← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 6341 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2003-04-26
2003-04-26 12:12 | User Profile
[color=red]First things first. A tip of the cap to NB Forrest for bringing this to light. If you haven't been paying attention - or never visit the site - NB's letters to VNN have become a daily copy-and-save highlight over there. At first I thought it was accidental: like he was blowing off steam at this or that and, in the venting, employed a bit of phrasing that happened to be hilarious. But if NB's style is 'accidental', so was Sam Kinison's. In a timorous, speak-only-in-code society like our own, ain't nothing funnier than losing your patience and calling a thing what it blatantly is, in plain unvarnished language. Along with Jimmy Teuton, ol' NB has become the first name I look for in the VNN mailbag.
As for this article? Just another road-marker on the path back to the Dark Ages, courtesy of ZOG. You knew Enos was making this list....for Chrissakes, his nickname was 'Country'! You know they weren't letting that one slide past, unsullied. But how do you not reserve the #1 slot to Jew Marvin Miller....the man who singlehandedly set the dominos in motion to gut and scale all that was charming and idyllic and healthy in professional sports? Or arrange a bye for the countless drug addicts/rapists/born felons of darker pigmentation who've dishonored the game they played and the 'kids' they all claim to be playing for?
(If ever there was a cue for Roger Bannister to jump in, and add his two cents...this is it!)[/color]
[url=http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/villains.html]http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/villains.html[/url]
Calling all villains By Jeff Merron Page 2 staff
We hate 'em. They're nasty, mean, and sometimes just pure evil. Whenever we remember their positive contributions to sport, we can't help but think about the ugly, overwhelming negativity of who they were, or some awful deed they did. They're the ultimate sports villains, and if they weren't real, we would have had to make them up. Check our list of the ultimate sports villains and then tell us who we missed.
Even after Cobb was gone, he was despised. When Newsday sports columnist Jack Mann was asked to write Cobb's obit, he said he'd only do it if he could tell it like it was, explaining, "The only difference now is that he's a dead prick."
O.J. Simpson Ten years ago, he probably would have made our "heroes" list. But he was a better actor than we all thought. In a way, the perfect villain -- a public persona of mellow, good-humored friendliness that masked a greater evil inside.
John Rocker Even before SI outed Rocker as a racist jerk, his Braves teammates shunned him -- because he didn't care about the team. "If the team lost, the team won, it really didn't fit with what he did," said Thomas Stinton of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "It was how he pitched that night, how he had performed, what he had accomplished, what his ERA was, how many saves he had."
And after his hateful harangue? Persona non grata. Nobody came to his defense, because he was indefensible. And soon, he was gone from Atlanta.
Walter O'Malley Just two years after the Dodgers won the World Series, O'Malley took them away from Brooklyn, even though more than a million fans -- a respectable number in those days -- came to see the Bums in 1957. In the meantime, he also convinced Horace Stoneham to move the Giants to San Francisco. Writers Jack Newfield and Pete Hamill, both Brooklyn natives, once had an argument that they settled by each listing, on a piece of paper, the three greatest villains in recent history. Their lists were identical: 1) Hitler; 2) Stalin; 3) O'Malley.
Mike Tyson When Tyson said to Lennox Lewis, "I want to eat your children," we weren't sure if he was kidding or not. In the sordid, corrupt world of boxing, he's a dirty player who once had a chance to rule the heavyweight division on pure talent. Instead, he turned out to be a convicted rapist and ear muncher. Now, as former featherweight champion Barry McGuigan so concisely said, "He's out of control outside the ring and out of control inside the ring. He's a disgrace." Who gives a flip if he can turn on the charm when Jimmy Kimmel's cameras are pointed at him?
Conrad Dobler The offensive lineman for the Cardinals, Saints and Bills in the 1970s and early '80s received the dubious honor of topping Page 2's list of dirtiest pro team players ever last year. He was a true villain who didn't care who he hurt, or how he hurt them. For example, he was so well known for biting (sound familiar?) that the Vikings requested rabies shots before playing against him. His unabashed dirty play resulted in several rules changes: no blocking a windpipe -- said Dobler, "When I hit a guy, I'll hit him in the throat ... he doesn't have any pads on his throat" -- and no leg whips.
