The Yang Slinger: Vol. LXXX
Former Chicago Bear Steve McMichael was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last week. In telling his story, should reporters draw attention to the disturbing ties between the sport and ALS?
On October 12, 1995, a man named Eugene J. Huth died of lung cancer inside his Culver City, Calif. home.
Huth, 73, was an Akron, Ohio-born World War II veteran who—upon returning to the United States after serving as a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Corps—moved to LaLa Land and adopted the stage name “David McLean.” He proceeded to work steadily as an actor over the ensuing three decades. Huth played Craig Merritt in “Days of Our Lives,” Burt Adams in “The Virginian,” a sheriff in “The Fugitive” and three different people (Cully Brown, Branch McGary and Steven Collier) in multiple episodes of “Laramie.”
Beginning in 1963, he was also (cough, cough) The Marlboro Man.
For roughly 15 years, Huth could be seen—on TV and in print—atop a horse, or holding a lasso, or peering out from beneath a 10-gallon cowboy hat. He was tough and rugged and a man’s man, and he always (literally always) gripped a Marlboro between his fingers. The gig not only made him a shitload of money, but also introduced him to the addictive joy/torture of cigarette smoking. Thanks to Marlboro (all the cigs you want, Dave!), Huth turned into a nonstop, pack(s)-a-day smoker.
In the aftermath of his death, one news outlet after another stated the very clear and obvious connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer …
And the truth is, we don’t know with 100 percent certainty that cigarettes caused Eugene J. Huth’s lung cancer. Is it likely that millions of puffs of carbon monoxide, arsenic, ammonia, acetone, toluene, methylamine and 800 other nightmarish chemicals resulted in the disease? Of course. But is it also possible that maybe, just maybe, Huth’s lung cancer would have happened had he never taken a drag?
Hmm.
I bring this all up because, last week, former Chicago Bear defensive tackle Steve McMichael was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s not a cruel statement to say McMichael was a borderline candidate—he’s a two-time Pro Bowler, one-time Super Bowl champion who (if we’re being honest) was probably the sixth or seventh best player on Buddy Ryan’s fabled 46 Defense1. As a 1980s football junkie, I sorta place McMichael in the Leonard Marshall-Michael Carter-Greg Townsend-Charles Mann category. Really good, really important, but … eh, not an all-timer.
Wait. I digress.
McMichael was voted in alongside some seriously big names (Dwight Freeney, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Julius Peppers, Patrick Willis and Randy Gradishar), but his storyline generated the most attention because, at age 66, his body is ravaged by ALS and McMichael (it appears) is near the end of his life. So in the days following the announcement, myriad reporters and news outlets told the heart-warming saga of a football lifer who—at his absolute lowest—was being gifted with the greatest present of all: Football immortality. There was, of course, this video featuring Bear legend Richard Dent informing McMichael of the glory. And this piece. And this piece. And this piece. And this legitimately beautiful story, headlined, STEVE MCMICHAEL’S FIGHT FOR HIS PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CALL, from ESPN’s Sam Borden. It was accompanied by a segment that left people in tears.
And, truly, I loved it. All of it. Just like you (yes, you), I’m a sucker for these types of stories. I’m the dude who watched this 1,000 times. Also, having seen far too many posthumous Hall inductions (I still don’t understand why voters made certain Ken Stabler and Cliff Branch were dead before granting them Hall of Fame admittance), I’m glad McMichael is alive to experience the glow.
That being said ..
I am troubled by something, and I’m not entirely sure whether I’m right or wrong—but I’m pretty fucking sure I’m right. See, just as we know cigarettes cause lung cancer (and almost certainly caused the death of Eugene Huth), we also now know there are very direct ties between football and ALS. The information dates back to 2021, when one of the journals of the American Medical Association published a study concluding professional football players were four times more likely than the general population to develop and die from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The authors looked at nearly 20,000 NFL veterans who had played in at least one game between 1960 and 2019. Not only did they uncover the significantly higher likelihood, they explained that those gridders who developed ALS played more than 50 percent longer than those who did not.
