Discussing the "bizarre" year of sports in 2017, ESPN's Bob Ley and Jeremy Schaap defied belief by insisting they are really trying to stick to sports. During The Sporting Life program on ESPN Radio, Ley recognized a national fatigue with the politicization of sports, but he and his colleague both cited liberal intrusions into sports as their personal highlights for the year.
For Ley, the "perfect punctuation to 2017" came when American Indian activists created four fake, "totally believable" websites all claiming the Washington Redskins had changed their name. He called it "the perfect end to this year." So much for an incredible Super Bowl and a great World Series.
To Schaap, host of The Sporting Life program, the ideal moment of sports in 2017 was when Charles Barkley campaigned for Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama's special Senate election:
"Barkley was in Alabama campaigning, and he used to be a Republican. Donald Trump, who used to be a Democrat, and he was in Alabama, and that's when he made his most pointed remarks about football. And Barkley was making his remarks on the special election. That's like 2017 sports in a nutshell. Barkley was part of the discourse in politics that we used to laugh about, and Donald Trump was making those comments down in Alabama in late September at the Luther Strange rally, and people are sayin' 'stick to sports' ... and we're tryin'!"
Ley, Schaap and other sports media weren't trying very hard to stick to sports. The vast majority of them stick to the Left side of politics because they're liberals. They wouldn't know balance if it smacked them in the face. It's the bias, stupid.
Schaap, who uses his show to advocate for special rights for sexually confused athletes and other left-wing causes, called the year in sports "bizarre," and said, "Sports has found itself at the intersection of a lot of other things in a way that we're not really accustomed to. ...You can understand why people want a rest from this relentless news cycle; just give us our games. And it hasn't been easy to do so."
Ley said the intersection of sports and politics included Sports Business Journal naming President Trump as the sports person of the year. "We've had our entire mindset (changed). I think there's no gray area." He said he sees the disapproval of sports fans who don't want the political intrusions:
"We've seen activism and we've seen people called upon to speak their peace. I sense people are (saying) just give us the highlights, give us the box scores. It is an escape, and it has been anything other than an escape ... I tell you what, there's a national fatigue with the political polarization. And I think there is a sports news fatigue with -- just give us what we're here (for), what we paid our ticket (for). Take the ride, as Hunter Thompson said, and the ride is let's have some fun and there's no fun left."
Schaap asked Ley what he foresees in 2018, and the answer was that ''it's not going to get any easier because the political dichotomy, the black-white polarization, politically blue-red, its an election year and it's only to become more pronounced."
You can thank ESPN for that because it's the Worldwide Leader in (Liberal) Sports. People like Schaap and Ley are gate-keepers, if not enforcers, who help assure that ESPN keeps pushing the political views onto sports, and always from the Left. They proved that with their stated focus on Barkley's campaign for a Democrat, Ley's admiration for fake news sites addressing an off-the-field controversy and so much of what we see, hear and read from ESPN on a frequent basis. And reject.
