The National Football League now seems to have its equivalent of baseball's Mendoza Line. For the uninitiated, a major league baseball player's level of competence is deemed to have reached bottom when his batting average falls below .200. The NFL now has its own version of the Mendoza Line--the Limbaugh Line, which we can now define as the point where an individual's personal reputation has sunk so low that no amount of celebrity or money will allow that individual to own a national football franchise.
Think of it. This is a remarkable achievement in a society as dedicated to letting money talk and star-fucking as this one is. Yet here's Limbaugh, a virtual King Midas of Controversy, unable to realize his dream of owning the St. Louis Rams because everything he touches with his pink reptilian tongue turns nasty, divisive, and egomaniacal.
There are a few interesting sidelights to the spectacle of watching Rush publicly have his dream crushed.
The first is the reassurance that most mainstream capitalists, like NFL owners, are still somewhat sensitive to the mood of the marketplace. When so many were quick to declare Limbaugh's bid a done deal simply because he was bringing money to the table, the owners informally signaled that they'd rather get their money from someone who wasn't going to also bring a big bag of swill to the table as well.
The second is the indication that the NFL players, notoriously and paradoxically the most docile of America's professional athletes, may not be willing to be so--what's the word--slavish going forward. With a new contract coming up, it's probably a good time for them to start flexing some of that muscle of theirs off the field.
Finally, we have affirmation of that old adage that a racist is always the last to know he's a racist. It's a riot reading all the wailing defenses of Rush (especially on the football chat boards) by yahoos declaring they've been listening to Limbaugh for 20 years and never heard him say anything racist. Oh, do tell.
Of course, it was the man's incandescent racism that stuffed his bid for the Rams on his own goal line, but one has to believe that if the bid had managed to move any further down field, it would have run into stiff opposition from women, gays, and perhaps a few million others who took offense at Limbaugh's ridiculing of Michael J. Fox.
All that being said, it got me wondering about who else in our society has a reputation so bankrupt that they literally couldn't buy their way into owning an NFL team. I present the following off the top off my head and invite each and everyone to add to the list (and not to be chauvinist about this, but let's keep this strictly American...in other words let's leave Roman Polanski and Osama bin Laden out of it).
- O.J. Simpson--needless to say, the irony's so sharp you can cut your throat with it...one of the game's most iconic figures--before his late night ramble on Gretna Green they would have given him any franchise he wanted, now he’s the game's #1 pariah.
- Pete Rose---another irony, a game in a symbiotic relationship with Vegas couldn't tolerate such an inveterate gambler among its ownership ranks...ahem, it wouldn't be good for the game.
- Heidi Fleiss--the ironies keep on coming...a case could be made that former showgirl Georgia Frontiere whose family is now selling the Rams slept her way into ownership when she married her sixth husband, Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom...but because Heidi got others to do her sleeping around for her, no NFL team for her.
- William Jefferson--the league is always eager for black ownership, but a convicted felon who kept his ill-gotten riches in his freezer probably would not be good for the game.
- David Dukes--see Limbaugh