McMichael not only spent fifteen years in the NFL (at arguably the most physically damaging position), but followed it with five years as a professional wrestler.
Put differently: His body (and mind) experienced a lot of trauma.
Put double differently: Football probably brought forth his ALS.
And as a veteran journalist who came up under the Sports Illustrated mantra of report-report-report even if it’s uncomfortable/awkward/inconvenient, I can’t help but think—in telling McMichael’s story—reporters needed to at least acknowledge that there is a strong likelihood the very thing that he’s being immortalized for (football) is also the reason he likely will not be alive to see his 16-year-old daughter graduate from high school. That while it is, indeed, touching to watch his bedridden body surrounded by former teammates, perhaps his life would have been better (certainly longer) had he never strapped on a helmet.
In fact, considering the NFL’s big tobacco-esque efforts to hide any/all health problems related to the sport (CTE? What’s CTE?), it’s almost imperative that a story about McMichael remind readers/viewers that (Roger Goodell’s wishes be damned) this sport is pretty fucked up. Along those lines, I think you have to ask his wife about it. I think you have to ask his former teammates about it. I think you have to ask medical experts about it. Even if the NFL—lord of all—begs you not to. Even if you feel uncomfortable and a bit tasteless. Even if it causes the “What a Wonderful World” soundtrack to your article to warp and fade.
The journalists I contacted largely agreed:
Steve Rushin, former Sports Illustrated senior writer: “If you are writing or reporting honestly on his life in football then I don’t know how or why you would leave that out. That’s not to say ALS has to be the focus of his Hall of Fame coverage, obviously, but the fact that he has it—and a disproportionate number of NFL players have had it—just gives his career greater poignancy as far as I’m concerned.”
Keith O’Brien, New York Times best-selling author: “As a journalist and a historian, I think McMichael's ALS diagnosis—and its well-documented ties to football and repeated head injuries—should absolutely be mentioned.”
Lars Anderson, author: “If I was an editor and assigned a story to be written about Steve McMichael and his Hall of Fame NFL career, I’d certainly want my reporter to cite the medical studies that reveal a link between NFL players and ALS. This disease has ravaged McMichael ever since he announced his original diagnosis in April 2021; he no longer can talk and he’s paralyzed. We can’t say conclusively that football caused McMichael’s condition, but in order to provide the fullest context possible of McMichael’s life, the medical studies should be woven into the narrative. There’s no need to editorialize; the reporter should simply put all the facts in the copy and let the reader reach their own conclusions.”
Rick Telander, Chicago Sun-Times columnist: “I don’t think Steve would have any problem with addressing the possible connection. To not mention head trauma as a possible cause would be to skip a big part of his specific story and what a career of concussive hits hints at.”
The man whose opinion fascinated me most was Peter King, my former Sports Illustrated colleague who covers the NFL for Pro Football Talk. Peter has chronicled the league for more than four decades, and he knows its modus operandi better than most. Peter agreed that, in regards to McMichael, the ALs+football tie “should be emphasized,” but cited timing as a bit of a hinderance. “I think the problem is [the Hall announcement] happens on Thursday night of Super Bowl weekend, and it is the shiny object for maybe 30 minutes, then it gets trampled by the next football event,” Peter texted me. “We don’t spend enough time on the topic of head trauma and CTE and I count myself guilty of not doing enough about it. I should do more. Absolutely.”
I asked Peter if he thought occupants of the NFL universe are even aware of the sport’s tie to ALS.
“Yes,” he wrote. “[Mike] Florio and I talk about this all the time. Why does Goodell have his press conference at 3 pm on Monday, by invitation? Because the big media events to kick off Super Bowl week are at 5 and 7 pm that day, and he knows that whatever he says will be news for about a half hour, and then everyone will go on to asking Travis Kelce about Taylor Swift. The NFL is fantastic at crushing bad news by simply having so many games and so many events in close proximity that people cover without ever bringing up any of the crap surrounding the game for very long.”
