Bent Corner

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ESPN

Megan Rapinoe is a sexist, ageist bigot

American soccer player Megan Rapinoe criticized FIFA for including Florida State striker Deyna Castellanos in the group of three candidates for the Best FIFA Women’s Player of 2017 award. Rapinoe never heard of Castellanos before and because of that fact, didn’t deserve to be a finalist.

From ESPN:

Rapinoe, a forward for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Seattle Reign, accused football’s governing body of belittling the women’s game, calling FIFA “old, male and stale.”

How did naming a player Rapinoe had never heard of before belittle the woman’s game? Castellanos reportedly did well at the Under-17 Women’s World Cup last year and because of that, garnered a lot of attention.

Not from Rapinoe. Supposedly she had never heard of Castellanos.

Megan Rapinoe is a sexist, ageist bigot - Bent Corner
Deyna Castellanos (@deynac18).

Why is it okay for Rapinoe to use the terms “old” and “male” as a pejorative?

Take it from me, people don’t choose to be old. It happens naturally as they traverse this thing we call life. Time travels in only one direction and everyone, even Rapinioe, gets older every minute.

Speaking of things people don’t choose, people don’t choose their biological sex. Being male or female is not a choice, it’s how you were born. I’m male, but I never chose to be one. It’s who I am. Condemning someone because of their biological sex is sexist and bigoted.

Jealous much?

I think Megan Rapinoe is a bigot, and in regards to Deyna Castellanos, more than a little jealous.

ESPN suspends SportsCenter host Jemele Hill for two weeks

ESPN suspended SportsCenter host Jemele Hill for breaking the company’s social media policy. She posted two tweets encouraging people to boycott Dallas Cowboys advertisers. The reason? Cowboys owner Jerrey Jones threatened to sit any player who sits for the national anthem.

Jemele Hill’s tweets

When Jemele Hill’s suspension is over, she needs to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. Does she want to be a social justice activist fighting for issues she believes are important? Does she want to represent ESPN as a host for SportsCenter?

I don’t see how she can be both.

The Dallas Cowboys are part of the National Football League. The National Football League is in partnership with ESPN. The network pays $1.9 billion a year to televise Monday Night Football. It’s inappropriate to have an employee of ESPN, let alone a SportsCenter host, go after advertisers.

Hosting SportsCenter used to be a big deal

To be a host on SportsCenter used to be a big deal. It represented the pinnacle of a person’s sports career. It be a talking-head on ESPN, reporting the news to the United States, was a privilege. I’m not sure it’s that way anymore. I don’t watch ESPN anymore except for  30 for 30 documentaries.  I get my sports news from a lot of places these days. ESPN SportsCenter is not one of them.

To be a host of ESPN is still carries a lot of clout.  Jemele Hill’s Twitter account has a blue check next to it, something it would not have if she were not on ESPN. She needs to recognize that. When she Tweets something stupid, it reflects on ESPN.

Jemele Hill cannot have it both ways. She cannot enjoy the advantages of being a SportsCenter host and also enjoy the freedoms of shitposting on Twitter. Calling for an NFL boycott while working for a company in partnership with the NFL is shitposting.

If she thinks she can do both, she’s wrong.

Alabama linebacker Reuben Foster sent home from NFL combine

Former Alabama inside linebacker Reuben Foster, viewed by most experts to be a top-10 pick in the upcoming NFL draft, was sent home from the combine.

From ESPN:

Foster had been waiting for an extended period for what the NFL calls his “pre-exam”, when he grew increasingly impatient and began questioning a hospital worker.

The hospital worker did not take kindly to Foster’s words and eventually the two were face to face, in a heated exchange.

The hospital worker did not take kindly to Foster’s words? Whatever said hospital worker’s duties are, I’m fairly confident they don’t include getting face to face with a patient.

I don’t know why players, especially those who are highly rated, even go to the NFL combine. Reuben Foster played four years at Alabama. He was a unanimous All-American last year and was awarded the Butkus Award as the top college linebacker in the country. No team in the NFL, even the ones run by incompetent morons, need to see Reuben Foster at the combine to learn any more information about him that they don’t already have.

If your team needs an inside linebacker and you’re burning calories trying to decide if you should draft Reuben Foster, you’re doing it wrong.

Fidel Castro is dead and that makes me happy

Long-time Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died Friday, November 25, 2016. He was 90 years old.

Fidel Castro was a terrible human being. Not only was he a Communist, but he was also a chronic human rights abuser, responsible for the death of thousands of his people. He also tried to convince the Soviet Union to initiate a first-strike nuclear attack against the United States, if the United States invaded Cuba and removed him from power.

The man was so power hungry that he would advocate a massive nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union if he were to lose power. What a dick.

