Monday, April 1, 2019

Social media videos, baseball predictions and more


We're heading into April, which means its time for spring cleaning – a chance for me to empty my metaphorical notebook filled with thoughts that aren't enough to complete a column, but are too important to ignore.

Well, maybe not too important (they include baseball and breakdancing) , but anyway, here we go . . .

•  The single most disturbing element of social media is how eagerly we rush to judgment about someone, based on a short video clip.

We've all seen clips of people behaving badly – calling others names, making absurd statements, getting in ridiculous confrontations. Often someone will share a 10-second video and the entire social media world will rush to post the most outraged comment, hoping to condemn the person forever.

Many times the criticism is deserved. The famous video of former NFL Ray Rice punching his wife is one example that fleshed out the narrative and showed he was deserving of punishment.

But other times, we just don't know. We don't know what happened before or after. We don't really know for sure what actually happened in the video.

I don't ask people to ignore what they see. We're in the video age and what we see is often what's true. Even if a video clip is only 10 seconds long, it's still (generally) an actual 10 seconds. It happened.

But wouldn't it be better if we could pull back first? What if we acknowledged that we might not know the whole story? The real story could be better, it could be worse.

But it's not the whole story.

Consider that the next time you see something.

Off my soapbox.

Today's topics du jour . . .

• Baseball season started, so it's nearly impossible for a former sports writer to avoid predictions. At least for the two Bay Area teams.

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of reason for optimism for either. The Oakland A's are the better team of the two, but there's a lot of pressure on their young players who emerged last year to continue to improve. Add a spate of injuries and it seems unlikely that they will make the playoffs.

The San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, are at their lowest point in a decade, with an aging core and help still a year or two away. This could be a dismal season at the newly named Oracle Park.

My guess? Giants win about 70 of 162 games, A's win about 85.

A rough next six months.

• We call lions, tigers, jaguars and many other large predators "big cats." Aren't you glad that there aren't similarly sized "big dogs"?

Think about it: A canine version of a tiger.

Fortunately, the last "Big Dog" I knew was Glen Robinson, the first pick of the 1994 NBA draft who played 11 seasons in the league.

Still, "big dogs" is a terrifying prospect.

• Did you see that the organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics want to add breakdancing as an official sport?

Really.

Of course it seems ridiculous, because . . . well, it's breakdancing.

But then you realize rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming are both Olympic sports and suddenly breakdancing doesn't seem that crazy.

I'm going to go get cardboard and start preparing.

• I'd write more, but I need to go find that secret awful video of me and keep it off the internet.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

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