This is an embarrassing week in sports for two people.
A veteran NFL referee of 16 years and a Major League Baseball manager who has been at the helm of five teams for a total of 21 years.
The referee is Jerome Boger.
The manager is Buck Showalter.
First the football story.
With the game on the line between the Tampa Bay Bucs and the Atlanta Falcons, Boger called a roughing the passer foul on the Falcons Grady Jarrett.
The score was 21-15 in favor of the Bucs with 2:56 remaining in the 4th quarter.
The quarterback in question was Tom Brady, and the resulting loss on the play would have forced the Bucs to punt, giving the Falcons a chance to score the touchdown they needed to take the lead.
Instead, the personal foul resulted in a first down for Tampa Bay, and the Buccaneers were able to close out the victory.
It was a bad call.
I realize it is possible to write about bad calls in various sports virtually every week. Usually, it’s a boring proposition. I can rant about a call and you can read about it, and say, “ I think the call was fine, or I think it was indeed a bad call, or okay, who really cares”.
But I believe this one was different. There are many pass interference rulings that can be argued either way. We’ve all seen them.
But this roughing the passer penalty hit me differently, as it obviously did to virtually everyone who saw it during the live coverage of the game, or later on tape replay.
I truly wonder if the quarterback was anyone other than Tom Brady, would a flag have been thrown.
Brady was brought down by Jarrett, who seemed to roll Brady to the ground.
There obviously was contact, there has to be, when a quarterback is sacked for a loss.
But it’s apparent that since the incident with Miami QB Tua Tagovailoa, who was tackled, was slow getting up, and staggered for an instance, there has been considerable overreaction by the NFL on plays involving collisions, and hard hits that may result in head injury.
Tagovailoa went to the locker room after being hit, then returned to play the second half.
Four days later he was hit again and taken off the field on a stretcher.
He is in concussion protocol, as it is called, and not permitted to see the field again until cleared by neurology experts.
I still don’t understand, that even when he is cleared to play, it won’t be possible to avoid more of the same, thus putting, not only his football career, but his life in jeopardy.
In the past two weeks, more and more players have been removed from the game and put on concussion protocol, which may be viewed as overreaction, but overreaction in a good way.
But the hit on Brady was not a severe hit. I realize it is difficult to talk about a judgment call without you readers actually seeing it, but if you have, you know full well what I mean.
Again, I have to wonder if the referee was influenced by the fact that it the player in question was Tom Brady, who appealed for a roughing call as well, and got his wish.
This is a concerning situation for the league, which has to treat all players the same when it comes to officials’ calls.
This is about the integrity of the game.
In my mind, the NFL would be lauded if rulings like the one on Tom Brady were the same for everybody.
This was a bad call, no, a terrible call, that played a role in deciding the result of a game.
The other moment to be discussed occurred in the final game of the baseball wildcard playoff between the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets.
It was the deciding game in the best-of-three series, with the winner advancing to the National League division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
All three games were played at Citi Field, the home of the Mets.
The Padres had won the series opener, and the Mets captured the second game, setting up the deciding game three.
For the Mets, it was a night of agony, as Padres’ All-Star pitcher Joe Musgrove had limited the home team to only one hit, as San Diego posted a 4-0 lead into the 6th inning.
The way Musgrove dominated the Mets was clearly the story of this big game.
But Mets manager, Buck Showalter, tarnished the event by appealing to the umpires, charging that Musgrove was cheating.
Showalter, asked the umpires to check the right-hander for an illegal substance.
So here they were, the men in blue gathered on the mound, checking the pitchers’ cap, glove and even touching behind his ears, which appeared shiny, for a sticky substance.
But nothing illegal was found.
The Padres advanced with a 6-0 triumph.
Look, Showalter was within his rights to ask the umpires to check the pitcher.
But if you’re wrong as Showalter was, it is a bad look, and an embarrassment to the manager who I believe showed his desperation that had been building for his club.
At one point this season, the Mets led the NL East by 10 1/2 games.
However, they failed to hold off the charging Atlanta Braves who won the division in a tie-breaker after both clubs won 101 games.
It was the best season the Mets have experienced in years.
But they fizzled badly at the end when it counted, and the attempt by their manager to jump-start their last gasp, the way he did, only emphasized the frustrating finish to their season.
A television executive who was just starting to make his indelible mark in the industry when I began my career, passed away last week.
His name was Al Primo, and it probably won’t register with most people.
Al was 87, and was the man who created the Eyewitness News format, popular in more than 100 markets during its heyday.
I have a feeling that most of our readers, at one time or another, recall watching one of their local news broadcasts that was called Eyewitness News.
There might have been different names attached to the news shows, but they were basically the same format.
It truly changed the face of broadcast journalism, and Al Primo came up with the idea.
It may be the number invention in the history of news broadcasting.
It reached its highest notoriety , starting in the late 60’s at the ABC affiliate in New York City, WABC-TV.
It involved showing the news from a working newsroom, where reporters were seen in the background on the phone, checking stories, with the sound of the ticker tape ( no longer in practice), subtly heard during the live broadcast.
There was five-and-take between anchormen and those giving reports on specific stories, an emphasis on what the man-in-the-street thought about the events of the day, and the hiring of minority reporters in keeping with the make-up of a city, or community.
Primo came up with the idea in Philadelphia, at KYW-TV, where I got my start.
He was the News Director of the station.
I began on the radio side, at KYW Newsradio, in 1965, as one of the two all-night news readers.
I was 22, when someone from TV called and asked for a somebody to do a make-believe segment as a weatherman during one of the rehearsals for Eyewitness News before it made its debut. The actual weather reporter was out of town.
I was chosen, and upstairs I went, standing by a big weather map in this large studio with an anchorman and reporters sitting at desks throughout the program.
When the anchorman threw it to me, I ad-libbed a 3-minute weather report, making it all up, as I knew nothing about the lingo weather reporters use.
But that was all they wanted.
One year later, Al Primo, along with the program manager, Win Baker asked about that kid doing the weather in their rehearsal.
They needed a sports reporter for their weekend news shows.
Irv Cross, who had the job, was an NFL player and was traded from the Eagles to the Los Angeles Rams.
There was an opening.
I auditioned, along with five other veteran sportscasters, and was selected.
Thus, my television career got underway in Philly.
Al Primo and Win Baker gave me the nod.
I was, and am, to this day, so I grateful.
The rest his history, as they say.
I’ll always remember Irv Cross, who was a staple on the NFL Today at CBS, and whom I later worked alongside announcing games.
I’ve always remembered Win Baker, who hired me in Philadelphia, and followed to Pittsburgh and Boston.
And I will never forget Al Primo, a smiling, brash, man of vision, who gave a kid a chance, and went on to great fame in his field.