I received a photo, taken by a reader, that shows LeBron James sitting in the stands at the championship game of the Fab 48 AAU boys basketball tournament July 24 at Bishop Gorman High School. He was not surrounded by go-go dancers spelling out K-I-N-G on giant placards. He was not being served champagne by a waiter suspended from the ceiling by guy-wires, like Peter Pan or George Reeves.
Is there a more meaningless penalty in sports than “vacating” a bowl game victory or Final Four appearance?
They put John Robinson on a pedestal Saturday, which is the last place he would want to be. This is a man who would not play a triangle if it called attention to himself, much less blow his own trumpet.
These are my sports-related accomplishments as they stand so far: Bowling a 200 game when I was 15 and another when I was 52, batting three times against Dan Schatzeder in college without striking out and the one of which I now am most proud — not turning on TV when ESPN crawled under the covers with LeBron James to make news instead of report it.
With all respect due Woody Hayes, Bob Knight or Russell Crowe; with a dubious appreciation of Mike Tyson, for taking a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear; or of Alec Baldwin, for taking a chunk out of his daughter’s rear end, I might have witnessed the ultimate meltdown at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring on Thursday night.
