by John Walters

Starting Five

1. The B.S. (Coroner’s) Report

Cause of Death: Excessive hubris.

The reason that John Skipper, Bristol’s CEN (Chief Executive Norby), chose not only to not renew Bill Simmons’ contract but also to preemptively announce it four months early and during the NBA playoffs, is simple: The Sports Guy went Rondo on ESPN. He demonstrated — repeatedly — that he is not a team player.

If you read this transcript from last September’s B.S. Report podcast and think that ESPN suspended Simmons for three weeks because he called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a “liar” (or used the term “bleeping bullbleep” twice), well, that’s the minor part of  his transgression. The major part of Simmons’ transgression is to challenge his employer to censure him.

Challenge accepted.

So then, last Thursday, Simmons appears on the nationally syndicated (and cable-televised) radio show of a high-profile ex-ESPN’er and goes off the reservation again. That told the skippper, Skipper, that Simmons had learned nothing. And that he had zero interest in playing nice (also, I’d love to know if any shows at ESPN attempted to have Simmons on as a guest last Thursday; I wondered this on Thursday morning. It was an obvious call to me).

The irony here is that in that Dan Patrick interview, Simmons chided Goodell for having the information for four months (not true; do you think that 243-page report was written in one day, Bill? There’s only one person I know who writes that prolifically, and he just got released by ESPN)  and taking no action. And yet that interview gave Skipper all the info he needed to make his decision and he proved not so diffident. He basically terminated Simmons the next morning, 7 a.m. local time, with a call not to Simmons but to his agent.

How’s that for “testicular fortitude?”

The truthers will try to claim that Goodell pulled the strings on this. I disagree. John Skipper runs a huge company with many arms and levers. Yes, part of that operation is a contract with the NFL that is in the billions and keeps hundreds, if not thousands, of Bristolites, employed. If Bill Simmons wants to launch a character attack against the figurehead of the NFL, go ahead — but he better be able to back it up with evidence. Common sense is not evidence.

The other irony here is, as often happens, Simmons’ greatest strengths were also his most obvious flaws. He has strong opinions and a trenchant voice. Also, he’s an unabashed homer for Boston teams. So last Thursday Simmons put on his Patriots homer hat and defended his team while bashing his least favorite person in sports — and again, he had zero evidence and relied instead on his own instincts as to how people behave.

You’re welcome to feel that way. But to express it as the highest-paid talent at a company that reveres itself as the “Worldwide Leader in Sports?” You need more than that weak sauce.

Simmons might not have been re-signed anyway. But that moment sealed it.

2. Betty Is Deady (or soon will be)

Oops! Spoiler alert.

Another classic episode of Mad Men, this being the penultimate one. As my friend and television enabler, Chris Corbellini, noted last night, “Don had to travel to middle America to find himself after all that time in New York City and L.A. He had to go to the farthest point from those two places.”

Correct. Only three characters followed in last night’s episode: Betty, Don and Pete. Betty gets a death sentence (lung cancer), Don undergoes the sacrament of penance, and Pete gets a resurrection.

It’s the small touches that have always made me fall in love over and over again with Matt Weiner’s show. Such as, “The boys who brought you in called you ‘Mrs. Robinson.'” “I think that was a joke.” Or, “Well, you are ‘The quick brown fox.'”

So much to love here: Betty obsessing about how she’ll look in the casket before she even informs her children that she is dying; Don eyeing the beauty in the lounge chair just as her kids and husband walk up, realizing those days are over; Don being asked to fix the Coke machine after being asked to fix the Coke account; Pete telling his brother, “It feels good and then it doesn’t.” Don, for the second full season in a row, coming clean about his past to a table-full of male peers who will later punish him.

The closing song, an elegy of hope, by the immortal Buddy Holly.

This was just high art, particularly Don’s story arc. Jon Hamm is such an outstanding actor, a fact that gets lost as you gaze into those dreamy eyes. But that final scene — “Don’t waste this” — as he hands the younger version of himself the keys to the Cadillac and then sits at the bus stop is pure art. Don is alone, as he has been shot numerous times in this series, but for the first time he is not lonely.

And don’t you love that Don is finally at peace with himself and with life, but that we know something that Don doesn’t know and that he can’t in this pre-cell phone age: that his ex-wife and the mother of his children is terminally ill (Happy Mother’s Day from all the Weiners!).

The A.V. Club recap. Alan Sepinwall sure picked an inopportune time to go on vacation.

3. LeBrontosaurus Rex*

With :01 remaining in Game 4 of Cavs-Bulls, LeBron James went Jimmy Chitwood on Dave Blatt’s Norman Dale idea and said, “I’m NOT inbounding the ball. Throw it in to me and let me win the game.” And that’s what happened.

We’re not in Maccabi Tel Aviv any more, Dave.

LeBron now has as many postseason buzzer-beaters (3) as Michael Jordan, although if he had four then Ray Allen wouldn’t be quite as much of a hero in Miami. Gee, that was an awfully Skip Bayless thing of me to write.

I’d type more, but I’m sure Susie B. will cover it in the Comments.

* Okay, it’s Tyrannosaurus Rex or Brontosaurus. So you are correct in saying, “JDubs, you don’t know Jurassic from a hole in the ground.”

4. Walk on the Wild Side

The next time you’re in Spain, in the southern Andalusian region near Malaga, why not defy death and hike the El Caminito Del Rey? Watch this video and then make that explosion sign with your two hands near your ears.

By the way, there’s a scarier hike in China. We’ll get to that later…

5. Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

Photo by Thomas Zimmerman, taken on Saturday night in western Kansas. Absolutely surreal. Have you ever been to western Kansas? I have. It’s the loneliest place in America. Thanks to @oconnorkyle for the heads up.

Music 101

Brandy

The sailors say, “Brandy, you’re a fine girl/What a good wife you would be/But my life, my love and my lady, is the sea”

Once upon a time musicians played their own instruments and did not always write navel-gazing songs centering on their riches and their bitches. And their lead singers looked like Paul Stanley without make-up. This is Looking Glass, from New Brunswick, N.J. (not far from this scribe’s ancestral homeland), and the song hit No. 1 in 1972 and made it onto the K-Tel album I once owned. Worth noting: Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” was supposed to be titled “Brandy” but he changed its title following the success of this tune. Songs like this are why I miss (and cherish) the Seventies.

Remote Patrol

Late Show with David Letterman

CBS 11:35 p.m.

I know, I know, but tonight’s guests are Howard Stern and Don Rickles. That’s a lot of abuse.