The State of Discipline in the College Arena

I have something more to consider for three weeks from now.…

You see, I tend to root for Boise State in college football. I believe that they (along with Utah) are ideally representative of the discrepancy between the six conferences that get automatic bids to BCS bowl games and the five conferences in the “FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision” of Division I college football that do not. Three years ago, Boise State ended up the year as the only undefeated team in the FBS, having defeated Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, while also soundly defeating Oregon State (which was the only team pre-UCLA to beat USC when USC was discussed as a potential candidate for the championship game before losing to its cross-town rivals). Yet, Boise State did not win the championship; Florida (after defeating Ohio State in the championship game) did. While some actually tried to argue that Boise State was a winner in the BCS system that year because they got the opportunity to play in a BCS Bowl, I would argue and have argued that those very arguments are excellent examples to illustrate one type of hegemony. It’s a case of excluding or marginalizing someone and then arguing, quite the opposite, that those who have been excluded or marginalized have actually been treated quite well (they’re “winners,” after all). I still to this day argue that Boise State was cheated out of their opportunity, and I look forward to them and other schools from the WAC, MAC, MWC, Conference-USA, and Sun Belt running the table and showing again and again that they deserve fairer consideration.

And this year Boise State may again be the team to do it. They’re certainly getting buzz as such a team. Yet, in three weeks, my interest in seeing them run the table will be tested. On September 26, Boise State will visit my alma mater (and current employer) Bowling Green State University, and I am planning to take my soon-to-be-ten-year-old nephew to the game. I started a tradition of taking him to football games last year, getting him a membership in the Falcon Kids Club (see here if you’re interested), which gives him free admittance to most BGSU sporting events, along with a tee-shirt, birthday card from mascot Freddie Falcon, and membership card. I’m hoping he’ll develop a loyalty to the Falcons (which I think he is) and, perhaps, even come to school here someday. (NOTE TO BGSU ADMINISTRATION: Please see this as one of the many things I’m doing and willing to do to promote enrollment.) We went to see Eastern Michigan-BGSU for a football game last year. We’re planning on at least the Boise State-BGSU game this year.

So, I’m planning to be at the game, but I have to recognize the dilemma that I face by this game. I am, after all, going to root for BGSU. They are the team I follow and support. Yet, if BGSU wins, it destroys Boise State’s undefeated season (assuming it’s still intact when they play each other). I’ll still be pulling for the Falcons to win. (Indeed, maybe BGSU can run the table, though I doubt they’d get the same respect as Boise State if they did, even though the Falcons’ schedule isn’t necessarily an easy one). It seems, though, that after last night, I have one more reason to root against Boise State….

Last night, while working on various things here at home, I listened to the BGSU Falcons defeat Troy on 88.1 WBGU—one of the two campus radio stations here in Bowling Green (and, by the way, kudos to Pat Dougherty and Anthony Bellino from BGRSO on the call). Then, I watched the Boise State-Oregon game on ESPN, which Boise State won to begin its trek toward another undefeated season. I looked up from my work long enough to see the game end, then turned my attention back to my computer screen. When I looked up again, the cameras were following Oregon player LeGarrette Blount, who was being restrained and led off the field by coaches and teammates while he appeared to be yelling back and forth with some Boise State fans who were in the stands. As I later saw on replay, after what appeared to be some verbal exchanges from Boise State’s Byron Hout, Blount punched Hout in the jaw and knocked him to the ground, before being restrained and led out by coaches and teammates. ESPN’s post-game coverage was dominated by this event, from what was shown on-camera to what the announcers discussed to the very first question the sideline reporter asked winning head coach Chris Peterson. ESPN.com’s coverage of the game has also been dominated by the event. Today, the headline for the game coverage read “Punched Out: Oregon's LeGarrette Blount lost his cool Thursday and he might lose more. Should he be punished?” You can even click on that headline and see a replay of what happened between Blount and Hout. The official recap of the game also leads with the post-game event, using the title “Postgame punch mars No. 14 Boise State's commanding win over No. 16 Oregon.” It is then this theme, not the game itself, that dominates much of the recap, with one line even claiming that “Blount’s actions took away” from Boise State celebrating its victory.

Yet, there’s something awfully revealing buried in that recap. To the side of the recap you can click on a photo of fans watching Blount punch Hout on the scoreboard screen at Boise State’s stadium. My question here is “How did the fans know to even heckle Blount as he was being led out?” The answer: they knew because the folks at Bronco Stadium were making sure they saw it happen … repeatedly.

