Lack of practicality causes bad ideas to overtake the sport

I try to be a practical person. Sorry make that person even though I identify as male.

But I sense that we are so mired in ideology that useful common sense – practicality – is no longer considered useful and should therefore be avoided to be practiced in public.

The Supreme Court is preparing to rule on the case of a high school football assistant coach who was fired for refusing to hold voluntary prayer sessions in the middle of the field after games.

The Bremerton, Washington public school tried to compromise with coach Joe Kennedy and offered to house his faith in a less conspicuous setting before and/or after the game, but Kennedy declined on the grounds that he Freedom of speech and freedom of religion were suppressed.

Apparently it was important to him and many of his teenage players/followers to be seen kneeling in prayer, which appears to be a case of spiritual showboating.

Despite the country’s ideal of separating the church from willful grounding, it has been touted as a tough – and huge – challenge for the Supreme Court.

Not the way I see it. It’s easy. Just apply a practical solution: allow the coach to pray on the field while his church, in the large room where prayers are recited, is used as a high school football field after services.

Solved! Why make a federal case out of this?

The practical has always convinced me. My buddy Bob Corbo, a golf pro, says he wants to produce an instructional video called Don’t Do That, No More. Another pal, Cary Fields, reassures friends lamenting losing a weekend golf game by “choking” with, “You’re not good enough to choke.” practical men.

But practicality, like the future, isn’t what it used to be.

The inherent injustice – race manipulation – in the Lia Thomas University of Pennsylvania swim team case is dismissed as a supporting example of ideology – the triumph of wishful thinking over reality. Kicking out practicality and swimming against women who have trained for years for fair athletics tests is applied bullshit masquerading as gender-equitable ideology.

There should be no debate on this crooked subject, but armed only with an ideology that fits all, Thomas keeps swimming, keeps winning, right and wrong to hell.

But the greatest natural enemy of the practical is not a misguided or misapplied ideology. Blind, drooling Greed is the prohibitive favorite in any race against any foe.

On Friday in Kansas City, another Yankees game will be removed from its broadest view — free over-the-air television — in favor of a microscopic audience to honor dead-of-night deals to secure exclusivity for at least 24 Yankees Games to auction season to Big Tech Amazon or Apple.

Though the first few are free, MLB has fallen hard on the fact that its cut has become a bait for paid streaming delivery. And as the recent CNN+ fold showed, you can’t fool sheep that are already shorn.

So the practical question remains: Who is at the complaints desk? Why would MLB and its most famous team agree to continue trimming their viewership when baseball is losing fans as it is dogged in self-destruct? And why, to shout out loud, allow Friday night games to be sacrificed to that plan the most?

What are MLB’s short- and long-term best interests on these new, sometimes horribly produced, hard-to-find “TV shows”? Who unsubscribed her? Hal Steinbrenner, Yankees President Randy Levine? What was Rob Manfred’s input other than “How much?”

How is MLB combating waning interest by intentionally minimizing total viewership? Had practical sense been applied to these decisions, MLB and the Yankees (and the Mets, who have sold less exclusively streamed games) would have been eager to talk about it by now.

But not a word, the same greed that has caused the best seats to be shamelessly empty of “guests,” as the Yankees broadcasters are obligated to call customers, since this Yankee Stadium, opened in 2009, is the only practical answer for those who have it try to apply the practical.

“This was the Yankees’ 15th game this season that was not televised due to streaming. And if you switch to Geico, you can save 15 percent on car insurance in 15 minutes.”

Some questions are just harder to answer

Questions:

Reader Peter Dowd asks, pun intended, what the odds were that the guy in Philadelphia who was waiting in the parking lot to meet Angel Hernandez after the Mets beat the Phillies “had a bet on the game,” specifically at the urging of the MLB ?

Will the day come when the Yankees spokespeople for YES will stop treating us like we’re blind, stupid, or both?

On Tuesday, Anthony Rizzo hit a homer that was almost caught by the right fielder. Michael Kay and David Cone took turns noting that it barely crossed the wall. “As close as possible,” said Cone, “by a foot!”

I have it. Saw it. Impossible to miss. As was the fact that Rizzo sauntered out of the batter’s box, watched instead of running, and played baseball endorsed by Aaron Boone. But Kay and Cone gave that old Sgt. Schulz.

How come friends and readers in Florida knew that WR Kadarius Toney, rapper named Yung Joka, was a bad character hazard when he was a student-athlete at Reprobate U. – The University of Florida – but the Giants got him drafted in the first round ?

Then there was Toney’s self-explanatory Twitter defense of Raiders WR Henry Ruggs III last season, after Ruggs was charged with DUI vehicle murder for driving his car at a reported speed of 156 mph on a Vegas street shattered and killed a young woman and her dog:

“We youngsters…..everyone makes mistakes….you all look at the situation like ‘this or that’ because it’s not you…has so much to say….he knows he screwed up, don’t drag her for it. “

Carlos, Cameron talk too much

With Cameron Maybin and Carlos Beltran, YES has two more Ready! Fire! Goal! broadcaster. Both obviously have the full impression that they should talk, talk, then talk some more, even if there’s nothing worth mentioning.

You have to wonder if it will stay that way or if YES, if there is someone who knows bad of worse, who helps them – not to mention the viewers. Both men seem eager—too eager—to please. So why shouldn’t they be just as eager to improve?

Still, Beltran actually addressed a sweet thought when addressing pitcher Nestor Cortes’s tenacity to become a good pitcher after a shaky start: “When you face adversity with a good attitude, the universe gets back to you.”

Instead of the “Best Bat-Flips” reels, MLB Network should feature “The Best of Nick Ahmed” weekly. The Diamondbacks shortstop’s excellent defense, who played at UConn, should be shared generously before MLB bans the position to create more runs.

In Game 4 of the Nets, a 116-112 elimination loss to the Celtics, Brooklyn’s Nic Claxton was 1-11 on free throws. Still, free throw statistics have been almost eliminated from NBA telecasts as important. As an absentee “co-management” officer, Kyrie must have overlooked Irving Claxton’s poor free-throw shooting all season.

If Pete Alonso remains eager to prove he’s a vulgar braggart, he’s done it again!