Punishment phase

 Comes now the word that Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel, who became a flash point for the Big Issue brigade when he went full creepy mode on Caitlin Clark last month, is in the midst of a two-week suspension by his newspaper.

The news was announced not by the Star, which for the usual lawyer-ly reasons tried to hide it from the public and, as night follows day, succeeded only in making themselves look like gutless connivers. Instead, it was Bob Kravitz, veteran sports scribe and Doyel's predecessor at the Star, who broke the story. According to Kravitz, the Star not only gave Doyel a two-week sitdown, but will also bar him from covering Clark and the Indiana Fever in person

Which sounds a lot more like a restraining order than it probably should.

This is because the Blob remains convinced that Doyel's skeevy exchange with Clark was not intended to come off that way, but was Doyel just looking for a column hook. I haven't talked to Gregg and I certainly don't know that for sure, but that's my educated guess. I absolutely do not think he's a dirty old man who was hitting on a woman young enough to be his daughter, simply because nothing in his professional background suggests that's the case.

This of course doesn't stop people who have an axe to grind with Doyel from painting him that way. Social media is a jungle that thrives on hyperbole, false generalization and suspect motives, after all, and certain of its species enjoys nothing better than feeding on the carcasses of the fallen.

Not to get all hyperbolic myself, of course.

No, what I think in this instance is a two-week sitdown sounds proportional, and not just because I suggested that's what should happen when this first blew up. Firing Doyel would have been rash overkill, and I suspect most of the people who endorsed that either have some personal beef with the guy or don't like the positions he takes on certain issues. Nor do I agree with the Big Issue people, who tried to turn the whole thing into some referendum on the way predominantly male sports media routinely belittles and objectifies women athletes (which it does).

Sorry. But in this case, all I see is a guy blowing his assignment. Deeper meaning than that I leave to the navel-gazers.

And the notion that he should be cast forever into outer darkness?

I leave that to social media, dark lord that it is.