So, here’s the deal. Yes, Blount did something inappropriate. (Though, the context of the sporting event is part of the equation here. A punch like Blount’s would have been business as usual in many a hockey game.) It appears that there’s going to be some disciplinary action taken against Blount, and my point, at this juncture at least, is not to comment on what is or isn’t appropriate disciplinary reaction (as certainly plenty of media members have, like here and here). I do, though, want to comment on who is being discussed as deserving of disciplinary action. Yes, Blount threw the punch, but for what reasons did the folks at Bronco Stadium repeatedly show it on the scoreboard? It certainly seems to have exacerbated the situation by stirring up the fans, who then engaged with Blount as he was led off the field. I would have a hard time believing the Bronco Stadium folks didn’t realize that might happen.

This is then a rather blatant example (among many in American culture, in sports and out of sports) in which individual transgressions are analyzed, discussed, highlighted, emphasized, condemned, and utilized as the basis for discipline, yet institutional and organizational transgressions, including the ways in which organizations and institutions contribute to violence and inappropriate action, not only go without discipline, but also go without critique or even attention.

So, I’m trying to think of ways to try to draw attention to institutional and organizational culpability. My initial thought is that I might make a sign or a tee-shirt or something for the BGSU-Boise State game that reads something like “Welcome Broncos … to a stadium that doesn’t incite fans to provoke violence.” Maybe, though, that kind of technique would just contribute to the problem by being a kind of provocation itself. That is, of course, the dilemma of so much critique—even the means of critique end up, at least to some degree, reinforcing the problem. Yet, maybe, something like this could register in some folks’ minds and at least be a small step to addressing the issue. And, maybe, I’d not only be teaching my nephew to root for the Falcons, I’d also be teaching him some critical thinking skills. Who knows? I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything and, if so, what I will do, but at least I do know I have one more reason to cheer on my alma mater….

Tunesmate

As I'm sure you can tell if you read this blog regularly at all, one of my interests is popular music. I've blogged about it numerous times and will do so again, I'm sure. I'll keep doing so here, but starting today some of my thoughts on popular music will also appear on a blog my buddy (and college roommate) Marc Majers set up recently called Tunesmate. I've linked to it on the side of this blog with my other Links of Interest. If you're interested in opinions on and discussion of popular music, as well as being introduced to or reminded of various artists and styles, you might like this site.

Ballpark Names

Like last summer, this summer I went to New York City. Unlike last summer, this summer I did not go to a Mets game. While visiting with my wife and her sister last month, we did have one evening in which we could have hopped the subway out to Queens to go. The Mets were even in town playing the Rockies, and, given the Mets' season, I doubt it would have been hard to get tickets. I mentioned going and my wife even talked about going, but in the end we didn't go. If I had even shown just a touch more desire to go, I'm pretty sure we would have gone. Yet, that desire wasn't there.

That lack of desire has nothing to do with the Mets' play this year. Indeed, I've often argued that a true Mets fan enjoys the team when it's underachieving or even just plain bad. That, to me, is part of the fun and identity of being a Mets fan.

Rather than that, my lack of interest in going to a game this summer had a lot more to do with a lack of interest in going to the Mets' new ballpark. Last year, I wanted one last game at Shea Stadium. This year, I feel little interest in visiting the new stadium, CitiField, which is named after a corporation that was recently bailed out by the government, yet retains the naming rights it paid millions of dollars to have on this stadium. The situation has even caused some to suggest the stadium should be called "Taxpayer Stadium" or other names of that ilk, and I guess I tend to concur, since I routinely call it "Taxpayer Field" when talking about it.

Now, I'm not one who decries the loss of sports to commercialism. I recognize full well that those deep ties were established well over a century ago. Wrigley Field, for instance, may be one of the great sites of baseball public memory, but the stadium still bears the name of the team's once-owner, who also happened to sell gum named "Wrigley's." Or, just read the book Albert Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport, by my former advisor at Michigan State University, Peter Levine, as one example that illustrates the many commercial manipulations that occurred as major league baseball developed. So, naming the ballpark after a corporate entity is not the horrible new practice that's destroying baseball that some might have one believe.

