Criticizing Criticism: I Found Somebody Phil Mushnick Might Respect - And That Person Would Definitely Not Like Him

 

Every so often when I’m perusing the sports pages of the New York Post – which despite being Rupert Murdoch’s paper has a fairly balanced and even liberal sports section – I find myself being drawn, much against my will to see the columns of Phil Mushnick. A man who answers the question: What if the KKK met a man whose views were so extreme that they decided to have him to the sports page of their newsletter because that’s where they thought he could do the least damage to their image?

Anyone who has had the misfortune of reading Mushnick’s ‘opinions’ knows what I’m talking about: this is a man whose mindset is so racist, misogynistic and homophobic – as well as hostile to all people in sports, present and past – that any time you look at what barely fits the dictionary definition of writing you are always left with questions. Why does a man who clearly hates sports devoted his life writing about it? Who is his intended readership? Even by the standard of those who subscribe to the Post would probably consider his writing extreme. How does he still have a column after he keeps writing out and out hate speech in his columns and isn’t even subtle about it? All of these are important questions, but one that might seem unimportant to most people has always been key in his mind: is there anybody – not just in sports but real a human being in history – that Mushnick has a positive opinion of?

Looking at Sunday’s verbal diarrhea – I’m sorry his Sunday column – I may have gotten an answer that gives some insight into who Mushnick admires. And perhaps by extension the kind of era he would be comfortable in.

In another of his derogatory columns he referred to a broadcaster as thinking he was a wit. It doesn’t matter who Mushnick has never liked anybody who works as a broadcaster; I’m pretty sure he thinks that broadcasting games in any form perverts it. What matters is who he compared him to: Will Rogers.

Will Rogers for those of you who don’t know was one of the first great humorists and performers. He worked in vaudeville, wrote humorist pieces about America, including politics, music and even sports. His most famous line was ‘I never met a man I didn’t like” which is the complete opposite of Mushnick’s mindset. He tragically died in a plane crash in 1934, well before Mushnick was born.

Now Mushnick could have picked any white, male comic from the past, many of whom were known for more anachronistic and even sexist humor that matches Mushnick’s writing. He could have chosen Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Gleason or Jack Benny. He could have chosen a comedian who started his career the same time as Rogers and had a far more lasting impact, from the Marx Brothers to Bob Hope or George Burns. And I’m pretty sure, given everything I’ve read about Mushnick, that he knows nothing about Rogers aside from the fact he was once considered the idea of a wit and certainly has never read any of his writing.

So why did he choose Rogers? This could be speculation but given everything I’ve read by Mushnick over the years (which is far more than a human should have to) I think he chose a man who was a famous primarily in the 1920s because in his opinion that was the best time to be alive.

Because considering the sexist, bigoted, moralizing that infests every sentence and word he’s ever written, that is the era he would be the most comfortable in. Because back then white men had all the power and influence. No one questioned issues like consent and many argued whether women should be entitled to vote. Gay people didn’t exist. If a black men said or did anything to do you could shoot him in broad daylight and the surviving family would apologize for inconveniencing you. And most importantly all of the things that Mushnick can only imply in his columns could not only be printed he could say them in public and be applauded.

More importantly in an era before television, radio, and even film newspaper writers had an influence that Mushnick could only dream of today. And it’s worth noting during the 1920s sports-writing was at its pinnacle when it came to celebrities. Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon were among the most prominent sportswriters of the era and they’d become famous for their fiction years later. Grantland Rice, Fred Lieb and Shirley Povich would cover sports for decades. Hell Ford Frick would go from writing to league president and Commissioner of Baseball! Talk about influence.

That’s the era Mushnick thinks he would be the most comfortable in; that’s the period he thinks all sports should be like, you know, before integration and women’s rights and players wanting to be paid what they are worth ruined sports forever. This isn’t the subtext of Mushnick’s writing; it’s essentially text.

There’s just a couple of problems with that. Obviously there’s the fact that all of the men I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago were some of the best sportswriters in history and Mushnick to put it mildly is barely even a writer. But more importantly the kind of tone Mushnick has in his columns is not the kind that would be appreciated by sportswriters of that era. Because they spent their time writing about the feats of the athletes on the playing field as anyone who’s read Mushnick works knows, he thinks the main thing wrong with professional sports is sports.

