Phil Mushnick
Sports
same time
August 17, 2023 | 9:25 p.m
Have you ever seen the spectacular footage of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in 1940? After a pathetic planning and construction, it opened to traffic in July. Four months later it swayed and rolled horribly until it broke like a cheap toy and fell into Puget Sound.
For a short time it was the third longest suspension bridge in the world behind the Golden Gate and George Washington.
Builders, who nicknamed the span “Galloping Gertie” because of its instability, claimed its fate was inevitable. It was a temporary monument to systematic neglect of the plan.
After all, it was a toll bridge.
Such a day of reckoning – or is it devastating? – Approaches to all our sports now in the hands of deconstructivists who would sell our souls and theirs at a cattle auction.
The Jets made it official this week, signing notorious running back Dalvin Cook to a reportedly $8.6 million one-year deal for his performance here at PSL Stadium.
If Cook so wishes and/or is not suspended, he can use this money to increase his offer of payment to his ex-girlfriend, who is suing him for beating her bloody. Despite texting her, in which Cook wrote, “If you want to go to the police, I’ll respect that.” [and] I will take my punishment for what I have done!” Cook maintains his innocence.
The sports world is preparing for failure – much like the poor engineering of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge in 1940 – by allowing indicted criminals like Dalvin Cook, gambling and years of game degradation to destroy it.`
Dalvin Cook speaks to the media following the Jets’ August 17 practice session. `
Court records show that his first two ransom offers to her – $800,000, then $1 million – were turned down.
The NFL has a deep and ongoing problem with players brutalizing women. Last month, Panthers CB Chris Claybrooks was arrested for the second time since mid-April for domestic violence against two different women.
The Jets’ 2016 first-round pick, LB Darron Lee of Ohio St., received a warrant from a Columbus, Ohio judge in June for a no-show on a domestic violence charge. He has been accused of two separate domestic violence crimes – one against his child’s mother, the other against his mother.
Jets owner Woody Johnson tried this offseason to lure determined villain Odell Beckham Jr. with submissive, fact-defying flattery: “That Odell Beckham, a man of character and quality, would think about us and want to be with us. ” . . If he wants that, it’s almost a compliment.”
Choose A or B: A) Johnson is an ignorant fool. B) He thinks it’s you.
Regardless, Roger Goodell has turned NFL fields and even helmets into flashy, televised news platforms for social virtues. We, not the NFL and its players, need to improve our courtesy, tolerance, and respect for humanity. Yes, we are ashamed.
Last weekend, CBS’ Jim Nantz, who speaks like golf courses are religious shrines and certain disreputable golfers just two putts at 18 from sanctity, joined last weekend’s legion of celebrities, retired athletes and others who just command and /or follow the money, to media to encourage viewers and listeners to invest their money in a business based entirely on investors losing their money.
Using a graphic through the PGA’s financial partnership with FanDuel, Nantz invited the weak – preferably dimwits – to play golf.
Nantz has already seen gamblers, along with alcohol, increase the misconduct of formerly respectful spectators at the racetrack — not to mention the rising instances of sports betting by college and pro athletes who have swallowed the relentless bait on TV. He helped loosen another bolt in a bridge over the River Of Ruin.
Jim NantzGetty Images
Last week, West Virginia University, which spends millions of dollars a year sending its male and female “student athletes” on extremely expensive, extended trips to the Midwest and Texas for conference games, announced plans to also eliminate 32 academic majors than 170 academic faculties to close a $45 million deficit.
Proposed majors to be eliminated include foreign languages, special education, environmental and community planning, art history, masters in higher education and doctorates in mathematics.
Last year, the three highest-paid WVU employees were snotty, backsliding DWI-turned-former basketball coach Bob Huggins, football coach Neal Brown and athletic director Wren Baker, with combined earnings of about $10 million a year, not counting perks.
Thus, WVU is another US college that serves as a flagship for football and basketball teams, although the goal of winning at all costs does not appear in the mission statements of WVU or any other college.
At the same time, high-priced sports universities, funded largely by taxpayers’ money, continue to accumulate too much red ink.
And the WVU, like many colleges, makes an annual contribution to the total number of full scholarship holders “student athletes”. WVU’s gifts to society include one-man NFL criminal Pacman Jones.
The decline of MLB as a beautiful and cherished father-son sport, now teetering on the brink of self-immolation, has been treated with increasing amounts of money that can no longer be justified or sustained, no matter how much the public loses in the process, commercialized, by MLB sold calls to bet parlays even though multi-millionaire players choose not to run to first base.
On Thursday, the teams with the highest payrolls — the highest, like crazy — the Mets, Yankees and Padres — had a combined 173-190. The sixth-placed Angels had a 60-62 record. The Orioles, ranked 29th out of 30, ahead only of the A’s, were 74-47.
And the game was abandoned – sacrificed – to diminished skill, practice, and Jack and the Beanstalk analysis… well, here’s a typical boxing score:
The D’backs-Rockies, Colorado, won 6-4 on Monday. Arizona’s designated hitter Kyle Lewis batted .162 for a 4-0 score and hit twice. Teammate and third baseman Jace Peterson, who batted with a .216 batting power, was 0 of 4 with three K’s.
The Rockies batted 13 times against five largely unknown pitchers. Third with .250, Ryan McMahon went 1-on-4 and batted his other three hits, OF Michael Toglia scored 3-on-3 – all strikeouts.
Yes, sports fans, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. But you better hurry! And don’t buy a round-trip ticket!
Injured pitchers? It’s baseball, Suzyn
The line of the week belongs to Suzyn Waldman. Leading the Yanks-Marlins on WFAN Sunday, she said Miami starter Eury Perez narrowly veered off the IL. “They want to be very careful with Perez, maybe 80 pitches. … They are very careful with launchers, but they all get hurt.”
Suzyn WaldmanJason Scenes for the New York Post
Reader Dan Stevens is in bad shape. He writes that he has not been able to sleep due to James Harden’s annual dissatisfaction with his NBA salary.
The cons never end. The University of Florida claims it will wear black Nike uniforms against Arkansas to show “gratitude and appreciation for all branches of our military and first responders,” according to coach Billy Napier. The patriotic gratitude-inspired cheap foreign-made black Nike jerseys start at $105.
Fox’s television broadcast of the 55-65 Mets at the 54-67 Cards Thursday began with commercials showing teams struggling to clear the bench two Aprils ago. Narrator: “New York and St. Louis have history.” Yes, tune in, for no other reason than the cheap, desperate, implied promise to see a fight.
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