Sports in the Cellar

Sunday Morning arrived and as I flipped through my morning paper I flipped on ESPN. Sports are usually a pleasant distraction from the misery of the real world (not mine personally, thank God, but the National and World landscape). Ah, but today was full of some of sports biggest assholes, intruding upon my enjoyment.



Isiah Thomas, failed architect of the disaster that is the N.Y. Knicks, took exception to his team being blown out, at home, again. Rather than taking his wrath out on his team to, maybe, play better, he decided that it was time for one of his players to commit a flagrant foul on a Denver Nuggets player on a breakaway. (This is typical Isiah, by the way. Back in the day, when I was a rabid hoops fan, I came of age during the Celtics/Pistons battles when Isiah was a player for the Pistons. I will acknowledge he was the greatest small guard I've seen play the game. As opposed to a scoring guard like Jordan, or an Hybrid player like Magic, Isiah was a 6ft 1 inch hard nosed SOB on the court, and I respected his game. However, he often started trouble with other players and then ran for cover behind Rich Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer. (Or as legendary radioman Johnny Most used to call them, McFilthy and McNasty) - Fast forward, and Isiah the coach is threatening Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets, telling him to avoid the paint, because... well, let's just call it a veiled threat.) - So anyway, a brouhaha starts, suspensions are handed out yesterday, and surprise, surprise, Isiah walks away unscathed! In effect, the man who orders the hit walks away scot free while the executioner takes the heat.



Then there's old friend Terrell Owens, who happily acknowledged spitting in the face of DeAngelo Hall during the Cowboys/Falcons game. What more is there to say, really. T.O. is a despicable human being, a piece of garbage who was blessed with a world of talent and not a shred of integrity or character, but as usual, the league did nothing. 35 thousand dollar fine is a joke - how about suspending him for 2 games, hurting the team, and sending out a message that signing T.O. brings nothing but misery to your franchise? Nah, the NFL wouldn't have the balls for that.

Is it any reason sports have lost much of their appeal to me?, and that I often find myself picking teams to root for simply because they have a core of "good guys".