COLUMN: Welcome to Crazyville

Sometimes, more often than I care to admit, sports drive me crazy.

And as anyone who might know me would quickly add, driving me crazy can be a short trip. 

So what has my feathers ruffled, my hankles hanked and my dander dandified? 

The often selfish, often unfathomable and often nonsensical way of thinking as often displayed by sports. 

And most often displayed at the “professional” level. 

This past week I learned that one of Montana’s U.S. senators, and I like the guy, is championing a return of the Redskins moniker for Washington, D.C.’s version of an NFL franchise. 

Worried that Native American feathers would be ruffled, Sen. Steve Daines and others are calling for a new “hail to the Redskins” and a rebirth, if in name only, of the Washington Redskins. 

Right now, they are the Washington Commanders. The last one of those we had was a fella named George Washington and they already named the city after him. 

It is in line with other team mascot changes that have occurred throughout the country.  And in the case of the Redskins, if anything could be considered racist, it would probably be Redskins. 

But here’s what makes it borderline lunacy to have changed the name in the first place:  polls show upwards of 90 percent of Native Americans are just fine with the name Redskins.  Likewise for the names, chiefs, warriors and Indians, aka the Cleveland Guardians. 

More on that, which sounds a lot like "moron that," to come. 

Racism is to blame for everything these days. So that brings me to the major issue causing me to load the car and prepare for a trip to Crazyville: the treatment of rookie Caitlin Clark, who lit up the college basketball world while at the University of Iowa, becoming the all-time scorer in college basketball history. 

Since being drafted number one by the Indiana Fever of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Clark has been the focus of childish jealousy that could be labeled racist because of her skin color. 

Skin color is not the issue. She could be green. Would she be flagrantly knocked done while inbounding a pass from the sidelines if she were green? I suppose this rough treatment, which is the WNBA equivalent of “welcome to the NFL, rookie” could be justified as it’s turnabout of past injustices, and therefore justified. 

Nonsense. 

This is the green-eyed monster at work (jealousy) among several WNBA players. Would the most prolific scorer in college basketball be number one if she were another color? It would be crazy to think otherwise. 

My hope is that she and her teammates, who got off to a bad start but have sense been winning a lot of games, will go on to have an “in-your-face" season. I hope she is Rookie of the Year and among the league leaders in scoring at the end of the season. 

She has already been largely instrumental in bringing a huge dose of recognition to the WNBA, which in turn increases salaries of all players. When that sinks in, I predict the jealousy will begin to fade.

I hope folks of any color realize that color of skin is an outdated factor. It simply does not matter what color you are, no matter the sport. Jackie Robinson did not break baseball’s “color-barrier” because he was black. It was because he was an outstanding baseball player.  That little opening of sensibility led to a major change in America. 

Meanwhile, we can get back to more “serious” issues such as why anyone would name Washington the football Commanders. Have you watched them play lately? 

But even more perplexing to me as I pass the “Crazyville, Sports, 25 miles sign, is why anyone would name anything in Cleveland the Guardians. 

The only thing I can come up with is that it is a statement about protecting the city on the shores of Lake Erie’s most valuable and popular thing: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Now there is a cause to get behind. 

Rock on Dudes!