You know the world’s upside down when Philadelphia sports fans start taking a moral high ground. The same people that gave a standing ovation when Michael Irvin lay motionless on the ground after a big hit and hurled D batteries at the back of JD Drew’s skull now have a problem with their team signing Michael Vick.
Fans object to signing Vick because he brutalized dogs. Fido brings them their newspaper every morning, and the image of Fido viciously lunging to tear through Checkers’ neck with his fangs or mounting Cupcake on the rape stand can be quite unsettling. Dog owners maintain that though not humans, dogs have feelings and to subject them to pain and torture is a heinous act far worse than simply killing innocent jaywalkers in a DUI like Dante Stallworth.
If dogs had feelings, they would probably object to being neutered and then forced into some awful sweater for a family Christmas photo. In fact, PETA in its charter calls for abolishing animal slavery, meaning people couldn’t have pets. The dog lovers blasting the Eagles for signing Vick probably don’t realize that their donations support an organization that considers them slave owners. They also don’t seem to realize the hypocrisy of advocating that dogs have feelings without considering how their dog would feel about losing its ability to have sex.
Michael Vick is quite possibly the greatest natural athlete who ever lived. The NFL is a place where violent giants hopped up on steroids and amphetamines risk their lives every play and cause permanent damage to their minds and bodies for our entertainment. To say that Vick cannot do this because a few dogs got hurt, after he paid his debt to society and lost all of his friends and money, is un-American and a crime against the football watching public. To anyone still sympathetic for the dogs or upset at the Eagles, I can only offer this video:
DID YOU SEE THAT LAST TOUCHDOWN! I promise you now that the only time I will ever write in caps on this site is for describing that run. If the public can forgive that sick rapist Michael Jackson, I think they can let Vick back on the field.
Should Vick have the right to play in the NFL? Sure, any owner who actually thinks he brings value to his team (whether that value is monetary or Ws is another matter) should have the right to hire him. However, that’s missing the point I think. . Quite simply, I don’t want to be entertained by Mike Vick. Seriously, Vick had how many millions of dollars and he didn’t have the common sense to not run a dog fighting ring? Really? And he gets a multi-million dollar do over? Don’t gimme the “it was lapse in judgment” line. Drunk driving is a lapse in judgment. Vick repeatedly made a conscious decision to fund and participate to some degree in a heinous activity (disclaimer: dog lover writing). Again, it’s his right to seek employment, just as it’s some owner’s right to (not) employ him.
Sports is all about business and entertainment; but the way it’s delivered to the fan has changed considerably over the past couple of decades. More than ever before we root for laundry. Cable TV and the internet allows every fan to follow Spanish League soccer as closely as one follows the local NFL team. On top of that, ticket prices, and the accompanying expenses, have skyrocketed, preventing the average fan from attending games in person. Most importantly, players switch team as soon as a few thousand fans invest $100 in an authentic game jersey. It’s no longer just the has beens and the retreads. Any player can switch teams at any time. Hometown rooting interests are eroded. Again, we root for laundry.
The only way for each professional league to combat this development is to produce an even better product. That means better stadiums, better quality of play, better referees, and better players in every sense of the word. Thirty years ago the asshole on the Raiders wasn’t a problem: Oakland fans loved him because he pissed off opposing fans and opposing fans loved to root against him. Now? Oh by the way Yankee fans, that center fielder who throws like a girl and looks like a fag with a beard is batting leadoff for you. Reprehensible and obnoxious athletes become every fans problem.
Fans react in different ways to these developments. I find myself softening rooting loyalties. The teams I grew up rooting for hardly interest me. I choose to watch games because of a great matchup, a particular player, or an intriguing story line–hardly ever simply because “my team” is playing. More often than not I root against a team because I can’t stand its players. My distaste for players and teams is driven by the media.
The sports media generates, frankly, insane amounts of stories, clips, and articles. And I don’t think that’s a good thing. I’m far more likely to be turned off, to be disgusted by a player’s greed or misconduct, than pumped up to root for so-and-so. Delonte West, Mike Vick, Shawn Merriman, Lamar Odom, Michael Beasley, Marvin Harrison (by the way, how the hell is noone talking about his story?!), Kobe Bryant, Zach Randolph, Leonard Little, Arod, Bonds, Clemens, Favre, Dante Stallworth, Eddie Curry, Michael Crabtree, Ray Lewis, Jamal Lewis, and countless others. Is this me being self righteous? Maybe. I’m not saying these people are the scum of the earth (well maybe some of them), just that I don’t want spend hours each week rooting for people like that, and I don’t think I’m alone. I think we’re going to reach a saturation point, and eventually a tipping point, when fans decide that today’s athletes aren’t worth rooting for. Yeah I want my team to win but do I really want to root for a dog torturer, or at the very least a complete moron making 100 what my parents make? For me it’s Mike Vick but it’ll happen to every fan at some point. The retarded level of pressure put on young (14-15 year old) athletes, combined with the overexposure of anything sports related and the “laundry” era make such a dilemma inevitable.
Nothing you said isn’t true, I just don’t get why it’s Vick specifically and not the hundreds of other criminals in sports that gets people so mad.
Well what he did is pretty freaking psychotic. It’s far outside the realm of normal human behavior. Most people can, on some level, identify with and/or rationalize drug use, drunk driving, adultery… dog fighting not so much.
20th Century Motors: I guess we’ve all had those nights where we get a little jittery off the crack and punch a hooker. Always makes for a rough morning.