I Dislike Your Favorite Team

Sure is gratifying to see the rest of the world finally grasp what we've known for years. Welcome, rest of the world.

Fuck Tony Dungy, indeed.

I know that he was once a quality player. And I know that he was the first African-American coach to win a Superbowl. And I know that he speaks softly, except when he invokes the Master of the Universe: the God that won the Superbowl for him ("The Lord orchestrated this") that one time out of thirteen seasons.

Fuck Tony Dungy. I'm sick of his self-righteous, soft-pedal messiah complex. I'm sick of the deference the on-air sportsjacks pay him (contractual obligation). I'm sick of Dungy being a confessor/redeemer to every player who raises dogs for bloodsport, beats his wife or loves the purple drank. I'm sick of his self-appointed bullshit maneuvering to become "The Conscience of the NFL."

Fuck Tony Dungy. Fuck his bullshit religion, fuck his bullshit "faith and family" accolades, fuck his bullshit belief that we must alter our Constitution to stop the gays, fuck his bullshit pre-approved handclasp with President Obama.

Tony Dungy says, "I'm on the Lord's side."
If he has any proof, I'd love to see it. If there's no proof, then he's a big fucking asshole. This is the same fucking psycho mentality which has plagued humanity from the beginning: some asshole thinks that he knows God's will. See: persecution, history of. You know who else thinks he knows God's Will? George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden.

Regarding Mike Vick's dog-fighting lifestyle, Dungy regrets that he didn't take Vick fishing and allow Vick to absorb the celestial grace flowing from Dungy's tackle box: "If we had eight hours on the boat, maybe I would've found out about it. Maybe everything would have turned out differently. Maybe it all would've been different."
Yeah, if only your humility hadn't prevented you from saving Vick from the (gay?) Devil.

When asked by Bob Costas about having a gay player on his team, Dungy paused for an uncomfortably long time, crossed his arms. And finally said, "I'm sure I would talk to him about my views on it, what the Bible says about it."
What the Bible says is that gayness bad. Like, really bad. Really, really bad. Almost the worst possible thing. The Bible also says that working on the Sabbath shall be punishable by death (Exodus 35:2). Just checking ... when do they play pro football games? But I guess that's something you can take or leave, as long as you know God's will.

Tony Dungy fucking hates cuss words, such as those which flow from Rex Ryan on Hard Knocks: "I have not watched it. I've gotten the reports. I'm disappointed with all the profanity."
Judging something you've never seen? Priceless. What's really choice is that he says his bumboy Roger Gooddell should take a look into the matter of all those fucking cuss words.

So God's sidekick Dungy will lobby the league on behalf of dog-fighters and against speakers of profanity. What, is he running for political office in the Spanish Inquisition?

Faith? His Faith is a selective reading from bits of his Bible ... you know, only the bits that allow him to judge and condemn other people. Family? I don't see how the results of his family authority could be considered felicitous.

Prior to last year's Saints-Colts Superbowl, Tony Dungy says, "[Manning] is going to have those rings Sunday night. I don't think it's going to be close."
Wrong, you fucking asshole. Perhaps Dungy is wrong about other things as well?

Per capita, Utah leads the nation in pay-for-porn subscriptions over the Internet.

Two stories caught my eye. They both deal in racism, but with a twist!

The first involves college athletes and charges of kidnapping, robbery and sexual molestation. But with a twist! The victims were three offensive linemen from UNC, weighing an average of 275 pounds, and are all white. The accused molesters are all black, two of whom are women and one "a naked man with a kitchen knife."

Just a few miles from the Great Duke Rape Bonanza of 2006, we'll have to see how the UNC case plays out before we draw any conclusions about Southern Justice. At Duke, rich white frat boys were accused of sexually assaulting a black stripper. The outcome was a boon to cynics: the boys were exonerated because the stripper wasn't able to determine if she had been forcibly violated by a penis or by a dildo and the DA was disbarred for trying to prosecute them.

In the UNC case, the linemen were celebrating a birthday rather than UNC's 4-8 season. They began drinking in the afternoon; by the time they rolled into the East End Oyster & Martini Bar for more Jagermeister bombs they were hammered. One of the players brought home the three defendants, allegedly in the interest of sexual escapades. Back at the apartment, the linemen allowed themselves to be tied up by the ladies. Then the story gets a little confusing, but molestation & attempted robbery occurred before the linemen heroically freed themselves.

The second story involves a white sportsjack making a stupid, insensitive racial remark on the air, but with a twist! The Golf Channel broadcaster who said that the only way to stop Tiger Woods was for all the other golfers to get together and "lynch him in a back alley" was a cute chick.

Kelly Tilghman, the first female play-by-play golf announcer, was a star member of Duke University's golf team. Hmmm.

The Golf Channel wasn't going to punish Tilghman until Rev. Al Sharpton denounced her. Although she apologized to Woods, she is facing a two-week suspension. The legacy of dumbass racist comments has been dominated by white men, whose slap-on-the-wrist punishments were harsher than what Tilghman faces. This despite the fact that none of them invoked the brutal legacy of 3,466 unpunished lynchings from 1882-1968.

The symbolism of the hangman's noose was the motivating factor in Louisiana's Jena Six case, when six black high school students were charged (as adults) with attempted murder after beating the white student ringleader of the Lynching Tree Preservation Society.

Meanwhile in the Democratic Primaries, two members of oppressed classes are vying for their Party's nomination. To counter this, the Republican field consists of privileged rich, white conservative men. What a twist!

