“I feel strongly that various players don’t give Caitlin Clark the respect she deserves.”

Dickie V melts down over Caitlin Clark snub.

Edit by Liam McGuire, Comeback Media.

At least once a month, we go through the same song and dance: Caitlin Clark puts up numbers, fans rally behind her, the media fawns, and then her WNBA peers make it clear they’re not nearly as impressed. Cue the outrage. A familiar segment of sports media rushes in to call it jealousy, another round of think-pieces rolls out, and the whole cycle resets. You can practically set your watch to it.

Tuesday’s All-Star voting results were just the latest proof.

Clark topped the fan vote among guards — no surprise there — and finished a solid third with the media. But among WNBA players? She came in ninth.

Naturally, the outrage machine fired up. Sports media figures who’ve planted their flag in the “defend Caitlin at all costs” camp wasted no time. Colin Cowherd took aim at the players who snubbed Caitlin Clark in the All-Star vote, suggesting a racial component was at play. That seemed pretty tame compared to Dick Vitale, who went on a full-fledged social media meltdown, absolutely losing it over what he called “PURE JEALOUSY.”

And Vitale didn’t stop there. A few sentences into his next breath, he expanded on the tirade in an interview with Front Office Sports.

“I feel strongly that various players don’t give Caitlin Clark the respect she deserves,” Vitale said. “What she has done to help the WNBA has been unbelievable. Think about it. PR excitement. Ticket sales. TV Ratings and interest. Salary increases. More charter flights than the past. Plus, she is so exciting to watch. Lots of jealousy.”

Whatever side of the prism you’re on, that last line from Dickie V — “lots of jealousy” — pretty much captures the moment.

It’s become the go-to explanation every time there’s a perceived snub of Caitlin Clark. But it’s not just jealousy. It’s tension between eras, between expectations, between what the league was and what it’s suddenly becoming.

freestar

Caitlin Clark didn’t rewrite the rules. But she changed the conversation. And that might be even harder for some people to accept. And somehow, it’s even harder for certain corners of sports media to process without melting down.