Mushnick!

My high school banned all college and pro logos because there was a shooting at a high school five suburbs away, in which the perpetrator was wearing a Los Angeles Raiders jacket. People will always be paranoid about the supposed "meaning" behind certain colors or logos. Sometimes, maybe a kid genuinely likes the team, or the color. I wear a lot of black (most of it features skulls or a heavy metal band name), and I'm kinda not a violent dude.

Except when seeking worlds for my master to devour. Then, it's on.

LiBiDo?

 

I'd think most of these teams sell these jerseys for one primary purpose: To make money.

Look at it from the opposite side. The Yankees don't wear third jerseys or have changed their colors in 90+ years. Because they know fans wouldn't like it, and they wouldn't be able to make money. If anything, it'd cheapen their brand.

The teams that you see changing up their colors every few years and wearing four and five different uniforms are teams that are desperate to gain a foothold in the marketplace. I'm thinking of Oregon and the Diamondbacks. Neither has a long tradition, either of winning, or of existence. So they try every uniform gimmick in the book to get fans interested in buying their products.

 

Home team wears white, except in football, and the visitors wear a color or black.

Stick to that, and I don't give a shit what base color they have on their uniforms.

 

Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool!

 

Interesting discussion.

For the record: I love that Chesterfield ad. It would be fun to buy it poster-sized and frame it. Yes, I know tobacco's poison. I'm a former smoker, too. But, geez, what a poster it would be.

As for "Old Man Yells (Shouts?) at Cloud," by all means, run it in any context anywhere. What a great moment. Not as great as when Otto's school bus fell off the bridge and he thought he was drowning so he yelled what he thought would be his last words: "Zepplin Rules!"

As for Mushnick, my major criticism of him is that he doesn't write often enough or long enough. He should write seven days a week, or at least five. Some of his 200-word items are better than entire columns or takeouts I see elsewhere. He has a way of hitting directly on important and sensitive issues that most columnists and feature writers will not take on because either they or their editors fear challenging power.

If I were on Mars or a deserted island and I had only one source of sports by internet or telegraph, I'd want it to be Mushnick.

What bothers some people about him, down deep, is that he writes with the savvy of a seasoned veteran and maintains the ideals and sense of outrage you might expect from a younger person. Deep down, people know they don't have the guts to take a stand as he does.

And, whoever you are, please, stop repeating that Mushnick is an old, white, male and that he writes for that audience. Some of my best friends are old white males. And young black females, too, including some of my relatives. Knock off the race-baiting. OK?

 

He was talking to me, I think. But I, too, find it comical to think that I'm race-baiting in a conversation about Phil Mushnick.

 

Why?

I'm not saying it should be illegal.

But, should the media not question the behavior? Should the pubic, who may not have considered the issue, be asked to consider it before making their purchasing decisions?

Mayor Bloomberg wants to make large portions of soda pop illegal, but we shouldn't take a look at the influence companies like Nike have?

 

Mushnick brings his suburban paternalism to bear on "America’s most vulnerable, values-twisted inhabitants" and we're race-baiting? C'mon.

 

Someone from Deadspin must be reading SportsJournalists.com:

 

I wish Barry Petchesky would stop race-baiting.

 

There's a scene in the Goodfellas introduction where young Henry shows up at his door step, arms wide and smiling ear to ear, only to be scolded and told he looks like a gangster by his mother. He was wearing a suit. So, no, I don't think athletic apparel companies have any responsibility to make sure their products aren't worn by the "wrong" people, because who is that, really? The same way tailors didn't decide to scrap suits and ties because flashy mobsters wore them.

The demon in poverty isn't the product, it's the reminder that you might be more poor than another. If its not a $300 pair of sneakers (which is being wildly overblown), it'll be a bigger television or a fridge or the fatter kid being targeted because his family has more money to feed him.

Every company is looking to make that product everyone wants. No reason for Nike to be taken to task because they found it. Or else should we judge Jordan for being so phenomenal that his footwear is considered as legendary as his game? There are other factors to consider in the sneaker industry that lead to violence -- the resale market, for one -- but it's definitely not just some fear of gang culture.

No one asks Lexus to apologize for being a car that gets stolen. No one blames the color red for costing more on insurance.

The soft drink and junk food analogy is an interesting one. But I think the marketing of those products comes down to the disingenuous nature of it. Should a professional athlete, a purported beacon of health, be the face of a harmful, self-indulgent product he wouldn't consume?

My little brother was robbed for his mass-produced iPhone and again for an HTC phone that are both readily available in stores. I remember a story of a Brooklyn teen who was chased and murdered for his iPod, before touch screens were in. This suggestion that we need to take the product out of the equation and that will be the end-all to violence is insulting.

Really, my argument is that there is no overbearing gang community. There are people, all with different reasons for the varying degrees of fucked up shit that they do. A black Brooklyn Nets tee by Adidas isn't the trigger.

 

Mushnick's written for a New York City based paper for nearly 40 years.

I'm pretty sure he lives in Montclair, NJ, which is known for it's "social diversity":

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/17/realestate/culture-parks-and-broad-social-diversity.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

We really think his worldview is "suburban paternalism"?

Phil is a New York City liberal.

If Stephen A. Smith, or even Bill Cosby, were making the same point, no one would accuse them of race baiting, "suburban paternalism", or being an "old man shouting at a cloud" (well, maybe Cosby would get accused of the last one).

If Mushnick's charge is "sports/social critic" should he avoid some topics, because his age, race, or residence precludes him from being an "expert" in the eyes of some?

I don't think that's fair.