It was interesting to check around the blogosphere to get the reaction of Bob Costas' remarks on Sunday Night Football in America on the Jovan Belcher controversy – where the famed sportscaster jumped the rubicom by daring to make a comment about how it might be beneficial for our country to think of some harsher regulations on guns.
If the late Howard Cosell were still with us, no doubt Cosell would have weighed in as well. But most sportscasters would never dare weigh in on such a subject – perhaps because they would know that it was above their paygrade, if not their intellectual acumen. But Costas has proven over the decades that he can go outside the narrow prism of sports – or do you forget the six years he spent hosting Later on NBC?
Of course, Costas sort of hedged his bets, since the majority of his comments weren't even his, but those of the gifted sports columnist Jason Whitlock. In any event, Costas pissed off some folks as you knew he would, though none of the commentary I've read comes close to seriously addressing what he was saying, (such as the theory that this isn't really guns but about rights).
I say keep 'em coming, Bob. The sports world can use some commentary that rises above simply arguing about the latest quarterback controversy.
Joe Lopano, the man running one of Tampa Bay's favorite possessions – its airport – laid out his master plan yesterday, which includes hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to expand it's people mover- consider it an effort to create light-rail in the city.
Next week the transit agencies in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties will convene and decide what will be in their report on a potential merger due early next year. Yesterday HART board members continued to express their concerns about that possibility.
And although we only had half-hour to spend on a conference call with Mike Tyson – we spent a half-hour on a conference call with Mike Tyson yesterday! Though in fact we were just an idle spectator as he spoke mostly to boxing writers around the country. Tyson was hyping his one-man show that will be coming to Ruth Eckerd Hall next spring.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2012.