, transphobic, racist, misogynistic, hate-driven, un-American and even fascist. See ya in Juvenile Detention Center!
Everything about SNY is dull
Year after year since SNY’s launch in 2006, we’ve awaited the appearance of original, worthwhile programming only to see or hear little that stands out aside from Mets telecasts and Connecticut women’s basketball propaganda.
Too many of the network’s anchors seem to have been hired from far away from New York and even further from New York sports. That’s why the legendary CCNY basketball coach Nat Holman was called “Nate” Holman, among other “tells” that make us wince.
And the last thing a NYC sports station — any regional station — should inspire in viewers about its anchors is, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
SNY’s female hires seem to have the same three obvious things in common. They are young, attractive and reliant on a teleprompter from which to read dull, cliché-riddled sports copy. And some of my best children are young women.
Despite Todd Zeille’s occasional dalliances with candor, SNY’s Mets pre- and postgame shows have more Zeille than zeal, no content above the snoozy and anticipated.
I’m not asking for trapeze acts, but for better — as in less dull thus more creative, alluring and sustaining. And such improvements shouldn’t cost an extra dime.
Charles Barkley needs to call out Charles Barkley
Wonder how fast moralist Charles Barkley would be to call out a professional sports hypocrite such as Charles Barkley.
Barkley, who will endorse anything that casts a shadow and produces a check, is back in a new series of sucker-aimed sports gambling commercials, this time pitching the worst “get-rich-quick” fool’s bets on the menu: parlay bets.
Charles Barkley needs to call himself out instead of others. Getty Images
Barkley is a self-admitted problem gambler who in 2008 needed a $400,000 pay back before a Las Vegas casino sent a prosecutor after him.
But he’s Charles Barkley, who lectures the nation on right from wrong, thus he’s entitled.
If I produced SNY’s Mets’ telecasts, I’d kill those Gary Cohen-Steve Gelbs comedy spots, but only because, despite their shared belly laughs, they’re not funny.
Always leave yourself room to laugh when something’s genuinely funny. It’s much like CBS/TNT’s Kevin Harlan, who hollers so loud and so often that when there’s something worth hollering about he has no place left to holler, let alone be taken seriously.
Markus Allen AP
Wisconsin sophomore football receiver Markus Allen was arrested by Madison, Wis., police officers on April 29 for public intoxication and possessing a concealed firearm that police said was stolen.
If the NCAA is even mildly concerned about the epidemic of weapons brought to campuses by athletic recruits, it’s keeping it to itself. That will make it easier to express shock and dismay when a student-athlete shoots a student.
It now seems as if every team has two or three players who signed huge deals then hopped the Yoenis Cespedes Express.
Before the start of last season, Twins OF/DH Byron Buxton, once among my favorite players for his versatility, signed a seven-year, $100 million contract extension.
Since then, well …
Last season, he hit .224 and struck out 116 times in 340 at-bats. This season, he’s at .262 with 38 Ks in 107 ABs. Thus, since signing his $100 million extension, he has struck out in 34 percent of his at-bats, while his stolen base totals have gone from a high of 29 in 2017 to low single digits.
When his MLB playing days have ended, Mets catcher Tomas Nido will make a great bunting instructor — if bunting is still allowed. He has those nice soft hands, keeps his thumb protected and holds his head still.
Women’s sports suffering through bogus wins by transgender competitors
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