Point/Counterpoint of NFL Flag Protests

I had been meaning to write about the NFL player protests during the national anthem when a friend sent an email about a proposed fan boycott for the November 11 games. What follows are point/counterpoint, his note and my response: 

Point: You graduated high school in 2011. Your teenage years were a struggle. You grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Your mother was the leader of the family and worked tirelessly to keep a roof over your head and food on your plate. Academics were a struggle for you and your grades were mediocre at best. The only thing that made you stand out is you weighed 225 lbs. and could run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds while carrying a football.  

Your best friend was just like you, except he didn’t play football. Instead of going to football practice after school, he went to work at McDonald’s for minimum wage. You were recruited by all the big colleges and spent every weekend of your senior year making visits to universities where coaches and boosters tried to convince you their school was best. They laid out the red carpet for you. 

Your best friend worked double shifts at Mickey D’s.  College was not an option for him. On the day you signed with Big State University, your best friend signed paperwork with his Army recruiter.  You went to summer workouts.  He went to basic training.

You spent the next four years living in the athletic dorm, eating at the training table. You spent your Saturdays on the football field, cheered on by adoring fans. Tutors attended to your every academic need. You attended class when you felt like it. Sure, you worked hard. You lifted weights, ran sprints, studied plays, and soon became one of the top football players in the country.  

Your best friend was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. While you were in college, he deployed to Iraq once and Afghanistan twice. He became a sergeant and led a squad of 19-year-old soldiers who grew up just like he did. He shed his blood in Afghanistan and watched young Americans give their lives, limbs, and innocence for the USA.

You went to the NFL combine and scored off the charts.  You hired an agent and waited for draft day. You were drafted in the first round and your agent immediately went to work, ensuring that you received the most money possible. You signed for $16 million although you had never played a single down of professional football. Your best friend re-enlisted in the Army for four more years. As a combat tested sergeant, he will be paid $32,000 per year.

You will drive a Ferrari on the streets of South Beach. He will ride in the back of a Blackhawk helicopter with 10 other combat-loaded soldiers. You will sleep at the Ritz.  He will dig a hole in the ground and try to sleep. You will “make it rain” in the club. He will pray for rain as the temperature reaches 120 degrees.

On Sunday, you will run into a stadium as tens of thousands of fans cheer and yell your name. For your best friend, there is little difference between Sunday and any other day of the week. There are no adoring fans. There are only people trying to kill him and his soldiers. Every now and then, he and his soldiers leave the front lines and “go to the rear” to rest. He might be lucky enough to catch an NFL game on TV. When the National Anthem plays and you take a knee, he will jump to his feet and salute the television. While you protest the unfairness of life in the United States, he will give thanks to God that he has the honor of defending his great country.

To the players of the NFL: We are the people who buy your tickets, watch you on TV, and wear your jerseys. We anxiously wait for Sundays so we can cheer for you and marvel at your athleticism. Although we love to watch you play, we care little about your opinions until you offend us. You have the absolute right to express yourselves, but we have the absolute right to boycott you.  

We have tolerated your drug use and DUIs, your domestic violence, and your vulgar displays of wealth. We should be ashamed for putting our admiration of your physical skills before what is morally right. But now you have gone too far. You have insulted our flag, our country, our soldiers, our police officers, and our veterans. You are living the American dream, yet you disparage our great country.  I encourage all like minded Americans to boycott the NFL.

National boycott of the NFL for Sunday, November 11th, Veterans’ Day Weekend. Boycott all football telecast, all fans, all ticket holders, stay away from attending any games, let them play to empty stadiums. Pass this post along to all your friends and family. Honor our military, some of whom come home with the American Flag draped over their coffin.

Counterpoint: I can understand and appreciate the anger, resentment, disappointment many feel toward the players who have taken the very public protest of kneeling or some other gesture during the playing of the national anthem. You feel they are dissing the military, police, veterans, our country as represented by our flag.

When that black soldier returns home from combat and is walking around in civilian clothes, is it fair that police will treat him differently than they do white men and women? Blacks have fought in every war, from the Revolution to the Civil War, to the Indian wars to the Spanish American War to the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each time they thought they were fighting for freedom and for their country. They thought that by doing so they would be treated as equals once they returned home. 

You know they haven’t. You know they were discriminated in housing, in employment, in voting rights, in education. And now, thanks to cellphone cameras and police bodycams, we are finding out that the decades long complaint of unjustified police brutality, even killings, are not figments of a minority’s imagination but rather plain facts that are “justified” by police and politicians. Police are shooting black men who are not endangering them, who are not facing them, who are running away from them, unarmed. Police are stopping black drivers for petty violations far more than they do white drivers. Police are arresting black men for drug possession, especially marijuana, while turning a blind eye toward white people’s use of drugs. Once incarcerated a person’s potential is stifled. It is no wonder blacks are disadvantaged.

It is a privilege to play in the NFL. But consider this: as the players make their way up the ladder of pro-opportunity, how much do they truly benefit from their college programs compared to the colleges themselves? Do you not find it repulsive that the highest paid “public servant” in many a state is the head coach of the state university’s football team? 

And once they are professionals, do you not find it disingenuous that the NFL for years disavowed any correlation between playing football and degenerative brain injuries? Keep in mind that the league is predominantly populated by black players in the positions that most often have their heads battered. Any latent racism there? 

What surprises me about the player protest is how few of them actually protest and that protests have not taken hold in other leagues where blacks and Hispanics have large representation. Perhaps it is an economic consideration. After all, a pro athlete’s career ends in a manner of years, not decades, like yours or mine did. They have to maximize their income when they can. 

Instead of fans boycotting a game to show their displeasure, I wonder what would be the reaction if players boycotted a game in response to the latest police shooting of an unarmed, innocent black man. Don’t the gladiators in our sports arenas deserve to be fighting for some dignity for their fellow citizens? 

I support any American’s right to express their views on their government and the officials elected to guard our constitutional rights. I am against anyone’s politicalization of constitutional rights. Colin Kaepernick did not start his protest to overthrow the government or to express displeasure with any specific elected official. He simply wanted accountability for police actions against black people. For his “uppityness” he has been economically punished. He never lived up to his athletic potential, but compared to some of the jokers masquerading as NFL-level first string and back-up quarterbacks he more than qualifies. Yet he remains a pariah. 

