Why has Ravens Coach John Harbaugh been so uptight and con- frontational, even rude, all through the 2015 football preseason?

‘DEFLATEGATE’ PROVIDES NFL
WITH WALL OF DISTRACTION
TO PUT OFF DEALING WITH
MORE SERIOUS PROBLEMS

BEN CARDIN PLAYS IT SAFE
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering why Ravens coach John Harbaugh has been so uptight and confrontational during the preseason, it’s interesting to note the following:

 You have to wonder whether Harbaugh, despite directing a team that has only missed postseason action once since the 2007 season, is feeling pressure that his job may be on the line if the Ravens don’t have a banner season and go deep into the playoffs.

His rude, on-air treatment of a Raven’s TV sideline reporter is a mystery.

No doubt the team was less than thrilled with the ruling by a federal judge that tosses out the four-game suspension of star Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

New England, which knocked the Ravens out of the playoffs last year, is not a favorite rival of the Ravens or the team’s fans.

 It’s important to recognize that Brady was not cleared of charges that he participated in or was aware of tampering with game footballs, reducing air pressure, to gain a better grip for passing purposes.

What the judge did was sack NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s clumsy, over-the-top and unfair hearing process of determining a punishment for Brady.

In comparison to the inconsistent and sometimes overly lenient way the NFL deals with punishments related to domestic violence and other serious offenses with players, Brady deserved, at the most, a fine, not a four-game suspension.

Goodell’s inept and out of touch judgment in dealing with these types of matters is a reminder that modern-day commissioners in all the major professional sports are nothing more than portfolio managers for the owners they serve.

Legendary Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the first, and greatest, Commissioner of Base- ball, serving from 1920 until his death in 1944.

The days of legendary towers of integrity, like Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the colorful commissioner who helped baseball survive the fallout from the infamous Black Sox Scandal, by which the 1919 World Series was fixed, are long gone.

Today’s commissioners in baseball, football, basketball and hockey, along with the NCAA officials who run big-time college sports, are there to help find and maximize sources of revenue.

Only when an issue or problem becomes too damaging to sweep under the artificial turf, is something ever done.

Baseball executives looked the other way for years when players were pigging out on steroids and other performance enhancers.

While NFL media observers keep harping on the fact that the Brady ruling is another strike at Goodell’s credibility and that he is wasting time and money appealing the decision, they are missing a major point.

All of this serves as an effective distraction away from the more serious problems the NFL does not want to deal with: concussions and other life-threatening injuries that are afflicting players simply through routine game action.

The league does not want to address the quality of life issue so many former players experience from the violence and increased danger of injuries with long-term side effects.

Prioritizing serious injuries for medical and training research to make the game safe will only occur after enough players walk away from football early and so many lawsuits pile up that the issue can no longer be ignored by the adoring public or the fawning TV networks.

Goodell’s job is safe with his owner/bosses as long as revenues keep increasing.

And with Brady able to play and the story line growing over the whole “Deflategate” incident, TV ratings and attendance will only go up.

The only way Goodell loses is if revenue trails off and the public does start turning away from the game. Then, Goodell is the perfect scapegoat for the owners and he departs with a lavish buyout.

But unless blowhard Donald Trump decides to stir people up and make some extra headlines for himself by lambasting Goodell, the NFL boss can live with the media criticism of his ineptitude.

Maryland’s 56th Governor, Marvin Mandel, who died last week in St. Mary’s County, “appropriated” furni- ture from the Governor’s Mansion upon leaving office
in 1977 and was forced to give it back.  The state’s most recent ex-Governor, Martin O’Malley, who con- spicuously skipped Mandel’s funeral while campaigning for the presidency, bought his own gubernatorial furni- ture at a deep discount after having it declared “junk.”

He’s a portfolio manager, not a commissioner.

 It was interesting that Martin O’Malley was not among the large group of Maryland governors, current and former, from both parties who attended the funeral last week of Marvin Mandel.

The public is somewhat divided on whether or not Mandel was a great governor. He was elected twice but forced to resign under a conviction for racketeering and mail fraud, which was overturned years later on a technicality after he served jail time.

There is no question however that Mandel was a legendary Maryland political icon who returned to public life in an advisory role and often crossed party lines, getting things done, in an uncommon bipartisan manner.

Now that O’Malley is not running for a Maryland political office, it’s as if he is
not here any more.

With his focus on mounting a hardly noticed presidential campaign, apparently there is little time to publicly show respect for the office of
Governor, which he occupied for eight years, by recognizing one of his predecessors.

 The Maryland state university system deserves praise for offering courses this semester that tie in with the Freddie Gray case and will encourage healthy discussion and constructive analysis of the complex social and legal issues that Baltimore faces.

Th University of Baltimore has a course entitled, “Divided Baltimore: How Did We Get Here, Where Do We Go?”

And at University of Maryland, a course is being offered in the Francis King Carey School of Law called, “Freddie Gray’s Baltimore: Past, Present and Moving Forward.”

One can only hope that along with participating as lecturers in these courses, city elected officials will also have an interest in attending, listening and learning.

It would also be a terrific idea to distribute and make a final research report of what has been learned available to those in the public sector who may and should be interested, and among our elected city officials.

 Ben Cardin’s decision to not support the President’s nuclear-program deal with Iran is not a huge surprise. The leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee obviously had many reservations about enforcement of the treaty and the ability to reimpose sanctions if Iran violates the guidelines.

The timing of his announcement however indicates he was waiting to declare his position only after Barack Obama had received enough support to guarantee the treaty’s passage.

When Maryland’s senior U.S. Senator, Barbara Mikulski, announced a few days earlier her support of the treaty, it meant that the Senate did not have enough votes to overcome an Obama veto of a bill rejecting the treaty.

Maryland’s junior United States Sen. Ben Cardin played it safe last week on the President’s nuclear arrangement with Iran, an- nouncing his opposition only after it became clear his support would not be needed by the Administration to seal the deal.

For Cardin, a loyal Democrat who is a respected team player, it meant he had a free hand to vote the way he wanted. But the interesting question is what he would have done if his vote had spelled the difference between whether the treaty actually passed or not.

We will never know.

 When former NBA player Darryl Dawkins died recently at age 58, many references were made to his backboard-breaking dunks in the NBA.

Old Baltimore Bullets fans, however, will remember that the pioneer of NBA backboard shattering was our own Gus “Honeycomb” Johnson, a muscular, agile and multi-talented All-Star forward.

Johnson, on the Bullets from 1963-72, shattered his first NBA backboard in St. Louis in 1964, going in for a stuff-shot against Hawks forward Bill Bridges.

He added one more to his smashed backboard list before injuries caught up with him and he retired in 1973.

Johnson died in 1987 at the age of 48.

 Hearing replays of Jim Hunter’s screaming home run call on MASN of Chris Davis’s walk-off home run the other day, snapping the Orioles’ long losing streak, you’d have thought the team had won a World Series game.

Such shrieking is unnecessary: It makes you wish more announcers would learn from the great Vin Scully, who has the restraint and judgment to let a big moment speak for itself, allowing everyone to hear the roar of the crowd.

Hunter, by the way, is much better on radio than television. On TV he gives you too much play-by-play of what you are watching.

On radio, his descriptions are terrific, letting you visualize the game-action in your mind’s eye.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S “INSIDE PITCH” COLUMN:  click here
…and read archived Dave Maril columns  by clicking here.