Bad sports, good sports: Players Union wants to keep Limbaugh out of the NFL
The woeful St. Louis Rams are for sale. It says something about the money-printing power of the NFL that there are at least six different groups interested in purchasing the Rams, despite the fact that they are very clearly the worst team in the league, and have not been good for several years. One of these potential ownership groups includes Rush Limbaugh, the outspoken, controversial, and ultra-conservative talk show host. The NFL Players Association is displeased at the prospect, and has made it known to the league.
My initial reaction at hearing this was mixed. I greatly dislike Limbaugh, and hate the idea of him being an NFL owner. I am not a fan of the Rams, and I don’t live anywhere near St. Louis, so I am not sure how any of this could possible impact me in any way. At the same time, blocking someone from ownership of a business entity because you dislike his political views seems wrong. Then again, the NFL is a private organization, and should certainly have plenty of latitude in deciding who can play in its sandbox.
The current edition of the Rams has an 0-5 record, and has scored a mere 34 points in those 5 games, while letting up 146. Atrocious. I guess if Limbaugh has to own a team, it’s better that he owns a really bad one, right? But even the bad ones make a whole lot of money. Limbaugh has a right to make a living, of course, and I imagine that there are already a bunch of NFL owners with whom I would have strong disagreements, were I to engage them in political conversation. Limbaugh, however, has pretty solidly crossed the line several times in talking about the NFL, politically when discussing race. Six years ago, he famously belittled Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, stating that his reputation as a winner was more a product of the media wanting to see a black quarterback succeed than it was because of McNabb’s actual accomplishments. More recently, he suggested that former Secretary of State Colin Powell only supported Barack Obama’s campaign for president because he was black. See a pattern here? The thing is, though, nearly 70% of the players in the NFL are black. At least a handful of those players have been willing to speak out publicly against Limbaugh’s bid. I would bet that we will hear more protests if the bid seems to be a legitimate one. To be honest, I would support those protests. Let Limbaugh continue “enlightening” his radio audience. The fans of the Rams deserve better than him. Come to think of it, they deserve better than the Rams, too.
Good sports, continued:
2) Tiger Woods continues to amaze. He became only the third player to ever go 5-0 during the Presidents Cup, leading the U.S. to a dominating victory over the international team. The man is a machine.
3) The U.S. soccer team qualified for its sixth consecutive berth in the World Cup by beating Honduras on Saturday. Soccer has never really taken off in the U.S., as far as television watching sports fans go. Professional soccer, in particular, hasn’t made it big. The World Cup, though, is the one event that seems to drum up some interest. If the Americans could win the whole thing someday, we might see the interest level really take off.
Bad sports:
1) OK, you’re playing golf. Your tee shot takes off to somewhere in the vicinity of the water hazard running along the fairway. No problem, right? You just head over to the edge of the water and pick up the ball out of the shallows, intending to drop it a few feet back and take the penalty. Ah, but the alligator lurking on the edge of the pond has other ideas.
2) In a story that is sure to live on for many years, the St. Louis Cardinals lost game two of their National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers when, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in a game the Cardinals were leading, Matt Holliday, the Cardinals left fielder, misjudged a ball hit straight at him. Instead of catching it to complete the win that would even the series, the ball missed his glove and hit him square in the…umm…well, let’s say his cry of pain was likely an octave or two higher than it might usually have been. I love baseball.
3) Bad officiating is something that is unavoidable in sports. I am pretty sure I have never watched a game of any kind where there was not at least one call that I disagreed with. Of course, just because I disagree with it does not make it a bad call. I am sure I have been wrong once or twice. Sometimes, though, a call is so bad and the referee/umpire’s miss so inexcusable that attention needs to be called to it. In the playoff game between the Minnesota Twins and the New York Yankees on Friday, Phil Cuzzi, an umpire, completely blew a call that was directly in front of him and was simply not even close. Check out the picture in the link to the story. This happened in the eleventh inning, and likely cost the Twins a win. Cuzzi needs a different job.
Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday
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Rush would be good for football. The guy is very knowledgeable and has the money to buy the team.
Hi WTL. As far as your second sentence, that’s a fair point. I don’t think sentence two necessarily supports sentence one, however. I am not sure the NFL is interested in having RL representing it in any way.