Kaepernick and his compatriots kneel during the anthem not because they want to protest the military or denigrate the flag. Their actions are far less degrading than people who wear the flag as bikinis, or as part of their jeans or hug the flag as a symbol of their allegiance but hid behind suspect injury deferments to evade service in the military. 

Think about this: Using your illustration of two young men, Kaepernick et al probably know more men and women who joined the military than most Americans because the military was one of the few employment options that provided a way out of the ghetto. The fortunate ones returned from their tours of duty intact in body, mind and spirit. But they still had to confront a most dangerous threat to their lives—police quick to react and, many times, shoot to kill. 

PS: If those who want to follow through on a November 11 boycott want to do something truly meaningful, they should donate their tickets to inner city youth clubs so disadvantaged kids can get to do what only mostly white men can every weekend—attend an NFL game!

A Remedy for Fake News, Parsing Opinions on Media Bias, Racism, Oppression in America, and Recognizing the Departed

Long time between posts so here’s a long (-winded) one touching on several news events since we last engaged (trust me, there’s lots here to reflect on, so please read it all):

One of my mother’s favorite sayings to expose the hypocrisy between politicians, and even her children, engaged in arguments was to liken the debate to “the pot calling the kettle black.” I am reminded of that idiom when I hear Donald Trump decry media outlets, mostly NBC lately, for what he claims are false news stories. 

School Ties I: Arthur, a classmate from elementary school through college, began a dialogue with me about the 24/7 information cycle following a CNN report that “Google and Facebook help spread bad information after Las Vegas attack.”  I agreed with the premise, adding, “Misinformation coupled with insufficient time to ponder, consider, properly analyze, digest, interpret and just plain fact check have transformed the meaning of news and the legitimacy of many news organizations.”

To which Arthur asked, “Is there a solution in a 24/7 global communication environment with rogue and non-state actors?” “Doubtful,” I replied, “though it would help if Twitter and Google and Facebook employed vetters to make sure as much as possible that misinformation is weeded out.”

“Is it realistic to expect IT Geeks to understand the professional responsibilities of the 4th estate?,” asked Arthur.

“I do not expect IT geeks to be doing the vetting. As many true journalists have lost their jobs in true media companies, perhaps Facebook et al would hire these proven fact checkers and truth tellers,” I concluded. (By coincidence, retired CBS newscaster Bob Schieffer told Stephen Colbert this week that over the last 12 years 126 newspapers have closed down. That leaves a lot of journalists out there looking for “legitimate” work.)

Meanwhile, fake news abounds.

A Bully Presidency: Teddy Roosevelt defined the term “bully pulpit,” the use of his position as president of the United States to advocate a personal agenda. Subsequent presidents have refined the practice through fireside chats broadcast on radio, press conferences, televised addresses to the nation and, currently, Twitter. The latter is not my personal preference for conducting matters of state, but I cannot fault Donald Trump for using any tool in his kit to reach his audience. 

It is the way he uses Twitter that upsets me and any other person who has reverence for the office of the presidency and how America’s stature is projected throughout the world. 

No one is going to be able to stop him from tweeting, no matter how reckless his missives are about North Korea, or how disruptive to party unity by criticizing fellow Republicans not hewing to his line, or by inciting racial divide through his embrace of white supremacists. 

It is in his full-throated tweets about professional football players kneeling during the national anthem that Trump has exposed how serious the danger is to anyone who offends his sensibilities. Tuesday morning Trump tweeted, “Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!”

Forget for now that Trump misrepresents why the players are not standing (for those not aware, or equally misguided, they are protesting racial inequality and excessive force by police against people of color). By suggesting tax law and, by extension the Internal Revenue Service, should be used to punish those he disfavors, Trump is entertaining an abuse of executive power à la Richard Nixon who developed an enemies list and sought to have the IRS harass his detractors through audits. 

Trump further displayed his arrogance and compounded his ignorance and contempt for the law and a free press by suggesting earlier this week, during a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.” He also proposed a review of NBC’s broadcasting license because it aired stories he didn’t like. 

Ditka Is Offensive: And dumb. NFL Hall of Fame player and coach Mike Ditka said Monday he was unaware of any racial oppression in America during the last 100 years. After mounds of criticism of his ignorance of Jim Crow laws to segregate schools, housing, water fountains, seats on Southern buses, along with major league baseball’s racial exclusion policy, he apologized Tuesday. He tried to ameliorate his remarks by saying they applied to the NFL, not society as a whole. 

But Ditka ignores the fact the NFL had no black players from 1934 until 1946 (there were a handful before 1934). Only when the Cleveland Rams sought to relocate to Los Angeles did the team integrate as a legal requirement to play in the publicly funded Los Angeles Coliseum. The rest of the league was slow to integrate, the Washington Redskins being the last to do so in 1962, the year after Ditka began his NFL career.

School Ties II: Dennis Prager is another of my elementary school through college classmates. A conservative blogger (https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager), author and radio talk show host, Dennis has lately been chiding liberals for dominating the news media and drowning America “in an ocean of lies.” Among those lies are that “America is racist” and that “America oppresses its minorities.”

Let’s parse these opinions: Painting the media as leftist is a right wing canard, part of a campaign of disinformation. It might be true that CBS, NBC and ABC along with PBS lean to the left but Fox News and its affiliates are solidly right. And most local newscasts, especially those of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, lean right. 

One also cannot dispute that talk radio is dominated by conservative hosts. As for major newspapers, they lean left though The Wall Street Journal is a stalwart conservative voice in print. And for every Politico and HuffPost there is a Drudge Report and Breitbart News. 

As for entertainers, yes, many are liberal, but then there are the country western folks and some heavyweights in Hollywood like Clint Eastwood who are conservative. 

Most sports team owners are Republicans, as are many high profile white players. As for academia, most top rated liberal arts universities do espouse more progressive thought. They are countered by the many colleges founded and run by Christian groups. 

The suggestion that Americans are drowning in an ocean of lies because of the left ignores our liar-in-chief who repeatedly tells lies and repeats them even after they’ve been shown to be false. Moreover, Trump’s press secretaries steadfastly refuse to acknowledge their falsehood, preferring instead to explain away his exact words by implying he meant something else. 