My problem here is that I'm tired of the ballparks changing names all of the time. It's awkward, for instance, to have to call the Diamondbacks' stadium Chase Field after knowing it as Bank One Ballpark for years. I understand that Bank One no longer exists, since it merged with Chase, so that is a different situation than a company being bailed out by the federal government. Additionally, I suppose most, if not all, of us can understand the reasoning for changing the Astros' stadium from Enron Field to Minute Maid Park. So, it's not like changing stadium names isn't without merit, and I doubt selling naming rights is going to change any time soon. However, I tire of it, and, while driving my dad to the airport the other day, we hit upon an idea for how we are going to deal with it.

From now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort to call the stadium the team's name. So, rather than CitiField, I'll call the new home of the Mets "Mets Stadium." The Diamondbacks' home will be "Diamondbacks Stadium." To me, the San Francisco Giants, whose stadium once had three different names in four seasons, play in "Giants' Stadium." I'll do this in other sports, too. The Cleveland Cavaliers play in "Cavaliers' Arena." The Detroit Red Wings (and their annoying fans) go to "Red Wings Arena" (though, to be honest, this is a harder one to change, since "Joe Louis Arena" has a little more gravitas to me). And, in a case that is perhaps one of the biggest joke stadium names of all, rather than calling the home of the Arizona Cardinals "University of Phoenix Stadium," I'll just refer to it as "Cardinals' Stadium." (Remember that this is a team that wanted to get away from having to play at a college team's stadium, after playing in Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium for years. So, they moved out of there, only to sell their naming rights to another college, making it sound like they just swapped college homes.)

This new practice is not without limitation. If, for instance, I call Jacobs ... I mean, Progressive Field ... "Indians Stadium," I'm still perpetuating the politics of naming a team after Native Americans by referencing the name. So, perhaps, I'll just call that one "The Cleveland Baseball Stadium." Ditto the football stadium in Washington. Additionally, in cases where teams have the same nickname as another team, it could be confusing. Of course, in one case, at least, I can just call the home of the New York football teams "Giants/Jets Stadium."

And, of course, the beauty of all this is that my favorite place to watch baseball of all the ballparks that I've visited won't really have to change, but for an "s" that would get morphed into another "s" when saying it anyway. After all, "Dodgers Stadium" is already called "Dodger Stadium."

Back to Blogging

Summer vacations and other commitments are now over. The new semester is but a week and a half away. So, I'm back to the blogging board. I have a number of things I want to write about, but I just haven't found the time amid the summer hustle and bustle. Yes, that's right: summer hustle and bustle. So, expect more blog volume in the coming weeks.

I've started with something on Ted Nugent that I've been meaning to write for awhile. I've also got something on Richard Marx cooking and something on baseball ready to write.

Let me also take this moment to remember Les Paul, who died today. When I picked up playing guitar (I played bass, not having the patience to learn to play chords on a guitar) in the late 1980s, rumor had it that Paul lived in some rural part of Ohio. After playing guitar with a friend of mine and an elderly man who wasn't Paul who lived down the road from my friend, my sixteen-year-old imagination fantasized that one day I would happen across a chance to play with Paul on his front porch, too. Who knows if the rumor was even true, but rock and roll dreams die hard ...

The Nuge: The Jerk or The Stooge?

I’ve known for while that I don’t agree on a lot of political issues with Ted Nugent (a.k.a. “The Nuge”). For instance, his take on English as a national language clearly differs from mine. However, some of his comments from a few weeks ago demonstrate that, frankly, Ted Nugent is a jerk. While his take on Barack Obama is one thing to address, it’s what this news report later reports him saying that show just how much of a jerk he is. According to Nugent:

There is gluttony and denial in our economy. Basically, it can be most simply understood by the U.S. government and its citizens being credit card pigs. You can't buy another leather jacket when you've already got six. You claim you can't make ends meet and you owe five grand, much less 250 grand, on your credit card, you chimp!? Of course, I'm the bastard for saying it. People are pigs from the blubber that they have intentionally infested ourselves with and then they have the audacity to squawk for health care but not care about our health? How does that work?! If the producers of 'Planet of the Apes' were offered the current American script that was playing out before us, they would turn it down because it's too stupid. It wouldn't qualify for a 'Planet of the Apes' script!

Only the guilty need to feel guilty, but anybody who claims they can't make ends meet is a liar! Anybody that owes money on their credit card is a pig. If you smoke or drink or have blubber, you get no healthcare until you show me you care about your health. You can't stab yourself in the eye every morning and then charge me for your eye doctor! What the f---?!

