Losing My Perspicacity December 20, 2024

How sports taught a generation of young men (and women) to ignore sexual assault; Sammy Sosa finally caves and apologizes; Stop calling Trinity Rodman “Dennis Rodman’s Daughter;” Things seem to be going great for the Jets; Shame changes sides in France; and The High Note.

Author

Julie DiCaro
December 20, 2024

Good Morning and Happy Free Friday! Thanks for checking in today.

As some of you already know, I came down with COVID this week. I’m grateful to have easy access to vaccinations — my symptoms have been relatively mild. I’m still dealing with what feels like a horrible head cold and night-time fevers, so this Free Friday may not be quite as vibrant as others. Apologies in advance.

The war on the media is in full swing, with the lieutenant governor-elect of Indiana threatening a student newspaper, Donald Trump suing the Des Moines Register for reporting on what its pollster found, Ron DeSantis trying to strong-arm TV stations, and outlets like the Washington Post and LA Times rolling over to kiss Trump’s ring. Moreover, Elon Musk recently purchased a new democracy, and so far, he’s used his new-found power to strip a federal funding bill of $190 million for childhood cancer research.

Dark days, indeed. And we need independent journalism more than ever. Please consider becoming a premium subscriber, which means you’ll get LMP in your inbox five days a week for just $9.99 a month. And hey, if you can’t do that, could you take five seconds and click on the ad below? Every little bit helps me keep LMP alive.

One quick note about next week: There will be an LMP on Monday and Tuesday, but not for the rest of the week. Then again on Monday and Tuesday the following week, but then we’ll be off until Thursday, January 2, 2025. That means no Free Friday next week.

Today: How sports taught a generation of young men (and women) to ignore allegations of sexual assault; Sammy Sosa finally caves and apologizes; Stop calling Trinity Rodman “Dennis Rodman’s Daughter;” Things seem to be going great for the Jets; Shame changes sides in France; and The High Note.

Let’s get into it.

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Sports taught an entire generation of fans to ignore sexual assault

If you were shocked that so many people in this country learned that Donald Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse by a jury and then went ahead and voted for him anyway, you probably haven’t been paying much attention to sports. Over the last 20 years, sports (sadly) have been teaching young fans that violence against women doesn't matter. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit since the election, and I finally wrote about it over at Dame Magazine.

And therein lies the problem with how sports teams, both college and pro, handle allegations of sexual harm by their athletes. Many fans, at best, have a loose grasp of how the criminal justice system works, and even less of an understanding of the trauma of assault. When they see a player who has been accused of sexual misconduct avoid a suspension, dodge a criminal trial, and seemingly enjoy the support of his organization and teammates, they immediately assume the allegations must be false. It’s much harder to believe that their favorite team has chosen money over morality, stood by a potential sexual predator rather than a victim, and that all their favorite players have done the same. It’s far easier to accept that the woman is a gold digger looking for a quick payday.

Moreover, the frequency of false allegations is wildly overestimated by many Americans. One man told me on Bluesky that a cop told him “95 percent of rape allegations are false.” Other men have advised me that women make up allegations against famous men “all the time.” However, if national crime statistics are to be believed, false reports of sexual assaults are extremely rare. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, only between 2 and 10 percent of all reported cases involve false allegations, and there is no evidence that famous men are accused more frequently than the average guy on the street.

Sports and sports media remain cesspools of misogyny (as yesterday’s story about yet another sexual harassment scandal at ESPN made clear), and they have an outsized influence over young men and women. If we wonder how we wound up with a POTUS -elect and cabinet full of men credibly accused of sexual misconduct, we can start there.

(If you are able to share this piece on your own social media timelines, I’d be really grateful! Gaming the algorithm is a full-time job, and it’s hard out here for a freelancer.)

Don’t apologize, Sammy!

Ugh, I hate this.

Backstory: Since the Ricketts family (who made billions because the patriarch, Joe, founded TD Ameritrade) purchased the Cubs, Sammy Sosa has been persona non grata. He hasn’t been invited back to Wrigley Field or the Cubs Convention because of his link to performance-enhancing drugs, despite guys like Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire being celebrated by their fanbases regularly. At some point, the word got out (I can’t remember how - it may have been reported somewhere) that Sammy wouldn’t be welcomed back until he apologized.

Keep in mind that Joe Ricketts’ racist emails were exposed by Splinter, the family held a fundraiser for Donald Trump at Wrigley Field and pledged $1 million to his campaign in 2016, and the Cubs were sued by the federal government because they removed wheelchair accessible seats at Wrigley to make more room for premium and luxury seats. They also brought known homophobe Daniel Murphy to the Cubs (during Pride Week, if I recall correctly), and the team called my boss to complain about me calling Addison Russell’s press conference “a shitshow,” which it was. All that aside, they’ve also bought up most of once-charming Wrigleyville and taken a sledgehammer to it. Pete Ricketts is the former governor of Nebraska, and he favors a total ban on abortion, with no exceptions. He’s also criticized the impeachment of Trump, is anti-gun control, and opposes whatever he thinks critical race theory is.

But sure, Sammy should do the apologizing.

Today, he did.

That message was quickly followed by a release from the Cubs saying that Sammy would be invited to the 2025 Cubs Convention.

Look, I am not one of those “everyone was doing it” PEDs apologists. I think cheating sucks, and cheating to beat out guys like Hank Aaron and Roger Maris sucks even more. I was angry with Sammy for a long time, especially since watching him play was such a joy — for a time.

But I absolutely object to a family like the Ricketts forcing him to apologize for something that hurt absolutely no one, when they’re donating money to Donald Trump and doing his bidding, a man who has hurt many, many people and will continue to do so. It’s this kind of shit that absolutely destroyed my love of the Cubs — a team I once loved so much I changed careers just for a chance to write about them all day.

