From CBS Sports:

NBA commissioner David Stern sat through more than 16 hours of labor negotiations on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, but the harshest words aimed at him came from outside the bargaining room.

Emmy-winning television commentator Bryant Gumbel closed Tuesday night’s episode of HBO’s Real Sports with a pointed editorial aimed at Stern, whose league has made little progress in negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement since it locked out its players on July 1.

Gumbel’s statement evoked slavery with reference to a “plantation,” “boys” and “hired hands”. Gumbel and a vast majority of NBA players are African-American. Stern is not. (more…)

George Soros, billionaire investor and grand patron of the American institutional left, has just failed in his attempt to have his 2002 conviction for insider trading in France overturned. He plans to appeal.

The Soros result has gone virtually unnoticed in the U.S. media, which has paid more attention to a rather lame attempt by Bloomberg Markets magazine to develop the Koch brothers conspiracy theory into a tale of global corruption.

How bad was that article? The Atlantic summed it up nicely:

The article purports to be a hard-hitting exposé on the giant multinational, run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. According to Bloomberg, 14 reporters around the globe worked for six months on the story. What did they turn up? Really, shockingly little. And what’s worse: from the very outset, the reporters’ bias against the Koch brothers is utterly clear.

Meanwhile, Media Matters for America–the Soros-funded, self-appointed would-be censor of conservative opinion–continues hankering after the Koch brothers.

And just in time to catch the Astroturf fever of #OccupyWallStreet, Democrats are rumored to be heading to this weekend’s Sunday news shows armed with talking points about the Koch brothers’ alleged past dealings in Iran through a foreign subsidiary.

Yet Rahm Emanuel, who will appear on NBC’s Meet the Press, and Nancy Pelosi, who will appear on ABC’s This Week, received campaign contributions from companies alleged to have operated in Iran through subsidiaries–including Honeywell, for example, which has contributed to both. (more…)

Oh puleeeeeeeese.  Can we cut the crap with the Royal Wedding?

We’re all happy for the couple, but just let them get married and get on with their lives. My suggestion; come to Vegas and get it done at the Little Wedding Chapel of the Holy Roulette Table, or whatever it’s called. It was good enough for Joan Crawford and Michael Jordan. But I should add, since President Obama has twice told people not to come to Las Vegas, a Royal Elope is probably not an option (although I’ll betcha they’ve thought about it).

The pomp and circumstance the media is creating is absolutely ridiculous. I’m begging for one activist old media person to look at the camera, be real, and say, “You know what, I could really give a damn about the Royal Wedding.” Being real has never been TV news’ strong point, so that’s not likely to happen.

Yes, this has already been called The Wedding of the Century, so I’m trying desperately to find some context here, and this is all I can come up with; I covered boxing in Vegas for nearly three decades and we had a “Fight of the Century” every six months. Yes, I would ridicule it whenever promoters would tout their fights with too much hype and I would say something like this, “Hey, they’re opening the Mirage and Sugar Ray Leonard is fighting Roberto Duran! It’s the Fight of the Century. Didn’t they already fight twice this century?” Like Duran, I say no mas to the Wedding of the Century. I first tagged Tyson/Holyfield II “The Bite of the Century,” so I’ve got some history with this sort of hype. (more…)

You hear this mantra everywhere in the activist old media, “The Republican candidates for president are flawed,” “Republicans are not happy with their candidates.”

George Stephanopoulos goes to the “Smart Screen” on Good Morning America with the latest poll/editorial that tells us that Republicans are dissatisfied with their candidates for President. It’s all right there — if the Smart Screen says it, who can doubt it?

Nobody has declared for the White House on the Republican side and already the media is working as hard as it can to diminish the field. Humm, wonder why they would want to do that? Basically the media is saying, “We don’t know what the field is yet, but we know Republicans don’t like it.” What they are really saying is that they don’t like it.

I happen to rather like the field of potential candidates for President. No Presidential candidate in our lifetime has accomplished the things Mitt Romney has accomplished. Along with being a brilliant businessman, he saved the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and showed his ability to negotiate with foreign leaders when he convinced them to display the torn and tattered flag from 9-11 during the Opening Ceremonies (no flag is to be singled out during the Opening Ceremonies, this one was,) another accomplished businessman, Herman Cain has shown his ability to build a strong nation through free enterprise—imagine that? Godfathers Pizza has been rather successful over the years and it didn’t happen by accident.

(more…)

I watched the LA Lakers and Golden St. Warriors going through their pre-game routine the other night and saw them wearing “NBA GREEN” on their warm-ups.

