Rush is the one who politicized sports

My friends Gene Robinson and Jo-Ann Armao weighed in on this controversy, and I would like to add this: I don???t see why anyone should shed tears over Rush Limbaugh being forced out of the group trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams. This is not a case of political correctness or an attack on Limbaugh for being a conservative. It???s a wise decision by a group of owners who realize that Rush politicizes everything he touches -- and who finally remembered what happened with ESPN back in 2003. Recall that Rush had been a football commentator on ESPN. Clearly, ESPN was looking for a piece of Rush???s vast conservative audience. And remember why he was bounced. Here is what Rush said about quarterback Donovan McNabb: "I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They're interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there's a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he really didn't deserve. The defense carried this team." My response back then went like this: Limbaugh simply could not resist using a black quarterback as a vehicle to criticize ???social concern??? -- I guess he thinks "social concern" is just an awful thing -- and make a racial point. Imagine the grief a liberal sports commentator would rightly get for saying that because of his race or his politics, a white conservative Republican quarterback ???got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve.??? I say that as a fan of Jack Kemp, the white conservative Republican who was once a fine quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. Is it any wonder that African-American players expressed concern about having Rush as one of the owners in the league? Were they not simply exercising their own free speech rights in this matter? Didn???t the owners have a right to worry about Limbaugh -- not because of his politics but because of what he had said about players in the league? A few more paragraphs from that 2003 column that I think are relevant here: The issue here is not that Limbaugh is a conservative. Personally, I would not care if my favorite sports commentators...agreed with Rush Limbaugh on every single political question. These guys are not on the air because of politics but because they are hugely knowledgeable about the sports they cover and are gifted at explaining to the less initiated what is going on. In fact, I'd applaud ESPN if the network decided to hire conservative columnist George Will to talk about baseball. Some years ago my wife gave me Will's classic baseball book, ???Men at Work,??? as a birthday gift. Believe me on this, my wife disagrees with Will's politics even more than I do. But she knew that Will had devoted years to understanding baseball and that I would love the book. And I did. And, to go one further, I've always thought that George W. Bush would make a perfect commissioner of baseball. Our president, formerly a part owner of the Texas Rangers, is right about a lot of baseball issues and understands the game. By contrast, the Limbaugh hire so reeked of marketing and politics that it was an insult to all sports fans whose political commitments lay elsewhere. Most of us who love sports want to forget about politics when we watch games. Sports, like so many other voluntary activities, creates connections across political lines. All Americans who are rooting for the Red Sox in the playoffs are my friends this month, no matter what their ideology. OK, my Red Sox, sadly, are out this year, but the point stands.