Merry Cliffmas
December 14, 2010
Why I’ve forgiven Michael Vick
November 22, 2010
It seems that every time the Eagles play on the national stage this year, some folks come out of the woodwork to state their firm belief that Eagles QB Michael Vick is a monster who can never be forgiven. Some of this comes from the usual Philly haters, so I ignore it from them. But from the general public with no love or hate for the Eagles, there is still a large amount of dislike for Vick. This is a feeling I understand, but I do not share personally.
First of all, let me state firmly that I am absolutely a dog lover. I can not explain the comfort and joy that comes from going home to my parents house and seeing the dog run up to greet me. I love it when I see a car drive by with a doggie peering out the window. In short, I think dogs are one of the great treasures of life, and are very special creatures. I fully intend to own one as soon as it is practical and fair to the dog. So I share in the horror at the fact that anyone could hurt one of them, even one of a breed that I don’t particularly fancy.
However, I also get that not all people share this opinion of dogs. In most of America, dogs are viewed as trusted companions and even family members. But this is not true of all areas and cultures. In some quarters, dogs are seen more as just animals to use for guarding things and, in some sad cases, fighting for entertainment. They do not share the same reverence that most of us, especially those who grew up with dogs, share for our canine friends. This is the culture that Michael Vick grew up in, so it is understandable that he had a different view of dogs. This by no means explains the sheer cruelty of his actions, but it does help to put in perspective the cultural differences.
Furthermore, it is clear to me that Vick has paid immensely for his crimes. Not only did he do actual substantial jail time, he also ended up losing more money than most of us can ever imagine. His reputation was tarnished forever and he is now an ex-con for his entire life. If he messes up just once, he could be finished. No matter what he accomplishes on the football field, he will be at least as well known for his crimes. So I think it is entirely reasonable to say that if we believe that people should pay for their misdeeds, Vick has surely paid his price.
When it comes down to it, I look at Vick the person now and ask myself two simple questions: “Did he pay for his crimes?”, and, “Is he a different person now?” To the first, I say yes; to the second, I’d say yes as well, though it is much harder to tell for sure. In the end, I think Vick, instead of being simply reviled, should be a good example of paying for your mistakes and trying to fix yourself. If we as a society cannot ever let go of his actions, we show a small capacity for forgiveness that will surely come back to bite us if we do something wrong. For all of these reasons, I am now proud to call the new, reformed Michael Vick the quarterback for the Eagles.
UPDATE: A Twitter associate pointed me to this column by Rick Reilly. Of course, he says it much better than me, but then he makes millions while I make nothing 
It’s a good time to be a Phillies fan
September 28, 2010
Yes, another non-political post. Bear with me – if there is anything that rivals my passion for debating it is my love for the Phillies (and, to a lesser extent, the Eagles)!
My Twitter friend tweeted something last night that really stuck with me:
A Phillies fan born in 1905 could have lived an average lifespan seeing them play in the postseason only twice (1915, 1950). Now 4 in a row.
Now, I realize all the New York Yankees fans look at this and scoff. What’s the big deal, they say. The big deal is that all of us who loved the Phillies long before this amazing period feel privileged to be alive during it. Never in my dreams growing up would the Phillies have a good shot of having the best record in the National League, and for a day or two the entire Major Leagues. Never would we dream that teams would be scared of playing us, that our top three pitchers would be referred to as one of the most frightening trios in baseball. The team that was the first major professional team to reach 10,000 losses shouldn’t be now one of the very best.
All this to say, if you are a Phillies fan, enjoy this time and soak it in. Who knows how long it will last. Hopefully, given the current management and the team’s new found confidence, it can last for some time. Perhaps it can even become a tradition in the way the Yankees have built. But whatever the case, I will be cheering till I’m hoarse for the Phils to win their third World Series this year. It’s a great time to be a fan.
Ready for football
August 31, 2010
Yes, this is a non-political post. Thought I’d try that for a change! Believe it or not, I have other interests. A big example of those other interests is in sports. My favorite sport is baseball, but I also thoroughly enjoy several other sports including football. This year my interest is amplified by my participation in two fantasy leagues. For all intents and purposes, this is my first experience in fantasy football. Last year I did a couple meaningless public leagues just to get the hang of it. But this year, I actually did the drafts and am playing people I know.
