The Mets need to have one ruthless goal against MLB's bottom-dwellers
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This should be the equivalent of homecoming week for the Mets.
They did not get to dictate who is on their schedule between Memorial Day and Sunday, but these would be the patsies they would have picked — the two worst teams in the majors. Six games against the White Sox and Rockies at Citi Field should be akin to Western Kentucky showing up on a Saturday in Tuscaloosa.
If MLB had relegation, Chicago and Colorado would be in Double-A.
So when they arrive on your doorstep, the job is to blend merciless with ruthless and stomp the flotsam of the sport. Because contenders can be assured that is what their rivals are going to do. The Tigers and Phillies had the majors' best overall records and — not surprisingly — the two best marks against sub-.500 teams.
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Or people showing up in the places the players were and players feeling like they were endangered. Breanna Stewart's wife actually got threats. So I think the attention is great, the investment is great, but what comes with that is an expectation that we'll suddenly turn women's sports into the same as men's. And there's a real gift in it not being the same. There's a real joy in the space feeling different than men's. And I named my show Good Game With Sarah Spain, because originally I wanted to name it The Good Place With Sarah Spain. But that's a TV show, and it would be hard for people to distinguish and find when they looked for it online. But that's how I feel about going to a women's professional sporting event. It's the good place. It is incredibly diverse. It is incredibly kind. Everyone's rooting for their team, and they're very competitive, but there's no fistfights. People aren't getting hammered and falling down the stands on each other. I think that with the NWSL [National Women's Soccer League], for instance, when they had the recent forced purchases of a couple teams due to the toxicity I mentioned, they had a new rule where the majority owner needed to be financially liable as one person. There could be a group of owners, but they required that one owner bear the financial burden, if necessary, and that person had to be a billionaire. That meant that these large groups of women, who have a lot of money but aren't billionaires, were shut out. And it inevitably meant that once again, we were returning to ownership groups where it was going to be most likely a middle-aged white guy that owned it. And that's fine if that person is really dedicated to women's sports, and wants to learn the space and understand everything about it. It's a little tougher if it's another plaything that they have with four other teams, and they don't feel as connected to the space. And, again, #notallmen. But what the problem with the previous iteration of the NWSL was how many owners and coaches it turned out were engaging in toxic or abusive behavior, or at the very least, covering up for each other, sending a coach on his way: 'Thank you for your service.' Nice long letter: 'Thanks for your time here.' While knowing that they were letting them go because of abusive behavior, and letting them get hired somewhere else. And that's not to say that women won't do that and never do that, but there is a belief that you've got to have more women at the highest levels to help prevent those kind of situations, and that kind of atmosphere and culture, from taking over again. Right. I just feel like we're about to enter another HBO Max, Max, HBO, Max, ouroboros kind of situation here. But it feels inevitable. Obviously, during the massive shift away from traditional cable, and the unbundling, where ESPN no longer got $13, or whatever it was, from every human in America who had cable. 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So when he goes on and says things that are factually incorrect, does stories that are—for instance, one he's now being sued for libel—essentially, that aren't vetted, and aren't sourced before he takes them in front of millions. That, I think, impacts how people view everything else on the network, even if it's just subconsciously. When they turn it on, do they still think everything Adam Schefter says is journalistically sound? Or does the fact that Pat McAfee is on the same network. Or Stephen A. Smith, who will say, 'Oh, I can't talk about Dana White hitting his wife on camera; he's a close personal friend of mine.' That's not how journalism works, right? And so when that starts to blur the lines, does the rest of what's coming out on that network get harmed by it? And does it then prevent them from being separated from the pack in a way that they used to be? I don't know. I'm not in charge. It's above my pay grade. From my point of view, yes, and that concerns me. 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