It all started with a football fan who has a lot of money wanting to buy a piece of a football team.
It has now melted into an array of accusations and retractions and posturing and, most recently, a threat of litigation from Al Sharpton.
Sharpton waded into the movement to block Rush Limbaugh from buying a piece of the Rams by penning a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell. Limbaugh spent much of the week on his radio show lashing out against the likes of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, pointing out things that, in Limbaugh’s mind, make them inappropriate adjudicators of character.
Limbaugh capped the week with an op-ed item in the Wall Street Journal regarding the events culminating in Dave Checketts dropping Limbaugh from the group trying to purchase a franchise that could lose its 16th straight game later today.
In the column, Limbaugh claims that Sharpton “played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot . . . and 1995 Freddie’s Fashion Mart riot.”
Sharpton disagrees -- and he now says he’ll sue Limbaugh for defamation absent an apology.
“I am definitely going to prove he makes reckless, unaccountable statements,” Sharpton said, according to the New York Daily News. “Which is why he was forced out of buying an NFL team in the first place.”
Added Sharpton, “He doesn’t have the right to lie and accuse people of crimes. He wants to criminalize me. . . . That’s what got him in trouble. He tried to criminalize the NFL players, calling them Crips and Bloods.”
So while Limbaugh’s bid to become a minority owner of the Rams has now ended, the fallout from his short-lived effort to do so could be around for while.
Maybe by the time the dust has fully settled the Rams will have won a football game.