As for whether America is racist, keep in mind that from its inception as a white European offshoot, America treated its native population as an inferior race. It imported blacks to be slaves as they too were considered to be inferior and sub human. 

The Civil War ended slavery but not the attitude toward blacks. Perhaps Dennis forgot about the high school book we read at Yeshivah of Flatbush about Jim Crow laws. Could he really believe blacks have been raised with equal opportunity in this country even after Supreme Court decisions forced an end to segregation? 

The law might require integrated schools but whites have chosen to mostly segregate their children in private schools throughout not just the South but the North as well. Study after study have shown that blacks with equal or better qualifications than whites are rejected for jobs in favor of white candidates. 

Let’s be clear. Racism also exists within minority communities. Light skinned blacks and hispanics are favored not just by whites but often by the minority communities. 

And let’s not forget that Native Americans have been systematically treated as lesser peoples. Treaty after treaty have been violated by whites. President Andrew Jackson even ignored a Supreme Court decision so he could forcibly evict the Cherokee Nation from its land in Tennessee and Georgia. (Is it any wonder Trump reveres Jackson? He placed a bust of Jackson in the Oval Office.) 

Do we also want to forget how America treated the Chinese in the 1800s and 20th century? And the Japanese during WWII? Or how southern Italians, eastern Europeans and Jews were discriminated against in immigration quotas? Oh, and so were the Irish when they first came here. America has a history of discrimination that continues to the present with Trump’s selective ban on Moslem entry to our shores.

As for Dennis’ blind eye toward current oppression of minorities, when was the last time a white person was stopped for a broken tail light and wound up shot dead by a policeman? When even black members of Congress are routinely stopped and questioned by capitol police, there is a problem. Is Dennis not aware of the talk black parents must have with their teenage kids about how they must behave around police, a talk few white parents need to have? 

Oppression does not just mean physical beatings. Minority schools receive fewer assets than white schools. Minorities do not get hired as often even when they are more qualified. Drug laws, especially marijuana arrests, and prison terms are disproportionally enforced against minorities. 

The only area where minorities are favored is sports  (except hockey), but even there inherent prejudice prevented minority representation for decades. 

Yes, we do not have concentration camps, but we have slumlords and prisons where we warehouse minorities.

Trust Me (Again) on This: Back on June 14, I started to write a blog with the following sentence: “It is again fun to watch the NY Yankees.” 

I abandoned writing anything more about the Yankees as I was mindful of past criticism of my preoccupation with the team. But events, including Wednesday night’s dramatic win over the Cleveland Indians, have proven me prescient. 

So it’s on to Houston amid hopes the magical post-season for the Yanks will continue.

Statues of Limitations: In a variation on what Jesus said, let he who is without sin be memorialized with a statue.

We would have pretty empty public squares and parks if we adhered to that bromide.

George Washington was a slave holder. So was Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt’s ego prompted him to try to unseat his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft. He split the Republican Party in 1912, assuring Woodrow Wilson’s election as president. Wilson was racist and less than enthusiastic about granting women the right to vote. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to be pushed by wife Eleanor on civil rights while failing to enable immigration by Jews fleeing Europe terrorized by Nazi Germany. John F. Kennedy led us down the Vietnam rabbit hole. 

Okay, politicians are easy targets. A few weeks ago I suggested that “for every Confederate statue taken down, how about replacing it with a statue of a true hero, such as a doctor whose breakthrough discovery or surgical procedure has saved thousands if not millions of lives. Jonas Salk. Michael DeBakey. Albert Sabin. Denton Cooley.”

But what about the doctor credited with being the father of modern gynecology, J. Marion Sims? Seems he operated on black slaves without anesthesia or informed consent. In New York City and Columbia, SC, protestors want statues of Sims removed (https://nyti.ms/2vLDZfD).

In other words, it is difficult to find unimpeachably deserving humans (even statues dedicated to animals are not immune to criticism, as Gail Collins of The New York Times noted: https://nyti.ms/2yOv3ok).

Which brings us to the man of the moment past, Christopher Columbus. By many accounts Columbus was vain. A self-aggrandizer out to make his fortune.

Columbus was a product of his times. Which means he acquiesced to religious authorities and did not think it barbaric to invade settled land and forcibly impose Catholicism on the inhabitants. He was a tyrant as a governor. 

But should his statue be removed from public display? I think not. Columbus opened up the Age of Discovery, though there is little doubt, if not Columbus, someone else would have crossed the Atlantic to more fanfare than Leif Erickson did hundreds of years before. 

I am not unsympathetic to the desire to recognize Indigenous People of the Americas and Caribbean. They should be memorialized while statues of Columbus should include information about the impact he had on their cultures and lives. 

Robert E. Lee, on the other hand, is not a comparable figure to Columbus. Lee, and other Southern military figures and politicians, had a clear choice—fight for preservation of the Union, or lead an army of insurrection against the Union, the keystone purpose of which was to extend the brutally cruel and inhumane practice of slavery. Nothing Lee did before or after his fateful decision to choose the latter course of action can justify treason, much less his being honored by statues, the purpose of which is clearly meant to glorify the South.  

Romo Time: It’s a measure of how old I am and how young or unknowing some sports reporters and many fans are that I am befuddled by the football world going ga-ga over Tony Romo’s debut as a game analyst. As reported in The New York Times, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback in his first year as a CBS commentator is being hailed as a “play-calling whisperer” for his ability to prognosticate the next offensive play (https://nyti.ms/2fGPu2D). 

By far the best seer of the next play was Al DeRogatis. A former All-Pro defensive tackle for the New York Giants, DeRo would mesmerize listeners of WNEW-AM radio with his knowledge of the game and ability to predict the offense Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle and their successors would run. Paired with play-by-play announcer Marty Glickman, DeRogatis enticed fans like me to muffle the sound of the television game broadcasts so we could simulcast their radio transmission.   

This less than fulfilling Giants season aside, one of the worst losses in team history was the day in 1966 NBC tapped DeRogatis as the color analyst for its national broadcasts. Giants games have never been the same.

