Day: October 2, 2003

Yet another reason to hate football

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Rush Limbaugh on black Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb:

I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.

McNabb, naturally, didn’t take kindly to the comments, and neither did the usual suspects, who called for ESPN to fire Limbaugh from their Sunday NFL pre-game show. They didn’t. He resigned, instead, saying a statement that his comments weren’t “racially motivated,” but I think that’s a crock.

The only reason for Limbaugh to speculate that “the media” overhyped McNabb because of his skin color is because he subconsciously believes that there’s still some doubt about blacks’ ability to peform as NFL quarterbacks.

Why would “the media” need to hype McNabb, given that there are several successful starting NFL QBs out there already — Michael Vick, Steve McNair, Kordell Stewart (OK, he has been successful) and Daunte Culpepper, to name a few. Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon are just two of the great retired black QBs.

So there would be no need for “the media” to overhype McNabb any more than they do with any other quarterback. NFL QBs usually get too much credit for their teams’ successes and too much blame for their failures — that’s true regardless of skin color.

How that thought could even occur to Limbaugh is because he, at some level, has some doubt about blacks’ ability to perform as QBs that would somehow necessitate the naturally liberal-minded news media to shade the facts to favor an African-American like McNabb under some kind of secret sports affirmative action program.

It was a stupid thing to say, but perhaps not as stupid as having Limbaugh on the ESPN show in the first place. He has no football expertise or experience. He’s never coached or played the game. He was on there to generate excitement and unfortunately he generated a little too much excitement for ESPN.

If ESPN is so badly struggling for ratings that it resorts to these kinds of stunts — hiring Limbaugh, I mean — well maybe football fans aren’t interested in watching eight hours of pre-game coverage. But on that I could only hazard a guess, not being a football fan myself.

Out of Atlanta

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

In spite of yesterday’s disappointing loss, the Cubs still got out of Atlanta with a 1-1 split.

It’s true the Cubs failed to convert on many opportunities, leaving seven runners on base, not to mention Randall Simon’s boneheaded baserunning in the eighth inning. But there are a lot of good signs coming out of these first two games.

First, these Cubs are not the patsies of 1998. They have the outstanding starting pitching to keep them in the games in spite of the lack of offensive pop. Wood obviously was phenomenal and Zambrano kept the Cubs in it in spite of being too high in the zone with a lot of his pitches and making a few mistakes. The much-feared Zambrano meltdown did not happen.

The Cubs failed to convert a bunch of scoring opportunities, but the good news is that they had scoring opportunities. They’ve showed a lot of patience so far, taking 13 walks. Sosa, in particular, has made himself a factor by refusing to swing at the high fastballs and low-and-away breaking balls that he simply cannot hit. I also think it’s a great sign that the Cubs were able to tie it up against Smoltz, proving to themselves that it’s not “game over” when he comes in to close it.

In other words, some losses hurt more than others. At least the Cubs did not lose a crushing hearbreaker like last night’s Red Sox 12th-inning loss to the A’s on a bases loaded squeeze play.

And Dusty’s not the only one who feels good about coming back home with Mark Prior going in game three. Prior is to Cubs wins what Estes is to Cubs losses. He’s almost an automatic W. This Braves offense is clearly containable, and Maddux is hittable. Ortiz has been announced for game four, which I think is good news. He wriggled off the hook several times in game one and, if the Cubs stay patient, can be knocked out early.

He will be going on three days’ rest against a fresh Matt Clement. Given the matchups and the fact the Cubs really should have won both games, I think they’ve got a great chance to end this series in Wrigley. And in spite of the great turnout at Wrigely South — er, Turner Field — I think we’d all be happy to wait ’til next year to hear that damn song again.

Toot, toot

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

My latest story to see print in Insurance Journal is on the much-ballyhooed do-not-fax rule.

A little news on the IJ front, by the way, is that the magazine is “going national” beginning January 2004. This national presence will include three new regional editions — Northeast, Southeast and Midwest. Yours truly has been named managing editor of the Midwest edition, meaning I’ll be in charge of the regional “wrap” around the national content shared across all editions.

It should be fun and a challenge. It will keep me busy, but that’s a good thing.

I’ve also tentatively agreed to revive the Free-Market.Net Policy Spotlight, formerly written by the very talented J.D. Tuccille, on a freelance basis. I’m doing it on a monthly basis to start, and my first spotlight takes aim at the federal government’s “Budget Bulge.”