Sigh.
I reached out to a lot of people for this Substack, with mixed success.
McMichael’s wife, Misty, did not respond to my text.
Neither did a handful of people who study the connection between ALS and football.
One guy who did respond (to his great credit) was Sam Borden, author of STEVE MCMICHAEL’S FIGHT FOR HIS PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CALL. I would like to emphasize, again, that I consider Sam to be one of the best in the business, and these choices (what to use/when to use/how to use) are not easy. It’s one of the hardest parts of being a journalist—the judgement calls. The decisions of one scribe can be a 180 of another scribe, and it doesn’t mean either was wrong (or right). So, while I can’t imagine profiling an ALS-ravaged football star and not mentioning the disease’s connection to the sport, well, I’m just a single writer.
Borden, via e-mail, was open and honest and clear. Yes, he and his editors did contemplate the ALS-football ties during the reporting process. But he cited two reasons for avoiding the subject in the final product. “First,” he wrote, “while there have been some studies done that show correlation between playing football and a later ALS diagnosis, the medical community is still working to figure out the causation—the why. In the study that many media outlets cited (and which I’m sure you, like I, saw when you Google this subject), the researchers even write, ‘Further study is therefore warranted to clarify the causal mechanisms underlying the association between duration of professional football play and incidence of ALS.’ I’m not saying that in any way invalidates their conclusions, but that acknowledged truth, as well as the seriousness of the disease itself, made me feel like any reference to this potential connection couldn’t be quick—it couldn’t be a throwaway line or paragraph that assumes the reader and writer both understand the same set of facts. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable making that connection in a casual way because there is nuance to it, for sure, which leads me to …
“Second, and more importantly: the type of story we were doing. We asked Steve and Misty McMichael to open their home and their lives to us. We were there when the Hall of Fame called to say Steve was a finalist last summer and we were there when the Hall of Fame called to say he got in last month. They were gracious and accommodating, and we couldn’t have done the story we did without them being so. The potential connection between ALS and football wasn’t something that was significant for them in the conversations they had with us. I’ve seen other players in similar situations raise that question (and, for what it’s worth, also seen military veterans with ALS, or their families, raise concerns about the potential connection between military service and ALS) in the aftermath of a diagnosis. Plenty have done it, but with the McMichaels, that wasn’t something they pushed on. Obviously that itself doesn’t preclude us from raising it on our own in the piece, but it did affect our thinking on it. If we raised it, how would it be presented? As some kind of ‘Steve, this is your fault?’ He played in the ‘80s, so these kinds of connections hadn’t been made by the medical community at the time, so suggesting he ‘should have known’ wouldn’t be fair, right? So what’s the right way to inject that element into this type of piece? From a storytelling perspective, we felt that their focus was on the journey they’ve been on over the past few years, and so we committed to telling that story in the best way we could.”
Borden added that he feels no pressure to go easy on the NFL because of its power in the sports landscape (as well as its ties to ESPN), and that—ultimately—he viewed STEVE MCMICHAEL’S FIGHT FOR HIS PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CALL as a love story. “It was as much about Misty, and her commitment to helping Steve hold on to some kind of hope in the midst of a truly awful situation,” he wrote, “as it was about Steve and football and the Bears.”
I do not agree with Sam. I respect him, but (again) I think this gig comes with the unfortunate-yet-important task of oftentimes pooping in the punch bowl. I keep coming back to the Marlboro Man, dying of cancer some 29 years ago, his lungs black as licorice, his ability to breathe all but gone.
One could have written a simple obituary, setting aside the evils of tobacco in order to avoid negativity. One could have written a lovely piece about his acting, his wife, his son.
But it would not have been the complete story.
It would have been blowing smoke.