Nugent is, of course, basing his comments on good ol’ folksy “common sense” kinds of ideas here. You know, it seems wrong for someone who continually doesn’t take care of her or his health to demand that the rest of us keep paying for it when he or she refuses to make changes that benefit her or his health. I mean, sure, that sounds appropriate in the same kind of way that, for instance, I as a teacher don’t just give passing grades or extra credit or makeup opportunities to students who don’t do the work necessary and who don’t seem to want to make changes to study habits, etc. so that they can pass their classes.

And, sure, I’d guess most, if not all, of us can look at what has gone on in this country’s economy and agree that there has been gluttony and denial.

However, Nugent doesn’t stop there. He goes on to include a lot more people in his criticism, saying explicitly that anyone who owes money on a credit card is “a pig” (and, thus, to be viewed negatively, I would assume). And, of course, if any of that debt is attributable to health care, well, then, you’re an even bigger pig, according to Nugent, who, by the way, in the report claims (with a very strange and not really accurate way of defining what it means to be “liberal”), “I’ve done the right things. I've never been liberal so I've got a nest egg. I've always lived within my means."

Again, maybe he has a point. Perhaps there are deeper cultural trends in the United States, whereby we all, even in everyday little things that we do, contribute to the overuse of resources, engage in unhealthy practices, and live above our means. So, perhaps there is need to feel some guilt and, beyond that, to do something to change these ways of life. I’m willing to consider all those aspects of what Nugent says. However, what I am not willing to accept is his high-handed, self-righteous, hypocritical way of discussing this.

First of all, many health developments that happen are not simply a matter of not taking care of oneself. People don’t ask for brain aneurysms to sprout up, lack of work doesn’t cause people to have hereditary conditions, etc.

Secondly, credit card debt is not simply a matter of gluttony. Sometimes, it’s a financial risk taken in hopes of paying off in the end. For instance, a person might go in debt some now in order to go to school or work a lower paying job or pay for professional development opportunities in hopes that these will, in a few years, land that person in a position where he or she can pay that debt off. Isn’t that, in fact, the kind of personal finance risks that many conservatives who are the political buddies of Nugent would say helps make the United States great? Additionally, many of us out here didn’t choose for our houses to need unscheduled maintenance or for our cars to break down or other such cash-guzzling emergencies that afflict everyday people every day.

So, Ted, you’re wrong to generalize the way you have about why people have to spend money on health and why people have debt. Additionally, you’re wrong to act like you are above all of this.

I ask you, Ted, how did you get where you are? Can you really tell me that throughout your entire career none of the promoters, companies, agents, media networks, and other individuals, groups, and organizations that helped build that career did so on credit? I find that possibility at best unlikely and—more to the point—ludicrous. I would challenge you to show me otherwise. If you can fully and legitimately show that, then I’ll gladly retract this. But that just does not seem possible, given the numbers of individuals, groups, and organizations you have had to work with to sell you albums, go on your tours, and produce your reality television shows, let alone any other endeavors you have. All I need to look at is Viacom, which owns MTV Networks, which owns VH1 (the network that hosted your previous reality shows) and CMT (the network airing your reality show that starts this month). Viacom didn’t make it to where it is today as a media conglomerate without going into debt. (See, for instance, here and here.)

Additionally, can you really say that you haven’t been involved with anything that contributes to health problems? There are many ways that the “horsepower” that you advertise on your own website contribute to smog and other environmental conditions that affect the health (and, thus, the pocketbooks) of many people who are not even involved in these activities. Also, many meats featured in your own publicly sold cookbook Kill It and Grill It have health issues that correspond with their consumption. Furthermore, for as much as you rail on drinking and smoking in your comments, you are still fine with attending and advertising for a 2007 Washington, D.C., event featuring plenty of alcohol and tobacco products as parts of the night’s perks.

You see, one of the big problems with the kinds of discourses that you and so many others (especially, though not exclusively, in conservative camps) promote is that they’re based on arguments that chastise those who take part in the very same institutions and practices that have made you who you are. It’s as if you forgot, you ignore, or you are too ignorant to recognize that your success is not entirely your own doing and that to achieve your success you’ve had to rely on many of the same things against which you rail.

