From the Smith-Corona of our Wise Old Egg

Friendly Warning to Times tv-sports columnist: The Greeks can’t reach you, but Jets fans can

Richard Sandomir, the New York Times tv sports columnist, has the misfortune that his last name rhymes with the old German and Yiddish expression Weh ist mir, meaning “woe is me,” and when I see his by-line, I think Weh ist mir, another piece by Sandomir. I can’t stand the generally sour and negative tone of his punditry, e.g. the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics, in which the Greeks’ pageant depicting their awesome ancient history that people raved about, became the subject of a snide and sneering, contemptuous Sandomir review.

Now it is true that Sandomir has worked his way up to Number Two among our tv sports critics. The downside of that is that to my knowledge there is only one other. And Bob Raissman of the Daily News is Number One.

I don’t say that because I used to work at the News. I despise their publisher, who when he bought the paper took away our health benefits, and I think the front part of their paper, where Zuckerman gets down in the mud with Rupert Murdoch with supermarket tabloid headlines like MY BABY IS DYING , is despicable. But they have a damn fine sports section, and Raissman is one of its stars.

I get my crack at Sandomir today because he has belatedly joined the chorus of Times voices fulminating against the West Side stadium. (New York Times September 3 2004)

He starts off by ridiculing the Jets’ all-time greatest hero, Broadway Joe. See what I mean? Shrewd move there, Richard, you know how to get the readers on your side. He jeers at Joe saying “I guarantee” the stadium in a radio commercial.

Athletes aren’t orators, and there are only a few deathless sports quotes. Lefty Gomez: “I’d rather be lucky than good.” Joe Louis: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” Bill Terry: “Is Brooklyn still in the league?” Joe Namath: “ We’re gonna win. I guarantee it.”

(What he actually said, when pressed at a Florida businessmen’s luncheon: “You want me to guarantee we’re gonna win? OK, I guarantee it.”)

If you’re the Jets’ PR department, and your man is famous for such a line, and it’s absolutely appropriate to the occasion, are you not going to have him use it? – With a little wink and a smile, of course. But Sandomir goes after him for it with a sarcastic “How does he know these things?”

Look at his abusive language. He calls it a “cocky claim,” calls Joe “a pitchman,” calls the Sports and Convention Center “blandly named.” And then he really gets insulting. Saying Joe was asked to do this as a beloved figure, he tells us “And the Jets lack beloved figures.”

Excuse me? Have you never heard of Joe Klecko, Freeman McNeil, Marty Lyons, Al Toon, Matt Snell, Dave Herman, Mickey Schuler, John Riggins, Emerson Boozer, not to mention Curtis Martin, Chad Pennington – do you ever actually go to football games?

He describes those distorted and ugly Cablevision anti-stadium commercials as employing “dramatically wrought images.” He apparently is referring to a revolting shot of a huge sewer pipe spewing tons of raw sewage into a river, presumably the Hudson. That of course is not going to happen – do you think the Department of Health would allow it? Beyond worrying about the hideous misrepresentation involved, I would get a Health Department inspector into Cablevision’s office tomorrow asking them just where that disgusting shot was made.

Are you ready, Jets fans? It gets a lot worse. Sandomir comes up with a list of “debatable assumptions.” And one of them is – I really don’t believe this, on a New York sports page – he says it is debatable “ that the Jets will ever play in a Super Bowl again.” Not win, mind you, just play in. I say again, do you believe this, in a New York newspaper?

Tell you what, guys. Fireman Ed, you and your boys get out on 43rd Street and cover the front entrance to the Times, and we’ll cover the back, and we’ll get him as he comes out.

OK, call off the lawyers, just kidding. But did you ever hear of inciting to violence? – TMcM, Sr.