Ja Morant is a cautionary tale regarding social media and possible fallout for keyboard warriors who think they can do or say anything in those digital spaces and not need to face consequences in the real world.

Morant is the troubled NBA player who can’t seem to stop “brandishing” or “flashing” weapons on social media posts.

The NBA, in desperate need of polishing its image, frowns upon such things. Morant does not appear to be getting the message.

According to a report on ESPN.com, Morant is no stranger to poor judgment in general, having been involved in numerous off-court incidents. These include being sued by a high school prospect for an alleged punch to the head and fight during a pickup game at Morant’s. Later, according to the report, a gun was to be seen in the waistband of Morant’s pants. Morant also is said to have had behavior problems with others, most notably with another NBA team’s traveling party.

Morant was suspended for eight games in March by the NBA, after this team had sat him following the initial gun post on social media.

It took only until May for Morant to show up again on social media with a gun. And this time the NBA has decided to sit Morant for 25 games to start next season. That will cost Morant about $7.5 million in salary.

It is not clear whether Morant’s gun or guns were legally owned and he was licensed to carry them. What is clear is that his employer does not want him flaunting weaponry on social media. If Morant wants to exercise his Second Amendment rights and walk away from his career, then no problem. If he wants to keep cashing checks for playing basketball, he’d be wise to keep his guns to himself.

This is where too many ill-informed types go wrong, always stressing rights without acknowledging accompanying responsibilities.

Morant and fellow social media exhibitionists of bad behavior would do well to consider the words Shakespeare penned for the character Macbeth, who spoke them while reflecting on the death of his wife and the crumbling of his life on other fronts.

The description also could be applied to an abundance of social media posts: “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

For the less literary-inclined, we also might offer up The Ballad of Ja Morant, to be sung to the tune of The Ballad of Jed Clampett, the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies TV show of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Ja

Rich hoopster guy with a gun or so we saw

Never used the gun to go huntin’ for some food

Just pulled it out for the show when he was in the mood

(Social media you see, foolish stuff, idiocy)

Now the first thing you know old Ja was losing dough

His NBA boss said that the guns would have to go

While Ja had the right to keep and bear his arms

He had to be aware of his postings causing harms

(Bad image, role model, impressionable types)

Ja’s come to the time when he needs to get it right

To keep all his guns away from social media light

But if Ja keeps on going with his social media tales

The price to be paid will be measured in fails

(Time to grow up, gain perspective, maturity. Y’all keep readin’, ya hear?)

Even addled Joe Biden gets it right sometimes, if unintentionally.

The Clueless One is in the hot seat for taking to Twitter (or more likely having his handlers do it) to jump on the celebratory bandwagon for the Las Vegas Golden Knights, winners of the NHL’s Stanley Cup.

The tweet referred to the Knights as “the first major professional franchise” in the great city of Las Vegas.

Predictably, an aggrieved member of the WNBA’s Las Vegas team took to social media to gripe. Us, too!

But Biden, or whomever, got it right on Twitter because the WNBA, despite all the feel-good efforts to promote it, is not a “major professional” league with its minuscule number of 12 franchises.

Let’s look at the telling arbiter of TV ratings. WNBA types currently are crowing about higher TV numbers, fueled largely by the drama surrounding the return of anti-American former Russian hostage Brittney Griner.

And what is the ratings track record? Glad you asked. According to Forbes magazine, WNBA TV ratings “pale” in comparison to other sports. The NFL averages 17 million a broadcast. NASCAR is at 2.2 million viewers on average; Major League Baseball, 1.4 million; and the NBA, 1.6 million.

The WNBA has averaged about 321,000 viewers. That’s thousands, not millions.

Average WNBA game attendance in 2022 was 5,679, about what Johnstown High School used to draw for football games at old Point Stadium when I was young.

By way of comparison, the NHL just had its lowest TV ratings for a clinching game in a Stanley Cup final in more than 30 years. But even that was 2.72 million viewers on average. The WNBA would kill for that level of disappointment.