If Fidel Castro provided anything positive, it was that he made for a great litmus test for rooting out assholes. Show me someone who said anything even remotely positive about Fidel Castro, and I’ll show you someone who is either ignorant of history or someone who is purposely trying to be an asshole.

For example, take a look at Twitter:

espn-castro-tweet
ESPN has since deleted their tweet about the sports-loving murderous tyrant.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had this to say about the dead tyrant:

Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.

I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.

On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.

Dedication and love for the Cuban people? Were the thousands of Cubans Fidel Castro had thrown into prison or executed, for political reasons, not people? Justin Trudeau is an idiot.

I’m glad Fidel Castro is dead. Not only Cuba, but the world is a much better place without him in it. Too bad to took this long for him to take his rightful place in Hell next to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Robert E. Lee.

The NFL now has a strict policy on violence

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has established severe new rules for off-the-field violence, not just domestic violence. It applies to all NFL employees, not just players. It was approved by all 32 team owners and will not need to be approved by the NFL Players Association.

From ESPN:

Violations of the Personal Conduct Policy regarding assault, battery, domestic violence and sexual assault that involve physical force will be subject to enhanced discipline. A first offense will be subject to a suspension of six weeks without pay. Mitigating circumstances will be considered, and more severe discipline will be imposed if there are aggravating circumstances such as the presence or use of a weapon, choking, repeated striking, or when the act is committed against a pregnant woman or in the presence of a child. A second offense will result in banishment from the league; an offender may petition for reinstatement after one year, but there is no assurance that the petition will be granted. These disciplinary consequences apply to all NFL personnel.

How does someone commit sexual assault without it involving physical force?

So if I understand this new policy correctly, a six-week suspension is what you receive if you assault anyone, man or woman, a significant other or a complete stranger. Throw in a bit of choking or use a weapon of any kind, and the suspension will be longer. If the other party is a pregnant woman, you strike them more than once, or if a child witnesses the act of violence, the suspension will also be longer.

What triggers this new policy?

Also from ESPN:

A league source told ESPN’s Andrew Brandt that discipline would be triggered by adjudication of a player’s case, such as a conviction or plea agreement.

This policy is in reaction to the incident involving Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. He punched his then girlfriend, now wife, in an Atlantic City casino elevator. Rice was able to avoid trial by agreeing to a diversionary program, that once completed, will allow him to clear his record. In other words, he was never convicted of a crime. He reached a plea agreement with prosecutors that didn’t involve admitting guilt. Goodell suspended Rice for only two games, even though TMZ showed surveillance video of Rice dragging his unconscious victim, the mother of his child, from the casino elevator.

Goodell was criticized by nearly everyone for the lenient punishment.

This new policy won’t apply to Rice because it’s being enacted after his incident of domestic violence, but I’m guessing if it had, he never would have reached a pre-trial agreement with prosecutors.

He would have gone to trial. Anything less than an a full acquittal would have left him exposed to this new NFL policy.

If I were a player in the NFL, I’m be wondering right about now why I was paying dues to the NFL Players Association. If Roger Goodell can enact a policy like this without it being subject to collective bargaining, why even have a union?

Roger Goodell is the worst commissioner ever, and that’s including the lazy idiot who ran a fantasy basketball league I was a part of in the late 1990’s.

Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda ejected for having pine tar on his neck

New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was thrown out of last night’s game against the Boston Red Sox for having an illegal substance on his neck. It is believed that the illegal substance was pine tar.

Pine tar allows a pitcher to get a better grip on the ball. Grip is good. Baseball being baseball, hitters are allowed to use pine tar, pitchers are not. With that said, it’s kind of an unwritten rule that nothing will be said about a pitcher using pine tar when it’s cold, as long as they aren’t being obvious about using it. In cold weather, it’s harder to grip the ball. Pineda’s problem last night was that it wasn’t cold and he was being very obvious about it. He had it right on his neck for the world to see. Red Sox manager John Farrell asked the umpire to check Pineda’s neck and the rest was history.

The Red Sox went on to win the game 5-1.

As fate would have it, last night’s game was televised nationally on ESPN. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the four-letter network alerted the Red Sox about the pine tar on Pineda’s neck, knowing that the inspection and subsequent ejection would create lots of drama.

If there’s one thing ESPN likes is drama.

I’m not so sure it was Pineda’s fault. Once I saw a magician pull a quarter out from behind a young girl’s ear. Who was responsible for producing the quarter, the girl? I don’t think so. For all we know, a magician or a wizard could have put the pine tar on Pineda’s neck. I couldn’t help but notice that although the umpiring crew checked Pineda for foreign substances, they didn’t check the stands for wizards or magicians.

I guess we’ll never know.