George Steinbrenner did some terrible things to African-American players. He paid a guy to get dirt on Dave Winfield. He humiliated Bobby Meacham. He let Reggie walk out the door. He called Hideki Irabu “a fat toad.” He traded Bobby Murcer. He fired Yogi… Umm, wait a minute…
Whoops. My bad. You see, for all his boorish foibles, and there were doozies – Old George at least goes down as an equal opportunity, bi-polar putz. Today, as the NBA tries to corral public outrage over Donald Sterling’s incredibly stupid, tone-deaf and outdated – (think 1850) – view of race – (that is, as seen on TV) – it’s clear that Steinbrenner couldn’t hold a candle to the self-indulgent toads who own sports teams today.
And the reason, I think, is obvious:
Viagra.
Donald Sterling is 80. Without juicing, his sex life would have suffered a mercy killing 15 year ago – give or take a Valentine’s Day massacre. But with Pfizer’s magical elixir – and a defibrillator team on call – he had reason to scrounge up a 30-something hottie from the Sacramento Greyhound Bus Terminal. He shucked the wife, got hair plugs and a comb-over, and there he was – a cranked-up billionaire with floor-seats on the dinner theater circuit. To the rapidly ripening vixens of the mirror ball, he was a 20-point stag standing at a salt lick.
Nope. Old George may have yelled at Gabe Paul, but he never did that. He didn’t have the blue pill. And that – my friends – is God and Science working together at last, to bring karma to the billion dollar brutes who think they can survive any fall by landing on their wallets.
Wendi Murdoch may be famous for saving Rupert from a cream pie, but in the days before their divorce, Murdoch’s staff wouldn’t allow them alone in the same room, because they feared she would put the codger through a wall. Nope, it weren’t them planes, boys, that brought down the beast; twuz the beauty that done it. And Donald Sterling’s only defender these days is his ex-wife, who probably figures she has no choice: She looks bad, just for hanging with him all these years.
Nope. Old George might have been a bully. But his worst attribute – in the eyes of his fellow owners – was wanting to win. That’s what riled up his bros. He’d shell out for Reggie, or Catfish – all those field hands they expected to own for life. Worse, he didn’t even plead poverty!
Well, these are the new boars, an evolutionary advanced and medically enhanced generation of bastards, bigger and more ferocious than any carnivore that ever roamed the planet. I think it comes with billion dollar-status. I can’t even imagine a million dollars. To conjure one guy being worth $20 billion – it’s Carl Sagan talking about lights in the sky. Nope. Can’t go there. Either of the Koch brothers could make you or me disappear, and nobody would do anything about it. That’s the reality of America when you have people worth $100 billion.
So Donald Sterling had his hottie and his bottle of Viagra, and there’s a new low bar for idiots. Who knows? When they write the book about assholes in sports, I’m not sure George Steinbrenner will even rate a footnote. Imagine that.
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