Speaking of small TV footprints, you likely missed the U.S. Men’s National Team in soccer romping past rival Mexico, 3-0, Thursday night in a CONCACAF Nations League semifinal.

I was reduced to watching a Spanish-language broadcast because the soccer hierarchy, in all its infinite wisdom, offered the broadcasts in English only via something called Paramount-plus.

Worse, there were TWO offerings on my Dish Network packaging of the broadcast in Spanish. And just to add insult to injury, the other semifinal game played last night, between Canada and Panama, was offered in English on CBS Sports Network.

Talk about a kick in the teeth. Or, perhaps we should say, una patada en los dientes.

By the way, Las Vegas just missed out on landing the 30^th Major League Soccer franchise when that addition went to San Diego.

The U.S. men dominated last night – in a game ironically played in Las Vegas — looking technically superior to Mexico and showing creativity not usually associated with our national men’s team.

Christian Pulisic, already arguably our greatest men’s player ever, scored twice and was brilliant.

Frustrated Mexican players resorted to cheap fouls. The combination of those, and retaliation by American players, led to four red cards, soccer code for players being thrown out and their teams playing shorthanded going forward.

Two key U.S. players will miss the championship game vs. Canada due to those red cards.

The fights were mostly comical. It’s a soccer tradition to embellish contact hoping to draw fouls. Get close enough to an opponent that he can feel your breath and he’s likely as not going to collapse as if shot by a .44-magnum from point-blank range.

The fights last night were mostly slap battles and shoves, with the odd grab of a neck or jersey.

Soccer players ought to sign up for lessons in toughness and fighting from hockey players. Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk played part of Game 3 and all of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals with a fractured sternum!

As is typically the case with soccer, there seemed to be more Mexican fans in the Las Vegas crowd. They continued a tradition of chanting what soccer hierarchy considers a “gay slur,” “puta.”

This got play halted, and eventually ended the game short of playing out the entire allotment of second-half stoppage time.

The U.S. will meet Canada Sunday night in the title game and, you guessed it, if I want English commentary I need to pay to sign up for Paramount-plus streaming.

No, gracias.

Just by chance, I happened onto yet another My ‘Hood moment Thursday afternoon along — wait for it — Dahlia Street.

Returning home from a shakedown cruise with the orange ’04 Mustang GT, I attempted to turn onto Dahlia in order to reach my house’s rear parking area (a car was driving in the alley behind my house, denying me the easiest route). I was going to check my car’s coolant level and wanted to be parked off the street. Imagine that!

But, upon turning onto Dahlia, I was met with a police vehicle blocking the roadway, largely owing to there being only one lane and change due to an assortment of trailers and a decrepit vehicle having been moored there for months and months.

I surveyed the situation briefly, backed out again onto Harshberger Road and went around the block. But, I was curious about the goings-on, so after parking the Mustang, I walked around the block to see what all the excitement was about.

As I approached the scene, the policeman began to move, drove past me, turned around, re-passed me and then left the area. I continued walking and heard the loud voices of a man and a woman. I haven’t heard F-bombs uttered like this guy was doing since I last was in a pro sports locker room.

The woman, undaunted by the F-bombs and other crude and insulting language, was returning fire by making points to support her case in an outside calling voice, but not using such foul language.

I was surprised the policeman had felt comfortable departing such a volatile scene.

Eventually, cooler heads prevailed, with an older woman escorting the younger woman into their house.

A quick check revealed some theories and opinions about what had happened. I never spoke with the individuals involved, nor bothered to check with the police for an official report. I am content to wait for a public airing of this ongoing parking tiff, which I’ve been told by a borough representative will happen Monday afternoon, before the regular monthly meeting of Southmont Borough Council.

Just thinking out loud here, but my crystal ball tells me something like appeal denied is coming Monday.

While we wait, let’s play a little Jeopardy, where the answer is given and contestants must respond in the form of a question.

