WHY ARE MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS COMMISSIONERS LISTENING TO TRUMP?
Next time U.S. president calls, best thing league bosses could do is be unavailable
On a day when more than 4,000 Americans died, U.S. President Donald Trump talked about bringing sports back. Like that mattered.
And he didn’t say a single word publicly about the latest American casualties of COVID-19, the tragic number being the highest in the world.
It is enough to make you laugh and cry — and both are appropriate responses — to hear Trump talking about bringing back the good old days of sports, the days when there weren’t any fans in stadiums or arenas and you could watch everything on television.
Never mind the ridiculous inaccuracy of his words. There were never empty stadiums, unless you’ve been to Florida for a Major League Baseball regular season game. There weren’t many games on television, either, back in the days he’s apparently inventing.
And for some reason, the rather astute men who operate professional sport in North America have chosen to twice meet with Trump online in recent weeks to discuss plans to get sports up and running again.
The idea of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the wisest of all commissioners, taking advice of any kind from Trump is plainly laughable.
“It’s about data, not the date,” Silver said Friday night.
All sports are looking at possibilities and circumstances and trying to determine what might be possible in the future — knowing that every day is different. They all seem to be proceeding cautiously and safely at this time.
The next time Trump calls for a meeting the best thing the commissioners could do is indicate they are unavailable.
Gary Bettman is in a slightly different position than the other big league commissioners because of geography. Twenty-two per cent, or seven of 31 NHL teams, play in Canada. Fifty-three per cent of NHL players are Canadian. Rather than waste time with Trump, he needs to meet with Canadian authorities and politicians to make certain they are on board with whatever he might be planning . ...
If there is hockey in July, which some people think is possible, that will mean players haven’t played in four months, which will be beyond weird . ...
The Toronto Maple Leafs planned to raise ticket prices for the coming season not knowing COVID-19 was on its way. Now that seems more than a touch tone deaf. In good faith, what the Leafs should announce is they’ve changed their mind and agreed to maintain their high prices as is for another season, not moving them up nine per cent . ...
Great to hear that former Winnipeg Jets star Dale Hawerchuk is on the road to recovery from his continuing battle with stomach cancer. No way to count the number of people pulling for Hawerchuk. It’s a long list . ...
The 83-year-old treasure that is Wayne Embry has threatened to leave the Toronto Raptors and quietly retire a number of times in recent years. But each time, Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, talks his senior basketball advisor out of it. Tanenbaum enjoys having the encyclopedic Embry around. And Embry adores Tanenbaum . ...
The Rogers Cup men’s tennis tournament is still scheduled to begin Aug. 7. It hasn’t been cancelled — yet . ...
You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t have health, you’ve got nothing. Billionaire Hank Steinbrenner, co-chair of the New York Yankees, died the other day. He was just 63. Same age as former Toronto Blue Jays infielder Damaso Garcia, who succumbed to brain cancer. Too damn young to go.
By my count, Garcia was the second-best second baseman in Blue Jays history. Robbie Alomar, obviously, is the runaway leader. After that, Garcia, Orlando Hudson, Aaron Hill and Garth Iorg would complete my top 5 . ...
I don’t want anyone to go out of business right now, but if someone has to go, I vote for Ticketmaster and all those who do nothing but add service charges to sporting tickets, theatre tickets and concert tickets. Why do they charge so much? Because they can . ...
I did like this social distancing T-shirt: “If I can turn around and punch you, you’re too (effing) close.” ...
Under the department of bad ideas: NBA playing H-O-R-S-E on television. Zzzzzz . ...
When NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan said years ago that championships are won “when the stands are empty,” who knew his words might come true. And he, of course, meant practices, not games . ...
The KHL must have run out of people wanting to coach in Russia when former Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters was hired by Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg . ...
I feel for (Peters accuser and former professional hockey player) Akim Aliu in a way. He went through a horrible hazing incident in junior. He was racially abused while playing in the ECHL. He bounced around from team to team and league to league most of his career. But what I don’t understand: What does most of that have to do with the NHL? Why is the NHL investigating and reporting on something that doesn’t really have anything to do with the NHL?
“You can’t handle the truth,” Jack Nicholson shouted in the powerful movie A Few Good Men. And that’s just about what I felt like when I read the reports of former Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay’s death and the crashing of his plane. I didn’t want the truth. I wish I didn’t know the drug-related details now . ...
Should placekicker Lirim Hajrullahu make the Los Angeles Rams, he will earn more money in one NFL season than he was paid for his first six seasons in the CFL . ...
On the list of XFL creditors, former CFL coach Marc Trestman ranks seventh, with US$777,777 owing. Former Hamilton Tiger-Cats coach and Toronto Argonauts quarterback June Jones is 12th on the creditor list, owed $583,333 by the startup football league. ssimmons@postmedia.com