The Shonn Heard 'Round the World

Who thought there could be three variations on essentially the same name and it would be the Jets who got the best of the lot? Since when do the Jets get the best of anything?

On the other hand, is it terribly surprising the Mets got the Shawn — not to mention the Sean — end of the stick?

We’re not here to bury Shawn Green, the diminished outfielder of 2006-07, nor Sean Green, the erratic relief pitcher of 2009. We’re here to praise the hell out of Shonn Greene, postseason running back extraordinaire.

I confess I’m just getting up to speed on the latest and greatest in Shonn Greene. Tuning out football until the wounds of baseball have healed (not that they ever really heal), I’m slow to know my local football squads beyond their marquee players. Shonn Greene? My research indicates he wasn’t truly top-of-the-bill material until the first Indianapolis game…as in there’s going to be a second real soon. I was watching the Jets in that must-win contest in December and heard something along the lines of “Shawn Green” and thought, “I must be mistaken. There couldn’t really be one on the Jets so soon after we’ve had two on the Mets.”

But there is. Thank goodness there is.

Shonn Greene is a damn sight faster than Shawn Green. He’s also probably a more reliable pitcher than Sean Green. Sean Green’s never thrown anything in the postseason. Shawn Green threw a bomb to Jose Valentin who matriculated the ball down the field to Paul Lo Duca who intercepted both Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew in the first game of the 2006 NLDS, but is otherwise October-remembered around here for falling down in the right field end zone against the Cardinals one round later.

The third member of our homophonous trio stays on his feet and scores. Shonn Greene rushed for 135 yards last week against the Bengals and 128 yards against the Chargers this week, with a touchdown in each affair. The Jets won and won again. He’s a rookie. Shawn Green was young once, too. He was quite good at the time (good enough to deserve an award that recently went to Kevin Youkilis). Then he got older and became a Met when he didn’t have a whole lot left. Pity. Sean Green has some years ahead of him. Maybe he won’t always hit batters with the bases loaded. Maybe.

Shawn, Sean and Shonn sound alike, but only one appears to be sixty minutes from a Super Bowl.

***

Kirk Gimenez, the SportsNite anchor on SNY, was hired, as best as I can tell, for his ability to make wacky sound effects, kind of like that guy in the Police Academy movies. He doesn’t, however, communicate sports news very well. Gimenez reported at the top of Sunday evening’s telecast that the Jets have now won two postseason games in the same year for the first time since 1982. How long ago was that? According to Kirk, it was so long ago that Mark Sanchez, now 23, was only four years old.

The Jets won those games in January 1983. Mark Sanchez was born in November 1986, making Sanchez approximately zero minus three years and ten months…and anybody watching this show wonder how stuff like that gets on the air. If Sanchez had been four when Richard Todd was leading the Jets to the AFC title game 27 years ago, then he’d be a 31-year-old rookie at this moment.

One glance at the script or a roster would have told somebody at SportsNite that this was quite wrong. One glance at Sanchez would indicate the quarterback grew a beard only so he’d look old enough to buy beer.

To be fair, Kirk was probably meant to say “that was four years before Sanchez was born,” but how could Gimenez be expected to get that straight? He was too busy concentrating on spitting out, in one of his funny voices a beat or two later, that Sanchez is now “all growsed up” after beating San Diego.

Show the highlights, show the press conferences and then show Mets Yearbook. SNY should otherwise do away with the SportsNite anchor concept. It is not serving them well.

UPDATE: On the 1:00 AM airing of the show, Gimenez slowed down his delivery long enough to say Sanchez was “not even born yet” when the Jets last won two postseason games in the same year. And he didn’t do the “all growsed up” shtick either. Wow, somebody somewhere really does pay attention.