I am not enjoying this bizarre, not-as-funny version of Idiocracy where nothing means anything and where baseball stars have to apologize to fascist-supporting billionaires to get what they’re due.

Stop talking about Dennis Rodman whenever Trinity Rodman plays

It’s been annoying me for some time that whenever people discover USWNT star Trinity Rodman, their first comment is, “She’s Dennis Rodman’s daughter!” As if Dennis somehow deserves credit for her success.

Well, Trinity Rodman let people know exactly how she feels about that label.

United States forward Trinity Rodman says her relationship with her father, Dennis Rodman, remains strained and that he is still largely absent from her life.

"He's not a dad. Maybe by blood, but nothing else," Trinity Rodman told host Alex Cooper on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast on Wednesday.

This isn’t new, either. Dennis Rodman hasn’t been present in Trinity’s life for some time, if ever, but seems to reappear occasionally when she’s in the spotlight.

She hadn't spoken to her father in months and was emotional during the game, then was photographed crying in his arms afterward.

"The whistle blew and I was so mad, like, 'You took this happy moment from me. You f---ed with my head again,'" she said on the podcast.

"I think after that was when I lost hope of ever getting him back. It was just like, he's popping in whenever he's going to be on a camera," Trinity Rodman said. "Even at that game, I don't think it was for me, I think he wanted to have a good conscience and then be like, 'Headline, Dennis Rodman showed up to his daughter's game.'"

Trinity Rodman went on to win a title with the Spirit that year and was named NWSL Rookie of the Year. She said that after that game she didn't speak to her father again until after the 2023 Women's World Cup.

That interview led Dennis Rodman to try to patch things up with his daughter, which he did, of course, on Instagram. If you apologize to your child and no one sees it, does it make a sound? I won’t share his “apology,” but you can read it here. It has big “wElL soRrrY I wAsN’t A peRfeCt fAtHer!” energy. If you’ve ever loved a narcissist, you’ll recognize the greatest hits immediately.

I’m sure his apologizing/calling out his estranged daughter in front of his 2.6 million followers will fix things right up.

Sounds like things are going great for the Jets

It’s so weird that the team that decided Aaron Rodgers could fix everything is a toxic hellhole.

From The Athletic:

(Jets owner Woody) Johnson, who declined The Athletic’s request for comment, soured on his franchise quarterback less than a year after betting big on him, denigrated his own players in the locker room and seemed to follow decision-making advice from his teenage sons, according to various team and league sources. And the proposed Jeudy trade wasn’t the only time Johnson cited “Madden” ratings when evaluating players.

“There are organizations where it is all set up for you to win,” said a player with the team in 2023. “It feels completely different (with the Jets). It’s the most dysfunctional place imaginable.”

The story details how Johnson blew up a deal for Jerry Jeudy because his Madden rating was too low, includes his teen sons in team meetings (and weighs their opinions equally with people who were hired for their football prowess), and allows his kids into the locker room where, reportedly, they — along with Woody Johnson and his wife— have criticized players.

In 2022, quarterback Mike White played through broken ribs in a late-season game against the Seahawks with postseason hopes on the line. White played poorly; the Jets lost and were eliminated from playoff contention. After the game, with the quarterback in the showers after throwing his helmet to the locker room floor, multiple Jets players said they heard Woody Johnson say, “You should throw your helmet, you f—ing suck.” The statement got back to White. The team spokesperson said Johnson apologized to the quarterback, who declined to comment for this story.

In the postgame locker room after last year’s Week 17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, multiple players said they heard Johnson’s sons loudly disparaging certain Jets players.

Also, one of the teen sons reportedly interrupted Aaron Rodgers’ awarding of the game ball to award it to a different player. God, leave it to Woody Johnson to make it seem like Rodgers is the aggrieved victim in the organization.

The entire piece goes on like this for paragraphs, including the tidbit that those within the organization call guys from Johnson’s investment group (who have apparently been hanging around) “The Bobs,” which makes me think the Johnson doesn’t deserve his own employees.

Oh Jets, don’t ever change. America needs your comic relief now more than ever.

Our heroine, Gisèle Pelicot

Yesterday, a judge in France found Dominique Pelicot, who invited dozens of men into his home to rape his unconscious wife, Giséle, guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced him to the maximum of 20 years in prison. Forty-nine other men were also convicted and awarded sentences of between three and fifteen years.

I’ve been thinking about Gisèle’s courage this week and what a difference it will make to other victims. As I’ve mentioned, I didn’t go to the police when I was sexually assaulted, mostly because I remembered what the men of Congress did to Anita Hill and because I couldn’t stand the shame of admitting that I left a party, tipsy, with a man I didn’t know.

Reportedly, as the verdict was handed down, Gisèle leaned forward and looked into each man’s eyes. As she promised, she has forced shame to change sides. I wish her courage on every victim of sexual assault until the end of time.

Gisèle Pelicot: International super-hero.

The High Note

Each day, I do my best to leave you in a better place than I found you, and we call that attempt The High Note.

SEATTLE (AP) — The world’s largest hornet, an invasive breed dubbed the “murder hornet” for its dangerous sting and ability to slaughter a honey bee hive in a matter of hours, has been declared eradicated in the U.S., five years after being spotted for the first time in Washington state near the Canadian border.

The Washington and U.S. Departments of Agriculture announced the eradication Wednesday, saying there had been no detections of the northern giant hornet in Washington since 2021.

Don’t say the government never does anything for you.

And, because it’s the holidays, please enjoy Jeff Goldblum playing piano for his adoring fans at a London train station.

Survive and advance, have a great weekend, and Go Hoosiers!

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