National Sports Journalism Center

As a columnist who has spent quite a lot of time deconstructing what our entertainment choices say about our attitudes and preferences, I am used to seeing political ideas reflected in lots of unexpected places.

Indeed, everyone from Nelson Mandela to Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali proved that sports can be a potent forum for political thinking, inspiration and much needed change.

Still, with all that said, after reading about the latest politically-inspired catfight over a sports media issue, I’m forced to quote sage relationship expert Rodney King: Can’t we all just get along?

In this case, my lament was inspired by a particularly odd op-ed column from conservative pundit S.E. Cupp, who wants MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann’s blog Baseball Nerd removed from the official site for Major League Baseball, MLB.com.

Is she criticizing a news anchor for providing content to a platform controlled by a sports organization he might someday have to cover? Is she appalled by the conflict of interest that might arise from working for one sports league – baseball – while covering the games of another sports league – NBC’s football coverage – on his rare days off from commentating on general news for MSNBC?

Stop laughing. That could have been the argument.

But instead, Cupp wrote a column for the New York Daily News condemning Olbermann as “someone so ugly, so vindictive, so polarizing, that with every word he utters, he is bastardizing whatever sanctity remains of the game.” She is joined in that assessment by a website called Respectthegreatgame.com.

Forget scandals about steroid use, gambling or cheating. Baseball’s overweening problem these days is the guy who called newly-elected U.S. Sen. Scott Brown a “homophobic, racist reactionary, ex-nude model” in his other job. He also accused Fox News of waging a “religious jihad” and former President George W. Bush of ginning up “fake threats” to push around a frightened nation.

In other words, he’s channeled the partisan anger most cable TV newsosaurs use to build audience these days. Why is that so objectionable to Cupp – who often appears on such shows herself?

Because such an association was denied to conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh when he tried to buy his way into the National Football League by purchasing part of the St Louis Rams.

She suggests “a jarring double standard in sports and the media” because a number of black football players said they would refuse to be associated with Limbaugh over his long history of race-baiting and rudely prejudicial comments on his radio show. Eventually NFL owners decided they didn’t want to be associated with him, either.

Bear in mind, Limbaugh is the guy who got fired from a commentator job on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown for suggesting that sports journalists gave high marks to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb – a guy who led his team to four division championships, a Super Bowl and holds all-time records for career wins, passing completions and passing touchdowns – because he was black.

This is also the guy who compared NFL games to Los Angeles gang fights, called basketball the “favorite sport of gangs,” referred to President Barack Obama as a “halfrican American” and chortles while playing a parody song crafted for his show called Barack the Magic Negro.

Compared to that cavalcade of prejudice, a few choice words about Scott Brown and Dubya sound downright collegial.

I am admittedly a partial party here – convinced that bald-faced race prejudice is a worse sin than hyperbolic political insults. And I originally wrote back when Limbaugh was seeking to buy the Rams that, if he kept his awful race-baiting on his radio show, I wasn’t sure there was a case to be made for keeping him out of the NFL.

But it also seems odd that Cupp and her pals at repsectthegreatgame accuse Olbermann of racism and sexism mostly for calling other people racist and criticizing a pundit who happens to be female.

In Limbaugh’s case, it seems a sports league that is 67 percent black decided that a guy who made loads of wrong-headed, prejudiced comments about sports and the sports world was someone they didn’t want to do business with.

Compare that to a different sports league deciding that a guy who was an award-winning sports anchor before earning another mint railing about politics was worth offering some space to muse about the latest meltdown by Seattle Mariners outfield Milton Bradley and the most-used fantasy baseball team names.

You’d think that was the kind of independent business decision that a good conservative could get behind. But it doesn’t make for a very good Daily News column, does it?

Can we get back to the sports stuff, now?

Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.