Host: The answer is, Dahlia Street.

Contestant 1: What was the name of Perry Mason’s secretary?

Host: No, sorry. That was Della Street, a role most associated with actress Barbara Hale.

Contestant 2: What was the nickname given the famous unsolved 1947 Los Angeles murder victim Elizabeth Short?

Host: Again, no. That was the Black Dahlia. Anyone else? No? OK, the proper question is What is the formerly quiet Southmont Street now taking on appearances of Ukraine?

Host: The next answer is, Paper Alley

Contestant 3: What was the 1973 Oscar-winning comedy that starred the father-daughter team of Ryan and Tatum O’Neal?

Host: No, that was Paper Moon.

Contestant 1: What was the collective name given to the New York City music publishers and songwriters that dominated the domestic music scene in the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries?

Host: Sorry, that was Tin Pan Alley.

Contestant 2: Hey, host, I think my buzzer stopped working.

Host: Do you have a guess Contestant 2? No? OK. Paper alley is a public right-of-way drawn on road grids that never was actually constructed, but cannot be claimed as one’s property.

Host: And now we’re out of time. We will have to wait until Monday and the arrival of the studio audience for your Final Jeopardy questions, but here is the Final Jeopardy answer, Sweet Justice.

I am struck by news that the I-95 road collapse in Philadelphia “could take months to repair.”

This, despite our Governor Josh Shapiro declaring a disaster so as to dispense with customary governmental red tape.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Butt(whatever) rushed to social media if not to the scene to promise all needed federal aid to get the major highway up and running.

We’re supposing someone awoke Joe Biden to alert him, just for the record. But, since it was a weekend and all that, Joe would wait until his normal few weekday business hours to do anything substantial.

But months? Can we not rush the cleanup, the arrival of repair materials, and around-the-clock labor to reopen a road said to carry a reported 160,000 people per day according to state Department of Transportation data?

It’s not clear if that traffic data has had the Biden vote-multiplier applied to it.

Even if it had, that’s still likely 40,000 or so a day, which is a lot of traffic to be rerouted for “months.”

Even more questions abound.

Will this motivate an even greater number of migrants from Philadelphia to Johnstown public housing to avoid this daily inconvenience?

Will this make it tougher transit for them to our Friendly City?

Will road re-construction be done around-the-clock to speed the process instead of the customary daylight only construction with which Pennsylvania drivers are so familiar?

Will I-95 be restricted to one-lane travel 100 miles or so from the site in both directions, if only to enrich the provider of orange traffic cones?

Will anyone get around, after-the-fact, to quantifying how much this reconstruction cost and how much of that money went to construction firms who are large Democratic election contributors?

Just asking.

I intentionally chose to ruminate for several days before writing regarding Donald Trump’s ongoing legal problems, looking to distance myself from having no better than knee-jerk reactions. It didn’t help.

I can’t get past the glaring inconsistency of our legal system. Yes, Donald Trump is a crass guy. I’m not sure I’d like him personally if we ever met. I also voted for him – twice – because the Democratic alternatives were a do-nothing progressive continuing to bank largely on her husband’s name, or, in the latest instance, a man I wouldn’t trust to get my food order correct as a waiter — or not trip when carrying the food to the table!

To repeat, Trump seems to be far from likable on a personal level. But, the same can be said for Hunter Biden, and he continues to skate on various legal matters.

Hunter’s father, aka “The Big Guy,” fails to be held accountable for scandals ranging from his own mishandling of classified documents, to various doubts about he and his family.

Shillary Clinton had her own classified problem with home computer servers, but, typically, she received no more than a slap on her thick wrist.

Along that line, years-long investigations of Clinton-named foundations just ended quietly.

The list is lengthy of those on the left who never seem to get their date with justice, as long as they further the big lie about who truly runs our government. Some on the right also lack the guts to speak the truth.

