Cup succumbs to replay, network foolishness

WORLD CUP 1) Replay rules — another foresight-barren attempt to pursue that great sports imposter: Perfection, through hindsight — has been added in the form of VARs, video assistant referees.

Thus, the Cup is to be determined by lengthy stoppages to go back in time to determine if fouls or violations were originally uncalled or undetected. And so disputable, often inconclu- sive conclusive rulings now rule the World Cup, NFL and MLB-style.

What’s called or not called in the first minute changes everything. France’s 2-1 group-stage win Saturday over Australia was dictated by the dubious application of replay.

In Spain’s 1-0 win over Iran on Wednesday, the ref ’s shrugging, no-call indecision preceded a long delay before the VAR determined Iran was offside, and thus had not scored the tying goal.

2) Stupid clutter stats. Fox posts “Percentage of Successful Passes,” giving a 3-yard backpass to an open man the same value as a 30yard swinger toward a winger.

3) Fox’s deceptive advertising of starting times — a full hour early — is both disgusting and unsurprising. Recall Brian Davis, the only TV voice in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 10-year history? In April he was suspended for a playoff game days after activists with nothing better to protest determined that his use of “cottonpickin’ ” to flatter OKC’s Russell Westbrook after a great pass — “He’s out of his cotton-pickin’ mind!” — was racist, as if he’d chosen to shout a racial slur on the air.

The Thunder’s gutless lack of logical sup- port for Davis was shameful. In addition to the suspension, Davis issued a hat-in-hand apology for saying something that few, including Thunder management and players, ever before considered as racist.

This week Davis was let go, fired. No media outrage. His career, perhaps, is over. He will be entered into the annals of infamous, walked-the-plank racists.