So, yes, I’d agree with you, Ted, that there’s plenty of denial in the United States today. I’d add, though, that there are many different forms of denial, and your comments suggest that you live with one of the most insidious, selfish, and mean-spirited forms of denial.

Of course, maybe you’re not in denial. Maybe you realize that plenty of your fans probably aren’t in much of a position to pay for their health needs, to pay to fix their simple everyday appliances, to pay to fix their homes, etc. So, they can listen to you, never invest in their futures, live meager existences until they die earlier than they had to die … and the divide between the rich and the poor will remain or, in all likelihood, grow. It’s hegemony at its strongest, keeping the working classes from making gains in society by ideologically convincing them to stay poor, while you benefit off the same things you’ve convinced them not to pursue.

If it’s this latter option, then you are, as I said above, a jerk. You know what you’re doing and you’re laughing maliciously in the faces of the people on whom you trample. If it’s the former option, then you’re still a jerk, because you’ve chosen to forget about or ignore all of the things that helped you get where you are and would help others do the same.

There is one other option. In this option, you’re not in denial and you’re not maliciously and knowingly using people. In this option, you simply don’t realize the implications of what you are saying. You don’t recognize that your career has been built off these things and that many of the things that you support have implications that help produce the things against which you complain. I really don’t think this is true. I think you’d have to be pretty damn dumb for that to be the case, and, frankly, I don’t think you’re that stupid. However, if by some chance you are, then you’re not a jerk. No, in that case, you’re not just “The Nuge”; you’re a Stooge.

If You Believed ...

I’ll give you one guess what song is going through my mind as I write this post …

Sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I have a number of thoughts for things I want to post about, but haven’t found the time to sit down and write out what I want to say yet. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks …

Today, though, I’d like to acknowledge the fortieth anniversary of the day that people walked on the moon. Most notably, Neil Armstrong is remembered for being the first person to set foot on the moon. This weekend, I noticed that CNN.com ran a short editorial piece by Bob Greene about Neil Armstrong’s hometown: Wapakoneta, Ohio. There, you can find the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, which looks like a big golf ball as you drive past on I-75. I know this because I’ve driven by it scores of times and I’ve been to it several times. I grew up what is almost exactly a half-hour’s trip from it. So, for Cub Scouts, for school field trips, and I think a couple times with my father (who was curator of another museum in the area) or my grandfather (who was a bit of an air and space enthusiast), I went to the museum periodically. Though I’ve been meaning to go back since I relocated back to Ohio a few years ago, I haven’t yet, meaning it’s probably been around 25 years since the last time I was there.

I have glimpses of memories from the place—barely enough to even mention, for fear I’d completely misrepresent what was there then or is there now. All I remember are some pictures on walls and a kind of spacewalk room. My most vivid memories of Wapakoneta, though, involve something different, yet strangely similar. You see, while I go to the movies frequently in my adult life, as a kid my family didn’t go very often. We did, though, see a number of the big blockbusters in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, like the Star Wars films, E.T., and (actually when my brothers and I cajoled my mom’s brother into taking us) Back to the Future. Usually, my dad and his brother would also take us to see a Star Trek film whenever one hit the theaters, making me into the Trekkie that I am today. Many of these films we saw in Lima, Ohio, but I distinctly remember seeing two films at the old theater in Wapakoneta. One, in 1983, was Return of the Jedi. (I can even still remember the pillar I had to look around to see some of it.) The other was in early 1987. (For some reason, I remember that it was the same week that they announced that Billy Williams was elected to the Hall of Fame, which led me to buy my first Billy Williams baseball card that day at a baseball card shop in Wapakoneta and start my collection of Billy Williams cards, which I still have today, with only the most expensive among the set—his 1966 Topps card—missing.) In this instance, the film was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (“the one with the whales,” which tends to be regarded as one of the better Star Trek films and, on my own personal list, would rank second among Star Trek films, behind the second film with the Next Generation cast (“the one with the Borg”) … see, told you I was a Trekkie; I’ve even got a list of how I would rank the Star Trek films …).