Trump’s true offense – never mind what he’s charged with this time – is taking on the deep state in Washington, D.C. Those who wield the power, the same ones making the calls from behind the curtain for our animated cadaver current president, cannot stand up to scrutiny.

If the average Americans can take time from their various navel-gazing diversions and actually look at the big picture, they would/should be disgusted by how our government has been taken over by unelected bureaucrats and their behind-the-scenes puppetmasters.

Trump, for all his foibles real and imagined, shined the spotlight on these roaches. A man steeped in the sham of D.C., Trump political rival and Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer, noted early in 2017, that Trump would pay a price for this. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Early, clumsy attempts by the FBI that included fudging reports, spying on the Trump campaign and feeding less-than-truthful information to judges to secure surveillance warrants, failed to put Trump’s head on a pike.

If only the FBI would put similar effort into the Bidens, or even providing documentation to Congress without having to be threatened with legal action.

Understand, the FBI and the CIA leadership past and present hates Trump to their core because he’s threatening their hold on power, one that transcends elections.

A legal scholar I have found to be quite insightful, Jonathan Turley, has opined in print that it’s almost as if Trump has invited these latest charges, that he might try his case in the court of public opinion.

Some have suggested that Trump could continue to run for president during any trial, or in its aftermath and, if elected, pardon himself should he be convicted.

If that is Trump’s thinking, he’s taking a huge gamble.

True, if only based on the proven anti-Trump bias of our justice department, this case could be won by Trump on technicalities. But that presumes no continuing interference and manufacturing of evidence, if necessary.

Haul a Biden or two into the courts for legal action and I will regain my faith in our legal system. Until then, not so much.

If only I were a Facebook member, so I could issue an oh-woe-is-me post and bathe in the obligatory sympathy from the hoi polloi.

But, alas, I am not. I do, however, receive feedback from those who are addicted to social media and have been told that one anonymous poster – brave fellow or gal – proudly posted it won’t read my blog any longer. I’m betting if we had a dose ready in the old truth needle, this anonymous type could be injected and forced to admit a rush to read any response from me.

Here goes, anonymous one. Unlike the boycotters who have hit Bud Light where it counts – hammering the bottom line – critics of me have no similar means of attack because this blog has no bottom line.

Anyone who visits surely will have noted no ads, no registration, no fees. It costs me money to keep it up and running, not to mention the time spent to write the content.

I’m not going to go all altruistic regarding this. I do it mostly for me, because I like to write and be on the record when things go badly, as they must should we as a society continue on this absurd path.

Readers also will note no provision for reader comments on the blog, the better to avoid having to engage in fruitless debate with uninformed, anonymous gas bags.

Such “brave” types might want to read up on American history. A man with some guts, John Hancock, made sure to sign the Declaration of Independence in his typically large style, making his name synonymous with putting oneself out there and not being afraid to go public with a stance.

Tubs of goo who hide behind anonymity deserve scorn anywhere and everywhere.

I have heard of people creating multiple social media identities under false names and using them to praise the twisted thoughts put out under their actual social media identities. Think of this as a perverse echo chamber. Pathetic, too.

Early in my blog experience, I had some business cards printed because I would run into people who told me they missed reading my articles since I quit, either my real journalism jobs or my multi-year freelancing run at the Tribune-Democrat

Those cards included the following: “Warning Strong Opinions.”

I welcome any who are offended by those strong opinions to keep shuffling their figurative feet and move on. But first, be sure to whine a bit on social media, just to make your existence a bit less pathetic.

So much going on and so little time to comment, which means we are due for another installment of news and views.

News: Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson debuted his Twitter broadcast Tuesday and racked up 71.6 million views in less than 24 hours.

Views: I didn’t watch, but something called Taylor Lorenz (in this era we don’t want to chose the wrong sex or pronoun from a mere picture), predictably from the Washington Post, panned the broadcast as not even stacking up against the average streamer or YouTuber. And that speaks volumes about the lack of perspective from leftist LameStream media.

