B-Marsh: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

Hope I'm not taking everybody too local here. But this is worth it. From the moment Brandon Marshall was suspended by the Denver Broncos Friday morning, for "conduct detrimental to the team,'' he has been the No. 1 topic of conversation among Baltimore Ravens fans - where he was the No. 1 topic of conversation all training camp long, since so many want him on the Ravens to fix their perceived problem at wide receiver.

One of the places this debate has taken place is on The Rob Long Show, airing weekday mornings on Baltimore's Fox Sports 1370 radio, whose website is on "The Drumline'' to the right, and where I appear Thursday mornings. Rob put together an online roundtable discussion about Marshall this weekend and posted it Sunday afternoon.

Here's what his panel said. Mine is the last opinion listed. (Hint: I voted "hell no.'') Rob will be discussing it further Monday morning, I'm guessing. Discuss here as well if you wish.
(Photo: foxsports.com)

Public Enemy No. 4

The biggest of the Michael Vick plotlines have now played out, with his return to live action Thursday night with the Philadelphia Eagles. But the Brett Favre storylines are just getting started.

And none is bigger than this one: How did this man, this icon, this exemplar of modern NFL manhood next to whom everybody else seemed puny and weak – how could Brett Favre turn America against him so swiftly and so completely?

Because he has lost more cache in a shorter time than almost any superstar you can think of. At this time last year, people were screaming from the rooftops that anybody who didn’t open their arms to Brett’s return from his tragically-forced retirement from Green Bay was a fool, a hater, a bitter, jealous hack.

Now? Many of the same folk would rather drive red-hot pokers through their eardrums than hear his name again. One summer of being fully embedded with the Favre saga was one thing. Another summer of it? All right, Princess, you’re just milking it now. Either make up your mind in a reasonable time frame like everybody else, or get over yourself and drive your tractor back home.

He did neither. Thus, his once-sterling name is now a four-letter word among an alarming number of fans, NFL and elsewhere.

Oh, what an exaggeration, you say. But you might not have seen the commercials running on ESPN the last couple of weeks. They were the Worldwide Leader in breathlessly urgent alerts on every minute detail of Favre’s maneuvers to end his retirement a year ago, the very embodiment of Favre-mania.

Now? A spot that mocks him as mercilessly as any personality they ever have mocked, with the UMass Minuteman mascot playing Paul Revere with the lanterns in the window, one if Favre’s staying retired, two if he’s not, or vice versa.

That’s just ESPN’s irreverent style, you say. Well, Sports Illustrated long shared the reins with ESPN on the Favre bandwagon, and often drove it solo, thanks to an allegiance to him from senior writer Peter King that even King couldn’t help but laugh at himself about in recent years.

Now? Check out the upcoming issue, the upper-left corner of the cover. The “4’’ with a slash through it. The proclamation that this is a “100% Favre-Free Issue.’’ Zing! And … Cha-Ching! For all the years SI has cashed in on the legend that is No. 4, it is now banking on its readership’s rejection of him. At least for one week.

As for King, he kicked the Favre habit the week the career leader in waffling, fudging and chain-yanking finally committed to the Vikings. King, in his online column: “Favre’s the wishy-washiest player in memory – and the Vikings are his enablers. It’s ridiculous.’’

Yikes. Next thing you know, John Madden is going to come out of retirement just to tell us, “Don’t believe the hype.’’

You still might not be buying it, though. So ponder this: on Thursday a report surfaced that Favre’s presence in Minnesota has created a “schism’’ in the locker room. It was shot down pretty quickly, with some lame jokes about what “schism’’ meant, including one from Favre that he probably thought sounded charming and home-spun.

But you didn’t exactly rule it out right away, did you? Part of you, maybe small, maybe huge, told yourself, “If that locker room isn’t split, I don’t know why not.’’

Yes, you’re accepting the concept of Brett Favre, Locker Room Cancer. Brett Favre. Whose every ordinary act for a decade and a half was elevated to heroism, whose every flaw was explained away and every slip-up euphemized out of existence (“He’s a gunslinger!’’), now representing all that’s wrong in America’s favorite sport.

Favre probably can’t believe it. He might want to think about why so many others do. And how, exactly, he brought it on himself.

(Photo: flickr.com)

The Man, the Myths and the Beas

The tale of Michael Beasley’s recent entrance into a rehab facility, a little over a month before the start of training camp for his second NBA season, has turned out to be both far less and far more than what was originally assumed and reported.