Even with my amateur status, I feel I did fairly decent in the drafts. The first was an online draft with a number of friends from Twitter. This is a league that gives a full point for each reception, so I accordingly used drafting guides that emphasized this arrangement. In the end, my final roster was as follows:
QB – Brett Favre, Matt Cassel
WR – Brandon Marshall, Chad Ochocinco, Hines Ward
RB – Steven Jackson, Felix Jones
TE – Dallas Clark
WR/TE – Joshua Cribbs
WR/RB – Justin Forsett
K – Nate Kaeding
DST – Baltimore
Bench – Vincent Jackson, Jason Campbell, Chester Taylor, Nate Burleson, Phil Dawson, Miami
My second draft was last night and was an in-person offline draft with people from work. After my first draft experience, I was a little more comfortable with this one. It also helped that I knew the people better. At the end of 16 rounds and 2.5 hours, my results were as follows:
QB – Joe Flacco
WR – Larry Fitzgerald, Chad Ochocinco, Braylon Edwards
RB – Steven Jackson, Matt Forte
TE – Kellen Winslow
K – Nate Kaeding
DST – Cincinnati
Bench – Ricky Williams, Chad Henne, Kenny Britt, Kenneth Darby, Louis Murphy, Leon Washington
Of the two I feel a little better about the work league but I am too inexperienced to know for sure. Regardless, I am even more excited for football season to begin now that I have a little extra riding on it. I am ready for the 2010-2011 schedule to begin, and for the pure American goodness that is football to once again fill my Sundays.
Soccer and American opinion
June 12, 2010
As I write this, the World Cup is just beginning, and soccer fans both here and abroad are in heaven. And as even American sports media obsesses over this event, it is impossible to avoid, bringing out a dislike for soccer that is almost as passionate. For in America, where soccer has been promoted for decades, the sport remains quite unpopular. It helps a little bit to try and understand American positions on soccer.
First of all, it does well to reiterate the level of effort that has gone into trying to make soccer popular in the US. Many people have devoted great time and money into this goal. For as long as I can remember, sports and news media have attempted to drill into American brains how popular the sport is worldwide, how it is the “authentic” version of “football,” how all the cool countries in Europe dig it. We have been taught how uncultured we all are for not appreciating the strategy and beauty of the game. In short, there has been a lot of work put into convincing Americans to like soccer, up to and including the establishment of a professional league in the States.
And yet despite this, the game’s popularity is very limited here. In fact, perhaps the effort itself may have caused part of this. Americans can be a stubborn people and we don’t like being told what to like. Especially when we are told that international and Europeans like it. Call it silly, but Americans have a certain pride about them and a resistance to follow world opinion. Many Americans have a gut distrust of the UN, for example, and mocked John Kerry when he spoke in 2004 about following their lead.
Beyond this, though, the reasons for soccer’s unpopularity extend beyond this. The fact is, soccer is just a really boring sport. It is played on a gigantic field, meaning it takes a long time for plays to develop. It is very low scoring, with 90+ minute games often ending with just a couple goals scored. Fair or not, the players are viewed as very prone to diving and being dramatic, which I think rubs Americans the wrong way. It doesn’t help that our teams are largely made fun of even by natives (with the notable exception of the women’s teams). In the end, most Americans have very little reason to follow soccer.
All of these factors combine to form the nearly intransigent distaste for association football. I really can’t see the game ever becoming popular in the States. We resent being told we have to like it, and when we do watch it, we are bored. So what possible chance does the game have? Especially when American football is so popular, baseball (a true American game) remains big, and other sports take the rest of our time up. I, for one, have no interest in it, and I think many sports fans are the same. So could we stop trying to force it on us?
On perfection in baseball
June 2, 2010
There are a few things that animate people on Twitter like no other. In my sphere a major political event does the trick. Other potential culprits include a popular TV show, awards show, or movie. But often all of these pale compared to a major event in sports. One team winning, another losing, an amazing accomplishment, or an athlete’s stupid behavior can all get Twitter going quite well.