“How great is this, the NBA is finally admitting that it’s all about the money,” is what I told my wife. “A pro-sports league being honest, I wonder how the media will react.”  She quickly corrected me and told me what I already knew. The NBA has an effort to “go green” by trying to save the planet, or something to that effect. How thoughtful of they who have 30 teams who fly around the planet playing 82 games each of a regular season, plus a long pre-season and an even longer post-season. But then can celebrate how the Oklahoma City Thunder planted 14 trees. If we ever see Dale Junior driving a Chevy Volt in a NASCAR race, then we can declare The End is near.

One thing I know is that sports and its media are just as liberal as their newsroom counterparts.

(more…)

It’s come to this. The totalitarian Ministry of Newspeak er, I mean Media Matters for America has so much Soros money that they actually employ a guy to watch what we are saying on Twitter, even if it’s trash talk with buddies over a football game.  I’m not joking.  Even more outrageous, all of the thousand-plus contributors here at “The Bigs” are under this scrutiny.  And whenever any of us do something that the self-appointed thought-police at MMfA deem worthy of criticizing, we are all labeled with the same moniker:  “Andrew Breitbart Blogger.”  Here’s how they came after me, for sending a Tweet about an NFL game:

Let’s start at the beginning:  First of all, I am an American man.  Being an American man, I love the NFL.  I am also from Detroit.  Being an American man from Detroit who loves the NFL, it therefore goes to reason that I hate the Chicago Bears.  Everyone with me so far? (I’m trying to make this so simple that even the joyless, agoraphobic shut-ins like those staffing MMfA will understand.)

(more…)

Batter up!

But ol’ Charlie’s still got a way to go to top this one:

By comparison, here’s what a real first pitch looks like: (more…)

So many things to say, so little time. But who knew the Former Sportscaster was still fighting a rear-guard action against women in the locker room?

Meanwhile in case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about: (more…)

My former Time colleague, Neil Leifer, took this iconographic image of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston on May 25, 1965, in the immediate aftermath of the “phantom punch” that ended Liston’s reign as heavyweight champ and, effectively, his career:

Liston later said he’d thrown the fight out of his fear of Black Muslims, who had recently claimed the former Cassius Clay as a new convert.   (more…)

Maybe it’s best if sports guys just leave the tweeting to the teenagers, or, at least leave them to those who can get the facts straight.

Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise got busted this week for tweeting something he made up out of the blue, or pink, or orange, or whatever color tweets are when they are hatched.

Wise “broke” the bogus story that Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would only have to sit out five games instead of the six games he had actually been suspended by the league for.

Wise has since been suspended by the Post for one month (the equivalent of four games) for tweeting the made-up story. As Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander explained to readers:

The action stems from a short scoop to his Twitter followers that said Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who has been suspended for six games by the NFL after allegations of misconduct, will only have to sit out five games. “Roethlisberger will get five games, I’m told,” Wise tweeted.

That was big news for those who follow professional football, and it quickly spread on the Internet. But as Wise soon acknowledged, it was a hoax that was part of a misguided attempt to comment on the lowered standards of accuracy for information shared on social media.

Fabrication is a major journalistic transgression. He’s lucky he wasn’t fired.

(more…)

Outta the park:

Who’s up next?

Fondly remembered, lovingly written.  Be sure to check it out:

We were listening to the game on the radio. Nearly everyone was rooting for the Giants. But things looked beyond bleak when Thomson came to bat in the bottom of the ninth in the third and deciding game of a playoff series to determine who would win the National League pennant. There was one out and two runners were on base, and the archrival Dodgers were ahead, 4-2.

When Thomson hit the home run to suddenly and shockingly end both the game and the series, an astonishing celebration erupted in the back of the shop. My father hugged my mother, and they were jumping up and down. Then he picked me up and asked if I realized what had just happened. I didn’t, really — but according to family lore I started yelling, “We won! We won!”

My dad clipped all the newspaper accounts of Thomson’s feat and kept them for many years. I don’t know how many times we read them together when I was in first and second grade, and of course we had no idea that I would end up writing for three of the papers.

That magical moment of pure, unadulterated joy was the beginning of my love for the game of baseball.

Sure, it was a Polo Grounds cheapie, a liner to left — in Boston it would have hit the Monster for a single. But so what? One of the great moments in sports history, New York City history — hell, history itself. (more…)

Most of the sportswriters still can’t understand what it was that Roger Clemens might have done wrong.

Which is why they’re still sportswriters. (more…)

Since it’s getting increasingly more difficult to tell the difference between news in the New York Times and parodies in The Onion, I thought I would perform a public service by giving you the opportunity to hone your source-spotting skills.

Here’s how a recent article begins about a “curious disparity” that, until now, you probably haven’t worried about very much. Is this an example of what the Times regards as news that’s fit to print, or is it an Onion parody?

Baseball’s Praised Diversity Is Stranded at First Base

About 40 percent of the players in Major League Baseball are black, Hispanic or Asian, and the sport is seen as a leading example of diversity, yet a curious disparity has emerged in a corner of the game.