Much has happened to clear the picture up, so we likely can stop blaming Twitter, and stop praising Twitter. We can shut up about this being proof that ballplayers need to go to college, and about spoiled millionaires not appreciating how lucky they are. We should give up on the insta-cyber-polls about what the Miami Heat “should do about him,’’ and on the debate over whether he is a future All-Star or current bust.

In short, time to stop turning 20-year-old Michael Beasley, of Seat Pleasant, Md., into a cautionary tale, and to turn him back into a flesh-and-blood person.

Unfortunately, we probably can’t put that genie back into the bottle. Too many people have already decided what Beasley represents, what he symbolizes, what he means to whatever picture those people happen to be painting. It takes a lot more effort and empathy to see Beasley as a kid who has been troubled for a long time, and is still troubled (specifically, based on the most recent reports, with a substance-abuse problem), and whose instant riches, with the accompanying increased attention and responsibility, haven’t erased those troubles.

It’s an occupational hazard for young men in Beasley’s demographic – not to mention many other demographics – and how he comes out of it will depend largely on who is willing to do what needs to be done for him. For certain, it will take more than a nation of cynics shouting, “You’re a pro, grow up!’’ If it can grant multiple drug-flameout Josh Hamilton extra-large doses of humanity and redemption (as recently as a few weeks ago, in fact, after a spectacularly-decadent relapse was made public), it can spare Michael Beasley one dropperful.

The NBA and the Heat appear to be up to the task – and they’d better be, because if a multi-billion-dollar corporation and one of its sturdier franchises don’t have the resources to truly care for someone in which they have invested so much, then they’re not worth the ink used to sign these kids to their contracts. Contrary to the accepted mythology, the pros are exponentially more equipped to help out a Michael Beasley than almost any college program you can think of.

If your average big-time program even wanted to try, that is. Beasley spent his year of higher education at Kansas State, where Bob Huggins (!) recruited him right before bolting to a better job for himself at West Virginia. Talk amongst yourselves about that for a minute.

Still, Beasley himself can’t afford to be caught up in that argument; his life, literally, is at stake, even though it eventually was determined that the Twitter message that seemed so dire (“Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!! I'm done.’’) was not the trigger that sent him to the Houston-based facility. Neither was the now-infamous photo of him, his tatts and the unidentified baggie.

This all had been building since a year ago, when he got in trouble at the league’s annual rookie symposium, which does try to head off such problems but which realistically can only present its case and hope the target audience takes it to heart.

Also, because of confidentiality provisions, the Heat could not take a direct hand in getting Beasley this help. From then on, though, it’s a collaborative effort – with, of course, Beasley doing his part.

He might, and he might not. But to say he cannot reveals a complete lack of faith in the idea that 20-year-old human beings can and do change. Which says less about Michael Beasley than about you.

(Photo: espn.com)

A Delayed Bolt of Lightning

All the praise, adulation, historical perspective – even reasoned skepticism – should have come to Usain Bolt a year ago.

A year ago, Bolt was doing almost exactly what he just finished doing in Berlin at the World Track and Field Championships, except he was doing in Beijing at the Olympics, on an immeasurably larger stage. That should have been his moment, his time, his chance to savor the global spotlight.

Problem is, the spotlight ran away from him, as fast as he ran away from his competitors. The only time it turned toward him was to rain dirt, disrespect and insult on him. What Bolt is getting – for taking three gold medals, for setting world records, for reveling in his own excellence and inviting the world to revel in it with him – is nothing more than a late payment on what was due him when he originally earned it.

Instead, Usain Bolt got buried in the stampede to award the Beijing Games to Michael Phelps, and him alone. Granted, it wasn’t the entire sporting planet doing the stampeding. Sadly, it was only the largest, richest, most powerful, most influential part of it – the network broadcasting the Olympics to the United States, the American media meekly following its lead and the viewing audience slurping it all up as if it were gospel, the lone definitive picture of the Games worth seeing.

It was they, mostly figuratively but often literally, who declared the 29th Olympiad over the moment Phelps touched the wall in his eighth and final gold-medal winning swimming event.

Never mind that the night before Phelps’ final race, Bolt knocked off gold medal and world record No. 1, in the 100 meters. Literally, never mind – the race was not aired live in the U.S. by NBC (which showed a preliminary “Redeem Team’’ basketball game instead), and the replay was shown as a lead-in for the action in the pool that night.

Track and field? Nah, full of cheaters. World records? Tainted, without a doubt. The traditional sport readily associated with the Olympic fortnight? Off the radar for the audience that counts, American TV viewers, who were still stinging from BALCO.

And Usain Bolt, the Jamaican guy track aficionados seem excited by? The best of an asterisk-laden sport, not so much heir to Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis, but Ben Johnson. Probably. As far as we know, or would know if we bothered to look closely enough.

The unfortunate result: Bolt’s feats were called into doubt immediately, with several commentators unashamedly linking his records to the ones Barry Bonds had set in baseball. (Somehow, swimming this time was spared the skepticism virtually every other Olympic sport regularly and justifiably endures these days – never within serious earshot were Phelps’ seven world records or the 18 others set in the “Water Cube’’ even suggested to be questionable.)

Dismissing Bolt’s performance, at least on these shores, was too easy.

And for those who were willing to risk enjoying, and trusting, Bolt’s exploits, the prime-time voice of NBC for these Games was on hand to diminish them from the start.

Bob Costas still owes Bolt, his fans, the Olympics and the sport of track and field an apology for his withering, patronizing on-air dressing-down of Bolt after the 100-meter final. The act that in Costas’s eyes devalued the achievement and forced Costas to adopt his role as morality judge? Bolt held his arms out and thumped his chest before crossing the finish line, preventing him from lowering the new world record even further. It was “showboating,’’ Costas preached. “Disrespectful.’’ “Unsportsmanlike.’’ All delivered with the same level of whiny, condescending, tone-deaf outrage usually reserved for football players who score touchdowns and dare express pleasure in it, rather than acting “like they’ve been there before.’’

With that, the narrative of the rest of Bolt’s record- and perception-shattering competition was whether he would be properly deferential (and run hard enough, which thankfully has hardly any racial undertones at all). As a bonus, the strategy by NBC, as well as the lazy coverage provided by other outlets, in making the Games a one-man show was justified and rewarded.

Bolt was in position to steal the show and be the final, lingering image of Beijing 2008, or at worst share the glory. Until it was decided that he wouldn’t.

In the process, by the way, Phelps was done a terrible disservice as well. The unapologetic manipulation detracted from the honest brilliance of his performance – it wasn’t allowed to stand on its own, but instead was bloated beyond recognition. Both men were turned into cartoon characters, Aquaman and Ego-Man (or Needle-Man).

Last week, though, there was no Phelps around to absorb the entire glare. A lot of pre-pennant-race baseball, exhibition football and late-season NASCAR, true, and Bolt still had to fight them all for attention.

But he won that fight, just not as overwhelmingly as he won his races. Now, the space exists to ponder if what we’re witnessing is real – for better or worse – and if we’ve ever seen anything like it or will ever see it again.

It all should have happened a year ago, though. What we’re granting Usain Bolt now is what we’ve owed him since Beijing.

(Photo: The Wall Street Journal)

Welcome to The Drum

Or, to be specific, the next stage in whatever passes for a sportswriting career these days.

Truth be told, this is not my first thrust at blogging. Past Baltimore Sun readers (maybe a few current ones, too) might remember the roughly two-year exercise that eventually was named "Steele Press.'' That expired rather abruptly in March 2008. A little over a year later, my tenure at the Sun ended even more abruptly. To my everlasting gratitude, the creators of World Sports Blogs have thrown me this lifeline. I don't think this will be the only writing outlet I'll have, but for now it's a great one to have, one that I've plotted ever so slowly and carefully for way too long. When other ventures present themselves to me, you'll find out about it here.

(A few have over the course of the summer - in The Huffington Post and in TheGrio.com within the last few weeks.)

If you've followed my work in the Sun - and before that, as a columnist, with the San Francisco Chronicle, and my NBA writing for the Chronicle, Newsday, the late and lamented National Sports Daily and the New York Post - you have a good idea of what you're getting. Even if that's not much of a comfort to you (and judging by some of my email from the Sun days, it wasn't for everybody), I hope you stay with it. As you've noticed either from reading me before, from checking out my online-writing favorites, or from coming across my name on Amazon.com, this is not for the types who want to escape into the sports pages and hide from the real world.

What makes this a unique journey for me is the vehicle I'm now using, after 20-plus years in a different kind. Now that I've passed from what's perceived as one side of the mass media world (the old, mainstream, gasping-for-air, near-death side) to the other (the fresh, sparkling, inventive, criminally-lowly-paid side), I get to be in on exactly how those without voices, or who have had their voices taken or silenced or drowned out, make themselves heard.

For example, how huge stories like Usain Bolt's can get completely smothered for an entire year. But that's for another post. The next one, actually.