Pundit Clowns

A friend tweeted a comment about Skip Bayless, a sports pundit, who was criticizing Lebron James. Something about James not hitting a high enough percentage of free throws this season, calling him out for it. Surely at that rate Lebron is not the greatest of players. So said Skip Bayless.

My friend's tweet: "Somehow this clown still has a job."

Clown is right. A clown puts on a show to entertain, makes a fool of himself, and acts as if she or he doesn't know the fool they have become. Rodeo clowns make spectacles of themselves to distract the small-minded bull so that the thrown rider can escape the ring. The clown's job is to be ridiculous but also to get us to watch.

I don't enjoy clowns. I don't have any irrational fear about them. It's just that they don't do much of anything for me. Were I to be thrown by a bull, my opinion would likely change, but I'm not about to join in that nonsense.

Skip Bayless is paid to be a clown. That's why he still has a job. And people pay to be distracted by clowns who point at something inconsequential such as the performance of someone playing a game. There is a history of good sports reporting that both acknowledges that sports are games but also understands the art of them, the poetry and ballet involved, but most of that is lost to the "look over there!" of clickbait and twenty-four-hour sports coverage.

I find the only solution is to look away. I only wish that I was as good during the NFL season as I am throughout the endless basketball and baseball seasons. Do as I say, not as I do. Avoid the pundit clowns and stick with the reporters and writers. Bayless ain't no reporter or writer. He's more of an asshat. You know what to do with those, don't you.

Sports pundits, more often than not, seem entitled and incapable. They can't play the games and so they sit on the sidelines forever pointing out the flaws of those who do play. I understand criticism, but that's not what the likes of Skip Bayless are pedaling. Instead, it's petty, childish, taunting for the sake of entertaining the other kids on the playground. I don't want to be one of those kids. I'd rather play the game myself or watch the pros play it, preferably with the sound off or live and in person with no pundits getting in the way.