As if Giants fans currently did not have enough team anguish, we were saddened this week by the death of Y.A. Tittle. To me, he was a seminal figure, perhaps because with his balding head he resembled my father, though Dad hardly possessed his athletic skills. 

To football fans he is most remembered by an iconic photo taken during one of his last games in 1964, when he was 38. Having been crushed by a 280-lb. Pittsburgh Steeler lineman, Tittle is pictured on his haunches, his shoulders drooped forward, his face in a daze as blood drips down his helmetless head. I remember seeing that play. 

For the prior three seasons Tittle had led the Giants to the NFL championship game, all losses. With our quarterback staring blankly at the grass before him, the future of the Giants was as bleak as it appears for this year’s 0-5 team (https://nyti.ms/2yT1pOU).  

Playboy of the Western World: I never met the recently departed Hugh Hefner but I did stay at one of Playboy’s resort hotels. Okay, I’m exaggerating, a little. By the time I stayed at the Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, Wis., the hotel had long passed its heyday as a pleasure spot. The only bunnies romping around and bopping their tails were the short, four-legged kind. 

My memory of the hotel is one of loss, specifically the loss of a business account that had yielded $100,000 each year. We lost that business because I am a lousy golfer.

My magazine in 1998 and 1999 co-produced a retail conference for Siemens Nixdorf (SN) in exchange for $100,000 annually in advertising. Each meeting ended with a golf tournament. I had successfully avoided playing in 1998 when the conference was at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. 

Though I begged off playing in 1999, SN’s national sales manager insisted I join his foursome. We’d be playing a scramble format, requiring each player to be responsible for at least one shot per hole.

Golf is most definitely not my game. I could not hit a decent shot all afternoon. I was frustrated. Siemens’ national sales manager was infuriated he did not win his own tournament. My magazine lost an account it took us 10 years to recover, and then only after the sales manager left Siemens. 

Trump's Next Patriotic Move and Kim's Secret Plan To Invigorate North Korea

I have a prediction about Trump’s next move in his escalating crusade espousing patriotic signs of loyalty, plus an explanation for North Korea’s war of words with the bully-in-chief.

I predict Trump will mandate that all cabinet meetings begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, possibly followed by a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (heaven help the secretary who doesn’t sing loud enough or warbles off key. Trump might even designate, on a rotating basis, one cabinet member to sing the national anthem solo, a cappella. If so, expect resignations or sheepish cries of laryngitis prior to their respective turns).

Trump doesn’t have to pressure Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to begin their respective chamber’s proceedings with the pledge and/or the national anthem. They already do.

Woe to the elected or appointed official who does not conform to the symbols Trump deems patriotic.

On WNYC public radio Monday morning, Brian Lehrer noted that after the disturbances in Charlottesville Trump said it was okay for peaceful demonstrators to protest the removal of a Civil War statue even if they marched with neo-Nazis and white extremists. He dismissed the idea that the statue of Robert E. Lee, or the Confederate flags or the torch light parade or the neo Nazi flags represented slavery, bigotry and the suppression of equal rights. Yet, he sharply and profanely criticized the peaceful demonstrations by athletes protesting racial inequalities while seeking an end to police mistreatment and killings of minorities. 

My friend Linda, on the other hand, sent along a reminder that refusing to say the Pledge or to engage in other symbolic gestures of patriotism was a right protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 1943—during the height of World War II, no less!—that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Furthermore, they could not be forced to stand while others recited it.

But the Barnette case applied only to public officials and government actions. Private employers may well have the power and legal right to fire employees if they violate a corporate policy to stand for the national anthem. The outcome of any such incident may rest on the individual’s employment contract and if a collective bargaining agreement exists. 

In other words, there is no settled case law, and though Barnette is now the law of the land for the last 74 years, it is instructive to realize Barnette overturned a previous Supreme Court decision (Minersville School District v. Gobitis) that was just three years old. 

So Trump’s verbal assault on athletes, asserting those who don’t stand for the national anthem should be fired, might, just might, be within legal bounds. Or not. We apparently won’t know as the National Football League and many of its team owners do not seem eager to test the issue. Indeed, the league and some owners have distanced themselves from Trump.

Trump, meanwhile, is like the old fashioned advertising executive seen as Juror #12 in the film 12 Angry Men. To advance the dialogue during the deadlocked jury deliberations he says in advertising you throw out ideas, run them up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.  

When Trump speaks publicly he tosses out provocations and waits to see if they resonate with his base. If they do, he hunkers down, doubles down and attacks anyone who questions his wisdom. So it was with his anti-athlete diatribe that began with a speech last week in Alabama. 

The national debate isn’t likely to go away soon (it is, after all, just week four of the NFL season), which seems to be overshadowing the after-hurricane crises in Puerto Rico, Houston and Florida, the debate over health care, the quest for peace in the Middle East, the need to overhaul the country’s infrastructure, cyber security, tax reform, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and the standoff with North Korea over nuclear arms development. 

Grand Fenwick Redux: This much we know about North Korea and its enigmatic leader Kim Jong-un: The country is impoverished and ruled by a dictator who enjoys movies. 

I don’t have it on good authority but I suspect Kim has seen the movie The Mouse That Roared, the 1959 Peter Sellers satire based on the 1955 novel of the same title, about the down on its luck Duchy of Grand Fenwick that concocts a get-rich-quick scheme. Its leaders declare war on the United States with the intention of losing as they believe America would then rebuild its vanquished foe much as it did with Germany and Japan. 

Kim, no doubt, can’t possibly hope to win a confrontation with the U.S., but he could extract invaluable tribute from Washington. It would be the least Trump could do to reward the third generation tyrant for being a puppet antagonist to his patriotic protagonist. Of course, Kim would have to agree to live in exile, but I am confident he could find a more hospitable environment somewhere on this earth.

Colbert, Carson and I Share Some Scary Stuff

Talking with Sharon Stone last Wednesday Stephen Colbert revealed a physical characteristic we share. While teasing about her nude photo shoot in Playboy in 1992, he said he is so self-conscious about his body that he “won’t let anybody see me without socks on (because) I have that thing where you wear socks too long and there’s no hair … where the socks pulled all the hair out. I’ve got old men’s ankles.” 

