August is known as the dog days of sports because there is not much going on. Locally, we have the O’s and Nationals in the thick of pennant races but overall not much else is happening in the sports world.
So of course when something semi-controversial does occur, it is big news. Yesterday, I had to turn the radio dial off of sports talk and play some music because all they wanted to discuss was, well you know what it was. (Since I have Tom Petty’s new CD Hypnotic Eye to listen to, it was an easy switch for me to make.)
Sports talk-wise, I got sick of hearing about the Johnny Manziel bird incident. Understand that locally, it was a big deal because it happened at FedEx against the Redskins. But it was also covered ad nausea on the national sports talk shows. I don’t see what the fuss is all about and sure don’t think it’s a punishable $11,000 offense which is supposedly what it’s going to cost Mr. Football for his one fingered salute to the Redskins. Maybe he was just expressing his displeasure with their team name.
Later, at the Store, I switched on ESPN and Fox Sports, and sure enough they’re also covering it like a tick on a dog. I switched over to some of the news shows and guess what? They’re on it too albeit after the Ferguson, Missouri and Mid East war coverage. Funny thing though, while the news-boys would show video of the riots and war casualties, they censored or fuzzed out Manziel’s finger because that was considered too offensive to show the viewers. What are we all in grade school or something?