News: Johnstown was courting a high-tech firm from California, Bitwise, in early May and by the end of the month that same firm reportedly was well on its way to laying off 100 percent of its workforce.

Views: But we still can count on Greater Johnstown having a never-ending supply of new pizza and coffee shops, not to mention all those trails drawing massive tourist dollars into the area.

News: CNN head man Chris Licht has been fired after just 13 months on the job.

Views: It was evident Licht’s days were numbered at the Clinton News Network when he went public with the plan to balance the network’s Democrats-always-right, Republicans-always-wrong coverage. There is an abundance of tone-deaf leftist media types to replace Licht. Maybe Taylor Lorenz was auditioning already with its Tucker Carlson diatribe.

News: Clueless Joe Biden, taking a break from falling onstage or hitting his head on the helicopter doorway – both of which he did last week – has drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 40-year low, continuing a 10-week run of extracting oil from the reserve in a political quest to attack oil market prices in pursuit of votes.

Views: This is the same Biden regime that announced in mid-May it would begin refilling the depleted SPR. Go to your calendar and note mid-May has come and gone and still the reserve is tapped weekly to bolster Biden’s already ridiculously low approval ratings.

News: Nearly one-third of Generation Z (ages 18-29) approves of government installed cameras in U.S. households to monitor for domestic violence and other illegal activity, according to a survey by the Cato Institute.

Views: The reality that 29 percent of these cretins are willing to give up constitutional freedoms for alleged feel-good purposes just reinforces my longheld observation that we’re doomed as long as public and private schools, as well as most colleges and universities, are minting fresh misguided Democratic voters.

News: Polling continues to confirm Biden is extremely unpopular among the electorate, that Democrats would prefer another candidate, and yet most will vote for him again because . . .

Views: . . . they are partisan zealots incapable of making an informed choice. See above News and Views installment about domestic surveillance.

News: True to the headline, there was nothing about my ‘Hood in this blog post.

Views: But I would suspect that narcissist Charlie Brown types spent an hour or so moving their lips while reading to make sure.

Climate crazies can’t seem to get their minds around facts.

Oh, they cite temperature studies in their zealotry, but ignore them when they don’t fit the narrative. They even have tacitly admitted their misguided stance by changing their cause from fighting “global warming” to combating “climate change.”

This way any change in climate, which is proven historically to have been a fluid thing even before man was releasing carbon into the atmosphere, can be cited as proving their case.

The climate zealots make dire predictions that never seem to come to pass, examples being all U.S. coastal areas were to be underwater by now, farmlands were to be nonproductive dust bowls, and polar ice was to have all but disappeared.

If any of this has happened, I’ve missed it. And I usually follow current events.

The typical climate alarmists are comfortable with killing, too. They believe there are way too many humans on our blue orb, but have stopped short of announcing definite plans to thin that herd.

This is not true for farm animals – pigs, cows and the like. The climate zealots are looking to score a daily double here, killing these animals to reduce their gaseous emissions, while also shortening the supply for those of us who still enjoy the taste of meat.

There is an unholy alliance between climate crazies and vegans.

Climate extremists also want to kill the internal combustion engine and, by extension, the fossil fuels industry.

It is here that their warped view of reality fails miserably. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of electric vehicles.

But even before we discuss that, consider the ethanol now part of the gasoline you pump into your car, which also is billed as helping save the planet.

Never mind that a 2022 scientific study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Wildlife Federation has gotten around to admitting that is a farce. Actually the 15 billion of gallons of corn-based ethanol, mixed annually into U.S. gasoline supplies by government mandate, is concluded to be adding to “climate change.”

This cannot deter the climate crazies. There is nothing wrong with this world, they believe, that banning gasoline burning engines in vehicles can’t right.

Here they are ignorant on so many fronts.

Begin with the nation’s creaky electrical grid, that certainly could not handle the entire population’s fleet charging daily, or even weekly. Already outbreaks of cold or warm weather bring pleas from providers to defer electric usage, lest the grid fail.