That’s me, too. My ankles, aside from being way too thin, bony actually, are hairless. They’re so white they seem to glow in the dark. I think wearing white wool sweatsocks throughout high school inhibited any hairy growth from my shins down. I never went without socks until I retired and started writing this blog and that was only because my “public” demanded I live up to the self-selected title. 

Anyway, it’s nice to know of another anklo-phobic, especially one with such a high profile.

Getting back to Sharon Stone, she has a new show, Agent X on TNT. I haven’t seen it so I can’t recommend it, or not, but Colbert screened a clip which showed Stone as vice president of the United States. What drew my attention was her hair style. If I didn’t know it was Stone I would have thought it was Robin Wright as the president’s wife, Claire Underwood, in House of Cards. It seems short-haired, stylishly coiffed blondes are today’s power women of Washington, no doubt inspired by Hillary Clinton, though one would never confuse her body with that of either Stone or Wright.

Carson and Me: During my first trip to Israel in 1966 I learned how to identify where the border lay between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors. Look for the green, I was told. Where the greenery ends is where Israel ends. Across the border the color was brown, as in sand.

Now, fast forward to early 2015 and it appears Dr. Ben Carson shares with me the lesson in border topography. 

In case you missed it (as I did back in March when he was not considered by anyone serious a serious presidential candidate, and still shouldn’t be), this is what Dr. Carson suggested to Bloomberg Politics as a way to settle (pun intended) the Palestinian question of a homeland of their own: 

“We need to look at fresh ideas. I don’t have any problem with the Palestinians having a state, but does it need to be within the confines of Israeli territory? Is that necessary, or can you sort of slip that area down into Egypt? Right below Israel, they have some amount of territory, and it can be adjacent. They can benefit from the many agricultural advances that were made by Israel, because if you fly over that area, you can easily see the demarcation between Egypt and Israel, in terms of one being desert and one being verdant (italics added). Technology could transform that area. So why does it need to be in an area where there’s going to be temptation for Hamas to continue firing missiles at relatively close range to Israel?”

Wow! And there are people who think this man should be president? In charge of our foreign affairs? 

Perhaps the most contentious international policy debate is centered on Israel’s right to exist along with the viability and border adjustments of a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine. What makes those issues so difficult is that Israelis and Palestinians do not agree among themselves on either proposition. Which brings me to a sorry state of affairs when it comes to internal disputes.

It is commonly thought that any Palestinian who openly advocates peace with Israel including territorial concessions would wind up with a bulls-eye on his or her  back, and front, and head. Such is the state of public discourse among the Palestinians.

Sadly, the same may be said, if not literally then figuratively, about Israelis and many of their American sympathizers. We just recently commemorated the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister murdered by a right winger because Rabin sought to make peace accompanied with a withdrawal from parts of the West Bank territory captured during the Six Day War. 

Now a vocal fringe in the Israel-can-do-no-wrong camp, inside and outside Israel, has assumed only they know what’s best for Israel and that anyone who disagrees with their vision is a traitor and worthy of public disparagement that is, or borders on, slander. 

I don’t have a solution to the Palestinian question but I have yet to hear a cogent and sustainable answer to the question of what Israel should do about the 1.3 million Palestinians under its control. Should they be expelled? Exterminated? Left to live as a conquered people with no rights to or hope of self-determination? 

Of course, courageous Palestinian leadership needs to come forward before Israel can make equally courageous accommodations. Any peace-loving person has to hope it is not too late for such a reality to transpire. In the present climate of jihad on the one side and distemper on the other, it is difficult to visualize a breakthrough in the short term. But one can always hope.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsors: How bad was this back-to-back advertising placement?  

While watching the Sunday night football game an ad from Subway was immediately followed by a spot featuring a “Jared” from the Carolina Panthers, (Jared Allen) extolling the NFL with the line “football is family.” This Jared ad ran just two days after another guy named Jared, Jared Fogle, the long-time spokesperson of Subway, was sentenced to no less than 15 years in prison for child pornography and crossing state lines to pay for sex with minors.

If I worked for Subway or the NFL I’d demand a make-good. 

Summer Camp Fights

Sports radio was all talk the last two days about the dust-up in the New York Jets training camp Tuesday that left starting quarterback Geno Smith with a broken jaw that will sideline him anywhere from six to 10 weeks. Smith was hit, some say sucker-punched, by Ikemefuna Enemkpali, a teammate, now an ex-teammate, an egregious infraction of acceptable camp behavior. 

I was particularly amused by Mike Greenberg of ESPN’s Mike and Mike morning show. Greenberg told his sidekick, former NFL defensive lineman Mike Golic, that he had never been in a real fight. I identified with Greenberg’s experience, or lack thereof. Until I harkened back to my fifth year at sleepaway summer camp. That year my annual summer rivalry with Elliot Levine came to a head. 

A little background: I first met Elliot in 1957 when I was eight-years-old, my second year at Camp Massad Aleph in Tannersville, Pa. Though a scrawny (read that, really skinny) kid, I was a pretty good athlete. The prior year I was arguably the best in my division.

So on the first day of my second year at Massad, I was quickly alerted to the prowess of one of our new bunkmates. I was told he could punch a ball all the way up the hill outside our bunk to the flagpole, a truly prodigious feat. With trepidation, I stepped outside to witness what proved to be an accurate accounting of his talent. He also could pitch softball better than I. He was, in short, a better athlete.

Naturally, we sustained a rivalry throughout that summer and the next three that we shared together, culminating in an after-lights-out fight one Friday night when we were 11. The tussle ended after he flipped me against the metal frame of a bed and a counselor mercifully showed up to end the mismatch. Actually, it didn’t quite end there. As we wanted to tangle, the counselor said, let’s do it the old fashioned way, with boxing gloves. Elliot outweighed me by about 30 pounds, but that didn’t matter to anyone except me. I’d like to say I acquitted myself admirably in the ring, but I’m still a little woozy as to the particulars of that encounter.

Our rivalry ended that summer. The following year my brother, sister and I went to a different summer camp. By the time Elliot and I re-engaged in high school, our competition had pretty much ceased. I even turned out to be the pitcher on our school softball team, undefeated our senior year. Elliot played shortstop.

