Look, I'm not trying to be Jemele Hill here

By which I mean I'm not going out of my way to be a race baiter. I promise. I just think this crap sandwich by Jon Heyman is pathetic/funny when you consider the race of the subject. Who do you think he's talking about here? (Full disclosure: these are just pieces and parts of the article. Heyman is a bad writer, but he's so bad as to have written this as a complete piece.)

The first things you notice about [player] are the velocity and the courtesy. The kid is as quick as they come, and he's so polite it stops you.

Some scouts weren't easily convinced [player] would make it because he's so slightly built (he claims to be 5-foot-11 and 161 pounds, 11 pounds more than his listed weight). They wonder if he can make it through a 162-game schedule as the majors' lightest starting middle infielder (or any player, for that matter). But this kid is strong, mentally and physically, everyone who knows him agrees.

The only knock is the lack of power you'd expect from the game's lightest player.

"He's fun to watch," [team executive] says. "He's extremely athletic."

[Player's father, a former MLB player] is remarkably humble and courteous, just like [player], who calls coaches, reporters and his bosses "sir."

OK, so that last one might have given it away. It's Dee Gordon, the Dodgers' rookie shortstop, who happens to be black. Can you imagine anyone writing a puff piece about a white player with this stuff in it? Let's look again.

The first things you notice about Gordon are the velocity and the courtesy. The kid is as quick as they come, and he's so polite it stops you.

He's SOOO well-spoken! Corresponding analysis a mouthbreathing sportswriter would provide if Gordon were white: The first thing you notice is that he's a back-slapping fun friendly good ol' boy!

Some scouts weren't easily convinced [player] would make it because he's so slightly built (he claims to be 5-foot-11 and 161 pounds, 11 pounds more than his listed weight). They wonder if he can make it through a 162-game schedule as the majors' lightest starting middle infielder (or any player, for that matter). But this kid is strong, mentally and physically, everyone who knows him agrees.

He's a little small, but he's super strong. Corresponding analysis a mouthbreathing sportswriter would provide if Gordon were white: He's tiny, he's undersized, in fact he is the smallest person on Earth. He's been told his whole life that he doesn't belong here. But's overcome the odds with only one tool: HEARTGRITSCRAP.

The only knock is the lack of power you'd expect from the game's lightest player.

Why can't he hit more home runs? Barry Bonds hit lots of home runs. Corresponding analysis a mouthbreathing sportswriter would provide if Gordon were white: His SLG and AVG are usually identical, but that's how he helps the team. By hitting lots of singles so as to create more bunt opportunities for his teammates. If only he were able to bunt himself over, he'd be my vote for MVP.

"He's fun to watch," Watson says. "He's extremely athletic."

He's a physical specimen. He's fast and strong. Corresponding analysis for a white player with the same skillset: He plays the game the right way. With grit. With dirt on his jersey. Without calling attention to himself. All while reminding of me, when I made my high school varsity team. OK, junior varsity.

Flash is remarkably humble and courteous, just like Dee, who calls coaches, reporters and his bosses "sir."

OK, you know what, since I'm trying not to be too Jemele-ish here, I'm not even going to touch that one.

Jemele Hill: Only Obnoxious When She Writes About Race, Which Is All the Damn Time

Her contract at ESPN runs out pretty soon, I believe. And it's probably a fair bet that it won't be renewed. So I'm feeling compelled to jump all over pretty much anything she does between now and whenever she is shown the door. In the midst of a relatively unterrible piece about white running backs, we find this gem:

Many of us watch sports not caring if the men on the field are purple or magenta, as long as they produce.

Yes. Many of us. But not you, obviously. You're only allowed to write sentences like that if you yourself are included in the "many" you're referring to. If anyone, and I mean anyone cares about what color the men on the field are, it's the spicily named Ms. Hill.

Actually, now that I look at her exact wording, maybe she's not being a hypocrite here. Maybe she really doesn't care what color a player is as long as he or she produces. The hypocritical thing to say would have been:

Many of us watch sports not caring if the men on the field are purple or magenta, as long as they are all held to the same standard for their off-the-field conduct.

Yeah. It would be a massive lie if she implied she subscribed to that idea.

In case you can't tell what I'm getting at, it's that Jemele Hill is a racist.

FireJay writers can spot the stupidity in a TMQ article in 1/100th of a second

If you're one of our twelve readers, you may remember this entry by Larry B, where he points out Easterbrook's inane rejection of decimal times for measuring speed at the NFL Combine. Now that pretentious d-bag is at it again (Easterbrook, not Larry B):

In other Olympic news, the timer said Michael Phelps swam the 100-meter butterfly in 50.58 seconds, Milorad Cavic swam it in 50.59 -- can anyone seriously believe either finished one-hundredth of a second different from the other?

