August 30, 2026
As someone whose love for sports is approaching seven decades, I find it painfully ironic that the American games I enjoy the most, the ones employing balls, appear to have lost their own.
Why is everyone so timid these days? Why is fear of injury so overwhelming that the top NFL players stand on the sidelines for every play of three preseason games? Why is no starting pitcher strong enough to throw the ball more than 100 times? Why is no superstar basketball player able to play every game?
And for that matter, why can no one speak his or her opinion these days? Why can no coach or manager offer an honest appraisal of the game we just watched because of concerns he may jostle the sensibilities of his fragile players? Why can no player admit to being injured, or annoyed, or . . . . anything?
Where are the Buddy Ryans, the Dallas Greens, the Terrell Owenses, the Richard Shermans, the Muhammad Alis when we need them the most?
Does anybody in sports have balls anymore?
I finally reached my tipping point on this issue just before the third and final NFL preseason game on Friday night, when CBS opened its coverage of Bengals-Eagles with a montage of the best players on the two teams — players who would never actually step onto the field during the contest.
False advertising?
More like wishful thinking. The networks and streamers are so hungry for actual games — and the marquee stars playing in them — that they pay billions to show NFL contests, and that price includes this exhibition slop. Would it enhance anyone’s enjoyment of the game to see a promo video of Cameron Latu?
Hey, I realize these networks are desperate for sports programming because it has become the best bet for big advertising dollars and consistently excellent TV ratings. But they are getting less and less for their money these days because of this epidemic of fear.
Teams paying monster salaries to the best players believe the best way to keep them on the field or court is to keep them off the field. The less they play, the less chance of injury.
There’s only one problem with this thinking. It doesn’t work. The number of arm surgeries in baseball is at an all-time high, More and more NFL players are testing positive for CTE, and load management in the NBA has deterred injuries in no measurable way. Just ask Joel Embiid.
The fact is, the deadly combination of fear and analytics is ruining sports. For years, fans here have paid hundreds of their entertainment dollars to see Embiid play, only to learn at game time that the quirky center is resting his aching knees, or his sore shoulder, or his fickle mind.
And what have the Sixes gotten for their decade of coddling Embiid? Hold on. Let me do some tabulations here. . . . OK, I have it now. . . . Zero NBA titles, and zero conference championships. Nothing. Nada.
Meanwhile, I would love to believe that the Phillies — with old-school GM Dave Dombrowski — have bucked the trend of adhering to the new unsubstantiated medical standard that no starting pitcher should throw more than 100 pitches, or that no reliever should pitch three straight days.
I would love to believe it, but it’s not true. Rob Thomson blew at least one playoff series, if not two, by removing his best pitcher, Zack Wheeler, in critical playoff games because of the magic 100-pitch limit. Now Thomson’s replacement, Don Mattingly, is employing the same strategy.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
In other words, it’s insane.
And this cowardice doesn’t end when the games do. Just stick around for the vacuous explanations by the coaches and players after every game, in pretty much any sport. The goal is no longer to illuminate the big moments in the game for the benefit of the fans.
Nick Sirianni has been trained now not to go off-script the way he did his rookie season, when he talked about dogs and trees. When Vic Fangio took a recent shot at slow-developing defensive tackle Ty Robinson earlier this month, the comment about his young player’s career being on life support was jarring in its honesty. Fangio must have failed to read the memo.
Our teams are hardly the only ones crawling into their shells these days. It’s happening everywhere now, talking heads with nothing to say and a media with no cajones to probe for the truth.
It seems as if everyone in sports these days is looking over their shoulders, worried about the public response to their words and actions, and especially the deluge of negative response on social media.
Who cares? It’s all noise. How do they not know that by now?
As someone who once provided a lot of that noise myself, I always use as a template for the ideal sports figure the manager of the 1980 world champion Phillies, the aforementioned Dallas Green.
Long after he had retired from the field, we would book Dallas on our WIP show every spring training for no reason other than his honesty and openness. I knew Dallas would give me a straight answer to a fair question, and he usually agreed to come on, even when he knew he would probably say something he later regretted.
In 2001 Green created a firestorm when he publicly criticized Scott Rolen on our show for not pushing himself harder to reach his full potential. Rolen, a gifted third baseman, was also one of the most fan-unfriendly players in recent Philly sports history. On his best days, he was morose and defensive. On his worst days, well, sorry about your luck.
After that interview, and the hand-wringing that followed, Green vowed never to come back on our show because “you’re going to try to get me to say something again.” He even turned down the next interview request, for a day or two. But he couldn’t help himself, and neither could I. We both had a commitment to exposing the truth, backlash be damned.
By the time Dallas died in 2017, most of the honest voices had been bullied into silence by the din of rehearsed answers and softball questions. The word about Dallas was that his era had passed long before he did, that the delicate sensibilities of today’s players would not be able to handle the unfettered style of Dallas Green.
That’s a shame because we need a lot more of that innate toughness in sports than we have right now. If Dallas were still here, I know he would lament the decaying backbone of sports today. He would scoff at 100-pitch limits. He would bristle at load management. He would cringe at Nick Sirianni’s hollow babble. And he would still win. He was a winner.
Above all, he had something that is in very short supply today. He had balls.
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Other thoughts while waiting for the NFL season to start. . . .
- The Phillies are having a great week, with a series of late-inning rallies. Kyle Schwarber is better than ever. Alec Bohm is getting some big hits. Jesus Luzardo is becoming an ace. And Bryce Harper hasn’t said anything stupid. I’ll spare you my continued pessimism that any of this is leading to a parade. I have a lot more to say about the Phillies, but I’m on a word count of 1,600 today. I wouldn’t want to risk a finger injury.
- OK, so we finally got to see Makai Lemon, the first-round draft pick who missed most of the action after the draft because of two hamstring injuries. I remain unimpressed. Partially it’s the fact he managed to gain three yards on three catches (five targets) against the Cincinnati scrubs, and partially it’s because he has displayed none of the skills expected of a top pick. He still has all the earmarks of a, well, you know the word. It starts with a b and ends with a t.
- I have been trying to get more interested in college football because, well, it’s football, it’s on a Saturday (usually) and I have lots of spare time in retirement. The problems are, you have to wait eight months between seasons, the best teams start the year by playing tomato cans, and the coaches are more egomaniacal than ever. In other words, they don’t make it easy, do they?
- Still waiting for that epic LeBron James introductory news conference? Well, don’t hold your breath. First of all, he would have to commute, since he intends to live in New York this season. Second, he has no plans to visit Philadelphia until Media Day on Sept. 26. And third, he plays entirely by his own rules. Get used to it. This approach promises to be a recurring theme in LeBron’s first year with the Sixers.
- I guess this blog entry has its own recurring theme. Gutlessness. I applaud the efforts of former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who seems obsessed with forcing the WNBA to deal with its hypocrisy. Do you embrace trans athletes or don’t you? Can you have a liberal opinion about biological men switching genders and still ban them from playing in your women’s league? No, you can’t. So do the right thing. Tell the men to stay in their own lane. Is that really asking too much?