The Quaz Five with … Todd Rosiak
Todd Rosiak covers the Milwaukee Brewers and UW-Milwaukee basketball for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One can follow him on Twitter here.
1. Todd, you're officially at spring training. And I wonder, as a writer, how do you feel about it? Enjoy? Dread? Both? Neither?: For me, the worst part about it is usually the leadup to it—you know for weeks your offseason is drawing to a close and you’re going to have to bid adieu to your significant other, your pets (we don’t have kids) and live out of a suitcase for a long period of time. Then right after that comes the six-month grind that is the regular season. The weather in Phoenix is usually a nice salve once I land here, though, and after getting settled in the writer in me is always extremely eager to get to the ballpark and get to work. The Brewers have had an unprecedented run of success since I’ve been on the beat (since 2011) so knowing it’s going to generally be a group of good players who will be playing meaningful games moving forward helps. The first few days are always the best as you reacquaint yourself with the returning guys and begin to get to know the new ones. And this year with the Brewers there is no shortage of story angles to cover, starting with a new manager in Pat Murphy, a bunch of new players and a team that’s in something of a transition period—kind of in between wanting to compete and semi-rebuilding. When the games start, that’s when the mental grind begins, the eating out every day starts getting old and the need for getting to the gym and getting more sleep hits the hardest. But there is absolutely no substitute for being in camp and in the clubhouse every day in the morning. It’s the best access in all of sports by far, and it earns you credibility and serves as the foundation for building relationships with the players.
2. You cover the Brewers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Do the players you cover care that you cover the Brewers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?: In my opinion, they couldn’t care less. The Brewers have a group of really cool, really tenured clubhouse guys who tell stories about the old days when the team had multiple subscriptions to the print Journal Sentinel and every day the first thing players would do coming into the clubhouse would be to grab the Sports section and read to see if there was anything they thought was unfair or wrong so they could call out the beat guy who wrote it. Nowadays, I highly doubt any player reads anything we write. Or, if they do, it’s only after they’ve had their attention called to it by a family member, friend or agent who either read it themselves or saw chatter about it on social media. That certainly doesn’t give us carte blanche to take pot shots or take shortcuts, and I always operate under the assumption that what I write will somehow, in some way, be brought to a player’s attention. And that’s perfectly fine. I’m in the clubhouse every day and they know they can come to me with a gripe (or even the occasional thank you for a particular feature story, which does happen once in a blue moon).
3. As you age, does it get harder or easier to develop and establish relationships with players? Coaches?: It’s weird—I’m 52 and now working with coaches who I used to cover when they were players. The familiarity obviously helps, but it also helps drive home to me that damn, I’m getting old and the players are always going to be young. Definitely the biggest change I’ve seen in the last decade is just how much more detached players are, both from their teammates as well as the media, and it’s because of their phones. I’m not kidding when I say you can walk into the clubhouse 15 minutes before batting practice begins and literally every player who’s in there is sitting in the chair in front of their locker scrolling social media or FaceTiming someone. It can make it harder to find the right time to be able to sidle up to a player and strike up a conversation, or ask them about a particular play from the night before. One thing that has always helped me connect with players is my affinity for equipment—yes, bats, gloves, shoes and yes, I realize that’s weird. But when I ask a player why he’s using a different colored bat, how long it he’s been using his glove or things like that, it shows them that I’m paying attention to the smallest of details. I once had a player spend 20 minutes showing me how he goes through a shipment of bats pinging them with his finger to pick out the absolute best wood for his gamers. Strange? Yes. But also valuable from my viewpoint in a number of ways.
