In the least shocking development since America admitted sugar wasn't actually a diet aid, a Fox Sports Radio host offered a simmering take with all of the fixings: (1) charges of reverse sexism, (2) a nod to the PC police who Facebook-and-frisk white people with their dank memes and (3) a descendent of the tried-and-true "my friend is black" defense.
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In this case, the jocular radio personality was Mike North. His subject: Jessica Mendoza, an analyst on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball who he insists would be fired if she were a man.
“I’ve been called everything from a pillar in the community to a guy who’s the best who did it in Chicago’s history to a racist and a sexist," Mike North said on "Fox Sports Daybreak," probably thinking he had mastered the art of the humble brag but in actuality just writing his own resume on air.
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The rest of his rant, in full:
"I’m going to just tell you right now what everybody else doesn’t want to say, except maybe the regular fan who you see on social media: Jessica Mendoza is the worst baseball announcer who has ever announced the game of baseball.
“Now, if you want to call me a sexist, go ahead. But I’m an observer, and I’ve been observing and listening to baseball announcers for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And I’ll tell you right now: I don’t care if you’re Cassidy Hubbarth, I love Cassidy, Christine Brennan, Michelle Beadle, these are all people I respect, Ann Meyers, Cheryl Miller. You want me to go on? Pam Oliver. Because apparently I have to tell everybody nowadays — because of the PC (crowd) — the females I like before I can criticize one. If Jessica Mendoza continues on, I believe someday they’re going to have to replace her, unless the ratings are okay, but I don’t care. What I do know is I shut the sound down to watch that game; she’s just not a good announcer. If she was a man, she’d be (fired like) Tony Kornheiser or Dennis Miller. Okay? And that’s the God’s blessed truth about it. Period. End of story. I listened for an inning last night and I had to shut it off.”
Fox Sports Radio's Twitter account shared a link to the audio but has since deleted the tweet.
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Let's unpack why this is ridiculous.
1.) Every jocular person on sports radio thinks they are the first person to say something because their entire career has consisted of being a carpenter in the construction of their echo chamber. They only listen to themselves.
2.) How many years have you been listening to baseball announcers, Mike? This seems incredibly open-ended to me.
3.) Even if Mendoza isn't that good — in full disclosure, SN ranked her 22nd in our list of the best TV game commentators — there is not much precedent to suggest that she would be fired immediately for it. Very few TV game analysts get fired strictly for job performance, even when they're awful — especially midseason. Hell, Harold Reynolds got more than a season in the Fox booth. And there is no objective way to argue that Mendoza has been as bad as Dennis Miller. Miller got two years! Mendoza is just getting started.
4.) I don't want to call North a sexist. But nothing screams equal-opportunity analyst like the phrase "the females I like."
5.) North is somehow presenting an objective analysis of Mendoza's booth skills while simultaneously admitting he shuts the sound off. I'm sure he gave her a fair chance, because he's not sexist and always gives ... females ... a fair chance.
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Regardless of the veracity of North's claims — be it his Mendoza take or his assertion that he has zero sexism in his system — the narrative fits perfectly into the Fox Sports modus operandi. The same mentality that will host Colin Cowherd, Jason Whitlock, Skip Bayless and Clay Travis in the same house of horror.
So North best hope that ESPN doesn't listen to him and fire Mendoza; his employer has a tendency to eat from the ESPN scrap heap.