How’s everyone’s weekend going?
Thanks for spending a portion of your Sunday with the Six.
Let’s get right to it.
TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF CAITLIN CLARK SITUATION
I wrote a few weeks ago about the Tom Brady roast. How rarely, as a collective group, do we share in a culture moment. Brady and his wild cast of misfits provided a fun distraction for a week or so.
Well, as we roll into our long, hot summer, we have another one. This one though is not nearly as much fun.
First the positives: For this week, Caitlin Clark is arguably the most famous athlete on the planet. She’s a woman and a terrific basketball player, not having co-opted fortune from wearing a swim suit on Instagram. Ratings for the WNBA are up. People are talking about the sport.
The negative: None of it has to do with basketball.
Rather, we get hot takes from national pundits surrounding the behavior of the league’s players, about how they interact with one another. And mostly as it pertains to Clark.
Older talking heads, such as ESPN’s Michael Wilbon and Bob Costas, brought up the obvious, how the contentiousness is about race. Costas, appearing on a CNN talk show (yes, CNN!), spoke very candidly (and accurately) when saying, “if this were a black-on-black incident, it wouldn’t get nearly as much attention.”
Wilbon, who used to a thought leader but has edged towards the race hustle in his elder years (it pays better), brought up race on his PTI show. But he didn’t offer any context, just implying that we need to have a “larger conversation about race” and downplaying the aggressive-borderline-assault on Clark from a Chicago Sky player during a game that sparked the debate. Wilbon’s longtime partner on PTI, Tony Kornheiser, used the word “sinister” when describing the hard fouls on Clark. Wilbon brushed that off and went back to generalizing about sports and race in America, which analysts like him do when they don’t want to offend the populace they are proselyting for. They indulge in sophistry, afraid of the responsibility that comes with acknowledging the inconvenient truth when watching the clip: the play was more than a hard foul and how the assailer, Chennedy Carter, was intentionally targeting Clark.
If the situation were reversed, and a white player put a hard foul on a black player, would Wilbon and other analysts say the same thing? Or would they play the race card? It’s hard to trust the motives of outrage merchants like Wilbon and others of his ilk who traffic in the currency of identitarianism.
(Not to be overly cynical, but every opinion I read or watch now on MSM outlets is filtered through the lens of identity. What race or class are they protecting? I can’t escape it. That’s the gift our D-E-I laden culture has dropped on humanity, one I wish could be returned with impunity.)
An inescapable truth about women’s professional basketball is that most of the players are black, another good portion of them gay. Clark is white and straight. But there’s been plenty of white, straight athletes that have entered the WNBA over the years. Why is Clark the one receiving so much attention and scrutiny?
Because no one has entered the league more instantly rich and famous as her.
The college athlete compensation movement began right as Clark was emerging as a transcendent start at the University of Iowa. Her wholesome, girl-next-store looks, combined with her generational basketball talent, made her a millionaire while at the same time she was taking college marketing classes presumably to learn about how to sell and promote services (how’s that for irony?) Those millions of dollars were paid not by the university she attended but corporate sponsors who freely determined she was worth the investment.
Now an employee of the Indiana Fever, Clark is paid directly by the franchise. Salaries are governed based on a collective bargained wage scale (as opposed to the open market). Her annual salary of $75,000 is commiserate with rookie athletes selected in the first round (Clark was the top pick). Factoring in attendance and ratings increases since Clark’s arrival, the Fever—and league—are enjoying the bargain of the century.
That partly explains the league’s muted response to the controversy this past week. They don’t want to do anything to upset the Golden Goose. The money is flowing in and those in charge are taking the ‘any publicity is good publicity’ approach. But there’s another cause for silence: league officials are also caught in the identity politics match game. Any perceived favoritism towards the The Great White Hope would be admonished by veteran black players. Best to say nothing.
(I wrote about Clark a few months ago, foreshadowing her troubles ahead. But I never thought she’d be the biggest story in sports one month into her professional career.)