Mushnick is the opposite of Rogers in that he never met a man he liked. And indeed his column today leads off with a criticism of Lebron James who this week became the first player to score 50,000 points. Mushnick doesn’t mention that in his article because it’s not important to him. He spends several paragraphs arguing about James’ ‘unprofessional conduct in the arena’ which basically meant him behaving unpleasantly to Stephen Smith. He hates Stephen A. Smith too  - and yes both men are African-American -  so the only reason he’s writing this article is that James doesn’t meet his standard for a great athlete. What that standard is I have no idea: Mushnick has spent his entire career degrading Jeter, Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle and he used Rickey Henderson’s passing last year as an occasion to say he was not the best baserunner in history.

So it’s easy for me to see him existing in the 1920s and turning his eye on the greatest athlete during that era – one who may have been the most best loved baseball player and who was synonymous with baseball for a quarter of a century -  and saying with a straight face that Babe Ruth was an absolute disgrace to baseball and he should be banned for life.

Now even people who know nothing about baseball know that Babe Ruth in addition to everything else about him know that his incredible feats on the field are more remarkable considering what he was doing off it: mainly eating as much as he could, drinking as much as he could, and sleeping with every possible women he met. This was public knowledge to every sportswriter in America but no one wrote about because Ruth was just too popular so they looked the other way.

If Mushnick was covering the Yankees during that same period, he would no doubt have a private scorecard keeping track of the number of brothels Ruth visited across the country. I could see him posting his own ‘scorecard’ “Babe Ruth is on the verge of breaking his own record of most prostitutes seen in a single season.” He would say that Ruth was making a mockery of everything that was good about the National Pastime, not just with his horrible moral standards but the way he had debased what was a simple, scientific game. He would say that the Yankees incredible box office and remarkable run in the postseason were no excuse for the stain he brought on the game every time he walked on the field and the fact that he was a hero to millions showed just how far the nation had fallen.

There might be some sympathy for his argument on science from his fellow scribes –  Lardner himself thought it was a drawback – but everyone else in the nation would consider him a killjoy. That would not bother Mushnick one bit and I could see him using his column to argue that the new Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was derelict in his duty to protect the integrity of baseball by letting this, this overweight, drinking, ex-pitcher disgrace the game. And I suspect knowing Mushnick he would go further, saying that there is an agreement that men like Ruth should be allowed to play the game at all.

For there was always question by some that Ruth had mixed blood in his background, and that he might have some African-American ancestry. Ruth was sensitive to this fact, something that Ty Cobb went out of his way to call him at every opportunity. (I have no doubt that Mushnick would call Cobb the true bastion of everything baseball stands for – especially his very visible racism and how he expressed it at times.) Mushnick has never been subtle in his racism today and with fewer filters I suspect he would state it directly. Hell, he’d probably make it his life’s mission to prove that the get Ruth banned.

This is speculation but it’s not idle: anyone who’s read even one of Mushnick’s columns (and again, don’t seek them out if you haven’t) know that the only joy he has in life is shitting on anyone that people like. This is the opposite of what all sports-writing has been like not just in the 1920s but really every other sports columnist I’ve ever read. Mushnick is reviled by just about everyone who works in sports in some fashion, a reputation I’m sure he’s proud of.

So it might come as shock to Mushnick to know that if he wrote the kinds of columns he did, even in the 1920s, he would have considered a pariah by everyone sportswriter. I can just imagine them all leaving the press box whenever he showed up, walking away from him as if he were Typhoid Mary. None of them would share a drink with him, none would talk to him. And in an era where the only way to get stories was to try and talk to players, none of them would give him the time of day. Even in an era which was more politically conservative then any time in history (and this was true of both political parties) his views would be considered out of touch because he did so in a public forum. There are codes to how journalism worked back then and it’s hard to imagine Mushnick could have lasted.

The other line Rogers was famous for saying was: “All I know is what I read in the papers.” I know he would need to read only a few lines of Mushnick today to know the kind of man he is and would be offended to see Mushnick use his name as the pinnacle of wit. And I suspect if Rogers met him he would just say: “I don’t like you.” And Mushnick, because he’s Mushnick, would call him a hick and a hayseed. That’s the kind of man Rogers’ was and the kind of man Mushnick is proud to be.