Barnett corners stupid market

In most presidential election years, it's hard for most of us to compete with the politicians when it comes to making outrageous, silly or even stupid statements.
But, sports personalities all around the country this week have given it the 'ol college try, proving time and again the old adage that "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how quickly you can claim you were misquoted."
This week's grand champion is Gary Barnett, the University of Colorado football coach who responded to allegations that a former female student-athlete, Katie Hnida, a walk-on placekicker, was raped by a teammate, with:
"It's a guy's sport. [Players] felt like Katie was forced on them. It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it."
Barnett, incredibly, later claimed his comments were taken out of context, which is hard to fathom, considering his answer was not only tape-recorded by print media but videotaped by television cameramen.
He also appeared on a nationally syndicated television show on CNN Thursday night, where he apologized -- sort of: "Someone said I said the wrong thing, the wrong way at the wrong time."
Insensitive
Barnett was put on administrative leave by the president of the university for his "insensitive" comments.
Interestingly enough, the numerous allegations of misconduct circling the program like buzzards weren't enough to cost Barnett his job, just his incredibly stupid response.
Then there's Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, whose popularity rating in New England plunged from about 99.9 percent to, oh, around zero, after he and his front office failed to pull off a blockbuster trade for Alex Rodriguez, then watched his archrival in New York, George Steinbrenner, make the deal.
"Although I have never previously been an advocate of a salary cap in baseball out of respect for the players," said Henry, "there is really no other fair way to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams."
Steinbrenner's payroll for 2004 will approach, if not exceed, $190 million.
But, in response to Henry's criticism of the Yankees, we have to agree with Steinbrenner that -- no matter how much we might agree with the general point of the argument -- it comes across as a case of "sour grapes."
Reversal of fortune
Interestingly, Henry didn't seem so concerned about the finances of the 28 other major league teams when he spent most of the winter trying to acquire Rodriguez. Even without doing so, the Red Sox payroll of approximately $125 million is still the second-largest in baseball, behind only the Yankees. And consider this: Boston's payroll is approximately 20 percent higher than the third highest payroll.
Henry's comments might have been more appropriate if he were overseeing a team like the Pirates or Indians, but, coming out of Boston, it's just petty whining.
Finally, NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip was way out of line when he criticized safety crews at the Daytona 500.
Waltrip was involved in a spectacular crash in which his car flipped several teams before stopping upside down on the infield. Crews spent several minutes assessing the situation before flipping the car over.
"I didn't appreciate the way the safety crews were going about it, and I was trying to tell them just to turn the car over," said Waltrip, "And what did they eventually do? They flipped it over and I got out."
Waltrip could have easily suffered neck or back injuries in the crash; flipping the car without determining the extent of his injuries would have been premature and extremely dangerous.
Instead of criticizing, Waltrip should have offered safety crews a big "thank you."
XRob Todor is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write to him at todor@vindy.com.