Let's talk

Whenever I would hear Joan Rivers utter those words, I would immediately switch channels.

But you know, I think sports fans have become engrossed with sports talk shows. Instead of Joan we have Mike and Mike and instead of Oprah we have Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless — oh my goodness.

To be honest with you, I laughed to myself while watching a show where the viewers were twittering whether Kobe Bryant shoots too much. A slide graph went back and forth at the bottom of the screen. When it was all said and done, 51-percent thought Kobe shot too much. At this point I decided I needed some group therapy from my favorite psychologist — Dr. Bob Hartley of the Bob Newhart Show.

It seemed every sports channel I turned to had an in-depth analysis on any and all sports — from whether Joe Flacco made a gesture on the sidelines in the Super Bowl, to the investigations of Vijay Singh and his antler spray. By the way, Ray Lewis may have gotten together with Vijay and sprayed, too.

I feel sorry for today's athletes and their privacy. They can not walk, talk, eat or sleep without someone reporting it. Fame and fortune really comes at a price.

Babe Ruth was the most popular athlete of his time and maybe all-time. He was a hero to millions of little kids and a national icon. I want to take you back to an incident reported in two of his biographies.

Ruth and the Yankees were traveling by train to their next city. It was about two in the morning and six beat sports writers were playing poker in the dining car. All of a sudden Ruth burst into the car running as fast as he could. He was totally naked, sprinting as fast as he could. Three seconds later, a female, also totally nude burst into the car carrying a butcher knife and chasing Ruth.

The sports writers stopped playing and one asked, “Did you see that?”

The other five said, “Didn't see a thing,” and went back to playing poker.

In today's world those sportswriters would not be working and Babe Ruth could never survive.

But just think if everything you say and do is being recorded and shown both in public and private.

I know there are literally hundreds of sport channels that have to fill a whole day of programing. Our society wants to know every detail of an athlete's life, report on it and debate it. We are trying to make sports a never-ending soap opera.

The purpose of this article was really not to discuss sports talk shows, but to apologize.

I want to apologize to Andy Taylor and Barney Fife.

I want to apologize to Dr. Bob Hartley. I want to apologize to Felix Unger and Oscar Madison.

I will never again get caught up in sports talk shows, I promise!

John Blabe is the former athletic director and football coach at Antelope Union High School. He can be reached at jbcoachescorner@gmail.com.