Taking a quick glance at some newsworthy items over the past week:
Item: Still irate over sanctions that resulted in its traditionally powerful football team receiving a two-year postseason ban, some Bellevue High School parents are calling for the State Legislature to oversee the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.
Comment: Let me get this straight: The Legislature couldn’t agree until July on a state operating budget and remains deadlocked on a capital construction budget. Now some people want to add high school sports oversight to its plate?
This could be quickly dismissed as a singularly stupid proposal, except that Bellevue boosters have added the ugly spectre of racism to the equation. According to some parents, all 35 athletes believed to be illegally recruited by Bellevue were African-American.
It’s fair to examine the racial posture of all organizations, the WIAA included, in this day and age. But I’m not fond of critics pulling out the race card every time they draw a losing hand.
Investigations by the Bellevue School District, the WIAA and the Seattle Times revealed compelling evidence that Bellevue coaches and boosters broke numerous state rules to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. That remains the primary issue in this case. State legislators have better things to do than to get involved.
Item: Still in playoff contention, the Seattle Mariners evidently will attempt to limp through the remainder of the regular season with a makeshift starting pitching rotation.
Comment: I lack the ability to read the mind of Seattle general manager Jerry Dipoto. If I did, I suspect his thought process might be something like, “We can’t go all the way with this team and I’m not going to sacrifice the future by trading prospects for a rent-a-pitcher who, at best, can only take us to a one-game wild-card playoff.”
That position makes a certain amount of sense. Except this will be the second consecutive season that the otherwise trade-happy Dipoto refused to pull the trigger on a deadline deal. His failure to do so last year arguably cost the Mariners a wild-card berth, since they weren’t eliminated until the final Saturday of the regular season.
With such key operatives as Nelson Cruz, Robinson Cano and Felix Hernandez in the twilight of their careers (although, in Cruz’s case, it’s a pretty bright twilight), one has to wonder how many more opportunities the M’s will have in the forseeable future.
Item: Growing evidence of permanent brain damage from concussions has resulted in a decline in high school football turnouts nationwide.
Comment: This is one of those rare controversial issues in which there is a strong consensus on two key points. Most informed observers believe there is a long-term health risk from playing football but few want to see the sport banned.
Unfortunately, the National Football League has thus far blown a golden opportunity to craft a solution. It is only recently that NFL officials have even acknowledged there is a problem and they’ve been extraordinarily defensive about acknowledging their role in the CTE crisis.
Commissioner Roger Goodell could rewrite his somewhat dubious legacy if he brought together retired players and coaches, health experts and equipment manufacturers for a series of summit conferences. Those would continue to be staged until some common ground was reached on concussion prevention.
The solution might be very expensive, but the NFL has the financial werewithal to underwrite a high percentage of the costs. It’s in the league’s best interest to do so.
Most avid baseball fans know that only one major league player has been killed by a pitched ball. That was Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman, beaned by New York Yankees ace Carl Mays in 1920.
While his character was largely irrelevant to the tragedy (there is no evidence he intended to hurt Chapman), Mays was a real piece of work. While Chapman lay mortally injured, Mays picked up the ball and threw it to first base in the event the umpire ruled the ball had hit the bat.
Former Yankee teammate Bob Shawkey, who had an off-season job as an insurance agent, later claimed that Mays purchased auto insurance from him, then arranged to have the car stolen so he could collect on the policy. This plan failed only because Mays also refused to pay the car thief for his handiwork.
In any event, the Chapman fatality did not inspire a wave of safety precautions. It was more than 20 years before Brooklyn general manager Larry MacPhail, outraged by a series of beanings to star players, devised the batting helmet that is still used today.
For the sake of the game, football officials can’t afford to wait another 20 years before taking similar safety-related action.