4. Who's the greatest pure athlete you've ever covered? Why?: A great question, and I don’t know if I can narrow it down to just one. My first season covering college basketball was 2002-03. The team was Marquette and the team’s best player was a fellow named Dwyane Wade. I knew he was special from the first practice I watched but as the year went along, I just could never get past how easy he made the game look—even against the best teams in the country. His triple-double against No. 1-seeded Kentucky in Minneapolis to send Marquette to its first Final Four since 1977 was something to behold, and obviously he went on to greatness with the Miami Heat. Before that I covered the Green Bay Packers and while Brett Favre was amazing (sorry, Jeff, I still enjoyed the heck out of Gunslinger) the guy who stands out from those days is Donald Driver. The guy was a 7-6 high jumper who qualified for the Olympic trials, then went from a seventh-round draft pick out of Alcorn State to Super Bowl winner in 2010 to the Packers Hall of Fame and then winning Dancing With The Stars in 2012. That’s quite the resume. I’ll also include Giannis Antetokounmpo, although I only covered him before he was officially The Greek Freak and only as a backup to our then-beat writer.
5. From afar, it seems like baseball is fucked. The NFL and NBA gobble all the headlines, outside of Ohtani and maybe Aaron Judge the most famous player probably doesn't get recognized walking down Park Ave, etc, etc. Why am I wrong?: I think baseball has turned off a goodly number of fans over the last decade for a few reasons. The game has become brutal to watch at times as it’s gone away from the game everyone knew and become a home-run hitting contest with ungodly numbers of strikeouts and every pitcher throwing 99 mph. There are no more characters like the Reggie Jacksons and Gaylord Perrys and Earl Weavers and Billy Martins I grew up watching. And fans are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the growing chasm between big-market and small-market teams. Brewers fans watching the Dodgers throw well over a billion dollars at players to bolster their already ridiculous roster this offseason while their team has to trade Corbin Burnes because it can’t afford to keep him once he hits free agency is understandably painful, and since there will never be a salary cap there’s really no way for the franchises to be on a level playing field in that regard. I think baseball has done a good job trying to speed up and clean up the game with its recent rules changes, but it’s not nearly enough.
Rank in order (favorite to least): Sean Burroughs, Smash Burger, immaculate grid, roses on Valentine's Day, Nathan MacKinnon, Hank Aaron as a Brewer, Plain M&Ms, Stevie Wonder: Immaculate Grid (It’s Tyler Kepner and everyone else), Hank Aaron as a Brewer (he once tipped me $100 when I was in college), Plain M&Ms, Smash Burger, Stevie Wonder, Sean Burroughs, Nathan MacKinnon (had to look him up; I’m not a hockey guy), roses on Valentine’s Day.
Ask Jeff Pearlman a fucking question(s)
From Matt S: Recently, I took my godson to visit a very well known college, and the student newspaper had hard copies by the tour desk. Upon perusal, a story about the dining hall's new Slurpee machine never working was prominently placed on page 2. My godson's sister didn't miss a beat. "That's the kind of story that we would run in my middle school newspaper." (She's in 7th grade). It got me to wondering: what are your thoughts on how college journalists can stay away from detritus like the dining hall slurpee machine being broken, even though such a story may be a hot topic on campus? It seems to me aspiring journalists should be honing their craft on more significant stories affecting their campus/local communities, and that the slurpee machine story was an example of someone mailing it in, or there was a dearth of stories (highly unlikely given the college/town it occupies): Wow, what a fantastic question, even though we’re going to have to disagree on this one. Yes, a broken Slurpee machine hardly rivals, oh, police brutality or the upcoming presidential election when it comes to worldly importance. Or, for that matter, even regional importance. But I’m a firm believer that the best/most-pressing news is local, and maybe on this particular campus there’s an outpouring of love for Slurpees that has now been forced to a cruel and crippling halt.
Truth be told, were I advising the student reporters I’d not only tell them to write the story—I’d tell them to own it. Find out what’s wrong with the machine. Find out who fixes it. Interview the Slurpee machine engineer. Interview the last student to successfully squeeze out a Slurpee. Do a sidebar on the saddened student body. Go to the local 7-Eleven and find out if there’s been a run on Slurpees.
While student newspapers provide important information and oftentimes break big stories, they are also training grounds. The Slurpee scandal of ‘24 is terrific training material.
