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Jul 15, 2023

Jets' flirtation with Dalvin Cook is wrong and pathetic

Submit Δ Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission. Sophisticated sports town, my tush. Hasn’t been that way since the early 1970s Knicks. We’re no better than all those college towns

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Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

Sophisticated sports town, my tush. Hasn’t been that way since the early 1970s Knicks.

We’re no better than all those college towns that ignore everything about their corrupt schools to annually recruit “student-athletes” who spend more time in court than class.

We’re no better than yahoos in Lincoln, Neb.; Norman, Okla.; Lansing, Mich., or throughout the SEC where police cars carry the latest team yearbooks to identify perps.

In recent days, Jets’ yahoos, especially should-know-better media, not to mention Jets’ ownership and management, have shared a rush of blood to the head to sign now-on-sale departed Vikes’ semi-star RB Dalvin Cook.

Sign him!

Cook has proven that he’s not a fellow discriminate, sophisticated New York fans can suffer, let alone indulge.

During his “student-athlete” days at Florida State, one of several Sunshine State universities that annually recruit, exploit [and now employ] then discard rotten-risk football players in the worsening netherworld of colleges serving as fronts for football and basketball teams, Cook was a consistent reprobate.

Even in his freshman year, Cook was trouble, from firing a BB gun to bust car windows, to his being an “associate” in an aggravated assault case in which a firearm was allegedly aimed at a neighbor in Cook’s apartment [one of the accusers said he didn’t think the weapon was Cook’s], to the abuse of his three pit bull puppies.

The dogs, ages two months to eight months, were unsheltered and so heavily chained they were unable to move. Two of the pups were found choking.

What a guy!

The next year Cook was charged — later acquitted — with punching a woman outside a Tallahassee bar.

Naturally, none of this prevented Cook from becoming a second-round pick in the 2017 draft.

And as of November 2021, he stands accused in a lawsuit of brutalizing his ex-girlfriend, beating her head bloody and swollen, as seen in photos distributed to the public.

At first, Cook’s lawyer claimed the alleged victim is just a gold digger, that Cook is innocent. Of course he did.

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As the Jets pursued Cook, court documents showed that Cook first offered her $800,000 to drop the suit, then $1 million. She rejected both deals. That’s a lot of wood for an innocent man to offer a woman who fabricated the claim instead of defending himself in court for a lot less money.

And it’s a lot of dough for a liar to turn down.

But that hasn’t prevented many Jets’ fans, management and media from banging their drums in support of signing Cook.

Jets’ coach Robert Saleh: “He’s a tremendous young man, tremendous mindset to him and everything he said … turned me into a believer with the words that came out of his mouth.”

And so we sophisticates proceed. We even boo visiting-team pitchers for throwing to first to keep the runner close, as if we just can’t figure that out.

Dalvin Cook’s available? Sign him! He showed up at training camp and was cheered by Jets’ fans in attendance? Sign him!

Who cares if you wouldn’t let him walk your dog?

MLB 2023, continued:

The Royals, Tuesday against the Mets, performed an obligatory Gatorade dump celebration on M.J. Melendez after he scored the game-ending run. Melendez’s heroics? He touched home plate following a balk.

Reader Pat Esposito was hoping the YES crew — Michael Kay and Jeff Nelson — would provide the answer to his question, “Where was Stanton going?” But none followed.

Monday, one-trick dog Giancarlo Stanton, among the most fundamentals-bereft and circumstances-unaware “superstars” in an age of plummeting standards, hit a high infield fly then did his usual uninterested trot toward first.

As Rays’ first baseman Yandy Diaz made the catch, Stanton was casually rounding first. Why? Where was he headed? If Diaz dropped it, Stanton would be an easy out at second, tagged out trying to return to first or caught in a rundown, although the “run” part would likely have ended in a quick surrender.

Why didn’t he simply stand on first?

But what did the Yanks expect for $218 million?

Wednesday on SNY, although fill-in play-by-player Steve Gelbs told us he “hustled” toward second, Royals’ catcher Salvador Perez posed a double off the wall into being thrown out at second — something Keith Hernandez quickly noted.

Though the call was overturned on a missed tag, such “he thought” [he hit a homer] scenes remain an untreated, unfixed and worsening MLB standard.

And Gelbs, in limited appearances, continues to report dubious “facts.” Tuesday he described Pete Alonso’s homer to left-center as “monstrous” — even if it landed in the first row.

Then there’s Mets’ GM Billy Eppler, speaker of 2023 genuine GM gibberish. He said that if the Mets want “to get to the sustainability we always talk about we’re going to have to do that organically.”

Well, that goes without saying.

As college and pro athletes are being suspended, jettisoned and even indicted for taking the prevailing commercial bait to gamble on sports to enrich the leagues, conferences, teams and TV-saturated bookmakers serving maximized TV ratings to keep rights fees high, the get-rich-quick prompts grow.

Thus, casinos will soon add NFL-licensed slot machines featuring team logos.

Given that four Lions are among the 10 NFLers suspended for gambling on sports the last two years, Detroit should be relegated to penny slots.

“The unveiling of the first NFL-themed slot machines represents an opportunity to bring the league closer to our fans in a new area,” said Joe Ruggiero, senior vice president of consumer products at the NFL, presumably with a straight face.

The same could be said for NFL-themed pawn shops. But as Roger “PSLs Are Good Investments” Goodell says, “It’s all about our fans.”

While MLB team owners have extended Rob Manfred through 2029, reader Andy Woodhead notes that under Manfred, Yankees’ president Randy Levine and team owner Hal Steinbrenner, this week one must play extreme hide-and-seek — and pay more and more — to watch Yankee games. If they can watch.

Sunday night’s first-inning blowout loss to the O’s was on ESPN, which again baited-and-switched the audience as the game was used as a prop to show, tell and sell everything and anything else, as per ESPN’s exploitation of exclusive sports events.

Wednesday’s Rays-Yanks exclusively appeared on the Amazon Prime streaming operation. Hello? Anybody home?

Thursday night’s Astros-Yanks was scheduled for Fox, where baseball telecasts are confused with all-talk radio.

Friday night’s Astros-Yanks is to be shown exclusively on Apple streaming TV, so for many, it’s John Sterling or nothing.

Tomorrow’s Astros-Yanks will be on YES. Remember YES? It’s the Yanks’ primary pay network.

Sunday’s Astros-Yanks is scheduled for Amazon Prime.

Because it has been deemed an attractive, two big TV-markets series, Astros-Yanks has been cherry-picked to appear — or disappear — for TV money, even if that money greatly reduces the number of fans who see the games.

And even if such greed-based business further reduces the population of those who give a hoot about MLB, Manfred and the Yanks are happy to do their part.