DMZ at USS Mariner is mad:

Erin Andrews was in the stands and wished him well or something — I wasn’t really paying attention, it seemed totally pointless — at which point Sutcliffe went off on a bizarre rant about her, how good she looked, her skirt, and how everyone was watching her and her skirt and when they cut to the broadcast booth, his partner had this weird look of terror and shock on his face, and they chatted about how distracting she was around the batting cage.

This should be Rick Sutcliffe’s last job announcing anything. He shouldn’t be hired to do dog races. He shouldn’t be able to ever get a quarter for hawking wares at garage sales.

I don’t care that he has cancer.

I don’t care that Erin Andrews is attractive, or that she wore a skirt.

He should be fired for making comments like that. More than that, he should be fired for this rant, about her.

I don’t care what your opinion of her is: Erin takes an enormous amount of entirely unjustified personal crap. She’s been treated badly by players, awkwardly clutched by coaches. If you put her name into a search engine you need to get decontaminated within minutes of just looking at the results or your eyes will melt. Erin is objectified and degraded in a way that no male sports media figure has ever had to face, and Rick Sutcliffe, working with her, should know that and, if he can’t support her, at least shut up.

The point is a valid one. I watched the clip before passing judgment, but the awkwardness of that moment stuck with me. If I were to make such comments to a female colleague, or to a male colleague about a female colleague I could be hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit. And I would be dead to rights nailed on it as well. Erin Andrews is a beautiful woman. True enough, but unlike some other lady sideline reporters, she does damn fine work. And if the testosterone addled chuckleheads, like Bruce Pearl and Rick Sutcliffe, fail to see that it’s their own fault for not seeing anything other than her good looks.

I am an atypical consumer of sports, in that I rarely watch games, finding the commentary to be neither entertaining nor enlightening, and frankly not worth the time spent listening. But I am sure I am not alone in finding Sutcliffe’s comment inappropriate. I’m hardly a speech limiting zealot. Quite to the contrary, I want people to say whatever is on their mind. That said, some self-censorship is a reasonable expectation. Perhaps the candlepower necessary to take a moment and ask oneself if it is appropriate to comment on the physical attractiveness of a female co-worker on national television is not present in athletes and former athletes, but I’d like to think that it is.

Further, anyone who wants to say this is just like Joe Namath and Suzy Kolber, stop. Sutcliffe is Erin’s co-worker. Namath was a sideline observer (possibly an inebriated one at that) of a football game, little different from a fan, just with much, much better access. ESPN was quick to fire Harold Reynolds for allegations of sexual harassment. I am assuming Ms. Andrews will be a loyal employee and laugh it off, publicly, but she would be well within her rights to request some redress from ESPN.