I think most people find it much easier to believe that two different swimmers didn't finish at the exact same fucking time.

The timer said Britta Steffen swam the 50-meter freestyle one-hundredth of a second faster than Supermom Dara Torres.

Allowing for a winner and loser to be determined. Damn this backward system!

Tenths of seconds are absurd enough, as Tuesday Morning Quarterback noted a few months ago.

Noted with completely idiotic logic, mind you.

A hundredth of a second is too fleeting to have any common-sense relevance, let alone decide an athletic event;

TMQ is therefore in favor of a large number of swimming and track events ending in 3 way ties.

and this is setting aside whether a mechanical device splashed with water (the touch pads) can be accurate to the hundredth of the second.

Technologies Easterbrook is willing to put his faith in:

1. A brake pedal that slows your car down as you apply pressure to it.
2. Keyboards, which make letters appear as you type them.
3. The snooze button on an alarm clock which instantly cuts the sound off when touched.

Technologies Easterbrook does not believe in:

A giant stop watch connected to a touch pad.

Yet numerous clocks in Beijing show hundredths of seconds, as if these splinters of time can be measured meaningfully.

Again, Easterbrook doesn't think that assigning winners and losers is meaningful for Olympic games.

Reader Fred Ruonala notes that as the Phelps result was announced, one of the NBC announcers said viewers could "clearly see Phelps touched first." Now Olympics announcers can perceive hundredths of seconds.

Or as you point out, they probably can't. Therefore, we need some other system besides the naked eye. How about, oh I don't know, maybe a giant stopwatch connected to touch pads? Nah.

Is FireJemeleHill.blogspot.com still available?

Is there a word for someone who contrives an angle on a story just for the sake of writing about said angle? No? From now on, it will be referred to as Jemele Hill'ing. Re: The WNBA Fight:

Tuesday night's bench-clearing scuffle between the Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock proved women can be just as boneheaded as men in the thick of intense athletic competition.

Progress?

Absolutely.

You cannot be serious, right? This has to be the build up to some sarcastic put down of the women involved in the fight, yes?

The fight, which, by the way, isn't the WNBA's first, showed that squaring up isn't a man thing. It's a sports thing. It's an athlete thing. It's an I'm-so-ticked-off-that-Candace-Parker-just-drilled-me-in-the-chest-and-the-refs-didn't-notice thing.

Aside from the whole why should these players be lauded for behaving badly thing, when you know that Jemele Hill would've torn down NBA players for doing the exact same thing:

Who the fuck gives a shit? You even said yourself it's not the first fight in WNBA. This WNBA fight is not some sort of feminist awakening.

In its way, this is a revelation for women's sports. I've long been sick of the halos and pristine white robes put on female athletes.

Until the next WNBA fight, when you will then turn, and blame David Stern for fostering a culture of violence in the WNBA.

In real life, athletes lose their tempers and use bad language. They're flawed. Female athletes aren't an exception.

You often rip on male athletes for being poor examples for today's youth. Now you're heaping praise upon female athletes for acting the same way. You are a wizard when it comes to logic.

Of course, I'm not knocking those female athletes who take being a role model seriously, but sometimes the image of female athletes is so sanitized, polished and packaged that it's nice to get a reminder that women don't always fit inside some annoyingly perfect little box.

But at the same time you are lionizing women who acted the exact opposite of those who take being a role model seriously.

If anything, we should greet the Patrick and WNBA incidents as our opportunity to show that gender should be a nonissue when it comes to boorish behavior.

Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?

If the Mahorn incident occurs between two men, it's a nonissue.

The Mahorn incident occured between two women, and it's still a nonissue.

No one accused Alonzo Mourning of assault when he used Jeff Van Gundy as a mop in that infamous Heat-Knicks brawl.

That's because Jeff Van Gundy grabbed onto Mourning's leg on his own volition. This would be like saying "No one accused that Boise State player of rape when he proposed to his girlfriend after the 2007 Fiesta Bowl."

It's interesting how differently we look at boorish behavior when gender is involved. The reaction to women fighting is usually a mixture of astonishment and fascination.

Whereas when Baseball fights break out, fans yawn and try to sleep because they're so utterly bored by the proceedings.

We treat girl fights like a novelty, when they shouldn't be seen as such. News flash to those still using sticks to create fire: Female athletes are just as competitive as men and when some are pushed to the edge, they'll exhibit the same lack of control.

What is your fucking point? We get it; women athletes sometimes act like assholes. This is news to exactly 0 people.

Leslie said this to ESPN about Tuesday's melee: "This is not the way we want to represent ourselves and the WNBA." For most athletes, that's true. But it's not always a picture-perfect representation. It isn't for men. It shouldn't be for women, either.

Ms. Hill, what you just wrote is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent article were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in the webosphere is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.