“_An_ inconvenient sock.”

What’s the secret of comedy…… timing!

This whole fiasco has me wondering one thing: why does MLB allow its players to talk to the media at all? Yes, newspaper coverage broadens the fan base, but MLB could do all media stuff in-house and sell the content. They could control the message. Yes, it would be inauthentic and uninteresting, but even with a drop in MLB news consumers there would be an increase in profit.

I think Schilling shows that players don’t need the media to get their story out (especially since a lot probably don’t trust the media anyway). If Schilling can get his story to fans directly, what is the point of the major media outlets anyway?

Everything else in life is about “controlling the message,” why haven’t professional sports taken their cue from professional politics?

ken

But you TSF cats actually prove Nas wrong, i.e., hip hop aint dead. It’s true spirit lives in each of you…

I feel the need to go on and reprint the chorus for all yall listeners who don’t know Nas:

“if [TSF] ruled the world
(imagine that)
i’d free all my sons
(i luv em luv em babay)
black diamonds and pearls
(could it be/if you could be mine we both shine)
if i ruled the world
(still livin for today/in these last days and times)”

No really, hear those words, hear what’s being spoken behind the words, then fuck ESPN. That’s the real (ideal) world, that’s TSF, to me. At least, that’s what I think yall could do.

The soldier Sinceres of the game have become early Belly Tommys huh?

TSF will be ‘89 Tribe futuristic to flip the game ‘65 political journalistic.

Your question above deserved more attention from us regulars, but you just don’t stoke the fire like that rabblerouser D-Wil! LOL

If ESPN was TSF? what would be the perception of sports? Shid, what would be the perception of culture, society, life?

“it’ll be paradise life relaxin’
black latino and anglo-saxon
armani exchange deranged/cash lost tribe
of shabaaz
free at last/brand new whips to crash
then we laugh in the illapath
the villa houses for the crew how we do…

“…political prisoner set free no work release
purple m3’s and jet skiis
feel the wind breeze in the west indies
elect Coretta Scott King mayor of cities
and reverse fiends to willies
it sounds foul
but every girl I meet will go downtown
I’ll open every cell in Attica
Send them to Africa”

Cue the chorus yall

(imagine that)

KD, the media hates Bonds because Bonds hates the media. Nothing more, nothing less. They scrutinize Bonds more than others (other players in general, and other players connected to steroids in particular) because he’s going to break Aaron’s record. Nothing more, nothing less.

The media piles on anyone who says mean things to them — or worse — anyone who doesn’t talk to them at all. As a lifelong baseball fan, I first realized this in the 1980s, with players such as Eddie Murray and George Hendrick. The sports media trashed these guys regularly, all for the crime of choosing not to talk to reporters. And, in those pre-Internet days, it was natural for the average fan to assume that these were bad people, because you only got this narrow perspective. In Murray’s case, it was only when Cal Ripken started talking about what a profound influence Murray had been on his career that they were forced to change the narrative. That, at least, opened my eyes to how the media operates.

Media people for the most part are all about attaching themselves to power/celebrity and saying they were there to watch famous people and chronicle important events. It’s true in general and it certainly applies to many in the sports media. At their core, these are self-entitled, thin-skinned people who disdain anyone or anything — that includes their own readers as well as athletes who deny them access — that makes their largely cushy jobs in any way difficult.

Certainly, there’s a significant racial component to fan reaction to black athletes like Bonds and Kobe Bryant. But I don’t think that’s the case with the media. And I also know that, as a white guy, it’s easy for me to reach this conclusion, but I believe it. The media don’t care what color you are — just if you make their little lives easier. They’re insulated and narcisstic, not racist…

What’s good?

Here’s my take, trash in, trash out. Back in the day, there were so many fewer media outlets and there had been a tradition, accepted by all but the most rougish, that media were there to report, not make the news. Now everybody and his mother wants to be on Sports center, make a damn fool of himself like that idiot Stu Scott with his ridiculous -booyah- and “other side of the pillow nonsense,” and be in with the boys. The powers that be have set up these kids to think that THAT is sports journalism.

Of course that’s not all. To say that there isn’t a certain amount of hatred and insecurity for the black athlete by the mostly white, mostly failed athletes who comprise the news media would be an understatement IMO. Anyone think it’s a coincidence that athletes like Kobe and Barry are disliked while buffoons like Shaq and Sammy Sosa are beloved? I certainly don’t. America has been led by a racist media to believe, without much nudging needed to be sure, that it’s athletes, particularly the black ones should be little more than manchildren, devoid of nuance, subtlety, intelligence and most of all, any hint of arrogance.

And please don’t give me all that “America hates it’s athletes because they make so much more money than the average American” crap. America doesn’t hate it’s actors, rock stars, doctors, lawyers, corporate CEO’s or professional sports owners. So WHY DO THEY SEEMINGLY HATE IT’S ATHLETES? Because ESPN tells them to. Pure and simple.

As to your question, I think it’s a trick question. TSF exists BECAUSE OF ESPN my man. They are the evil that defines your good, at least that’s how it reads in my household dig?

The media needs to get over its collective sense of entitlement. I applaud the many athletes that have created their own blogs. It’s clean (so they say of course) information.

Question for all. What would be the perception of sports if ESPN was TSF?

To say that, even if there’s not a shred of evidence that Schilling put paint on his sock, it’s OK to accuse him of that because he’s “capable” of it is, of course, outrageous. But, it’s less out of left field than it might appear given the media environment in which we’re operating.

This pretty much explains my outrage at the media today. While it is without question that Schilling’s marrying the concepts of integrity and performing athletics at the highest level is a wrong-headed, I can’t understand why you don’t get why he is seemingly so angry at the turn of events. One pf the defining monents of his life has been publically called into question by a hack who didn’t bother to check his story, nor to consider the potential damage to Schilling’s reputation. To say thet he deserves any outrage short of a murderous one would be, IMO, an understatement.