Dobler got off cheap shots against Merlin Olsen and Mean Joe Greene -- in the Pro Bowl -- and Lions linebacker Charlie Weaver, among countless others.
But the cheapest, most juvenile of all came at the end of a 1974 game against the Giants, when the opposing players were shaking hands as the clock wound down. When Giant Jim Pietrzak attempted this ritual of sportsmanship, wishing Dobler good luck in the playoffs, Dobler punched him in the throat.
Comiskey, the owner of the White Sox, became the owner of the Black Sox at least in part because he was a notorious cheapskate. In other words, his players -- the best in baseball -- were greatly underpaid. Would they have fixed the Series if they didn't need the cash, and felt any allegiance whatsoever to Comiskey? We wouldn't bet on it.
Rothstein, the gambler, arranged it all.
And Chase, notorious for fixing games throughout his career with the Yankees, White Sox, Reds and Giants, was indicted by the Chicago grand jury as go-between in the scandal.
Enos Slaughter, Ben Chapman and the 1947 baseball racists Slaughter led a May 1947 St. Louis Cardinals attempt to strike in protest against Jackie Robinson. It failed, but Slaughter intentionally spiked Robinson later in the season, demonstrating his complete lack of class. Chapman, a short-fused star for seven teams, led the league in race-baiting in 1947, mercilously taunting Robinson from his manager's perch in the Phillies dugout. Though organized baseball at the time was suffused with racism, both subtle and overt, Slaughter and Chapman exemplified the ugliest of the ugly.
Tonya Harding Well, we'd give points to Tonya Harding for originality -- athletes play all kinds of mind games before competing, but nobody had come up with an idea like hers, to have her husband and a gang of third-rate thugs crack an opponent's knee. Of course, Harding skated in the Olympics and did poorly, while Nancy Kerrigan, her victim, took home a silver. Since then, Harding has divorced, served jail time, feuded with her fan club, starred in a wedding-night porn video, and been booed at public appearances. And she just won't go away, as she keeps popping up in lame celebrity boxing matches on Fox.
But she's achieved status as an American icon, of sorts. One Web site paid tribute to Harding, explaining, "By living her life on the low end of the bell curve, she's helped the rest of America feel that much better about ourselves."
2003-04-26 13:11 | User Profile
Wait, there's more unintended hilarity afoot!
[url=http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/heroes.html]http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/heroes.html[/url]
Calling all heroes Page 2 staff
They're the best of the best, exemplifying all the courage and nobility and genius and hard work and modesty and ambition and humility and grace that can be displayed in modern American sports. They're the ones we really want to be like when the going gets tough, they're the ones we want to show our sons and daughters and say, "See? See?" They all had flaws, we know -- they were, despite some signs to the contrary, human. And they're Page 2's greatest sports heroes of all time.
Jackie Robinson It wasn't what Jackie did as much as the way Jackie did it -- bearing up under the pressure of breaking baseball's color barrier with dignity and class and some damn great ballplaying. And, like few others before or since, he became bigger than the game itself, an American treasure in his own right. Said AL President Gene Budig in 1997, "He led America by example. He reminded our people of what was right and he reminded them of what was wrong. I think it can be safely said today that Jackie Robinson made the United States a better nation."
Babe Ruth Babe was, quite simply the American sports icon of The American Century, a mythic hero who would have had to be invented had he not been flesh and blood. Out of the mouth of Pete Rose, in 1992, came the truth: "If Babe Ruth had been a soccer player, soccer would be our national pastime."
Vince Lombardi Lombardi was voted the greatest coach of all time by ESPN's SportsCentury panel, but he was so much more. During the turbulent 1960s, he became a symbol of all that was right with the old-fashioned, "square" ways. A tough guy, an emotional man, one who inspired great loyalty among his players. Quite simply, the best boss there ever was.
Muhammad Ali Ali was "The Greatest" during his boxing career, but it was after his boxing days were done that he secured his legend as a great American man. Was there ever a more moving moment in sports than when he lit the flame to open the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta? Ailing with Parkinson's, Ali has faced his long physical decline with the kind of courage and grace and humor that have made him not just admired, but truly beloved. Said Pres. Bill Clinton to Ali after the torch-lighting ceremony, "They didn't tell me who would light the flame, but when I saw it was you, I cried.'"
