Clearly, Mr. Lupica didn’t see my letter to him over a month ago, so this time I will be a little more blunt.
Mike, you should retire. To be fair, I know you have a following and I know there are some sports fans – mostly around the NY Metro area – who appreciate your point of view. You’ve sold books, appeared countless times on TV and radio, and written who knows how many columns.
But since this is my platform to communicate, I thought you should know exactly why you should retire. If you can throw around your political opinions even though you know nothing about politics, I can throw around my sports opinions even though I’m not a sports journalist, right?
1) You take sensationalized journalism to all new heights now. I really and truly do not remember you being this bad before in terms of salacious headlines. I mean, I know it is competitive nowadays. But I’ve followed NY sports for 37 years now, and I cannot remember you going this far down the gutter. You can’t seem to call things even remotely rationally anymore.
2) You’re flip-flopping like crazy. Also, see also #1 above. But in a recent column (no, I’m not going to link to it), you proclaimed New York a “Giants” town. Yet, just months ago you proclaimed New York a “Jets” town (no, I’m not going to link to that one either). It seems you change direction as fast as the wind changes. You’re master of being master of the obvious. The Giants made the playoffs, the Jets didn’t. Of course New York will rally around the Giants now. Yet, you spin it like crazy. Yes, as a journalist, hold one of the teams you cover accountable (Jets) and celebrate the more successful team (Giants). But, no, you’re not winning more readers by spinning it the way you do and spewing out the drivel you do. In fact, you get people like me writing things like this. And, no, “any PR is not good PR”.
3) Your bias is incredible, and incredibly old. You’re a Boston College man. You take every chance you can to take a swipe at other programs, most notably Notre Dame. Even when the topic is irrelevant. I took the time and found at least 14 non-sequitors bashing Notre Dame and its program when it didn’t relate to anything that was happening on the field. Honestly, stuff it.
4) Finally, you are not a politician and you are not a political expert. Just because you have a communication platform for sports doesn’t give you the right to use that platform to write about your political biases. You are a sports journalist. You are not an expert on politics or policy. Pretending to be waters down what you are (remotely) “good” at.
Please retire, Mike. You have a branding and image problem. You’ve had a good run, but you either need a brand make-over or you should step aside.
