Phil Mushnick
It’s all a con, continued:
Bernie Madoff, the Guinness Book of Records Ponzi operator, had a rule that, for subscribers to the too-good-to-be-true dictum, served as a red flag:
The rule: You’re not allowed to ask questions. Just give him as much cash as you can gather, then sit back and reap the totally unqualified and beyond-belief interest on your investment as per an earnings report provided by the accounting firm of Null & Void.
Thus last week’s tale of ESPN, the self-destructive Disney sports network, winning sports Emmys for 13 years based on submitting fabricated names came as a shock — only in that it took so long to have its cover blown off. After all, once a secret is shared — and this con had to be shared by plenty — it’s no longer a secret.
Consider the path this couldn’t-end-well scam traveled, from the submission of phony names of imagined production staffers to those assigned to scratch off those fabricated from the statuettes and replace them with on-air talent, nearly 40 of them, from Kirk Herbstreit to Desmond Howard.
None even knew they’d been nominated? None asked for exactly what they’d been nominated or who they beat out to win? NATAS, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, took ESPN’s word for it for 13 years, never even slightly curious as to who all those nonexistent production folks are? Never even asked for a bio, even if it was bogus?
Or weren’t you allowed to ask questions?
Naturally, and presumably transparently, ESPN’s oblivious hierarchy was caught totally unaware — until the day last week when ESPN was caught at something it had little chance to contain. Heck, 13 years of bogus acclaim and purloined honor is a pretty good run, thus a damned good try.
The sports Emmys have always reeked of insider trading in service to egos that don’t much care if the flattery is sincere or based on a lie.
Years ago, an NBC Sports junior executive confessed that, as a sports Emmys judge of live programming, his bosses instructed him on how to vote:
Vote NBC’s entry for first place. Next, vote what struck him as the best competing production for last. Then the most unworthy nominees second, third and so on. Imagine grown men and women in authoritative positions playing such a silly and shameless game.
Then again, NBC spent last week excitedly telling us how fortunate we are that Saturday night’s Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game can only be seen behind an NBC paywall. Hooray for us! Bernie Madoff lives!
Late soccer star was out of this Cosmos
Franz Beckenbauer — the West German World Cup champ and leader, and later a globe-shaking Cosmos purchase — died last week at 78.
As a sweeper back — not to be confused with the recently discovered MLB “sweeper” pitch — Beckenbauer was a master of making productive calm out of the chaos of a Cosmos team of international superstars most of whom demanded the one ball in play.
For all his mature serenity and on-field foresight, he was a fascinating dude with an understated candor — as when he called the playing field in Rochester “a potato patch,” no rancor, just an honest assessment.
A straight arrow, it remains irreconcilable that Beckenbauer was suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee for failing to cooperate with a probe of corruption in voting for the venues of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Then again, FIFA should be banned from the planet for awarding the last Cup to Qatar, which made absolutely no sense beyond what oil monarchy Mullah moolah can do. Perhaps Beckenbauer was aware that FIFA has long and reasonably been suspected of demanding negotiation tables from which to do business under.
My sustaining memory of Beckenbauer was when he first joined the Cosmos. He strolled into the hotel lounge in Minnesota and saw a bunch of traveling media playing a difficult, as in impossible, tabletop pinball game.
“Was ist das?” he asked. We showed him. When he accepted our invitation to give it a go, he lasted on his first try until we tired of our fascination, but thoroughly convinced he was, head to toe, a gifted athlete.
I challenge one CBS Sports shot-caller to sit with me and watch a recording of last Sunday’s Titans-Jaguars, then give their approval, on the record, that this is what viewers both want and deserve.
Not only did Kevin Harlan holler before, after and during every play, his parenthetical comments were absurd — including, “The Titans have a really good red-zone touchdown rate.” That must’ve explained their 6-11 season.
World gone nuts, continued: Saints star running back Alvin Kamara, who last year settled with a man who alleged Kamara and his pals nearly stomped him to death at 6 a.m. in a Vegas night club’s elevator, remains NASCAR’s first Growth and Engagement Advisor. I suppose they couldn’t find anyone better.
I guarantee that CBS’ Jim Nantz, throughout the first 30 years of his career, never said a QB “used his legs to run for a first down.” And never would. He’d simply say he “ran” or “scrambled.”
But Nantz, too, has caught modern silly-speak, long-form disease, as heard during last Sunday’s Bears-Packers.
Reader Bob Friant suggests the Giants should replace Wink Martindale with Bob Eubanks.
Seasons longer, but stats same
Significant football context has been abandoned by TV the same as comparing Yogi Berra’s World Series-only totals to those who play three rounds of postseason baseball.
ESPN recently noted that “Miami is seeking its first 12-win season since 1990.” The fact they now have an extra game to do so — with a 17-game season since 2021 instead of the previous 16-game schedule — was left unmentioned.
This omission is even more egregious when discussing, say, the standard for a superior season among NFL running backs. Achieving a 1,000-yard season has been marginalized with current seasons’ extended seasons — thus averaging 59 yards per game is now equally as special to rushing for 1,000 yards in 12-, 14- and 16-game seasons.
But last week’s winner, naturally, was ESPN, which reported that Michigan became “the sixth team in major college football history to finish 15-0 or better in a season.”
But such has been possible due to seasons extended to 12-games plus conference championships years ago then playoff games beginning in 2015.
The one exception was the 1897 Penn team that went 15-0 while defeating opponents by a total of 463-20. But ESPN knew that.
Rather disappointing that Nick Saban, in departing Alabama, didn’t credit all his recruits who would be arrested for everything and anything from sexual assault to illegal possessions of guns. Hey, he couldn’t have done it without them!
A good, high-scoring NBA game was played last week in spite of (or due to) the paucity of 3-point shots.
The visiting Nuggets beat the Warriors, 130-127, shooting a mere 26 3-pointers — very few, these days — and missing 17 of them. Radical!
Last week’s gold medal-winning U.S. junior ice hockey team draped their arms around one another while singing our national anthem as it played in Sweden. U.S. Medal of Honor recipient, as per President Biden, the self-entitled, classless, vulgar Megan Rapinoe and her U.S. women’s national soccer teammates must have been appalled.
I blew it here Friday, writing that South Carolina lost to Mississippi State. In fact, it won the game.
This post was originally posted by New York Post
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings