It's far easier to defend Cam Newton, the QB, than Cam Newton, the sexist

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Picture this:

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is at a financial conference with 30 other well-to-do potential clients. During the Q&A session, he asks one of the experts on the panel: "I am interested a little in I-Bonds for safety, but won't I get a lot more growth if I stay primarily with equities?"

As Newton mentions "I-Bonds," the panelist starts to grin. It's not a friendly grin, but a smug, condescending smirk. The grin only grows as Cam goes on. Finally, when Cam is finished with his question, the expert, smiling broadly, responds:

"It's funny to hear a black guy talk about I-Bonds." 

He chuckles a little and repeats: "It's funny."

How would that fly in our racially charged climate? Not well. Not well at all. Nor should it - in any climate.

So I hope Newton is not surprised by the vitriol being directed his way after he condescendingly dismissed a legitimate question (about one of his receiver's route-running skills) asked at a press conference Wednesday by Jourdan Rodrigue, a reporter who for the last year has been covering the Panthers for the Charlotte Observer.

“It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes,” Newton said, laughing to himself and then repeating, “It’s funny.”

(For more about the encounter, as described by Observer columnist Scott Fowler, read THIS.)

(AP Photo)

Sorry, Cam, the question wasn't funny; it was good. And your reaction wasn't funny, it was sad.

Later, given the chance to apologize in private to Rodrigue, Cam declined. As Fowler wrote:

"Newton said that maybe he should have said it was funny to hear 'reporters' talk about routes and that, if she actually did know about them, then she knew more than most reporters."

That's not an apology. That was as if our fictional financial expert, trying to save face, had said this after having insulted Newton:

"Maybe I shouldn't have said it was funny to hear a black guy talk about I-Bonds but rather it was funny to hear any dumb jock talk about them."

+++

Part of me is very disappointed in Cam Newton. In many interviews I've heard, he has been insightful and thoughtful. He usually is pretty careful and measured when he talks. He has sincerely expressed interest in playing a role in sensitive conversations about race. He doesn't seem like "a bad guy."

So he should be better than this. At the very least - and I mean the VERY least - he should have been smart enough to keep his sexist thoughts to himself and just answer the football question.

If he had shown that minimum amount of class (even if it had been feigned class), he wouldn't be getting ripped today on ESPN, on talk radio and in newspapers across the country. Even the NFL quickly condemned Cam's boorish behavior.

Part of me, however, is glad he didn't keep his thoughts to himself. We need to know who the ignorant people and sexists are in society, just as we need to know who the racists are. That's why, when the president of the United States actually cozied up to white supremacists, it was, in a strange way, a good thing. It was the leader of the free world confirming that he's a racist, as many suspected him of being. It's important to know that.

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On a personal note, I admit this does sting some.

For one thing, I have worked with dozens of outstanding female sports reporters - talented, intelligent journalists who are dedicated to their jobs of informing their readers, viewers and listeners. It seems outrageous that in 2017, we have to even have this conversation. I feel badly for them that there are athletes, coaches and others (including fans) who judge them purely on the basis of their gender.

For another thing, I have stood up for Cam repeatedly, and now I feel like I've been played a little.

Because of his on-field celebrations, his occasional mopey behavior, his perceived selfishness and, yes, his race, he has been a lightning rod for criticism since he entered the NFL in 2011. (Actually, he was a lightning rod before that due to some incidents during his whirlwind college career.)

I often felt he has been criticized more harshly because he's black. I mean, nobody seemed to mind celebrations by Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. I encouraged Cam's detractors to look at his entire body of work: his mostly fine play for the Panthers, his work ethic, his support of teammates, his charitable acts, his obvious love of children, etc.

Now, unfortunately, his body of work includes his neanderthal attitude toward women.

If Newton's "people" are smart, they will have him publicly apologize to Rodrigue and promise to work on his shortcomings. Cam's apology would sound insincere, of course, but at least he would be on the record as having said he was sorry - and that he aims to improve himself as a human being. A donation to a shelter for homeless women would be a nice touch, too.

+++

Hey, I am not naive. I covered big-money sports for three decades. I was in hundreds (maybe thousands) of locker rooms. So I witnessed all manner of crude, sometimes misogynistic behavior. That many athletes act like jerks toward or around women is hardly shocking.

Furthermore, when I'd go on the radio or have some other interaction with a large group of sports fans, one question I almost always would get was: "Is (insert player's name) a good guy?" I usually answered by saying something like:

"He seems to be, but I don't really know. Who knows what he does when he gets home? I don't know him, you don't know him, and he doesn't really want to get to know any of us too well. In the end, as good as he is at (insert sport here), he's just a human being, with the same kinds of flaws and frailties the rest of us have. Never forget that."

So I won't say this episode proves that Newton is a "bad guy." I don't know him well enough to know that. It doesn't make him any less charitable, any less good with kids, any less of a football player.

But one thing we do know now is that Cam is at best, ignorant; at worst, a sexist.

+++

Having said all that, I realize that there might be a few people saying: "OK Mr. Women's Lib, what about your take-down of Erin Andrews back in 2008?"

OK, what about it?

By using her position as a high-profile ESPN reporter to flirt with athletes in the locker room while dressed as if she were heading to the beach - stuff witnessed by dozens of Cubs players and media members on that July 2008 day - Andrews, in her own way, insulted female reporters as much as Cam Newton did.

Many women in the industry actually thanked me for writing that column, because they wanted to be taken seriously as journalists, not sex objects.

And to Andrews' credit, I have not seen her act unprofessionally since then.

Obviously I'm biased, but what I wrote about Erin Andrews is not even remotely relatable to what Cam Newton said about Jourdan Rodrigue.

+++

I moved to Charlotte in 2010, I have been a Panthers fan since, and I want "my" team to win. The only way the Panthers win big - as they did in 2015, when they went to the Super Bowl - is if Cam consistently plays as he did just a few days ago in the big victory at New England.

So as a fan, I'll still "root" for Cam Newton to play well. But I admit that I won't look at him in quite the same way I did only last week.

If I hear somebody make a racist remark about him (as I have in the past), I will still admonish the offending party. If somebody rips him for costing the Panthers a game when I feel other players or coaches were more responsible, I'll stick up for Cam there, too.

However, if somebody calls Cam a sexist - or even a jerk - it will be difficult, if not impossible, for me to leap to his defense.
^

Not-so-happy anniversary: Five years of permanent vacation

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I'm not going to go all FDR and call Jan. 15, 2009, a date which will live in infamy, but ...

The previous evening, I had received this email from a GateHouse Media mid-level manager:


We need to have you come into the office at 10 a.m. tomorrow.


When Roberta asked me what I thought the cryptic message meant, I said: "Well, I don't think they're calling me in to tell me my last column won the Pulitzer Prize."

Braving blizzard-like conditions, I drove the 30 miles from Lakeview to Downers Grove and was greeted by somber-faced GateHousians. Yes, I was being laid off. No, there would be no severance pay, as that longstanding policy had been terminated along with me. Yes, I would receive compensation for my unused vacation time (but not before they tried to job me out of several weeks of it). No, I would not be allowed to write a farewell column to the readers who had gotten to know me over the previous 11 years.

Just like that, I was an ex-columnist, an ex-sportswriter, an ex-newspaper man, an ex-journalist, an ex-working stiff. All I had ever known professionally was kaput.

GateHouse was going broke. Its stock price had plummeted near zero. It needed every available cent to lavish salary increases and bonuses on its top executives. (A practice that continues to this day even though the company is even more broke. Ah, capitalism!) So, even though I had been reassured just one month earlier that my position was in the budget for 2009, it wasn't exactly shocking that the pencil-necked geeks had deemed me a luxury they chose not to afford.

Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been five years since I was a full-time sports hack. Other times, it seems like forever ago.

I spent the better part of two years trying to get a decent job in the field. I wrote freelance articles for AP, my employer from 1982-1998. I kept writing this blog and, for a while, let the Chicago Tribune publish it. Some months, my check from the Tribune totaled as much as 18 whole dollars! I am not making that up. When I told my editor there I no longer wanted to write for 1/5th of a cent per hour, he actually seemed insulted. I had a guy at one Chicago online sports site jerk my chain for nearly a year: Yes, we might hire you; no, we don't have the budget for it; wait, maybe we do; no, actually, we don't.

Enough. In the summer of 2010, when my wife had the opportunity to work at Charlotte's children's hospital, we decided to move on, literally and figuratively.

Aside from the tripe I occasionally post here on TBT, I have not written a single sports story since becoming a North Carolinian. I write personal finance articles about once a month for SeekingAlpha.com, I do some "survivor stories" for the American Heart Association and I've written a few op-eds for the Charlotte Observer, but mostly I have left that part of my life behind.

I am fortunate that, at 53, I am not hurting financially because Roberta and I were big savers, because we have no debt and because she is a wonderful Sugar Mama. So I earn a little dough doing stuff I want to do, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of being a coach, a referee and an umpire, among other things.

Nobody likes to be told they no longer can come to work. We want the decision to be ours, not theirs. But life gets messy sometimes, so we adjust on the fly.

Do I miss it? Sure, some of it. Not all of it.

In honor of the fifth anniversary of GateHouse sending me on permanent vacation, here are five things I miss about my former life. But first, just for giggles and snorts, five things I don't miss ...

WHAT I DON'T MISS

Interviewing Jocks.

When my son was little, his friends would ask, "Does your dad get to talk to Michael Jordan?" I told him to respond: "No, Michael Jordan gets to talk to my dad." It was a cute line, especially when delivered by an 8-year-old, but it wasn't true. From 1995-98, I spent a huge portion of my life standing around waiting to be part of a big media scrum around Michael Jordan.

For the most part -- and definitely by the time the new millennium had arrived -- everything was packaged for the media. We were led around from one press conference to another. Comments usually were generic. I'd sit down to transcribe my tape and realize I hadn't gotten one freakin' quote worth using.

On the rare occasion that a coach or athlete said something remotely funny, the press corps would pretend to laugh as if Steve Martin and George Carlin were on stage trading barbs. It was embarrassing.

People thought we were lucky that we got to talk to these guys, but more often than not they had nothing to say. When we did get to cover an Ozzie Guillen or a Jeremy Roenick or even a Milton Bradley, it was like manna from heaven. Mostly, the routine became a chore. These guys didn't particularly want to talk to us and, for the most part, I didn't want to talk to them.

Deadlines.

When I was with AP, the slogan was "a deadline every minute." And yes, we did have to write quickly. But as I discovered when I became a columnist, there are deadlines and then there really are deadlines. If the game didn't end until 1 a.m. when I was with AP, I still waited to write until it was over. But if I didn't have my column in on time when I was with Copley (and, later, GateHouse), the newspapers I served would run something else in its place -- maybe even an advertisement.

As newspapers strove for earlier and earlier delivery, the deadlines became earlier and earlier, and I often had to write before an event had ended. If the event was big enough, as when the White Sox were in the 2005 World Series and Game 3 went 14 innings, I'd do several versions of the column for all the different editions of the papers.

Not to make it sound like I was mining coal in West Virginia but it wasn't easy!

The Internet Effect.

When I agreed to start blogging in 2007 (in addition to the columns I already was writing), I didn't get one more cent out of it. What I did get was a ton more work to do, thank you.

Couple the sheer workload with the immediacy of the Internet and there's no such thing as putting a story to bed. In addition, readers suddenly had the right to comment anonymously and in real time. It's always fun to be called a douchebag by some guy who goes by Illini69.

My last year and a half in Chicago, I covered a lot of baseball games as a freelancer for AP and I was in awe at the amount of work -- and the quality of the work -- that the city's baseball writers did: blogs and tweets and photos and notes and game stories and feature stories and graphics. Incredible. Day after day, all year long -- because there no longer is an offseason in baseball, what with all the news that takes place from November to March. Honestly, I doubt there is a more difficult newspaper job in America than baseball beat writer. It was always tough, but the Internet has made it ridiculous.

When I columnized about Erin Andrews' inappropriate behavior in the Cubbie clubhouse, I knew it would be read by a lot of people. But I severely underestimated the Internet effect and her popularity out in cyberspace. For some two weeks, I became a target out there in Dweeb Land. It was interesting ... and a little bit scary.

"Wow. You Get To Go To Games For Free?"

Later in this post, I acknowledge that my job carried a certain amount of prestige, or at least the perception of prestige. At the same time, plenty of folks thought my job consisted of hobnobbing with the athletes, relaxing at the ballpark and rooting on the home team.

Even some of my family members and close friends used to "joke" about how easy I had it, as if they knew. And what was I going to do, get mad and defend myself by telling them how much work I was doing? So I usually went the self-deprecating route instead.

Once, one of my relatives was complaining about all the housework she had to do. After a few minutes, I interrupted and said, "Hey, you're only a housewife. I have to go to football games for a living!"

The Stress.

When I was with AP, I was almost always stressed out. It was a high-pressure job, and talking with friends who are still with the company, it appears that is even more the case now. I excelled under pressure, but that doesn't mean it was easy or fun to deal with. There were several occasions I would wake up in a cold sweat at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. and realize I had left something out of the final version of my story (a.k.a., the dreaded PMer, a rewrite for afternoon newspapers). I would call the office to make the correction.

By 2006 or so, there were constant rumors that David Copley was going to get out of the newspaper business and sell all of our properties (he did), that the new owner would care only about profit and not about journalism (yep), and that GateHouse would clean house (bingo!). It was a stressful time.

Then, of course, there was the stress I put upon myself. I never was able to "mail it in" on even the most routine AP stories, so I really tortured myself when writing my column. If I wasn't on deadline, I would read, re-read and re-re-read my column until I didn't find even one comma out of place. Sometimes, I would be 3 or 4 hours into a column and say, out loud, "This is complete crap." I'd delete the whole freakin' thing and start over. Not only was my name on my column, but so was my ugly mug. I put a lot of myself in most of what I wrote. It was only a story about a jock or a game, but it still mattered, and I had to do it right.

Now, I live a mostly stress-free existence. Maybe one of the things I like about coaching, refereeing and umpiring is the immediacy of each moment, a non-journalism way to get a little stress back into my life.

WHAT I MISS

The Travel.

I got to see the world, all on somebody else's dime. Many of the trips were mundane -- flying into Detroit for a night game and then going back home the next morning was far from exhilarating -- but I also got to go to some amazing places.

AP sent me to five Olympics (Calgary '88, Albertville '92, Lillehammer '94, Atlanta '96, Nagano '98) and dispatched me all over North America covering hockey, basketball, baseball and football.

During the first three years I was Copley's columnist, I got to manage my own travel budget, and my only restriction was that I shouldn't go over budget. I took full advantage, giving myself some great assignments. In the process, I learned how to stretch a dollar when making travel arrangements, a skill that still serves me well.

After Copley sold its Chicago papers and I became more aligned with the fine folks of Central Illinois, I still had a lot of input into where I traveled. A few times, I even got to fly on David Copley's private jet to the California desert resort town of Borrego Springs for editor meetings. I felt like a VIP, even though I wasn't one.

The Writing

Every once in awhile, I got to write something that actually touched readers. When I wrote a column after my dad passed away, I received more than 100 condolence letters -- not email, mind you, but actual hand-written letters, including one from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. When I wrote about my daughter getting ready to graduate high school and leave home, lots of people told me the column made them shed a tear.

One time after covering a Cardinals-Cubs game, I ran into a guy outside Busch Stadium, and he pulled from his wallet a folded, tattered copy of the column I had written years earlier about Darryl Kile's death. That's right: The guy actually carried it around with him.

I got paid to express myself through my observations and my words, and that was pretty damn cool.

As a reporter, I occasionally got a scoop, and watching my peers have to play catch-up for a day or two always was an amazing feeling.

One thing I really used to love was sitting in the media room after a huge event, the only sound being thousands of fingers banging away at laptop keyboards.

The Paycheck.

Let's not sugarcoat things: We work for money. In addition to being able to buy things we needed and wanted, that regular paycheck helped me and Roberta sock away money for the future.

Who knew the future was going to arrive -- with a thud -- just a few months after I turned 48?

The Press Box.

Basically, sportswriters are a bunch of adolescent goofballs. As we watch the Cubs collapse, the Bears fall apart and the Bulls implode, anything that enters our warped minds somehow finds its way out of our foul mouths. The amount of crapola we spew about the jocks we cover is topped only by the amount of crap we give each other.

I miss debating my peers about important issues such as our Hall of Fame ballots, which Chicago coach or manager would be the next to be fired, and whether Jay Mariotti was the worst human being we ever had encountered or just one of the bottom two.

Sadly, even before I was sacked, many of my best friends in the industry had been sent packing or been reassigned by their employers, so the press box wasn't what it used to be.

The Prestige.

I never considered my job to be particularly glamorous, but others did. I could be in a room filled with million-dollar lawyers or doctors ... and all of them thought I had the best job.

On its good days -- and there were many -- they were right.

As is the case with folks in most professions, my job gave me an identity. Five years later, I still struggle a little when asked, "And what do you do?"

Am I retired? Semi-retired? A freelance writer? A coach? A part-time golf ranger? An ex-journalist? All of those things are true, none rolls off my tongue like: "I'm a sports columnist, and you?"

As stressful and frustrating as it occasionally was, I never lost sight of the fact that what I did for a living was considered a dream job by many.

You know what? It was considered a dream job by me, too.
^

Today's High 5: College football's unimpressive playoff. Also: vacations for me ... and Erin Andrews

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5. Four teams? Please.

The college football playoff needed to accommodate at least eight teams to make it a true national tournament -- as well as to keep cronyism at bay. You know the selection committee will be filled with big-money-conference types who will protect their golden geese. 


The bloated bowl system remains intact, too, which is nice for fans of the Beef O'Brady's Bowl.

As satisfying as it was to hear the powers-that-be finally admit that the BCS was a huge failure, this is barely progress. And for some head-scratching reason, college honchos felt the need to lock this new system in place for 12 years.

Wake me when we have a real champion, please.

4. White Sox GM Ken Williams gets criticized often, but I always have admired the way he swings for the fences. His latest move, getting Kevin Youkilis from the Red Sox for spare parts, bordered on brilliant.

3. I took some time off from TBT while Roberta and I visited Chicago. We drove up from Charlotte with our beautiful pup, Simcha -- who was in the car, not strapped to the top in an air-tight cage.

We spent most of our time with young'uns Katie and Ben, who are doing wonderfully, thanks for asking. We also got to visit our dear friends, the Marks, the Pellikans and the Brundidges.


On Friday, I golfed with sportswriter buddies Rick Morrissey, Teddy Greenstein, Mike Imrem, Lindsey Willhite and Adam Rittenberg. That's right: a Sun-Times guy, a Tribster, two Daily Herald dudes and an ESPN.com scribe; that's about as diverse a group as a bunch of lily-white males can be. It would have been even more diverse (and more white and more male) if the Southtown Star's Phil Arvia had joined us as planned. He wimped out with the lamest of excuses: his wife broke her leg. Two days later, I hit the links with my two best Marquette friends, Tom Chodzko and John Lamich. I shot a pair of 93s, so it's a good thing the company was great!


One of the trip's highlights took place Saturday night, when my wife and I saw our favorite band, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, rock the Cubby Bear. Katie and Ben joined us and a fantastic time was had by all.


Oh, and of course, we ate at Pequod's, the best deep-dish pizza on earth.

All in all, it was a super fun Chicago visit before we returned to Charlotte -- just in time for it to be 100-plus degrees all weekend. Pass the deodorant, please.

2. I have yet to decide if I love HBO's newest series, The Newsroom, but I'm pretty sure I don't hate it.

And I must admit that I laughed out loud upon hearing that Jeff Daniels' character, combustible newscaster Will McAvoy, spent a vacation in the tropics canoodling with Erin Andrews.

You know ... I had wondered why I hadn't seen her lately.

1. After winning our previous three games, including our playoff opener, by double-digit slaughter-rule scores, our 45-and-over softball team, the Blue Thunder, suffered a tough defeat Tuesday night.

Yours truly had two line-drive hits, scored a few runs and had an RBI ... but I also messed up: Playing catcher, I failed to scoop a low throw that would have cut off a run; I also got thrown out at the plate trying to score. As a team, we played a little too loose in the field, walked a few too many batters and didn't have quite enough hits, all contributing factors to us blowing a late lead and losing by two runs.

We're not done yet, though. It's a double-elimination tournament, and we already have scored decisive victories over the next two teams we'll face (if we win our next game, that is).

Why am I boring everybody with my softball team's exploits? Well, because I can. It's my blog!

Besides ... our playoffs, unlike major college football's, will produce a true champion.
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A lady? Maybe. But she's no journalist

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ESPN's Jemele Hill has written a thought-provoking piece on the whole flap regarding Ines Sainz, the TV "journalist" who was treated like crap by the New York Jets.

READ IT.

Jemele's column reminded me of the one I wrote about Erin Andrews back in 2008, the piece that temporarily caused a storm of biblical proportions.

Sainz did not deserve to be treated so shabbily, obviously. But when a model (who regularly does publicity stunts for a living) tries to pass herself off as a legitimate journalist, it's a recipe for trouble.

Sainz's act makes it difficult for the hundreds of outstanding female sports journalists - those in TV, radio and print - to do their jobs. And I echo Jemele Hill in wondering why some of those people immediately rushed to Sainz's defense.

Switching topics, here's for the commenter who asked for my take on the Bruce Pearl situation ...

This is the classic case of reaping what one sows. As longtime Illinois basketball followers know, it was Pearl, then an Iowa assistant, who ratted out the Illini for alleged recruiting crimes involving Deon Thomas some two decades ago, leading to NCAA sanctions against Illinois.

Now here comes Pearl, it hot water with the NCAA over his own lying and cheating. Beautiful.

As is the case with many holier-than-thou people - Jay Mariotti fits this category, too - the fall is hard when the "thou's" prove to be most unholy.
^

Adieu, Lou. Who's got next?

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Lou Piniella didn't do his best work this year. But maybe if Aramis Ramirez hadn't waited until July to start hitting and if Cra-Z Zambrano had performed like a $91.5 million pitcher and if Jim Hendry hadn't saddled his manager with the likes of Kosuke Fukudome, Alfonso Soriano, Aaron Miles, Milton Bradley and John Grabow, and if, well, you get the idea.

These last few years, those in my profession in Chicago have been pretty damn lucky, getting to deal with interesting managers such as Lou, Ozzie, Dusty and Jerry Manuel. The fact that Piniella was one of my favorite players when I was a Yankees fan as a teenager growing up in Connecticut made it even more fun to cover him as a manager. I got to know him pretty well and, while we certainly aren't friends, we have a very good working relationship.

I admit it: I like the guy.

Still, when the team hired Piniella back in the 06-07 offseason, I cautioned Cubbieland not to expect too much. Lou couldn't get to the World Series with either the mega-payroll Yankees or a Mariners team that included A-Rod, Junior, the Big Unit and several other outstanding players. Sure enough, he'll leave Chicago having never won a postseason game.

And so now the Cubs will get to search for their next savior. Let's handicap the field ...

RYNE SANDBERG: Most Cubbie fans love this idea, which cracks me up. Here's an organization that has had a past filled with futility, but the fans constantly want to dig back into the past for saviors. Can Ryno manage? Maybe, maybe not. Hey, he's worth a shot as much as the next guy. 3-to-2.

BOB BRENLY: He's an intelligent, strong, World Series winning manager and he's right under their noses. It's almost so obvious that he won't be the choice. Of course, Brenly could make a better case for himself if he could go into the Way-Back Machine and bring Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling - in their primes - along for the ride. 5-to-1.

JOE GIRARDI: Hendry wouldn't hire him four years ago when he was an even more obvious choice than Brenly is now. Besides, just because Girardi grew up a Cubs fan, it doesn't mean he'd rather manage the Laffable Losers than the Yankees. I mean, he did go to Northwestern, so you know he's no dummy. 10-to-1.

ALAN TRAMMELL: He's the classic example of a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time - with the hapless Tigers early this decade - but who has gone on to grow and learn. In other words, just the kind of guy who excels when given a second chance. It's hard to believe the Cubs would be the team that gives him that chance, though. He's not "exciting" enough. 25-to-1.

JOE TORRE: He'd be right in line with the superstar managers Hendry has pursued in the past. He's also 105 years old. And he hasn't won squat without a $200 million payroll backing him up. This would be such a ridiculous hire that even the Cubs won't screw this one up. Right? 50-to-1.

GREG MADDUX: Even though Hendry reveres him - a little too much, methinks - he has neither the personality nor the experience for the job. And I think Hendry knows it. 100-to-1.

TALK RADIO HOSTS: Remember the College of Coaches? Well, how about the College of Radio Yakkers? I mean, they have all the effen answers! 500-to-1.

OZZIE GUILLEN. Maybe the only one who could handle Cra-Z. But he's too afraid of those Wrigley Wrats. He's also under contract to an owner who appreciates him and is with a franchise that has won a championship in the last century. 1000-to-1.

MIKE NADEL: Only if I get to make Erin Andrews my bench coach. 1 gazillion-to-1.

Erin Andrews, Derek Jeter and pigskin picks

^

The Bald Truth

I couldn't have been more impressed with Erin Andrews than I was during her interview with Oprah that aired Friday.

She showed toughness and intelligence and sincerity and professionalism, all in the face of an excruciating violation of privacy. She teared up just a little when talking about having to tell her parents about that unspeakably horrific video on the Internet ... but she quickly said she wasn't going to let the voyeurs, paparazzi and other assorted scumbags stop her from being the best ESPN sideline reporter she can be.

Nice, Erin. Very nice.

Believe me, this is not an attempt to get in Erin's good graces. That ship sailed long ago - and I'm not going to revisit my column of July 2008 except to say I still stand behind what I wrote. They are two totally separate subjects.

Let's all root for the authorities to catch those peephole creeps and for those losers to go to jail - where they deserve to have their own "privacy" violated, if you get my drift.

The Balder Truth

I'm not one of those guys who dislikes Derek Jeter just because he's a Yankee. And I truly do appreciate everything he has accomplished. He is more than just a talented ballplayer; he is a gamer, a winner and probably the most fundamentally sound major-leaguer today.

Still, I do hope everybody keeps the fact that Jeter passed Lou Gehrig as the team's all-time hits leader in perspective. Knowing what I do about Jeter, I'm sure he's keeping it in perspective.

He no doubt realizes that he doesn't even compare with the Iron Horse, whose statistics dwarf those of Jeter in almost every meaningful category - including championships.

Jeter is a no-brainer Hall of Famer. But if we save the word legend only for the very best of the best, I think any intelligent baseball follower knows it applies to only one of these Yankee captains.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Well, now that the season is officially underway, I guess it's time for my NFL predictions.

A word of caution before we start: Try not to trample each other on your way to Vegas to bet on these picks!

AFC EAST - Patriots. By Dec. 1 if Tom Brady stays healthy. Chad Pennington's Dolphins were one-hit wonders.

AFC NORTH - Steelers. Can't go against the defending champs, whose personnel is even better this year.

AFC SOUTH - Colts. They've still got talent - and Peyton - so we'll see how much they miss Tony Dungy's leadership.

AFC WEST - Chargers. Even without major-league jerk Shawne Merriman, if necessary. What? You thought I was gonna go with Kyle Orton's team?

AFC WILD CARDS - Ravens and Titans.

AFC SURPRISE - The Jaguars self-destructed last year but it says here they'll play more like their fine team of 2007.

NFC EAST - Giants. Was going to pick the Eagles, but they'll miss defensive coordinator Jim Johnson too much.

NFC NORTH - Vikings. This has gone from being a blah division to a fun one, with strong QBs triggering explosive offenses. I admit it: I'm a sucker for Brett Favre, for better or worse.

NFC SOUTH - Saints. Just a hunch. This division always seems to be a little crazy, and I think the Falcons and Panthers are due for a backward step.

NFC WEST - Cardinals. Every team is seriously flawed, so let's go with the one that knows how to win it.

NFC WILD CARDS - Bears and Eagles. Hard not to pick the Packers, though.

NFC SURPRISE - The Lions will win! (A game.)

And now, on to Super Bowl XLIV ...

Steelers 24, Giants 20.

Oh, go ahead. A little bit of trampling is OK.

Hoping Erin Andrews gets justice

^

The Bald Truth

I am disgusted by the pervert lowlife who videotaped a naked Erin Andrews through the peephole in her hotel room and then posted the crapola on the Internet last week.

Although I wrote a column about the ESPN reporter last year that caused quite a stir in the blogosphere - if you google my name, dozens of posts relate to that column and its aftermath - I have no animosity toward her and certainly wouldn't have wished this upon her or anybody else.

Through her attorney, Andrews has said she will bring civil and criminal charges against this sick creep, if he (or she?) is ever identified. Here's hoping this scumbag gets caught and goes to jail, because this is nothing short of sexual assault. 

Unfortunately, one of the major downsides of the Internet is the damage that nameless, faceless idiots can cause.

By the way, I haven't seen this video and I don't intend to try to find it.

The List

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of Jean Van de Velde's epic choke (and the one-day anniversary of a somewhat less epic gag job by Tom Watson), here are the five biggest chokes I've covered during my 27-year sportswriting career:

5. The University of Minnesota football team blows a 31-0 second-quarter lead and loses 41-37 to Ohio State in 1989.

4. After Scottie Pippen tells him, "Remember, the Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays," Karl Malone misses two free throws with 9 seconds to go in a tie game. The Bulls go on to win Game 1 of the 1997 NBA Finals (and, eventually, the series).

3. The 2004 Cubs, preseason World Series favorites, lose seven of eight games down the stretch - including five by one run - turning a 2 1/2-game lead over Houston in the wild-card race to a 3-game deficit.

2. Arizona blows a 15-point lead with 4 minutes to go and loses to Illinois in the NCAA Regional Final. Bruce Weber's Illini do just about everything right ... thanks in great part to the utter panic of Lute Olson's Wildcats.

1. Five outs away from their first World Series appearance in 58 years, the Cubs throw away a 3-0 lead over the Florida Marlins in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. It's known as "the Bartman game," but the choking Cubs players - not any fan - conspired to create the most amazing, surreal half-hour of sports I've ever witnessed.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

And speaking of the Cubs, they're not playing the Nationals any more ... and so their four-game winning streak is history.

This is looking like a team that's nowhere near good enough to be in position to choke away a playoff spot at the end of the season.

Then again, is there any NL Central team good enough to win this thing?

New Lee-doff hitter for Cubs?

^

The Bald Truth

My son Ben looked up from the Tribune - and his breakfast - to say: "Hey, here's something you're not gonna believe."

My response: "What? That somebody too young to run for president actually is reading a newspaper?"

"No, it's Derrek Lee saying he'd be willing to bat leadoff for the Cubbies."

Ben was right. I didn't believe it.

Less than one year ago, I ran the numbers and concluded that Lee was the Cubs' best choice to bat leadoff. When I presented my theory to him - complete with several pages of supporting evidence - he practically laughed in my face. 

"For the good of the team," he said, "I've got to bat in the middle somewhere, right?"

He then yelled out to Lou Piniella as the skipper walked through the spring-training clubhouse: "Hey, Lou! He wants me to hit leadoff!"

"What?!?!" Piniella shrieked, sounding as if he had just seen Erin Andrews stroll through the clubhouse wearing only a thong and a smile.

Yeah, it was a big joke back then but now the Cubs are so desperate to get more production out of the leadoff spot that they're willing to consider anything. 

Even putting a high-on-base-percentage guy at the top of the order.

Imagine that.

The Balder Truth

Actually, Lee probably wasn't offering to bat leadoff. He was just making a point that he'd happily hit anywhere.

Alfonso Soriano, who is just about the worst leadoff option on the team but has some strange psychological bond to the spot, also said as much ... with a caveat.

"If they want to move me, I'd like to stay in one spot and not switch," he told reporters in Arizona. "I'd like to concentrate on one spot."

Absolutely. Because Alfonso "Swing, Baby, Swing" Soriano brings different approaches to the plate depending upon where he bats in the order, right?

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Poor Bristol Palin. She had to sit there, in front of Fox News' Greta Van Susteren and the far-right-leaning folks who hang on the network's every word, and admit that abstinence, while a swell concept for birth control, is "not realistic at all."

As we used to say when I was 18: 

Duh.