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What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here are some items that will have people talking:
So James Harrison, according to his agent Bill Parise, is “quite confused about how to play football.”
Memo to Mr. Harrison: The way NOT to play football is to lead with your head and launch yourself into the air to make a tackle.
The NFL on Tuesday fined Harrison, a linebacker for the Steelers, $75,000 for a hit on Cleveland’s Mohamed Massaquoi last weekend. The league also fined Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather and Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson $50,000 apiece for their dangerous hits.
The NFL then said players who make illegal hits can face suspension beginning with this week’s games.
We wonder if it will make a difference. We wonder how effectively a sport that sells violent collisions — and pays players handsomely to make big hits — can effectively draw the line between dirty and dangerous play and the natural collisions that happen when super-fast athletes converge.
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Attention, sports fans: The baseball playoffs are in full swing.
We offer this friendly reminder because apparently most of America has not noticed.
Monday night’s dog of a football game between Tennessee and Jacksonville was watched by more TV viewers than Game 3 of the ALCS, which featured one Cliff Lee shutting down baseball’s marquee team, the Yankees. That reflects a trend that has seen more viewers tune into hometown NFL teams playing regular-season games than watching the hometown baseball team in the playoffs. Ouch!
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We understand that the NFL is king, and that football is a better TV show than baseball. But we wonder when baseball will get the message and schedule fewer head-to-head conflicts with football.
If baseball wants us to watch, it needs to move things along by shortening the regular season to 154 games and playing more doubleheaders. Start the playoffs in mid-September. Schedule fewer off days once the playoffs start.
We’re not saying we’ll skip football for baseball, but we’ll flick our remotes to catch the boys of summer more often if they finish before the Christmas decorations go up.