Not even three decades old, the still-nascent American league of women’s professional basketball remains in audience-building mode. Proven by years and years of pre-Clark indifference, not enough people are interested in the actual games. But there is an audience appetite for non-basketball related controversy, based on this week’s extraordinary media coverage. That’s the dilemma the Clark situation provides for the WNBA. Which does it lean into?
If the other professional leagues are a guide, Americans possess an unquenchable palate for gossip and tabloid news. But with interpersonal squabbles, there’s critical mass. Consumers eventually default to competitive play, whether that be fall football weekends or all summer long baseball. Controversy has a shelf life, a fatigue factor.
The WNBA is having a moment. But is it the moment it really wants?
There’s a line in the Bible that states, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Using the good book as guide, go hot or cold. Ambivalence never works.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. Fauci Testifies Before Congress.
On Monday, Anthony Fauci—formerly the chief medical adviser to the president and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director—testified before Congress about his role in Covid Hysteria and the origins of the virus. Fauci is proving to be an expert not in viruses but in revisionist history, according to this article via The Hill. There is a bipartisan movement afoot as Democrats on a House investigative panel are starting to join their GOP colleagues in questioning Fauci’s intentions and whether a longtime adviser to Fauci skirted public records requests. Stay tuned, more to come.
2. Could Trump Be Forced To Govern From Prison Cell?
Picture this: Donald Trump accepts the Republican presidential nomination in Milwaukee wearing an ankle bracelet. In November, after winning the election, he gives his acceptance speech on closed circuit television from a prison cell on Rickers Island. Sounds like a plot for a film script but in our political climate truth is stranger than fiction. One month from sentencing for his felony convictions, Politico breaks down the likelihood of a Trump presidency behind bars.
Letters of apology going back decades from visitors who smuggle prehistoric stones out of Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park for keepsakes. A quote from one letter: “I rationalized that a few small pieces would not hurt, I now realize the effect if everyone took a few small pieces.” Another: “Against my better judgement, I removed a few small rocks…since then, my marriage is on the rocks.” Thick with irony: “They weigh like a ton of bricks on my conscience.” A really interesting post on our moral sense of right and wrong from a newsletter that publishes old letters.
4. Pour One Out.
There was a time in history when it was thought that consuming alcohol in moderation was good for you. I mean, when medical professionals said so. Beginning in the 1970s, alcohol was believed to have a "cardioprotective" effect, a claim enthusiastically taken up by the alcohol industry and the media. When the studies were discredited for faulty analysis and cherry-picking data, it caused "the biggest flip-flop in health and lifestyle advice in recent memory" as this piece from Slate explains. The article is the latest reminder of how much I miss not being old enough to truly enjoy the decadence that was the 70s.
5. An Oral History Of The Movie Forrest Gump.
Always enjoy the oral history format for pop culture milestone-type articles. Best for the author to get out of way and let the subjects tell the story. Thirty years ago, the film “Forrest Gump” was released and became an instant sensation. I’ve never been super crazy about the movie, finding it at times to be tedious and lacking depth. But I can’t argue with its success at the time—”Forrest Gump” won the Oscar for best picture and numerous other awards—and had endured sustained popularity. Garden & Gun tracked down a bunch of people associated with the movie and put together an entertaining oral history.
6. When Fletch Conquered The Doberman.
2023 was a “ruff” year for postal workers. According to data released by the United States Postal Service, almost 6,000 mail carriers were attacked by dogs last year. Unsurprisingly, California led the way with over 700. Occupational hazard, as they say. Escaping unscathed from any animal attack requires a cagy resourcefulness, as journalist/investigator Irwin M. “Fletch” Fletcher shows in this clip from the 80s classic film that bears his name. Anyone confronted by a doberman has likely used the “hey look, defenseless babies!” line as a diversionary tactic ever since.
Thanks for reading everybody and have a great rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.