Many of you remember what has been roundly described as the worst piece of sports journalism in history when back in August of 2009, Mark Whicker of the Orange County Register "congratulated" Jaycee Dugard for having "left the yard", a yard in which she had been imprisoned for 18 years.
Well, thankfully for Whicker, it looks like he may have some company.
Earlier, last week, after a Dodgers-Giants game up in Los Angeles, Giant fan, Bryan Stow a paramedic from Santa Cruz, was badly beaten by two men in the parking lot. Stow has been in the hospital since that time and remains in a coma.
However, according to John Steigerwald of something called the Observer-Reporter out of Pennsylvania, Stow kind of had it coming to him because he was, get this... wearing Giants gear.
Maybe someone can ask Stow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants' gear to a Dodgers' home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years.
Remember when it was the kids who were wearing the team jerseys to games? It was a common sight to see an adult male coming through the turnstile dressed as a regular human being with a kid dressed in a "real" jersey holding his hand.
Cute.
Are the 42-year-olds who find it necessary to wear their replica jerseys to a road game, those kids who are now fathers who haven't grown up?
Are there really 40-something men who think that wearing the jersey makes them part of the team? It was cute when a 10-year-old kid got that feeling by showing up at Three Rivers Stadium in a Pirates jersey, but when did little boys stop growing out of that?
Here's tip for you if you actually think that wearing your team's jersey makes you a part of the team:
It doesn't.
We've never owned a team jersey as they tend to be too expensive and to Steigerwald's point, they just never seemed to make a whole lot of sense to us as game-day attire. But to suggest that wearing your team's gear leaves you fair game for some sort of comeuppance is pathetic as well as dangerous.
It's the equivalent of those in this country who blamed the massacre at the U.N. embassy in Afghanistan carried out by crazed Islamists on the Koran-burning pastor down in Florida which included reliable lefty and Time magazine contributor Joe Klein who said: "There should be no confusion about this: Jones’s act was as murderous as any suicide bomber’s.”
In both cases, be it drunk Dodger fans or unhinged Muslims, we see the soft bigotry of low expectations excuse the inexcusable.
So, congrats John Steigerwald. You've joined Whicker and Rick Reilly as generators of some to the worst sports-writing we have read in years.
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4 comments:
My friend Mark, a Steelers fan happened to get tickets from his father at the Super bowl. He immediately booked the nearest, available room, just happened to be the same hotel shared by the Packer's families.
Of course he walks in dressed in Steelers garb. He was greeted with warmth and respect. Of course there was some good-natured ribbing, but he walked away from the experience with a whole heart and love for the game, respect for the spirit, and camaraderie with opposing fans.
He purchased a "title-town" towel for me and also became a Packer fan when the Steelers are not playing.
How cool is that?
Even in Chicago, there is the same feeling of sportsmanship. Many Packer fans hated Cutler, not because he acted like a girl, or he played for a rival, but because of his lack of support for the Bears. We want the best to play the best. A win over a team with poor leadership was as hollow as the Dallas victory.
Dodger Stadium has created a culture of unsportsmanlike conduct for the fans. This is perpetuated by the gang atmosphere permissiveness in the LA culture. No one wants to say it..Not the "G" word.....too much like profiling. But there you have it, no longer a family place to go.
I wish I were a baseball fan so I could boycott the Dodgers.
'Dawg, Fernando-mania is 30 years old this year. Many people credit that with bridging the gap between the Latino community and the Dodgers as there were still very hard feelings in the community as the barrio at Chavez Ravine was razed to make way for the stadium.
As good as it was for both the Dodgers and the Latinos in L.A., it had its downside as well as going to a Dodger game, particularly in the outfield pavillions, gained more and more of a tribal vibe where if you weren't wearing the right colors, there may be trouble.
Tribal vibe? But aren't we still talking baseball, a game about one mph faster than golf?
I didn't know the history about the field. Good to know. The things you know when you don't have a hand grenade........
1 mph faster than golf? LOL.
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