by John Walters
Feliz Cumpleanos, Sofia Vergara! 43rd
Starting Five
1. A Passing Legend Passes
RIP, Kenny Stabler. If you were a fortunate child of the ’70s, a 4 p.m. game from Oakland Alameda Coliseum on NBC, called by Curt Gowdy and featuring John Madden’s Raiders, was as good as it got. It wasn’t just a football game. It was a Western. And you always knew who the bad guys were (which did not necessarily mean you did not root for them).
There was no better NFL decade than the Seventies, and these four quarterbacks comprised its Mount Rushmore: Roger Staubach (class prez), Terry Bradshaw (class clown), Fran Tarkenton (overachiever) and Kenny Stabler (the kid who smoked).
This is the definite play from the southpaw. AFC playoffs, 1974, the “Sea of Hands” play versus the Miami Dolphins. Game had 40 million TV viewers. Life before cable and the web.
2. The 21 Club?
Serena is 38-1 this year, and her lone defeat was a withdrawal
You wanna talk emphatic? To win her 17th straight match and 15th straight set against the only active player with even 1/4 as many grand slams as she who is not also a sibling, Serena Williams served up an ace, a double fault, an ace, an ace and an unreturned serve.
Bye, Felicia (or in this case, Maria).
Serena goes for her 21st grand slam on Saturday at the All England. She is 20-4 in her previous grand slam finals.
3. Uncool
I missed this yesterday, but Adam Schefter of ESPN TWEETED out Jason Pierre-Paul’s medical records that revealed that JPP had his finger amputated. While Schefter did not break HIPAA laws, the person who obtained the records for him did. Which means Schefter knew that it was, at best, unethical. Or, in other words, AS made an ass of himself.
Was it really worthy ruining your reputation over a tweet about a football player’s condition in early July?
I knew Adama back in the mid-90s when he was covering the Broncos and I was at SI. He was always very friendly to me when I visited the Broncos complex and went out of his way to take me under his wing (we were about the same age). I could see that he was ambitious and smart, but it was odd. He never turned it off.
That guy you see making appearances on ESPN. That’s the SAME guy who would ride in a car with me from the Bronco complex to dinner. Every conversation felt like a 3-minute hit on SportsCenter. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s successful. But I think he finally went too far in feeding his ambition.
Adam probably doesn’t care what I think. But I bet he cares what this guy thinks. I’ll be curious to see how NFL players treat him during training camps.
4. Psycho Cycle Chick
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Wilcox has already cycled everywhere on earth. And she’s only 28.
The crazy part is NOT that Lael Wilcox, a 28 year-old from Anchorage, Alaska, just destroyed the women’s record in the 2,745-mile Tour Divide, a cycling event that stretches from Banff to Mexico (she shaved 2 days off the pre-existing mark, finishing in 17 days) in her rookie attempt.
No, the crazy part is that Wilcox BIKED from Anchorage to Banff for the start of the race. Solo. That’s a distance of 2,100 miles. And that included a trek across the Highway of Tears in British Columbia.
5. Venice Tornado…
…is not the name of the WNBA’s first overseas franchise. This really happened earlier this week. I think my favorite parts of this video is hearing someone say “Papi” so often in conjunction with a tornado (you don’t hear that in Enid, Okla.) and the fact that he keeps driving toward the funnel cloud almost until it’s too late.
Music 101
One Bad Apple
Remember how early rock gods such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones basically usurped the works of black blues guitarists? Meet The Osmonds, who basically did a white-face of The Jackson Five. You can totally picture Michael and his brothers doing this song and LOTS better. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that the Osmond Brothers were my first concert (I was five, my big sis wanted to go, and mom couldn’t find a babysitter….it was so strange getting high in the parking lot).
This song, by the way, hit No. 1 and stayed there for FIVE weeks. There’s a whole lot of acts that cannot make that claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96HqPpjI3UY
Remote Patrol
Wimbledon Women’s Final
ESPN 9 a.m. (Saturday)
How did this photo of Elena Dementieva get in here? I’ll have to have a stern chat with our Photo Dept.