Johnny Unitas A great quarterback, we all know. The greatest ever, probably. But more simply, an admirable man who honored the sports world by being part of it. "He was the kind of man," said Cardinal William H. Keeler at Unitas' funeral, "who would shake the hand of a homeless person and say to that person it was an honor to shake his hand."
Nile Kinnick We're reminded of the legacy of a young man who died too young at the start of every Big 10 football game. The coin that's tossed bears Kinnick's likeness, and it's only one of many tributes to the great Iowa football star and war hero that are scattered around his home state. When he won the Heisman in 1939, he said, famously, "I thank God I was warring on the gridirons of the Midwest and not on the battlefields of Europe." A few years later, Kinnick was killed on a training flight, serving his country in that same war. He had turned down a lucrative pro contract from the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers to attend law school, and many expected him to eventually become president.
"This country is O.K. as long as it produces Nile Kinnicks," wrote Bill Cunningham in the Boston Globe, shortly after Kinnick took home the Heisman. "The football part is incidental."
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird These men made their pro basketball homes on opposite coasts -- one in glamorous L.A., the other in old, work-a-day Beantown, but the 3,000 miles didn't separate them in our minds. Take your pick -- Magic's infectious good humor and enthusiasm and, when it all came crashing down, courage. Larry's hard-scrabble, Midwest, get-it-done can-do everyman attitude. It's impossible. They're heroes bound together by time, and by a sport, and by exhibiting complementary qualities that added up to greatness both on and off the court.
Joe DiMaggio "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you ââ¬Â¦ " Would any other player, in any sport, have worked in that great line from Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson"? No way. Even though lots of ugly things about Joe's life have come out lately, his fame and heroic stature may be equaled, but never topped. DiMaggio, wrote Page 2's David Halberstam in "Summer of '49, " was "the perfect Hemingway hero, for Hemingway in his novels romanticized the man who exhibited grace under pressure, who withheld any emotion lest it soil the purer statement of his deeds."
Billie Jean King She was the best tennis player of her time, and one of the all-time greats. She fought for equal prize money -- and got it. She created an entirely new format for tennis competition -- World Team Tennis -- and it worked. And she creamed Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes," a more important event than the circus-like atmosphere surrounding it foretold. Wrote Neil Amdur of the New York Times after King defeated Riggs, "Most important perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations."
1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team At a time when things looked pretty bleak for the U.S. -- mind-boggling inflation, hostages in Iran, a seemingly endless "energy crisis," and a president who spoke of a "national malaise" -- this team made everything look brighter, at least for a while. By beating the Soviets in the "Miracle on Ice" and going on to win the Gold Medal against the longest odds, the young team of amateurs reminded lots of folks what the best of America was all about.
"It made you want to pick up your television set and take it to bed with you," wrote E.M. Swift in SI, of the team's medal run. "It really made you feel good."
Only one comment to add. If "Babe Ruth was, quite simply the American sports icon of The American Century, a mythic hero who would have had to be invented had he not been flesh and blood"....then how in God's name does he come in second?!?
Because SI, like every other tentacle of ZOGmedia, is only tangentially connected to their ostensible subject matter. The real m.o. here is tikkun olan...and making sure you either learn to like it, or acknowledge that resistance is futile.
That any sportswriter in America could have the hollowness of character to list TY COBB as America's most heinous sports villain is....well, it defies my insult-generating abilities. I'm not myself a Jackie-basher....the man was a solid ballplayer who played all-out, with tremendous heart, and he had a tough spotlight to play under. But these two articles illustrate why none of that matters at this point. The pecking order for virtue and villainy now being determined by Jewish social-engineers on the basis of race behooves us to do the same. This campaign - to convince us to join the Jews and blacks pissing on the graves of our forebears -can onlybe countered by deliberately redirecting our urine at them: with no apologies, no explanations and no quarter.
2003-04-26 16:14 | User Profile
These days, everything seems to be reduced to "all-time" lists, and that's because the sports media knows that today's athletes can't qualify as being "common man"-friendly. Of course, John Rocker is probably the only athlete in recent memory who gained notoriety in the press.