A random old article worth revisiting …
On Jan. 3, 1980, this letter to the editor appeared in the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger. And while it’s not particularly shocking (considering the time and place), it remains jarring …
The Madness of Tyler Kepner’s Grid …
So unless you’ve been living beneath a pebble beneath a rock beneath a big hunk of cheese, you’re aware of Immaculate Grid, the daily game that’s drawn thousands of nerdy sports fans (guilty!) to its ranks. And while the NBA grid, NFL grid, NHL grid and WNBA grid are all fun, this game is at its best when it comes to baseball—where the names are endless and the transactions ceaseless.
Over the past few weeks I’ve often discussed the grid with Tyler Kepner, the Athletic baseball writer. And now, for kicks, every week I’m gonna feature one of Tyler’s bonkers grid results. He’s the ultimate baseball geek (I say this with great affection), and his outputs blow my mind.
So …
Tyler thoughts …
I'm really proud of this one. It's the first time I've gotten a Rarity Score of 0. That's the promised land for any Immaculate Grid player—when your guesses are so rare that all of them combined don't even add up to 1. Here's how the magic happened …
• Greg Harris is a standby for me, a well-traveled middle reliever who stopped in with the Phillies for a bit while I was growing up rooting for them.
• Tom Dunbar is just a name I remember from the '80s. I held off from using him in a recent Grid and regretted it. Wasn't gonna make that mistake again.
• Mike Loynd is a pitcher I remember from a couple of baseball cards. He had a very short career, only with Texas. Last spring, I met someone in Tucson with that last name. I asked if he was related to the Mike Loynd who pitched for the Rangers, and he said indeed he was. I sensed that not many people ask him that.
• Greg Bargar was a middle reliever in the 80s for the Cardinals and Expos. I used to like using him in the Dice Baseball game my dad created for me when I was a kid -- which is strange because he really only pitched a handful of games (33) in his career.
• John Morris is a scout for the Reds now and I see him now and then. Terrific guy. I remember he started Game 6 of the 1987 World Series in right field for the Cardinals. You can find his spot-on Willie McGee imitation on YouTube:
• Kevin Hagen is exactly like Bargar except he didn't pitch for the Expos. I don't know why I liked using him in Dice Baseball, because he also had an extremely brief career. Maybe it's because he had the same name as the actor who played Dr. Baker on "Little House On The Prairie," and I watched that show a lot at the time.
• Mark Leiter pitched for a lot of teams and was supposed to be the setup man for the Mariners when I covered them for the old Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1999. He was injured, though, and pitched in only two games that season.
• Matt Mieske was a Mariners platoon outfielder for part of that 1999 season and absolutely destroyed lefty pitchers. They should have used him more; I'm surprised to see that he appeared in only 24 games before they traded him to the Astros.
• Aaron Scheffer is the last of my 1999 Mariners here. He got called up as a bullpen fill-in that June and spent about a week or 10 days in the majors. I remember him pitching at Tiger Stadium one night. It was so fun to cover a series at that ancient old ballpark before they tore it down.
This week’s college writer you should follow on LinkedIn …
Spencer Howell, Bucknell University
A senior writer for the Bucknellian, Howell’s latest piece, GAY GIRLS ARE MEAN GIRLS, TOO, offers a fantastic look not merely at the artistry of the actress and singer Reneé Rapp, but a cool insight into a young writer seeking out a relatable role model.
Writes Howell …
One can follow Howell on LinkedIn here.
Bravo.
Journalism musings for the week …
Musing 1: It continues to blow my mind how the dude who screams “Fake News!” is the absolute king of producing the stuff. In case you missed this, J.D. Wolf of Meidas Touch noted how Donald Trump altered yet another Newsweek article in an effort to make himself look … good. Which is damn near impossible.