GOP Disses Wal-Mart: Twice last week Republicans disrespected Wal-Mart. Once during the candidates’ debate last Thursday and again the following night on Real Time with Bill Maher, a prominent Republican said Amazon was the largest retailer in the world.

That must have been news to the good people in Bentonville, Ark. After all, Wal-Mart had global sales last year of $473.1 billion compared to Amazon’s $89 billion. 

If anyone should have corrected the Republicans it possibly should have been Hillary Clinton. For several years she served on the retailer’s board of directors. 

Malcolm in the Middle Super Bowl Hero

Malcolm Butler is a Super Bowl hero. Deservedly so, but not just for intercepting a goal line pass from Russell Wilson in the middle of the field that would have catapulted the Seattle Seahawks into football dynasty territory with a second straight Super Bowl victory. Instead, the New England Patriots are NFL champions for a fourth time in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era over the last 14 years.

Butler jumped in front of Ricardo Lockette to snare the ball and save the Patriots’ day. But in truth, it was his second save of the game, the first having come just two plays before the “catch,” the play of the game, that is, until Butler’s interception. 

The catch I refer to was Jermaine Kearse’s remarkable, unbelievable, mind- boggling, juggling snatch of a ball defended and deflected by Butler, what at first appeared to be a superb defensive play by the unheralded, undrafted small college defensive back. But if you followed the play to its conclusion, what most if not all reporters and commentators have ignored, is that the play did not end when Kearse eventually caught the ball lying flat on his back around New England’s eight yard line. He got up and would have scored if not for Butler’s presence of mind to scramble up from the turf and push Kearse out of bounds at the five yard line.

One more thing of note about Malcolm Butler: In all the interviews I read and saw Butler never thanked God. Oh, he said he was blessed, but he didn’t follow that with the trite trope of thanking God, as many athletes do, as if God somehow favored the Patriots and didn’t care about the Seahawks.

And for those who didn’t come across this analysis of Butler’s interception, it was made possible because his teammate, Brandon Browner, wouldn’t allow himself to be pushed back by Kearse, which would have blocked Butler’s direct path to the ball. Browner is the unsung hero of Butler’s heroics. 

Here’s how Tuesday’s New York Times described it, though in truth I heard ESPN analyst and former head coach Herman Edwards break it down on Monday (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/sports/football/true-hero-for-patriots-put-rookie-butler-in-spotlight.html?ref=sports&_r=0). 

I also heard an ESPN analyst explain that in forcefully going for the ball Butler legally banged into Lockette’s arms, effectively pushing them up and away from any chance of catching the pass from Wilson. 

Perhaps most fatefully, Butler caught the ball. If he had just knocked it down, Seattle would have had two more chances to punch the ball across the goal line, no doubt by either handing off to Marshawn Lynch or by Wilson bootlegging it into the end zone. 

Look to Becket to Solve Mystery of Deflategate

Finally, a controversy of national, possibly international, import worthy of my sleuthing talents. Finally a brouhaha worthy of, and waiting for, presidential pronouncement, equal to, if not exceeding, previous statements on the absurd rush to arrest a distinguished Afro-American Harvard professor caught in the act of breaking into his Cambridge, Mass., home, arrested merely because said professor was black, or the tragic, possibly fatal, mistakes awaiting Afro-American young men encountered by police. 

Yes, we now have a cliffhanger of a crime that defies explanation and threatens to upstage the NFL's Super Bowl party. Deflategate. How could 11 of 12 properly inflated footballs each lose two pounds of pressure per square inch from the moment two hours and fifteen minutes before game time that the officials handed the balls over to the New England Patriots till half time of their conference championship game against the Indianapolis Colts when the refs re-measured the pressure inside the balls?

Who did it? We don’t know. We know the why. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is on record as saying he prefers underinflated balls. Brady denies any involvement in the deflation scandal. So does coach Bill Belichick.

It’s too much of a coincidence to believe all but one ball lost air pressure naturally without the aid of knowing hands and a small air pin.

The mischievous, illegal deed had virtually no impact on the game—New England handily won 45-7. In the first half, using soft balls, Brady’s bunch scored 17 points. In the second half, with regulation balls back in play, Brady engineered 28 more points. Go figure.

But who did it? We can’t go to the videotape, or maybe we can if the perp did it on the sidelines. Surely a camera must have caught the pigskin paring. Probably a long shot at best, however. 

Instead of the videotape, let’s go to the movies (or stage play) of…Becket, a dramatic presentation of the war of wills between former best friends King Henry II of England and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. Frustrated that Becket continuously thwarted his designs, Henry voiced out loud his exasperation. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?,” Henry is said to have uttered. Four well-intentioned knights, patriots all, took it upon themselves to commit murder in the cathedral, a crime for which Henry took the blame and some punishment, though not excommunication. 

So here’s my theory—knowing Brady’s preference for underinflated balls, someone, or some few, on the Patriots’ equipment squad took it upon themselves to let the air out of the balls. For all we know, this practice could have been standard procedure before all games this season and many a season prior. No one was the wiser until the cheating was discovered during the conference championship game. 

Will we ever find out who did it? Doubtful. Will Belichick and Brady be punished? Maybe the coach will be suspended for a few games next season, as he is the person ultimately responsible for everything football related. Brady will walk away with no penalty other than a cloud over his once hallowed reputation.

From Nail-biting Addict to Football Enabler

Last week I confessed I was an addict, someone who bit his fingernails. Well, I think I’m over that nasty habit, at least for now. Thanks to some paper medical tape I found in our first aid kit I managed to cover my left pinkie long enough for the nail to grow back without awakening my desire to chew it off.

Today I’m admitting to an even more serious shortcoming—I’m an enabler. Like hundreds of millions of other Americans, and an increasing number of foreigners, I enjoy watching football. In other words, I condone and enable violence that I know will destroy an athlete’s health and the lives of his family because of repetitive brain trauma.

I’m like so many of the wives and girlfriends of football players keeping my mouth shut so I can enjoy Sunday afternoons, and now Sunday nights, and Monday nights, and Thursday nights. It’s a good thing I’m not into high school or college football or else I’d have no respite from sanctioned violence and have almost unlimited tutelage in how to behave badly toward women.

