Hello and welcome to the Journal. This time around I am going to stay on one topic, because this is really bothering me.
I feel that sports have become ugly. It is really childish when in one year; three major brawls during sporting games have erupted. Two that involve fans.
I remember back earlier in the year when Texas Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco threw a chair which resulted in hitting a woman in the face. When I saw this on the news, I was shocked and wanted to immediately fly to Oakland and hit Francisco in the face. This was completely inexcusable, and the minute the players involve fans, it becomes very much personal.
Yes, I know. Us Sox fans can be guilty of reversing that with the William Ligue/Tom Gamboa incident back in 2001. When Ligue and his son who was most likely smoking lots of pot with his father attacked the Royals first baseball coach, who has been crying like a bitch for a long time about the “slap on the wrist” that Ligue received for running onto the field at the Cell and attacking Gamboa. However, a pattern has been established here. A disintegration of the fan/player relationship.
Ask anyone’s parents or grandparents, and they will tell you about the glory days of sports. Where athletes were more or less like regular people just trying to make a buck to survive. They would adore their fans and even stay after the game and sign autographs, take pictures, and yada yada yada. (Sorry had to throw a Seinfeld reference somewhere this week since they are all over the damn TV) Now these days, many of these athletes don’t give two shits about the fans that cheer them on.
You can look at Sammy Sosa as being one of the guiltiest parties in this regard. Never in my life have I ever heard of anyone walking out of a game fifteen minutes into it. Kudos to Kerry Wood for destroying his radio. Sosa says over and over again “baseball has been good to me.” So when are you going to be good to baseball you miserable fuck?
Another case of this would be Latrell Sprewell from the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was so pissed off that he was going to be paid $7 million a year he said, “I led the T-Wolves to the conference finals, why would I want to do that again when I have a family to feed?” You know what you son of a bitch, some people out there don’t make enough money to feed their families and live day to day. Be grateful you have a talent where you can ask for an obscene amount of money like that.
And as we look at the Ron Artest incident, which took place over the weekend, this stemmed from a stupid drunk fan throwing a cup at him in Detroit. Yes, the fan shouldn't do that, but that does not give Artest the right to go into the crowd and start swinging at whomever he sees first. He actually biffed one fan square dead in the face. Good for the NBA suspending him for the season.
Basketball players annoy me the most because I look back in the 80’s and 90’s as we saw legends like Jordan, Bird, Johnson, light up the court with magical shots and what was a game. The NBA should be renamed to “National Ball grabbing Assholes” because that pretty much is all that is left in the game. As I was saying earlier, athletes have come from role models to people who could be on the wanted posters in the post office.
The time has come for these athletes to understand that respect is not given because you make a shitload of money. Respect is earned by how you play the game, how you treat the fans, and how you act towards your opponents. There is way too much ego and hatred in the sports world nowadays and everyone that is an athlete that doesn’t understand the above, needs to grow the fuck up.
As far as the USC/Clemson game goes, anyone in the media who says that this was an imitation of the Artest situation is a complete fucking moron. Thank you and I have spoken.
MJ