This also neatly ignores that electricity, despite the dream of genius inventor Nikola Tesla, is not readily harvested free of cost from the Earth or its atmosphere. Electricity must be generated, often using fossil fuels. Hopes of solar power and wind farms being acceptable replacements are mostly exercises in providing power that works only if heavily subsidized by the government, and with intermittent periods of low or zero production.

There also is the, to borrow the phrase of opportunists like Al Gore, “inconvenient truth” that the manufacture of electric vehicles is not climate friendly due to their outsized need for various common and rare minerals, which must be mined.

The Wall Street Journal addressed this recently in an article regarding the “nickel pickle,” explaining how nickel is much-needed in electric vehicles and mining nickel is decidedly environmentally unfriendly.

There are other realities regarding electric vehicles that are not discussed in polite company, including, but not limited to, the reality that charging stations continue to be hard to find, prices are uncompetitive with internal combustion rivals unless generous government tax credits are provided to EV purchasers, and manufacturers still mostly manage to lose money on each unit they sell to the public.

This is the reality of the situation, one readily ignored by zealots and their enablers both in government and the media.

Along the line of starve a cold, feed a fever, I’ve had a minor epiphany about the narcissistic drama queens of life and the best way to deal with them, that being to ignore them.

Let them rant, threaten and lament the fates to an audience of one. Out of sight, out of mind.

And that leaves more time to recognize the good in the community, like the ongoing Southmont Volunteer Fire Company Jubilee, billed as the 50^th such event. I’ve lived in the borough for about 37 of them and recall coming even before that.

The Southmont Jubilee, which too often in the past has been the equivalent of a week-long rain dance, has been blessed with great weather so far in 2023. Not only isn’t it raining, it doesn’t even threaten to do so. Magic.

I was discussing this Thursday night with a veteran member of the organizers and he seemed to recall a good week of weather a few years back. For the life of me, I can’t recall that.

My memories are more along the line of slogging through mud on the midway and the time they brought in some pretty odoriferous hay/straw that led to me throwing away the shoes I wore that night.

But we try to support the Jubilee annually because the firemen deserve it. Are there more selfless individuals than volunteer firemen? I can’t think of any.

They devote long hours to mandatory training, only to work for free to benefit the community. They constantly are forced into fund-raising roles, too, because, despite the fact that they provide a tangible benefit – just check what your homeowners insurance rates might be if there were no firemen handy – there are not enough allocations of funds or various grants to keep the whole thing going.

These jubilees are fading fast, too, because rising costs are limiting the net revenue. Fire departments are finding it easier to have a variety of other fund-raisers that don’t require the coordination, planning, cost, and volunteer manpower to man food booths and the like.

Oakland, the area of my early youth, long ago gave up the ghost on its fireman’s carnival. Ferndale, a traditional big event, has been toying with the idea of throwing in the towel in recent years.

But these affairs have a benefit beyond raising funds for a worthy cause. They provide the chance for community interaction, both for residents of the boroughs, and also the surrounding areas. I had some great conversations with friends at the event Thursday night.

My wife and I took two granddaughters and they enjoyed the parade, but requested next time I remember to bring ear protection for them to deal with blaring sirens.

Our fire company also has Santa ride through the neighborhoods before Christmas and if I’m around on that night, I try to slip them a donation by way of a check.

That reminds me, I’ve been late to submit a check for the fund-raising tickets I got not that long ago. But time remains and I’m not really counting on winning the money.

What I am counting on is these events continuing and people showing some generosity toward their local volunteer fire departments, who deserve all the support they can get, and more.

Time to write anew about uniformed emotion, overdone self-interest, and anonymous carping. Yep, we’re talking sports — a two-pronged observation on racing’s Memorial Day weekend and the coming back to Earth in May of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

First, the racing.

