I guess this isn’t exactly pertinent since he didn’t work for ESPN but I saw over on SI.com that Don Banks died over the weekend. I always enjoyed his columns.
This was a couple of weeks ago, but LeBatard went off on the “cowardice” of ESPN in not discussing racism except when an athlete says something they can hide behind:
Powerful stuff from the son of Cuban Immigrants.
LeBatard is given a pretty free hand by ESPN but he has been suspended in the past.
We’ll see what happens here.
He ain’t wrong, but biting the hand that feeds you can be dicey
He wasn’t punished AFAIK, but apparently did get a stern reminder of the policy.
The policy of ‘weakly pretend it doesn’t happen until a famous athlete speaks up’ that he explicitly criticized, I’m sure 😉
Is he going to drunkenly walk into Bill Simmons’ house naked? That would be awesome.
— Alan
I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time.
Due to a change in my schedule I haven’t listened to Lebatard in almost a year, but I did for several years prior to that. He used to have a guy on his show that would start reminding him about how the others on his show enjoyed their employment whenever he got political. Sure it was funny, but there was also something serious behind it.
Gotta kind of wonder if the Russillo announcement and this one aren’t entirely coincidental.
Good for them. And, yeah, I mean look at Jason Concepcion. The guy just won an Emmy. He should make sure the stuff he creates is protected.
Yea good luck with trying to unionize at those website…which are all a dime a dozen.
LeBatard gets into it again, this time with Finebaum:
It sounds like they settled it pretty quickly. LeBatard has long ties to the U of Miami program and I am not surprised he would respond in that way. Plus, unless you hear his show, and how many of his and others remarks are made on the show, the written quotes always look much stronger than the spoken word. Not always, but from my experience listening to the show that is how it usually is.
“I know from personal experience just how dangerous a visiting stadium can be especially any game with Miami.”
There’s some more dog whistle language that merits an apology. So much whistling. So, so much.
Why are you so sure about that? Google says that the two schools have roughly the same racial diversity, though admittedly U of Florida is a bit more white.
My assumption is that he is referring to the fact that the two schools are long-time rivals and that the students can take it too seriously.
The exact same statement could be said about 49er/Raider games here in the SF Bay Area and I wouldn’t think it’s dog whistling.
Miami also has a sports history of being a school that follows its own code, more street if you will. There is a great 30 for 30 episode about Miami that covers it’s rise. LeBatard is a big voice in that episode. I think it is more the Miami stereotype Finebaum is speaking of, not the casual Miami fan. Miami was the early home of the “hip hop black athlete” (I don’t know what exact phrase to use but maybe that will work), and college football was uncomfortable with that at the time.
Edit: I think at the time Miami was accused of being a team of “thugs”.
You mean how one fan base is called the “whine and cheese” fans and the others are considered “working class”. :)
For some reason I’m reminded of New York in the '80s when I had a Mets ticket plan at Shea. Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the US Open tennis tournament is played, was directly across the tracks of the 7 Train (yes, the infamous 7 Train) elevated stop from Shea. And there would always be a couple of evenings when both a Mets home game and the tennis tournament were occurring at the same time. On those wonderful evenings, you’d have this hilarious split crowd on the 7 Train headed out to Flushing Meadow. Half the crowd would be the baseball fans like me, dressed like slobs#, while the other half consisted of the tennis crowd in their immaculate whites with sweaters tied around their necks and bottles of Chardonnay poking out of their picnic baskets. They looked distinctly uncomfortable, while we baseball slobs smirked at them
#Shea was a dump and we dressed appropriately for a dump. In those days, nobody spent hundreds of dollars to dress all in team colors to attend a sporting event. Now, of course, Citi Field has replaced Shea and it’s as upscale as any of the other modern venues, so I’m sure the 7 Train crowd doesn’t look quite so diverse anymore.