Tonight’s event was the near perfect game by Armando Gallaraga of the Detroit Tigers. In the next 24 hours many people will see the video, so I won’t bother posting something that will be on many sites and on TV. The short story is this – an umpire, Jim Joyce, blew a call on the final out, ruling a runner safe when he was clearly out. This blown call resulted in a single hit that destroyed the perfect game. Fans of all allegiances were justifiably outraged. Within seconds, all manner of nasty things were being said about the ump. Only after he graciously apologized for his error did the attacks die down.
Now, clearly an inevitable result of this event will be the resurrection of the debate regarding instant replay in baseball. Replay is something well known to fans of football, hockey, tennis, and other sports. Each of these sports utilizes cameras and technology to help correct erroneous calls. Fans have become completely accustomed to the football challenge especially, and the red flag that signifies such a challenge. I don’t see any significant movement in play to go back to the days before the challenge. The idea essentially amounts to this – fans want the right call to be made. With the game often on the line, being accurate is important.
With baseball, though, some fans tend to react quite differently. This is largely because baseball, unlike football or hockey, has a great deal of romance to it. It is deeply linked with American history and is viewed as a quintessentially American thing. Baseball fans, then, view any change to the game with skepticism, especially one that removes what is viewed as part of baseball’s “magic.” These fans, then, argue that instant replay expansion would destroy the crucial human element of the game. To them, the failure of the umpires to make perfect calls is one of the important parts of the game.
In my view, these fans are misguided. I can understand the need to preserve the “essence” of baseball – it is my favorite sport, after all. But fans that refuse the introduction of modern technology into baseball are ignoring the fact that such technology could potentially eliminate many of the questionable or flat-out wrong calls that plague every team. When something as meaningful as a perfect game is on the line, it is simply too big to be robbed by an obvious human error. The fans who oppose replay seem to be fetishizing this sort of preventable error, as if the baseball gods will be pleased that we kept their sport unblemished. (Though, in terms of blemishment, I’d say baseball is pretty damn damaged already by widespread steroid abuse.)
An analogy I could make here is to those who are purists in the political arena. There is a certain subset of any political group that insists on total purity, and in candidates meeting every requirement and proper opinion. They are willing to accept defeat and minority status in order to maintain such standards. In a similar way, baseball fans who oppose replay seem willing to accept that their beloved sport will be filled with easily-correctable mistakes, including earth-shattering ones like tonight’s, in order to maintain the sanctity of the sport. They are willing to see history prevented, games lost and won wrongly, records affected, and seasons changed by generally honest mistakes that could be erased. And all to preserve this sense of baseball as something more than a sport, in almost a religious fashion.
I come at it from the complete opposite direction. I’ve long thought, for instance, that computer assistance could be used in many parts of the game. While I am sure such changes won’t be adopted, I’ve thought computer-assisted strike zones and safe/out base calls could be implemented using current technology. Both of these changes would be accepted in time and eliminate a huge amount of uncertainty and frustration for players, managers, and fans. And in time, such events as occurred to tonight could be avoided entirely. The game would change, for sure, but it would be into one where winning and losing is not affected by an umpire being distracted or a constantly changing strike zone. And I, for one, think that it would be a better game for it.
Why rooting for the Phillies is rooting for freedom
May 19, 2010
While lying in bed last night, a few thoughts occurred to me. Consider the following:
- The Pennsylvania Senate election is going to be hotly contested
- Philadelphia votes overwhelmingly Democratic
- The World Series could potentially end right around Election Day
With those facts established, consider this. If the Phillies were to go to the World Series, it would greatly distract the citizens of Philadelphia. Trust me – we love our baseball and when the Phillies won the Series two years ago, it was basically a region-wide party. If the Phils were to go to the World Series and win, the whole city would be in party mode and no one would care about the election. Or at the very least, turnout would be lower due to hangovers.
If Philly is distracted, the lockstep Democrat voters would not turn out, and Pat Toomey would have a much better shot at winning the race. It is my position, then, that by rooting for the Phillies to win the World Series, you are essentially rooting for freedom. A Phillies win helps a Toomey win which helps America. So, if you are a patriot, you will surely join me in cheering on the Philadelphia Phillies!
Of course I’m only half-serious. But in an election as important as this one, we all have to put aside our differences!
