#Rachel Nichols’ unjustified benching by ESPN from NBA role predictable

To mess with the logic of 17th Century philosopher René Descartes, “We think, therefore we don’t get it.” 

Has TV no ability to examine itself, no inclination to lose the insufferable rather than feed and water it to have it grow? 

Fox and Fox Sports 1 are airing promos for their college football studio show, an ad that shows five panelists seated at an oval desk on the set. 

Pssst, don’t tell Fox, but these promos serve as prompts to avoid this show, another in a genre that have proven, over and over, to be unwatchable. 

But you’re all invited back to watch a show filled with filler — irrelevant thoughts and stats, forced laughter and enough time for all five panelists to speak, at most, one sentence or grunt on any matter. What Fox is presenting as a come-on appears more as a warning. 

It doesn’t matter if such shows include the latest available “name” hire and cost great gobs of dough to produce then reproduce, they’re worthless. 

They beg viewers to go elsewhere, anywhere — the kitchen, the bathroom, another network, the DVR of Ch. 11’s “Yule Log” — until they check back to see if the game has started or resumed, if they return. 

But as long as someone at the wheel doesn’t have the slightest better idea, these shows persist, perhaps for no better reason than to fulfill the terms of commercial sponsors. 

ESPN last week dumped Rachel Nichols from her regular NBA and studio assignments, again demonstrating that support of on-air employees depends more on race than on those who may have earned support. 

In other words, what did all her pandering, buddy-buddy, on-court interviews with NBA stars and her dutiful shilling of ESPN’s NBA goods from a studio get her? What was it worth in the end? 

The end came when ESPN, Home of the Double Standard, kicked her off the air for her mild and perhaps accurate complaints against ESPN’s race-based hiring and promotion practices, a recorded chat she wrongly figured was private. 

Nichols, reported to have a year left on her deal, is unlikely to reappear on ESPN. Now branded, if not smeared, her career might be kaput. 

Nichols should have not been surprised. In 2017, ESPN fired longtime tennis analyst Doug Adler as a racist after a reckless tennis freelance fool, on assignment for The New York Times, made the preposterous claim that Adler, for no apparent or logical reason, had just called Venus Williams “a gorilla.” 

In truth, not that the truth mattered, he’d complimented her for putting “the guerrilla effect on, charging [the net].” 

And neither ESPN nor the Times have seen fit to correct this outrageous injustice, perhaps the worst committed by media in my experience, as it has destroyed a man’s career and reputation. 

To their continuing shame, at least in this column, the story has been widely ignored by frightened media and cowardly, on-air former tennis stars. They knew Adler had been done a terrible wrong, had said nothing even worthy of discussion, yet they’re just fine with having convicted an innocent man. 

Thus Nichols reasonably should have anticipated being sacrificed by the selectivity of gutless ESPN executives. Some on-air folks escape worse with an apology, even a weak one. Others apologize, but still must be severely punished, as in destroyed. 

ESPN’s appointed star and purveyor of unexpurgated baloney, Stephen A. Smith, will soon read off a boiler-plate apology form, given his inflammatory and defamatory on-air, race-based transgressions and irresponsible bad guesses he presents as facts. Yet, overly entitled by ESPN, he decries “white privilege.” 

But ESPN pretends that no one knows what can’t be missed. 

ESPN has become a paradise squandered on every front. Virtually any event it televises includes its standard mindlessness, no thought applied to data presented as worthy of immediate attention, as opposed instant ridicule. 

ESPN’s Little League World Series coverage has again been loaded with “enlightenments” we’d only speak for laughs. Last week ESPN posted a graphic: The team from South Dakota is the “First with multiple no-hitters in a single LLWS since Virginia, in 2019.” 

“Mercy” wrote reader Bob LaRosa, who sent the screen shot, “has it been that long?” 

Last year’s LLWS was canceled by COVID-19, thus the graphic should’ve read, “Since the last LLWS.” 

Of course, rather than invite daily ridicule and derision, we would have blown up TV’s stat-feeding departments years ago. 

But even if TV’s shot-callers don’t know what they’re doing, they think they do. They think, therefore we’re stuck. 

Change in speed is what makes changeup work

Now that we know where babies come from, what about stats? 

Last Saturday it didn’t take long for Fox Sports 1 to answer a question that made for far more questions. In the top of the first of Twins-Yankees, a stat box showed that Gerrit Cole throws his changeup at “89.7 mph, ranked 6th” in the majors. 

Gee, 89.7 seems a bit fast to be classified a changeup, no? But beyond that, what and who determines when Cole’s fastballs change to become changeups? At what velocity? 

Are all pitchers rated by the same standard, whatever it may be? Is a 78 mph changeup something to improve upon? Should one work to throw it harder? Or would it then be disqualified as a changeup and diminished as an effective one? 

I was always under the impression that a changeup was an intentionally slow pitch designed to deceive batters, to have them swing too early. But what do I know? I was just trying to watch the ballgame — too much to ask, these days, we know. 

Meanwhile, according to FS1, five pitchers throw their changeups harder than nearly 90 mph, thus the speed difference between their fastball and changeup is … what?

MLB hits Topps with low blow

Topps, its baseball cards synonymous with kids becoming lifelong fans since 1951 — many of us can still smell the slab of gum that came in every pack — has lost its deal with MLB and the MLBPA, as of the expiration of the current contract next year. 

Naturally, money, as opposed to loyalty and decades of brand recognition, was the cause. 

According to Topps, it was blindsided and betrayed. It had no idea that MLB and the MLBPA were even negotiating with another company. That deal completed, Topps was told to get lost. 

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With football returning, it’s important to remember that all points scored are credited to the offense, all points allowed are on the defense. According to TV, all points scored — including on fumble recoveries, safeties, interceptions, blocked kicks and kick returns — reflect teams’ offensive prowess, even if their offenses weren’t on the field. Got it? 

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Cubs 5, Rockies 2, Wednesday. Scheduled for seven innings, it ended at Wrigley after 6 1/2. No matter, customers got their money’s worth — there were still 17 strikeouts. 

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Ray Lucas — the former Rutgers and Jets QB, whose moaning and hollering over live play and the frenetic analysis that followed made listening to Rutgers football over WOR Radio the past dozen years a fool’s pursuit — won’t be back. He’ll now coach Harrison High School, his N.J. alma mater. 

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Yup, Mets fans, it was all Chili Davis’ fault.