Serena Williams goes for her 21st grand slam and fourth straight, which would give her a second career “Serena Slam”, i.e. holding all four titles at once. Carbine Muguruza of Spain is 13 years younger and has never advanced to a final, but she did beat Serena last year.
Whether Schefter’s decision to tweet out medical records was “at best unethical” is open for debate. The fact that whoever gave Schefter access to the records may have violated the law does not make Schefter’s decision to publish them per se unethical. Media entities often publish leaked or otherwise confidential information. The New York Times, in fact, won the Pulitzer Prize for publishing the Pentagon Papers, which were top-secret classified documents.
Jason Pierre-Paul’s finger, of course, is not the Vietnam War; the public’s interest in information is far less significant. That’s a factor to be considered in evaluating the ethical issues. Nevertheless, if Schefter had the information and verified the source, it was not necessarily an ethical violation to publish it.
Now, did it make Schefter look bad? Yes, because publishing images of actual medical records is practically unheard of, and because the invasion of JPP’s privacy feels like it outweighs the limited newsworthiness of the information. So, even if Schefter was on firm ethical footing, as a reporter who has to continue to seek out sources and keep the trust of the players he reports on, it probably wasn’t worth it in the long run.
By the way, it is no more of a HIPAA violation to provide the records to a reporter than it is to give the same medical information orally. It’s just unusual for a reporter to get his hands on the actual records, which is why it set off everyone’s HIPAA radar in this case.
Also for Remote Patrol – don’t forget the Tour de France! We’re nearing the end of Week 1 & as always, the theme song/score to this event is by QUEEN :
“Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Out of the bunch, the cyclists rip
To the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, it will get you, too
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!”
The Osmonds & the Jackson 5 were BOTH great & different. One was pure bubblegum & the other was Motown-tasting bubblegum. They were the “boy bands” of that time that just happened to be family too. If I remember correctly – the Osmonds’ career started several years before the Jacksons (at Disneyland & on the Andy Williams TV show, which I didn’t actually see). Donny Osmond was actually a bigger star than Michael Jackson (at that time) so when I read years later how Michael’s early showbiz career is what “made him” have such “difficult teen/early 20’s years” (& later life), I laugh.
And hey, you went to your 1st arena concert at age 5? You beat everyone else by at least 8 years! Don’t be embarrassed! My younger sister (as a teenager) paid MONEY to go see Milli Vanilli – now THAT is embarrassing! Which as good family members, we never let her forget. 🙂
Also, I will never understand you undying love for Kobe (saw on your twitter yesterday). I can understand your man-crush on Steve Nash 6-9 years ago. I can almost understand your cohabitating with a cat. But WHY do you think Kobe was (let alone is) so great?! He has not been a great player for at least the past 4 years but refuses to acknowledge or change his game in any way. Name ONE teammate he actually made better – certainly not Shaq. And he alienates more teammates than even Jordan. And look how many players are beating their way to LA to play with him now, oh wait, there are none. I think you like him ’cause he was an SOB then & an SOB now. Oh ok, I guess he was a great player at one time. And age defeats all. But why do you STILL think he’s so great? Honestly, you’ve never thought him an obnoxious, conceited jerk? Not even once? Well, he always seemed like ONE BAD APPLE to me. 😉
I respect Schefter. I don’t understand the decision to post the photo — ESPN unnamed-sources reports CONSTANTLY with less reason than they would have to simply cite an unnamed source in saying Pierre-Paul had a finger amputated. If you know it’s correct, it’s a hard thing for him to prove untrue.
Olberman argues the photo adds authority to the report. I think you have plenty when you report something specific like that about a player whose injury is already well established as being severe.
And yes, you can commit a HIPAA violation by speaking just as you can by sharing a document. There wouldn’t be nearly the furor there is now if this was simply reported as a fact, citing a source — not even saying it’s a hospital source.