Among baseball’s 30 teams, only 23 percent of the third-base coaches are members of minorities, compared with 67 percent of its first-base coaches. The disparity has existed for decades but it is now about twice as large as it was in 1990, based on an analysis by….

You guessed The Onion, right? I mean, who else would write in apparent seriousness (as the article in question does a few paragraphs later) that “diversity among the third-base coaching ranks has been in decline for the past five years, from a peak of 12 in 2005 to 7 this season, and the racial disparity between first- and third-base coaches has increased,” an underrepresentation deemed so dire that it was accompanied by a sidebar with a graph showing “A Gap in the Coaching Boxes” of 43 percentage points and noting that “[t]he  disparity between the percentage of minority first-base coaches and minority third-base coaches in Major League Baseball is greater than ever.” (more…)

Who should replace Larry King? Wow, the question of the decade right there!

The excitement is mounting in CNN Land these days as we ponder who should replace the legendary broadcaster who many say actually left his show years ago.

My first thoughts are either Joy Behar (she could just move across the hall from Headline News) or Michael Moore. It seems like they are on the show almost as often as Larry himself, so it would make the transition for the sensitive viewers much easier. They may not even know there has been a change.

Ahhhh, but before we put Larry to pasture I think of the great moments in Larry King history.

The night he called Andre Agassi “Pancho Gonzales.” Andre was sitting right there next to Larry and Pancho had actually been dead for more than ten years at the time. I was watching the interview live, the look on Andre’s face was priceless. (more…)

Rick Monday, Dodger Stadium, April 25, 1976 — the year of the Bicentennial:

We were all Americans then, remember… well, almost all of us.

Or something like that. That headline certainly makes as much sense as this deranged PC-rant from National Progressive Radio by way of the ancient leftist publication The Nation: “Why the Far Right Hates Soccer,” by Dave Zirin. Just when you think the lunatic fringe can’t get any nuttier, along comes this:

Every World Cup, it arrives like clockwork. As sure as the ultimate soccer spectacle brings guaranteed adrenaline and agony to fans across the United States, it also drives the right-wing noise machine utterly insane.

“It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us,” yipped the Prom King of new right, Glenn Beck. “It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn’t matter how many bars open early, it doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run, we don’t want the World Cup, we don’t like the World Cup, we don’t like soccer, we want nothing to do with it.”

That darn right-wing noise machine, upset over a little thing like lethal soccer riots! But you know — you just know — it goes deeper than that, and we all have a sense of where this is heading, don’t we: (more…)

**** Update 2: Commissioner Selig won’t reverse the call.

**** Update: Major League Baseball reviewing umpire’s call.

Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga wuz robbed of a perfecto last night at Comerica Park in the Motor City by a call at first base by umpire Jim Joyce that will rank as one of the worst calls ever. One out from perfection…

Out by a mile.

Okay — you’re the sportswriters, so have at it.

I’ve been a Phoenix Suns fan of varying intensity since I was seven years old. I’ve never been much of an athlete, but I enjoy watching sports from tennis to basketball. It thrills me to watch people who are among the best in the world at what they do, whether it’s Roger Federer, Peyton Manning, or Kobe Bryant.

But mixing sports with politics? Running an interview with President Obama during an NBA playoff game?  No thanks.

So how does something like this happen? I guess you and the president just talk all the time, and he says “why don’t you come over with your TV crew?”

Marv Albert: He keeps calling! And after a while, it just gets annoying, you know?

No, we came up with the idea of doing this for a pregame show in the Western conference finals. They said yes right away. It was just a matter of trying to come up with a date. Because he’s obviously very busy, and I’m jumping back and forth between cities in the playoffs. So we finally settled on Friday, which worked out because there was a little bit of a three-day break. We did it on the basketball court, at the White House.

He was just … it was a great experience. He was tremendous. He knows his stuff. That’s apparent.

(more…)

Now even the sportswriters are getting into the act. Here’s CBS Sports.com’s national columnist, Mike Freeman, on the All-Star Game, scheduled to be played next season in Arizona:

The following scenario could actually happen. In America. In the 21st century …

It’s 2011 and the All-Star Game is just a few days away in Arizona. Albert Pujols decides to take a stroll in downtown Phoenix. A police officer drives by and doesn’t realize that Pujols is a baseball icon. To the officer, he looks potentially like an illegal alien. He is, after all, brown skinned.

Sure, that’s plausible — one of the most famous baseball players on the planet, a guy whose team, the St. Cardinals, regularly plays against the Diamondbacks, doesn’t get recognized on the street by a cop.  Albert Pujols couldn’t walk a block in downtown Phoenix without getting mobbed by fans and autograph hounds, and this hypothetical cop is… a clueless racist.

Freeman continues his little fascist fantasy: (more…)