(updated) (updated again)

Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of the MLB from 1969 to 1984 was inducted into the Hall of Fame today. The AP is reporting that labor's opposite number of Kuhn, Marvin Miller, has been snubbed, and is kind of pissed:

"It's demeaning, the whole thing, and I don't mean just to me. It's demeaning to the Hall and demeaning to the people in it,'' Miller said.

And that isn't just sour grapes, people. Again, the AP in their "we'll let you draw your own conclusions here" way, points out this: "In the vote earlier this year,...Kuhn [received] 17 percent [of the vote], while Miller received 63 percent."

So what changed? They changed the entire structure of the Veterans Committee. And Miller thinks it was done to get figures unpopular with players into the Hall (like, say, Bowie Kuhn). Owners and executives now vote on owners, executives, and "pioneers" like Miller. So, basically Marvin Miller is now screwed, and Bowie Kuhn gets a free pass into the Hall.

Why does any of this matter? Well, Bowie Kuhn, as we documented, was a bit of a dick. He made it into our Sports Legion of Doom. The argument for him being included in the Legion of Doom was masterfully handled by occasional contributor "Barnyard" who is a law-talkin' guy who knows a thing or two about labor issues. You can read his entire post here, but I do want to quote the more salient points:

"So then, Bowie Kuhn. Well, he was the a-hole who made the last great stand against free agency. He was the guy who cut Curt Flood's career short and fought for a system so despicably one-sided that Curt Flood was comparing the reserve clause to slavery (in 1969, no less) and calling the Philadelphia fans racists (Flood unsuccessfully challenged the reserve clause when he fought his trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia, citing the racism of Philly fans as a reason for denying the trade).

Kuhn's attorney during Flood v. Kuhn alleged that Bowie acted the way he did "for the good of the game," birthing the continual hoax that owners of major sports teams are perpetually taken advantage of by greedy players while owners' sole motivation is akin to a young lad's first trip to the ol' ball park with dad. Oh, it is so sweet to see the new owner of a major league team score along in the program for the very first time: "mark it down as E1, son."

Bowie's evil legacy will forever be the last guy who fought for the ulimate symbol of owners' greed.

Oh yeah, he was also the prick who argued against the inclusion of Negro League baseball players into the Hall of Fame, and then tried to get their plaques placed in a separate wing of the Hall."

So, perhaps it is no surprise that Owners and Executives love the guy--a fond time in memory when owners called the shots, and the players were just so much chattel. And why Marvin Miller didn't get in. To quote the AP again, "Miller was leading the players to more lucrative and revolutionary gains, taking the average salary from $19,000 to $241,000 and pitching a virtual shutout against the owners in arbitration and collective bargaining." Miller represents the guy who ruined the happy easy salad days that Bowie Kuhn fought so hard to hold onto.

Or as Bud Selig put it: "I am particularly pleased that former commissioner Bowie Kuhn is among those who have received this great honor,'' current commissioner Bud Selig said. "Bowie was a close friend and a respected leader who served as commissioner during an important period in history, amid a time of change.''

Particularly pleased to honor a guy who attempted to strangle free agency in its crib, to keep power in the hands of the owners no matter what, and a guy who got his ass handed to him by Marvin Miller time and time again. Oh, Bud, you so crazy.

UPDATE: Another AP article gets reaction from Donald Fehr, who sums the whole issue up pretty neatly: "Over the entire scope of the last half of the 20th century, no other individual had as much influence on the game of baseball as did Marvin Miller," Fehr said. "Because he was the players' voice, and represented them vigorously, Marvin Miller was the owners' adversary. This time around, a majority of those voting were owner representatives, and results of the vote demonstrate the effect that had."

UPDATE again: King Kaufman is nicer than we are, but still thinks that Bowie Kuhn is a stupid fucking choice. Favorite sentence: "Putting Kuhn into the Hall of Fame before Miller is like voting for the Washington Generals as the greatest basketball team of all time."

Hold the presses! ESPN has a journalistic bombshell. Evidently Mets farmhand Lastings Milledge, aka L Millz (the 'Z' makes him street, yo) used racist and sexist terms on his single 'Bend Ya Knees' and the Mets disapproved. Racist terms? Hmmm... Nip? Potato Eater? Kike? Kraut? Wait, wait, wait... Help me out here. I've scoured the entire article and I can't quite put it together.

The Stamford Advocate dug a little deeper to shed some light on the matter:

The Mets already had released a terse statement denouncing Milledge's use of the N-word referring to African Americans as well as sexist terms for women, saying that they "disapprove of the content, language and message of this recording."

Oh... the N-Word. Gotcha.

Still, no light on the sexist terms though. Fortunately our friends at the NY Post offered some clues:

Of course, the female to whom L Millz... is singing is not actually being referred to as a woman, instead by the usual gutter descriptions stereotypical in rap. One of those words that got Don Imus fired.

You cheeky journalists, it took a little work on my part but now that you've appealed to my disgust of rap and used a carefully coded description, I get it. That's some good writing! And all without resorting to using an offensive word for women or degrading women in any way. WTG NY Post!

I'm all for the not-at-all-fascist crackdown in professional sports that allows me to enjoy games without any of the thuggish (read: black) elements offending my delicate sensibilities. In fact, it's time to give thanks to everyone in the media and the league offices who makes it possible for me (middle class white male fan) to feel safe and secure in the color-blind world of professional sports. To everyone who is protecting me from all of this rap crap and filth-flarn-filth, let me say: mighty white of you. Keep up the great work!