Occasionally, I see things outside of the sports world that gets my blood boiling.

Mel Gibson

This week it was an interview I read about Mel Gibson and his return to the screen in “Edge of Darkness.” I believe I’m a fairly empathetic person, as I think most people in this country are, so I wasn’t going into this article with an agenda. “The Passion of the Christ” might get some people fired up, but a person has as much of a right to make that movie as Michael Moore has a right to make “Bowling for Columbine.” Gibson’s anti-Jewish remarks were a lot harder to take, but I believe people screw up and should be given a second chance.

But then I kept reading and started getting mad for a different reason.

What does this have to do with sports you ask? Here’s an excerpt from that article by Geoff Boucher, Chicago Tribune reporter:

Mel Gibson took a deep breath, shook his head and stared down at his palms. “I just can’t do this. You’ve got me at a disadvantage.” The movie star, his voice a croak, was a mere 19 minutes into an interview, but it was clear there was no way he was going to make it to 20.

“I’m coming rapidly to the conclusion that right now, today, my brain cannot function. Honestly? I’m six days off the cigarette. You’re looking at someone who’s having a pretty bad withdrawal from a 45-year habit.”

The question that sent the jittery Gibson on his way out of the room was about the cultural riptides that await anyone who brings religion into the modern public life of Hollywood. “I’m not running away from it. I want to give you a fair trot. I like where you’re coming from with these questions. I just feel ill-equipped to answer.”

Gibson just walked away from the interview! Now, he came back three days later to finish the interview but really never answered the question.

Could you imagine what the media and public would do to an athlete that pulled the same thing? I do. He’d be absolutely vilified. If Michael Vick walked away from a question about how the public views those who have been punished for animal cruelty, people would absolutely blast him.

Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson was a college-educated baseball player, a rarity in the early 1900s.

This is nothing new. Movie and TV stars have always been treated differently than athletes. When Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson came into major leagues in the early 1900s, baseball players were treated as second-class citizens. They stayed in third-rate hotels and were looked down upon by the public as hooligans. Mathewson’s presence began to usher in a new era of ball player. Mathewson was college educated at Bucknell University, definitely a rarity for his time. He was nicknamed “The Christian Gentleman” and went against all the baseball player stereotypes.

Over the years, more and more educated players began entering the major leagues. And now we are miles away from those early days of hooligans playing the game. But still, the stereotypes persist.

I’m not saying that athletes get unfair treatment. In fact, I think they should be held to a high standard. But I think TV and movie celebrities should be held to that same standard.

Why should their acts get a free pass?

A friend and co-worker of mine, Gerry Fey was discussing the A-Rod, steroid scandal and he brought to my attention an interesting commentary written in the Baltimore Sun, by columnist David Steele that puts much of the blame on baseball fans. Yes, you heard that right- the fans!

Well, Gerry, a long-time baseball fan (and someone who follows the intricacies of the sport better than I) was outraged, so I asked him to put some of his thoughts down to share with you all.

I couldn’t have said it any better! I hope you enjoy:

I can’t quite understand why David Steele would blame the fans for not sending a proper message to Major League Baseball. Because of some players’ screw-ups and others in the sport choosing to ignore the obvious, Steele would have us, the fans, stop going to games.Let me tell you, that’s like blaming the small-time Wall Street investors for the sub-prime mortgage mess. The problem is not the game, just like the problem isn’t the free-market system on Wall Street. The problem is the players who cheated and those who allowed it to happen. By Mr Steele’s argument then, I guess we need to stop reading the sports section of the newspaper, stop watching almost all sports on TV and stop going to ALL sporting events. Because let me tell you, if you’ve got a problem with baseball, you must have a problem with all Olympic sports, hockey, cycling, and yes, the precious NFL. All of these sports have had performance-drug problems (and still do).I, for one, am happy things are being done about it in baseball. These investigations are good, and slowly, the sport is cleaning up its act. I frankly prefer this to the “stick your head in the sand” mentality that exists in the NFL by coaches, officials, fans and writers. I’m assuming you’ve been in an NFL locker room (at least I hope you have). You don’t think that steroids or, most-importantly, HGH isn’t a huge problem in the NFL? You think it’s “natural” for a 6-foot-1, 245-pound linebacker to run a 4.3 40-yard dash? By the way, that’s .08 seconds faster than Ben Johnson ran in the first 40 yards of his 100-meter gold-medal finish at the 1988 Olympics. You’ll remember that Ben Johnson tested positive for steroids in that race.

Talk about blame, how about blaming all the writers/columnists who are now taking as many shots as they can at baseball instead of doing some serious investigating of America’s biggest and most-guilty sport, the NFL.

-Gerry Fey

If you ask someone “who are the Browns?” they can likely come up with the obvious answer, the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, one of the oldest teams around with a storied history.  But there was a time when the color brown was a bit more popular in sports nomenclature.

In Baseball there were the St. Louis Browns.  In fact there were numerous iterations of the St. Louis Browns: the future Cardinals and the future Orioles (both teams changed to birds, odd).  Such monochrome names really lend their legacies to that first professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings.  As I wrote over here, teams in the earlier years of baseball didn’t really have much in the way of official names, but rather nicknames derived from uniform elements or some kind of regional connection.  The Reds had amassed a good deal of popularity in a barn storming tour in which they thoroughly dominated.  So in 1875 the Brown Stockings came about.  The team lasted for three seasons before going belly up.  There was a game fixing scandal with the Louisville Grays that sent both teams out of business. Read the full story

The world of sports is changing around us.  ESPN reports (I use the term loosely) constantly.  The major media outlets are accused of pandering.  If you want the real story on anything you have to go to the internet and the blogs.  But then of course they are accused of being based on conjecture and inherently critical and negative.  I for one don’t find anything terribly surprising about this.

Case in point, the recent Yankee spending spree this off season.  Sports outlets are cranking out their lists of winners in losers in all this.  I’m left a bit out of sorts in this whole situation because everyone is playing in the mud, there are no real winners.  It’s only a matter of time before they start posting their “What’s Wrong with Baseball” stories. Read the full story

The long strange journey of the Athletics before they came to Oakland saw one failed team turn into another.  A thirteen year experiment beginning in 1955 brought the first season of the Kansas City Athletics.  The former Philadelphia team, it’s reverential powerhouse days behind it, was broke and was purchased and moved by industrialist Arnold Johnson. 

Johnson is not remembered very favorably.  That is normal for owners who move teams, but what is not normal is that he isn’t remembered fondly in the city where he brought a team either.  His concern is said to have been more for profits than for the people of Kansas City.  The team brought with it much excitement and the A’s enjoyed record attendance in their first year.  Unfortunately they never saw anywhere near those kinds of numbers again. Read the full story