Another View of Stupidity in World of Sports

The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins recently unloaded on the ABC daily talk show “The View.”

“It’s time ‘The View’ was busted on its curiously oversexed and panting attitude toward sports,” she wrote.

Jenkins said the show’s Meredith Vieira approached Mike Piazza at the batting cage before a recent World Series game and asked:

“Let’s talk bats. Who has the biggest wood on the team?”

Piazza, Jenkins said, rolled his eyes and walked away.

Then Vieira asked other Mets:

“Can you teach me to spit like a major leaguer?”

“Who’s your favorite player to pat on the behind?”

“Will you teach me how to bat?”

Concluded Jenkins: “Imagine that Piazza had asked Vieira such a question. ‘Hey, Meredith, who’s got the biggest ta-tas?’

“We would label him a leering pre-Cambrian swine and throw him to a snarling pack of post-feminists.”

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Trivia time: Rogers Clemens’ $50,000 fine for his bat-throwing incident in the World Series tied the record for the biggest fine ever levied on a player. Who also was fined $50,000?

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Talking points: Clemens has begun the appeals process on his fine.

Commented players’ union staffer Gene Orza: “Roger feels that they didn’t find that he intentionally threw the bat at Piazza, but he feels $50,000 indicates intent.”

Clemens was fined by baseball’s top cop, Frank Robinson, who said at the time he didn’t believe Clemens intentionally threw the bat at Piazza, instead calling it reckless.

Orza: “If it’s reckless, Roger doesn’t get a $50,000 fine.”

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Tee it up: Oakland Raider kicker Sebastian Janikowski’s teammate, Randy Jordan, on Janikowski’s leg strength and growing confidence:

“That kick in Kansas City was like a pure three-wood off the tee. Now he feels like he can pull out his driver and hit the 54-yarders.”

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Memory lapse: Kansas City tight end Tony Gonzalez, in a conference call to Bay Area writers about today’s Oakland-Kansas City game, said Gruden’s postgame behavior after last season’s final-game loss is now motivational fodder.

“I still remember Gruden screaming ‘Have a happy new year, Chiefs’ at us,” he said.

When asked about it, Gruden responded: “I don’t remember that, I can’t remember anything about that.”

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More Raiders: From C.W. Nevius in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Notice we haven’t heard a peep about [the Raiders] moving out of town ever since the team beat the 49ers and went to 4-1?”

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Trivia answer: Albert Belle, docked $50,000 for a profane tirade directed at a TV reporter in the 1995 World Series.

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And finally: New England Patriot lineman Bruce Armstrong, on why he never went trick-or-treating as a kid: “In my neighborhood, you didn’t wear a mask and go knocking on strangers’ doors.”