Notice how the writers downplayed O.J. Simpson's villianous stature by saying that he would've made the heroes list in an earlier time, and yet the writers never had the guts to tell it like it was with regards to his crime. Had they done that, they would've committed the hate crime of "racial profiling".
Jackie Robinson is nothing more than a p.c. god and it took NWO 50 years to tell his story, and that was only because the 50 years landed at a time just right for NWO to continuously spew their venom onto the useless sheeple.
With all of the recent crimes lately by Black athletes (when was the last time a White player did such a thing), ESPN would never bring their crimes to light. They believe thay the only villian is a White one, and the black man who does such is a product of "racism" and "discrimination" and therefore he gets relieved of his crime.
Naturally, they couldn't forget the token she-male, Billie Jean King.
2003-04-28 19:54 | User Profile
Well, I did work in TV sports for almost 20 years. This thread has me half tempted to put up a thread in the Misc. section with brief mentions of all the stories and rumors that I saw buried in my time with fun on TV. Ali a hero? Winner of more fixed fights than Bennie Leonard and Barnie Ross. Became Muslim to escape the draft. They stole his money, but he deserved it after that. Magic Johnson? Rumors of homosexuality were rampant from start, with the every major outlet refusing to mention them after the not surprising announcement that he had AIDS back in '91. Black athletes are protected so much it's unbelievable. What is seen in print or on the tube is a sliver of the iceberg. Jewish owners, agents and the rest get the same kid glove treatment. Many of the real villains are the white owners who sold teams to jewish business groups in the first place.
I didn't really mention anything here that most of us don't know about. But the general public is naive beyond belief. They don't realize many rules in certain sports have been relaxed or ignored to help blacks. Take the NBA. If rules were strictly enforced, you wouldn't see all the running - with no dribbling - for the basket in order to make 'dazzling dunks'. Not to mention most of the other Harlem Globetrotter stuff that passes for basketball these days. Ignoring the rules in certain areas plays to the strengths of blacks in terms of their speed and jumping ability, and keeps attention off of their usually lousy pure shooting ability, inconsistent fundamentals. Only white guys travel, right? Boxing? Hey, let's let boxers run away. Hard head isn't enough. Let them run away, something that would have gotten fighters thrown out of the ring up until the 1960's. Blacks aren't making enough of a dent in baseball? Let's go after the Latin crowd. You could be a fine or great white minor leaguer, and never make the bigs, no exaggeration. Hey, we don't want too many whites in football, ignore any outstanding white high school prospect at receiver, DB, etc.. We've got the public brainwashed, got the coaches brainwashed or cowed. We can get rid of white QB's soon. Someday, we'll fire the instructions to the black QB's DURING the play via the helmet radio. Laugh. They'll be trying it.
Don't bring up John Entine's book either. He's a disingenous jew. He leaves out certain info, etc. The usual game. We did a special on black athletes at NBC in '88, yes, I worked there at the same time as him, I won't say in what capacity, and he and other tribal members made sure the show was edited in such a manner as to avoid showing any white superiority in certain areas. If anyone is interested, I'll post some of this stuff.
The public has no idea of the level of criminality amongst black professional athletes. The book Pros and Cons gives some idea, but they still soft pedaled a lot of it.
2003-04-28 20:03 | User Profile
**If anyone is interested, I'll post some of this stuff. **
By all means, get crackin'.
2003-04-28 23:41 | User Profile
One of the coolest White men who ever lived was Ben Hogan.
2003-04-29 20:23 | User Profile
Larry Bird, last Great White Hope in the NBA. Since Bird's day, there have been no White players given the props like Larry Bird, although Bird was an exceptionally great player, the NBA since has no problem hyping up mediocre black players, while all but ignoring every White player. Does anyone hear much about Steve Nash, Brad Nowiztki, or Wally Szcerbiak? All their teams had an exceptional season.
Also, did Sports Illustrated consider a "Loserville" list? Darryl Strawberry? Lawrence Taylor? Ray Allen? Michael Irvin? Oh, these drug-addicted fools are black! Voila! Hero status next year boys!