The Indianapolis 500 ended in dramatic fashion Sunday, traditional Memorial Day, with a last-lap pass after yet another red-flag stoppage due to an accident, that saw American Josef Newgarden edging out Swede Marcus Ericsson for the win.

Ericsson, the defending Indy champion, believed race officials should merely have run out the race under caution instead of stopping it to allow time for actual racing to the finish, not exactly an altruistic thought since Ericsson was leading at the time of the last red flag.

But Indy, which did a similar thing last year, throwing a late red flag to give the fans a green-flag finish, only repeated history. Last year, when Ericsson held the lead, that red flag was OK.

This year, when Newgarden was able to overcome Ericsson’s weaving and blocking to pass him, the Swede spewed sour grapes about it all being “unfair.”

So, last year, when Ericssson won, it was fair. This year, he didn’t win; unfair.

Not everyone agreed with that assessment.

Fellow driver Santino Ferrucci, who finished third driving for the team of legendary A.J. Foyt, the team’s best Indy finish since 1999, was quoted as having no problem with red-flagging Indy races late, and restarting them for a green-flag finish, either last year or this.

And Tony Kanaan, who won Indy in 2013, a race finished under the yellow flag, also was quoted as agreeing that finishing races under the green flag was the way to do it: “I think it was perfect.”

I did see at least one story which panned the finish, but didn’t bother to get anybody on the record. An unofficial canvass of social media indicated that finishing a race under green-flag racing conditions was popular, imagine that.

Rain scrambled NASCAR’s scheduling, sort of like many traditional celebrations in this area often are – but not this year – forcing the Coke 600 to be run Monday.

Along the way, Chase Elliott appeared to wreck intentionally fellow racer Denny Hamlin, prompting Hamlin to label it a “tantrum” in an interview after the event and call for a one-race suspension for Elliott.

There was no word whether Hamlin planned to park his team’s car transporter trailers in front of Elliott’s house to get even for the affront.

And fan video showed an incident earlier in the race involving Bubba Wallace and Aric Almirola, According to Almirola, Wallace, who was not reprimanded by NASCAR for giving the finger to someone during a live TV interview the past race, gave the finger to Almirola in Monday’s Coke 600,

During a red flag stoppage later in the race, Almirola approached Wallace in pit lane and, again according to Almirola, he shoved him because of the combination of the vulgar gesture and some “cussing” Wallace did during their pit-lane chat.

Now, about the Pirates, who inexplicably began the season 20-9 through April, but have gone just 6-18 in May. Their 14-4 loss to San Francisco Monday put the Pirates’ record at 26-27, the first time they’ve been under .500 since the third game of the season.

And I’m reminded of a fan discussion between a man and woman overheard at a bar-restaurant on opening day.

The man was talking the postseason for the Pirates and the woman, citing recent history, was questioning his sanity. This amused my wife, and I told her, as a guy who did this for a living for 35 years or so, the woman most likely was right.

When the Pirates were winning at a 69-percent rate through April and on pace to win 112 games for the season, I was questioning my sanity. Maybe my wife would have been, too. Fortunately she pays little attention to sports.

But the great thing about the 162-game baseball season is it eventually separates contenders from pretenders and this is far from a great Pirates team.

The franchise’s top win total ever was 110, which came in 1909, during a 152-game schedule, not the current 162 games. Those Pirates would go on to win the World Series.

The 1979 Pirates, also World Series winners, went 98-64 during the regular season. And the 1960 World Series winning Pirates were 95-59 in the regular season.

Pirates fan sites were replete Monday night with anonymous keyboard warriors giving up and walking the plank regarding the season.

“Nice while it lasted” wrote one.

But the Pirates are blessed to play in a weak NL Central Division and despite this swoon, are in second place, just two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers.

By way of comparison, all five teams in the AL East have better records than the Pirates and the Pirates would slot in fifth place in the AL West and fourth in the NL East and NL West.

There is hope for the Pirates based on their division. But expecting results like April to be repeated is extremely unrealistic.