A sports commentator says something stupid--imagine that

When Elena Dementieva made a total ass of herself earlier this week at the Australian Open, former player Brad Gilbert, who is doing some announcing for ESPN, called--with a gleam in his eye--for a physical fight between Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova, whom Dementieva had treated very poorly. Apparently, any girl-on-girl action is better than none at all. When he got no response from fellow commentators Pam Shriver and Dick Enberg, he suggested the players' fathers have a fist fight on their daughters' behalf.

Yes, Gilbert was joking, but the call for violence between the fathers was no more amusing than the cheap sex joke about the players. There has been enough violence in sports lately, and there have been enough father problems in the WTA to last a lifetime. Steffi Graf and Mary Pierce endured fathers from hell, not to mention poor Elena Dokic, and now it appears Maria Sharapova must endure one, too. All we need is more inappropriate father participation. And of course, to think that these young women need their daddies to do their fighting for them is another matter altogether.