Did anyone else notice that during the halftime report of the New York Giants-Arizona Cardinals game on the Fox Network, the segue from each segment was a simulated stiff arm blasted into one’s face? How inappropriate given Ray Rice’s left hook to his then fiancée’s, now wife’s, face in that New Jersey casino elevator.

It’s our real-life version of The Hunger Games, or maybe a recreation of Roman gladiators, though the deaths of the participants are not as immediate.

Perhaps you’re thinking I’m being a bit too melodramatic, that football players voluntarily assume the risk. Of course, it wasn’t until last week, according to The New York Times, “that the National Football League, which for years disputed evidence that its players had a high rate of severe brain damage, has stated in federal court documents that it expects nearly a third of retired players to develop long-term cognitive problems and that the conditions are likely to emerge at ‘notably younger ages’ than in the general population.”

In The Daily News, Steve Almond, the author of “Against Football,” wrote, “Yes, of course these players are grown men (in most cases). And of course they choose to incur the risk of playing a violent game; the pros get paid a lot of money to do so. They also wear helmets and uniforms that help insulate them from damage, and that insulate us, the viewers, from the bone-rattling reality of collisions.

“That’s why we don’t view these acts as crimes. They are what sociologists call “sanctioned violence.” Fans consume these collisions without feeling that they are watching something barbaric. Indeed, they are regarded as necessary and even heroic in the context of the game, which is why television networks place parabolic microphones on the sidelines, and why they replay the most violent hits over and over again.

“But to the human brain—which is what’s at issue for football players—the context is irrelevant. At the neurological level, violence is violence. Trauma is trauma.

“Whether or not Roger Goodell can weather the storm and cling to his tenure as commissioner—and he has at least 44 million reasons to try (a reference to his $44 million paycheck last year)—the larger moral question that looms over him and the NFL and us fans is whether we should be consuming as a form of entertainment a sport whose end result is, in too many cases, permanent brain damage.”

Sadly, even though I question the morality of parents who invest their children in football programs given our current knowledge of the consequences, I still devote time to watching football, mostly my favorite team, the Giants, but other games as well when I have nothing better to watch. So, the bottom line is, I’m an enabler. 

Giant Bust: Am I a disloyal fan or just a realistic one? At this point in the season, two games in, it is obvious the Giants are not a good football team. The offensive line can’t open holes for the running backs. They don’t pass protect well, either. The quarterback is too prone to forcing his throws and incurring interceptions. The receivers are mediocre. The defense is okay on the run and pass but gives up too many big plays, especially on third down. Special teams are a liability. In short, rooting for the Giants is an exercise in hope and futility.

Last year I stayed loyal to the Giants and it cost me in my football pools. This year I am listening to my head, not my heart. Last week, for example, I picked Arizona to beat the Giants even with a backup quarterback starting for the Cardinals. The Giants didn’t disappoint: They fumbled twice in critical situations, once on a kick return near their goal line and another time near the Cardinal goal on what could have been a game-tying scoring drive; The defense gave up at least five first downs on penalties, resulting in at least seven points for Arizona. The special teams allowed a touchdown on a punt return. Receivers, including the normally sure-handed Victor Cruz, dropped numerous passes.

The only joy I had from watching the game was knowing I didn’t lose any money on the Giants. Though as a fan I would have preferred that outcome to seeing them go bust again.

Righteous Indignation

And so it was that, exactly one year to the day when the next president of the United States will be inaugurated, we are being served a full portion of righteous indignation by one Newt Gingrich.

Perhaps with an eye toward this Sunday’s NFL conference championship games, Newt tapped into an old football axiom, that the best defense is a strong offense. He verbally exploded with righteous indignation during Thursday night’s South Carolina presidential primary debate, challenging CNN’s John King for repeating charges made by his second wife that Newt wanted an open marriage.

Why is it that “family values” has only a one-way meaning for conservative Republicans? Why do they decry the supposed lack of family values among Democratic politicians, tsk-tsking affairs by Gary Hart, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, et al, but turn a blind eye when one of their own transgresses? They ignore the fact that Ronald Reagan impregnated Nancy before saying “I Do.” They forget that while Gingrich and his GOP pals in Congress Henry Hyde and Bob Livingston were lambasting Clinton and calling for his impeachment, they were conducting their own extra marital affairs, six years running, by the way, in Newt’s case.

How does Callista, wife number three of the cherubic (let’s be nice and not call him portly) former speaker of the House, a reportedly devout Catholic who sings for pay in her church’s choir, jibe her faith with being a marriage buster, with engaging in pre-marital sex, and, since she was of child-bearing age back then, of having sexual relations not for pro-creation purposes? Since she’d become first lady if Newt were elected, these are not irrelevant questions given the raking over the coals Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton suffered when their husbands ran for office and were elected. The public looks to the president’s wife as a beacon of rectitude, not as a sexual predator. How could she or any Newt administration figure counsel abstinence, or integrity, or the sanctity of marriage when the hopeful commander-in-chief couldn’t keep his saber sheathed in front of another woman?

Gingrich’s response is that his past is his past. If it’s a problem for people, so be it, but he’s moved on. These personal failings, he believes, are not to be equated with policy failings by his opponents. Newt can flip-flop between beds, but Mitt Romney is not allowed to change his position from abortion rights to right-to-life.

Perhaps the best summation of Gingrich’s strength as a candidate and possible leader of the free world came from John Oliver of The Daily Show. Thursday night he said Gingrich would be the best person to negotiate with China. “Chinese culture is based on shame,” said Oliver, “and Newt Gingrich has none.”

A-Rod: Schlemiel or Schlimazel

Celebrities go to the Super Bowl to see and be seen, so it should come as no surprise cameras catch them in unscripted moments. Former NFL coach and TV commentator John Madden was shown texting during the game, just moments before the camera caught film star Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to her current squeeze, baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. Even play by play announcer Joe Buck, who also broadcasts Major League Baseball games, had to wryly acknowledge, “I’m sure Alex was thrilled we put the camera on him at that moment” (http://www.examiner.com/celebrity-headlines-in-cleveland/cameron-diaz-and-a-rod-s-pda-at-super-bowl-video).

