There are days that, somehow, cause you to doubt the veracity of the intelligence claims of the masses. Today is one such day. The reason I say that is, aside from those needy drooling types who invariably end up on Maury, you don’t expect adults to be this stupid. But, they are. Let’s start with the most immediate one. Alleged future Bears coach, Mike Martz, was sent by the Bears to Nashville to meet with Jay Cutler.
No. Really. The coach is being forced to get the permission of the quarterback to coach him. If NFL meant National Federation of Laughingstocks, then the Bears would win the Superbowl every year. DAVID HAUGH at the Tribune managed to stop laughing long enough to write it all down.
Before Mike Martz entered a Nashville restaurant Saturday night to meet Jay Cutler, he must have felt a little like the guy proposing on the JumboTron.
What if he hears no?
That’s the ridiculously awkward position the Bears put Martz in by dispatching him to go see Cutler rather than bringing the quarterback to Chicago. Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith had all month to arrange a meeting between Martz and Cutler in a more appropriate manner and setting and came up with something contrived out of FootballMatch.com.
Compatibility with Cutler surely matters for the next offensive coordinator, so, granted, it was a good idea for the two strong personalities to meet. But not in a way that ultimately makes Martz look needy and Cutler appear controlling.
If Smith vouched for Martz, his longtime friend, that should have been good enough for Cutler without having to hear a 58-year-old NFL offensive wizard prove he’s smart enough over a steak. Heck, all the Bears really had to do was FedEx Kurt Warner’s football card to Tennessee to give Cutler all he needed to know about ways Martz can make him a better quarterback.
Smith likes to say the Bears used to get off the bus running. True or not, after Saturday we will think they get off the bus running the organization however Cutler wants.
Eventually we may learn Martz welcomed the opportunity to head into Cutler Country as a way of showing Angelo and any other skeptics how he can sublimate his considerable ego. But this was overkilling Cutler with kindness.
This wasn’t Vikings coach Brad Childress leaving practice to pick up Brett Favre from the Minneapolis airport during training camp last August. This was a more obvious bow.
Bow? No, this was a guy wearing kneepads begging to be a groupie. This was pathetic. How in the hell did the general manager and left over coach (thanks for that term, Steve) ever think that this was a good idea? Is there some vortex over the airport in Nashville that prevents outgoing flights? Is Cutler so poor that he doesn’t have a cell phone? Or, is this a situation wherein Cutler’s throne is too heavy for normal transportation and time constraints forced the issue? If Martz is the answer, then why not hire him and then arrange a meeting? Sadly, if this is emblematic of how the Bears plan on running things, and I think it is, then I see a lot of ice fishing in fans’ future.
I may even get bored enough to catch up on some housecleaning.
On an equally stupid note, albeit of a different variety, CAROL SLEZAK at the Sun Times found out that bald sexism is alive and well when it comes to girls playing sports.
Occasionally, I hear something that makes me check a calendar. As in, this is 2010, isn’t it? As opposed to, say, 1970? Such was the case recently when an e-mail from a man named John Kovach found its way to me. Kovach wrote that he has successfully consulted ‘’in 50 cases the past few years involving girls who were originally told they could not play baseball in youth or school programs.’’ Say what? Didn’t we settle this issue decades ago?
We did, of course. Under Title IX and various civil-rights laws, schools and parks and recreation departments are prohibited from denying girls the chance to play baseball. But there’s a big difference between legal change and cultural change. Too often, girls still are forced to jump through hoops, up to and including taking legal action, just to play. To think they call it the national pastime.
Kovach, who has three daughters, believes girls should be afforded the same baseball opportunities as boys. By day an archivist at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind., he also heads up the South Bend Blue Sox, an organization dedicated to girls baseball.
‘’I just think that anyone who wants to play baseball should be able to,’’ he said.
A few years ago, Kovach filed a complaint with the Indiana Civil Rights Commission after his daughter Irina, then 12, was told she couldn’t join a local boys baseball league. By the time the case was decided last December in her favor, she was too old to play.
‘’I’ve heard similar stories from all over the country,’’ Kovach said.
Why does everything have to be so darn difficult?
Little League was forced to open its doors to girls in the 1970s. But girls still have to join a boys team to play. Yes, Little League offers a softball league for girls. But softball is not the same as baseball. Softball uses a bigger ball and plays on a smaller field. Softball pitchers must throw underhanded. Little League recognizes that softball and baseball are different sports. In 2000, it created a boys-only softball league. But it still hasn’t created a girls-only baseball league. Where’s the fairness?
I’m not trying to pick on Little League, although the organization does seem to go out of its way to accommodate boys. Girls face similar obstacles with recreational leagues and school leagues. They must either join a boys team or play softball instead. It’s true that many girls like softball. But do they even know what they’re missing? Most girls never have played competitive baseball. There are too many barriers in their way.
Kovach has found that one of the most common reasons officials give for barring girls from baseball is the mistaken belief that softball provides an equal opportunity. Kovach wonders how many girls accept the decision because they’re unaware of their rights.
‘’It’s the same [excuses] over and over,’’ he said. ‘’Sometimes I want to bang my head.’’
He’s not the only one. Several posters up here have voiced similar concerns. From fathers who want their daughters to play the game they all love to regular people who can find no logical reason for girls to be excluded from baseball. It isn’t like they are asking to be interior linepersons in the NFL. They just want to catch and throw the ball and play the game they’ve played with their friends and families for years.
And, please, spare me that sanctimonious crap about how girls aren’t strong enough to hit home runs. Neither is Juan Pierre and he seems to do okay. If a girl can throw a softball at 90 mph, underhanded, I am sure she can throw a baseball at similar speeds. For those who whimper about how girls are a little slower than guys when it comes to running, I ask how many stolen bases Jim Thome got last year? His career seems to have done okay.
When you strip away the neantherdal attitudes and blatant sexism, you find yourself without any legitimate excuses to keep girls out of baseball. If that is the lifeboat you want to cling to, then you are stupid enough to be worthy of sinking.
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