Little is known about the F'Kowie Indians. So few are left they don't even have casinos. It is believed that discovering their secret, sacred stones - which resembled dice - will lead you to wealth and good fortune on gambling tables. So, while the bold treasure-hunters among us continue to search for their secrets, think about this...
Anyone notice that ESPN's Sports Reporters show on Sunday morning, for the first time I can remember, featured an entirely African-American panel on its four-member set? Maybe they've done that before, I don't know. But it was the first time I'd noticed.
Maybe it was because February is Black History Month. Maybe it was because that was just the way their rotating panel of contributors shaped up that week. Maybe it was because if you just listened to the show instead of watching it, you wouldn't have known the ethnic origin of the quartet.
Now, this is where you're expecting a patronizing remark to the effect of how it's about time they did this. No, instead, this is the patronizing remark about how much I enjoyed it and how much I didn't miss regular panelist Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News cut off and interrupt everyone so as to deliver his rant on everything (he's an expert on whatever it is, just ask him).
What I am going to say though is that ESPN doesn't have to wait for Black History Month to feature a panel such as this. Whether it's Barry Bonds or Satchel Paige, Warren Moon or Cam Newton, Rafer Johnson or Michael Johnson, Walter Payton or Peyton Hillis, the time is never wrong to be retrospective about the black athletic experience and legacy in this country.
Except I must have missed the commentary where they cited a piece by former ESPN'er Dan Patrick, who, in an interview with Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis, got the rookie's revelation that he regularly gets trash talk from opposing black players to the effect of, "You ain't runnin' on us today, white boy," or something to that direction.
Now then, if white defensive players had said that to a black running back, do you sort of wonder if the NFL investigation by the commissioner's office would still be ongoing? And can you imagine where the football media would've gone with a story like that? They'd still be camped out at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's door awaiting judgment on the situation. And the columns and blogs would be merciless.
I'm just sayin'...is all. Now, before we resume the search for the all-knowing, all-seeing F'Kowie...
***
...Baseball teams are at spring training and the sports writing flow of words and columns and blogs is as slathering as ever. All over, the optimism spews, with repeated chants of how good "we" look this year, how much better "we" look this year, how much improved "our" pitching is this year and how "we" can't be overlooked as a legitimate division contender this year. Yes, it's "we," because you and the sports writer on the beat are part of the team and don't you forget it.
Lord.
Each off-season acquisition has the sports scribes who follow their local teams making World Series reservations already. And did you know Albert Pujols is joining the Cubs? Well, maybe next year. Did you know The White Sox are the pick to dethrone the Twins in the A.L. Central? OK, maybe the Tigers will do it. Except their slugger, Miguel Cabrera, just got busted again. Don't worry, despite that and the media whiplash he's experiencing, he'll bust some balls over walls too. He always does, no matter how much trouble he's in over how much booze he allegedly had in his car.
Did you know the Orioles loaded up with free agents and are serious this year? Yes, that's right, the Yankees and Red Sox might even take them seriously for 4 or 5 of the 19 games they each play against them. And Tampa Bay, well, watch out. With retirement-home residents Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez, they are the da' bomb this season. Except neither one of them can run like the departed Carl Crawford (Red Sox) or pitch like the departed Rafael Soriano (Yankees) or Matt Garza (Cubs). The Rays are dead in the water. Just ask the media.
Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are making comebacks this year. In court. We'll find out which one of them has been lying about steroids, let alone affairs with teenage country recording stars and travel privileges with personal trainers and concubines, respectively. Somebody close down the Hall of Fame for a while - nothing but Steroid Era guys coming up for eligibility for the next few years anyway. And we all know the sports reporting community that votes on their admission has made up its collective mind that they ain't gettin' in.
And will someone tell me why it's such a big deal that Kerry Wood is back with the Cubs? He was supposed to be the next great thing after he struck out 20 Houston Astros in 1998. Instead, his prospectively greatest moments went up in smoke when he blew the biggest game of his career in the 2003 National League Championship Series against Florida. The Cubs were headed for the World Series when he let the lowly Marlins complete an improbable comeback and win game 7. The media blamed it on manager Dusty Baker for overusing the injury-prone right-hander. In reality, it doesn't really matter how he used Wood, because the Cubs aren't even in game 7 without Dusty's "managing." And they would've won it if not for Wood's faulty pitching that night. And "overused" Mark Prior's the previous night. And a guy named 'Bartman.'
That's all Dusty Baker's fault too, y'know.
Now Wood's back with the Cubs, finishing up his journeyman career as a middle reliever plagued by a surgically interrupted career that otherwise kept him from being a Hall-of-Fame starter. Big news. Big news indeed. I'd rather they'd have brought back Dusty Baker to manage the club. Y'know, the Dusty Baker who won the division last year with the Reds. Yeah, that Dusty Baker.
So, go Cubs go. And take the Kerry Wood fan club with ya', please.
Sort of like the legend of the ever-lost, ever-wandering F'Kowie... where the heck are they anyway?
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Howard Schlossberg is editor of "The Journal of Sports Media," a twice yearly publication dedicated solely to academic research on the impact of sports coverage. He teaches journalism at Columbia College Chicago, where's he an Associate Professor and is a Sports Correspondent for the "Daily Herald," a major metro in Chicago's suburbs.
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