Once again A-Rod became the butt of jokes on the airwaves and blogosphere for a PDA (public display of affection—unlike previous incidents, this PDA involved a woman and not self-preening in Central Park for a newspaper photo or in front of a mirror for a magazine layout). He did nothing more than any decent, sensitive man would do if his girlfriend offered him popcorn, especially if his girlfriend was a beautiful movie star. He showed interest in her, unlike many men who zone out when watching sporting events.

There’s no denying, however, A-Rod is a lightning rod for controversy, which begs the question, Is A-Rod a schlemiel or a schlimazel? For those not familiar with the Yiddish terms, a schlemiel is a person who, despite the best of intentions, always fouls up. A schlimazel is an unfortunate soul, a person to whom misadventure always falls. To gain a deeper understanding of the distinction between the two, think of a schlemiel as a bumbling waiter who spills hot soup on a patron; the person drenched by the soup is a schlimazel.

Active or passive, schlemiel or schlimazel, A-Rod can’t catch a break.


More Super Bowl Follow-Up: In case you missed it, as I did, here's a link to the NFL's tribute to President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday which coincided with Super Bowl Sunday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xvwQAwPAo

Since I wasn't a Reagan fan, I'm happy the winner of the Super Bowl receives the Lombardi Trophy. I can just imagine the NFL renaming the trophy after football-happy Reagan if it were named for any lesser a personage than Vince Lombardi.


Even More Super Bowl Follow-Up: For a long while there I thought my 21-17 final score prediction would hold up. Of course, I said Pittsburgh would have the 21, but let’s not quibble over small details.

I also was right the trailing team would fall short on a last minute attempt to score the winning touchdown, though the Steelers got nowhere near the Packer 20 yard line as I forecast. In fact, they didn’t get beyond their own 20, so I guess I was right the game would end with the ball in the Packers’ possession near the Pittsburgh goal line.

I see a new career ahead of me in sports prognosticating....


Traffic Patterns: I’m commuting to and from Manhattan again. Not for a new job, not for pay.

With Ellie on crutches after her recent foot surgery, she’s staying with us so I can drive her to and from work each day (here’s where you’re supposed to say, “What a nice guy/dad Murray is”).

Some observations: The roads are really bad. Lots of potholes. Traffic is much worse than when I used to occasionally drive to my office. It’s taking at least an hour to get to the Metropolitan Museum at Fifth Avenue and E. 80th Street, the same time it took to travel a longer distance to Park Avenue and E. 55 St. Too many cars are single occupancy.


Still No Socks, But...: I haven’t abandoned retirement but I have taken a part-time position as director of industry relations for Green Retail Decisions, a Web-based enterprise that delivers information and analysis to the retail industry on energy-, waste- and supply-chain management, as well as green construction/maintenance practices (http://www.greenretaildecisions.com).

Sustainable business practices are not a fad; they are integral to a company’s profitable performance. GRD provides actionable news, trends and analysis through a robust Web site, weekly e-newsletter, Webinars, white papers and face-to-face forums.

GRD is the brainchild of another Lebhar-Friedman alumnus, John Failla. John is also the founder of Store Brands Decisions, dedicated to the private label industry.

Passionless Play

I can’t generate any passion for today’s Super Bowl.

I’ve studiously avoided reading any stories about the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers over the last two weeks, which might explain my indifference to the game. As a NY Giants fan, I really can’t get too worked up about the championship contest tonight.

Oh sure, I guess I could be anti-Green Bay because the Packers beat the Giants late in the season and kept them out of the playoffs by winning the following week against the Chicago Bears. But I hold no animosity against the Pack. The Giants really didn’t deserve a better fate considering how haphazardly they played this season.

As for the Steelers, I give them some points for knocking off the despised NY Jets, but is there any reason to embrace a team led by a quarterback who can’t control his testosterone and a linebacker who revels in injuring his foes with helmet-first tackles?

I’ll probably watch the game, and commercials, but it matters little to me who wins the Lombardi Trophy. For the record, I predict Pittsburgh will bring home the hardware in a tightly fought 21-17 game, with Green Bay thwarted on a last minute drive within 20 yards of a winning touchdown.

What the Packers and the Steelers do evoke are memories of my emergence as a football fan. I had been vaguely aware of football in the late 1950s, but didn’t really get into the game until I was 12, when Y.A. Tittle joined the Giants as their quarterback in 1961. I think I rooted for Tittle because he was mostly bald. He looked like my father, and since Dad was in no way an athlete, or shared any rooting passion for any sport with me, Tittle provided a small measure of transmutation. It didn’t hurt that Tittle was a very good quarterback on a successful, winning team.

The Giants played the Packers for the NFL championship in 1961 and 1962, losing both times in bitter cold, first in Green Bay and then at Yankee Stadium. I was able to watch the Packers demolish the Giants 37-0 in Green Bay, but the following year’s 16-7 loss was blacked out in New York. It was the custom back then that even if a game sold out, the NFL imposed a 90-mile blackout on any TV transmissions. My 17-year-old brother Bernie, (a Giants fan at the time, now a Washington Redskins fanatic) and his friends traveled to Philadelphia to view the game. It was a sad ride home, made all the more unbearable, Bernie reports, because the car’s heater stopped working.

After playing the championship game again in 1963, this time losing to the Chicago Bears 14-10 in another frigid contest, the Giants began a protracted period of ineptitude. From three straight trips to the ultimate game, their record tumbled to 2-10-2 in 1964. They wouldn’t make it to the championship game, now dubbed the Super Bowl, until 1986 (they won, their first of three Super Bowl titles).

Tittle retired after the 1964 season, but not before losing a heartbreaker—and body breaker—game in Pittsburgh, 27-24. Late in the game, he was hit as he threw by Steeler defensive end John Baker. The pass was intercepted and run back for a touchdown. A dazed Tittle, helmet off, sat on his knees near the end zone, his hands on his thighs, blood streaming down the left side of his face. He had suffered a concussion and a broken sternum. The picture of the defeated Tittle is considered one of the iconic sports photos of all time (http://store.post-gazette.com/divinity-cart/item/P265/Y.A.-Tittle-Photo/1.html).