Musing 2: With the NFL season wrapping, I want to give huge props to Chris Long, the former defensive lineman whose Green Light Podcast has been a weekly joy/football education for me and many others. Chris is just a really savvy, fun, cool, insightful dude who doesn’t merely grasp the game, but knows how to break it down for fools like, eh, me.
Musing 3: ESPN’s Dave Wilson is an underrated talent whose fairly dull name believes a wonderful approach to storytelling. In other words, take a few minutes to read INJURIES, OPEN TRYOUTS, RENEWED HOOP DREAMS: INSIDE TCU’S SEASON. Storytelling at its best.
Musing 4: Along those lines, Louisa Thomas of The New Yorker wrote the glorious, HOW NIKOLA JOKIC BECAME THE WORLD’S BEST BASKETBALL PLAYER without ever having a one-on-one chat with the Nuggets star. Truly, Thomas is producing at an insanely high level. I’m here for it.
Musing 5: David Firestone of the New York Times asks the important questions of Gov. Mike Parson, Republican of Missouri, after the MAGA loyalist escaped the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory parade without being shot. Parson, of course, is super pro-gun—and as he ran like a little squirrel away from the bullets, Firestone asks, “Does he continue to oppose laws that prevent domestic abusers from owning guns? Does he regret shutting down attempts by both Kansas City and St. Louis to stem their gun-violence problems with local laws?”
Musing 6: Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg with an insightful/worrisome article about the future of watching sports. In THE $20 BILLION SPORTS MEDIA PROBLEM NO ONE CAN ANSWER, Shaw writes, “It’s never been more complicated (or expensive) for sports fans to watch their favorite teams. Let’s say you are a football fan. With a cable subscription, you get access to four of the five main packages. But even if you pay for cable, you’ll need Amazon Prime to watch Thursday Night Football. And, at least for this past season, you needed Peacock to watch a playoff game. If your favorite team doesn’t play in your home media market, you may need the NFL Sunday Ticket. And if you want to watch games while you are out of town, you might need another service, depending on the rights your pay-TV provider has secured.”
Musing 7: In case you missed this, Isaiah Stewart of the Detroit Pistons was arrested after punching Phoenix’s Drew Eubanks in an arena parking lot. James Edwards III of The Athletic was on it—because he’s always on it.
Musing 8: I don’t blame Bo Jackson for treating a selfie-seeker thusly, but … argh. He’s just not a very warm guy.
Musing 9: I’m on TikTok—telling short stories from my reporting days. Why? Because … why not? If Olivia Dunne can draw 7.9 million followers, I can draw, hmm … 100. Maybe?
Musing 10: Kansas City’s own Nick Wright with an excellent take on America and gun control in the aftermath of the parade shooting. I agree with him 100 percent. But he’s talking on Fox Sports, owned by Fox News—a company that has routinely done its all to keep guns on the streets. So … I dunno. It’d be nice to see someone like Wright call out his bosses.
Musing 11: The new Two Writers Slinging Yang stars Teren Kowatsch, an up-and-coming Idaho-based newspaper scribe who spins words for the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News …
Quote of the Week …
Better than McMichael: Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Otis Wilson, Wilber Marshall, Mike Singletary, Gary Fencik, Dave Duerson. And maybe even Mike Richardson.
I can't believe a writer who's been covering the Brewers for 20 years can say they "can't afford" Corbin Burnes. It's embarrassing and truly makes me wonder what other water he carries for the owner.
Very much enjoyed your piece today. I agree maybe/probably McMichael wasn't HOF worthy by the usual measures ... but can we take all of the stuff about standards too seriously? So long as it's mostly a meritocracy--a meritocracy 90 percent, 98 percent of the time, whatever--isn't that good enough? In fact, doesn't McMichael's selection bring necessary attention to the ALS issue? It's a catalyst for a public service if it gets the message out and gives rise to follow-up investigation. The HOF voters might have intended a bit of charity and if that's all it was fine. But if someone runs with this either in the journalism or medical community, it's a win.