* President Barack Obama and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred have been in touch about a role for MLB in the normalizing of U.S.-Cuba relations. It could include some exhibition games in Cuba next spring. If so, the Tampa Bay Rays would be a natural participant. And you know one local mayor would be part of it: St. Petersburg’s Rick Kriseman.
* FSU, very much in crisis management mode over awful publicity about outrageous “student-athlete” behavior, has now instituted a formal program to build character. It will, according to football coach Jimbo Fisher, take nothing for granted. To underscore the point, Fisher said: “You wouldn’t think you would have to say (don’t hit a woman), but you do. …”
You do? Coach, who the hell are you recruiting that you actually have to say this?
* Former pitcher John Smoltz used his recent election into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame as a forum for, among other things, some sound advice for parents. In his acceptance speech he said, in effect, don’t push your kids too hard. Baseball’s a game; not a parental obsession.
“Baseball is not a year-round sport,” said Smoltz. Children should play other sports, he advised , rather than risk their arms and elbow ligaments before they are fully developed.
In contrast is the proscription put upon the family of Junior Seau, the deceased former linebacker who will be posthumously inducted into the NFL’s Hall of Fame next week. A family member wanted to say something, for which there’s precedent, at the induction. It would have accompanied a video tribute. It was denied. Everyone knows it would have referenced the elephant in the (locker) room.
An autopsy revealed that Seau suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits. There’s a (wrongful-death) lawsuit involved.