2003-04-30 11:07 | User Profile
Does anyone hear much about Steve Nash, Brad Nowiztki, or Wally Szcerbiak? All their teams had an exceptional season.
I've been watching a few of the playoff games this time around, just to see those superb White players. Whenever they're commented on, the praise for their talent is always leavened with criticism of their "shortcomings", quite unlike the sweaty nigra gods who receive unqualified hosannas. John Thompson said of Nowitzki: "A beautiful offensive player" - meaning, of course, that he's too slow of foot - too White - to play equally great defense. One of the worst is "white" Danny Ainge. Just last night, he was damning Szcerbiak with faint praise: "They need to create more shots for him - he can't make his own offense".
Punk.
2003-04-30 11:40 | User Profile
That great Celtic team with Bird, Ainge and Kevin whatshisname was universally hated in the black community because to them it symbolized white supremacy.
After all, if blacks aren't better than whites at B ball or Jazz, which in all reality they are not, than what the hell ARE they better at.
25 years ago I read the much hyped Boys of Summer, which was ruined by the jewish author's insatiable need to turn 1st rate prick Jackie Robinson, who alienated everybody who ever befriended him with his arrogance and egocentrism, into a martyr of the MLK stripe.
Robinson ruined Peewee Reese's farewell game by throwing a temper tantrum in the locker room because the confederate flag had been raised in his honor. See, it was all about Jackie. Always. Even though Reese had stood up for Robinson in his rookie year Jackie wouldn't sit back and let him have HIS night.
Robinson, prick that he was, finally got his. O'Malley wasn't going to take his sh*t and either was Walt Alston, God bless em, because he was the Frankenstein that Branch Rickey created and they inherited.
All Jackie did was bitch when Jim Gilliam started getting playing time. You think he'd be happy to see a co racial make the bigs. But not Jackie.
So they traded King Jackie to, of all places, the Giants. He never reported of course. And his life was all downhill from there despite the fact that wealthy white men always gave him well paying do nuttin jobs that he never appreciated or enjoyed.
2003-04-30 14:14 | User Profile
Originally posted by eric von zipper@Apr 30 2003, 11:40 ** That great Celtic team with Bird, Ainge and Kevin whatshisname was universally hated in the black community because to them it symbolized white supremacy.
**
EVZ--
That was Kevin McHale. Funny I should know that even if I never followed basketball.
2003-04-30 14:19 | User Profile
Originally posted by N.B. Forrest@Apr 30 2003, 11:07 ** One of the worst is "white" Danny Ainge. Just last night, he was damning Szcerbiak with faint praise: "They need to create more shots for him - he can't make his own offense".
Punk. **
It shouldn't surprise anyone that White announcers criticize White players, especially in the NBA. If they were bestow the same accolades on them like we're so used to seeing and hearing on the black players, they would be committing the crime of "racism".
No White athlete in the NBA can be a "star". That would mean that the Shaq's, the Jordans, et al., would have to take a backseat to him. Once again, that "crime" is committed.
2003-04-30 15:49 | User Profile
Remember a few years ago after Jordan retired from the Bulls? Pippen had a sh*t fit because during a timeout with a few seconds left the play was designed to get Tony Kucoc the last shot. Pippen refused to go out on the floor.
I pity the white players in the NBA immersed in that thug loving ghetto culture. They earn every penny they get. Setting the picks that let dirtbags like Iverson shoot the ball 30 times a game and miss 20 of them. Rex Chapman actually married a black girl. King Rex of Kentucky!
Listen, if a white is going to make a living covering Bas-set-ball or jazz he knows from the gitgo he is gonna have to tout blacks to the heavens and damn whites with faint praise.
2003-04-30 19:18 | User Profile
EVZ, speaking of thug Allen Iverson, his numbers and game greatly improved this season with the addition of White forward Keith Van Horn to the starting lineup. KVH has been a consistent 3 point marksman even through injuries. Thing is most people don't even know who Van Horn is, and announcers are very soft on praising him. Another White player who receives minimal praise is John Stockton of Utah Jazz. Karl Malone certainly knows who butters his paycheck and stats but the rest of the NBA world definitely doesn't. Yea, I'd hate to be a White man in the NBA.