While many see today's Michael Vick sentencing as a resounding victory for animal rights, I see it as a sorry defeat for a flawed legal system. In a nation where we've seen athletes like Ray Lewis avoid a murder rap with the old "asleep at the wheel" defense (didn't work for La Russa), Leonard Little run down a mother of four while intoxicated yet serve no jail time or NFL suspensions, Kobe simply pay his way out of a rape charge (and a divorce) and OJ... (enough said) we are conditioned to believe that athletes can get away with anything. Resentment at this air of legal privelage coupled with the growing attention given to the behavior of athletes following incidents like the Pacers-Pistons brawl has fueled an ever-growing rift between athletes and fans that transcends sports. Eventually, an athlete was going to be made an example, but I never imagined it would be done in such a bizarre fashion.
Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison today for his funding of the Bad Newz Kennels dogfigthing operation and killing pit bulls. It all started innocently enough in April with word that Vick might be involved with dogfighting and could face state charges on the matter. In the 8 months to follow, we saw the newly-formed federal investigative arm of PETA - oh wait that doesn't exist it must simply be the smoke screen known as the federal government - make this a federal case conducting numerous searches of Vick's property. We saw Henry Hudson, a self-professed animal lover and outdoorsman, be appointed as the judge on the case. I mean isn't that the equivalent of a diehard Lakers fan serving as the judge at the Kobe rape trial? How can he not hold a bias? Finally, in a country with an estimated 40,000 dogfighting operations and an average sentence of 6-12 months for first time dog fighting offenders, we saw Hudson sentence Vick to a prison term exceeding the reccomended maximum sentencing guidelines by 5 months.
Now I have never really been a Michael Vick fan and I am in fact a dog owner. My sheltie Dusty is a handsome pup and I appreciate him. Did Michael Vick deserve to go to jail for these crimes, yes; however, should the sentencing have gone over guidelines, absolutely not.
There are some strange undertones to this sentencing including the federal government's desicion to intervene in this particular investigation. But what I find more interesting is if slowly the life of a dog, the charmed pet in American culture, is worth nearly as much as that of our fellow man? The question I continue to ask myself is if Michael Vick was running a cockfighting ring, what are the chances he would be suiting up for tonight's game, sporting a pair of Nike Air Zoom Vick 5s and one of the NFL's top 10 best selling jerseys?
I'd say near 100%.
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It is amazing how many quirky in-game promotions sports franchise run these days, often at the bidding of a large corporate sponsor. I've always been particularly interested in those that give us fans some burn, whether it is a t-shirt launch leading to a small scrum for the right to own a cavernous XXXL t-shirt that would serve as Grady Jackson's pajamas or a moment on the jumbotron making a fool of ourselves.
While light-hearted in nature, many of of these in-game promotions pose some inherent dangers to certain fans in attendance. The over-zealous fan (pictured above) reaching aggressively for a t-shirt who accidently falls over the upper deck railing without Reggie Jackson to break his fall on the ground (long-awaited, well-placed Naked Gun joke). The married man casually attending a ballgame with his attractive mistress who gets caught on Kiss Cam. Or how about this scenario: It's bat day in Philadelphia and the drunken Phillies fan next to you just realized you are related to JD Drew.
Eventually one of these gags was bound to go wrong and it was revealed this week that in 2006 it did indeed. A lawsuit filed against the St. Louis Cardinals by the mother of a 17 year-old Illinois girl (identified in court papers as "A.B.") alleges the team failed to properly screen the text messages being posted on the ballpark's message board as part of a phone company promotion. The incident occured during a school field trip to the big Cardinals-Royals game (the midwest's answer to the heated Orioles-Nationals in-state, interleague rivalry back east that eats up all the headlines each summer) and the text was apparently sent by one of the girl's classmates. The result was the posting of a message on the big screen at Busch Stadium reading "A.B. has an STD. Eww."
The girl is suing the Cardinals for 25k in damages and while (according to court papers) she does not have an STD, her story has hit home with athletes ranging from Michael Vick to Michael Vick.
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