The funny thing about all of this is that it didn’t dawn on me until I was reading the aforementioned CNN piece that my two most vivid memories of Wapakoneta are about seeing films that are about space—indeed, films from what are probably the two biggest space-oriented media text franchises ever. I don’t really believe in some kind of “fate,” so I take it as coincidence that I happened to see these two films in Wapakoneta and that those are my most lasting memories of the town. However, two things might make this a little more than coincidence. First, there is always the possibility that these films ran longer there or were a bigger deal in Wapakoneta than in many other places, since space is such a part of the town’s identity. That might contribute to it being a little more than coincidence that I saw these films there … though, I saw the other Star Wars and Star Trek films that came out when I was kid elsewhere. Second, perhaps subconsciously I so heavily associated with Wapakoneta with the air and space museum, that my mind latched onto these connections to space-oriented films in some way as well … though, that doesn’t explain the Billy Williams connection.

In the end, though, regardless of how coincidental my connections are, all of this shows just how significant space exploration has been in the last half century. That interest has become stitched into United States culture and society in many ways, in large part because the government (particularly with John Kennedy’s famous pronouncement that the United States would have a man on the moon before the 1960s were over) explicitly advanced this movement and the Hollywood industry, toy industries, and so on followed suit. And through all of this, so many space-oriented narratives have been built off a mythology that is evident in Bob Greene’s piece on CNN.com: what might be called the mythology of small town wholesomeness. Greene assigns it to Wapakoneta as he writes wistfully of the town. Many narratives of American history and identity build off this same theme, perhaps most prominently reflected in the prominent, though very limiting, idea that rural towns and cities in the Midwest (like Wapakoneta) constitute the moral center of American values. Many space narratives have followed suit, placing the origins of their protagonists into those rural environments. Star Trek and Star Wars are no different. Captain Kirk, after all, came from Iowa. And Luke Skywalker was a moisture farmer on the desert wastes of Tatooine before the Rebellion came calling. So, even as American stories have reached “to explore strange new worlds” and “to seek out new life and new civilizations,” that search has very much been rooted, physically and ideologically, in the familiar world of the rural United States. That is, of course, why space narratives have been associated with the Old West, with Star Wars being called a Western and Star Trek calling its scene “the final frontier.” (And, here, my friends, I’m sure is my Billy Williams link, since the popularity of baseball is built on a similar mythology, complete with the Field of Dreams in, of course, Iowa.) This is also, though, of course, how the mythology of the Midwest as the moral center of the United States carries on, bearing with it the politics of that morality. After all, it is in these kinds of rural spaces that a lot of the most persuasive forms of exclusion in American history—from sexism to racism to homophobia to xenophobia—have maintained firm ideological holds.

When I look back, then, at my memories of Wapakoneta, I hold nothing against the town. Indeed, I have happy memories of the town. Yet, I know little about Wapakoneta, other than my few memories and whatever information I might look up about it. Still, I have to wonder if Bob Greene, even though he is originally from a town in Ohio that’s not too much farther from Wapakoneta than the one I’m from, knows that much more than I do. The problem is that his column seems to imply that he does. It’s as if he knows the town’s soul, because it must have a good soul simply because it’s a Midwest town. That is, after all, what the mythology of small town wholesomeness tells us. And perhaps Wapakoneta is, on the whole, a good place. Yet, it’s not the automatic assumption that because it’s a Midwest farm town it must be a good place that should make that determination about Wapakoneta. In fact, quite the opposite is the case, since it’s that kind of assumption that, even when put forth rather innocuously in places like Greene’s piece, helps reinforce the deeper obstacles to democracy and inclusion that so often take place in Midwest farm towns.

So, let’s celebrate Neil Armstrong, NASA, “a man on the moon,” and Wapakoneta, if we wish, but let’s not forget the politics of how we go about doing so.

Another Stark Contrast

I get it. Jayson Stark doesn’t seem to particularly like Manny Ramirez and he does seem to like Andy Pettitte, while I tend to sit on the opposite sides of those fences. So, I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that I might jump too quickly to defend Ramirez and I have already on this blog recognized that I might be too ready to dismiss Pettitte. That said, I still have an issue with Stark’s treatment of Ramirez vis-à-vis Pettitte. In his latest column, Stark voices indignation at the way in which Manny Ramirez is being celebrated and welcomed as he returns from his suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. I guess I’d say Stark has just cause for his indignation. There probably is something inappropriate about the fanfare being made of Ramirez as he returns. And it’s not like Stark is saying Ramirez should not be allowed back. As Stark writes:

Manny Ramirez deserve a second chance? Absolutely. But does he deserve to be celebrated by anyone who isn't a tunnel-visioned Dodgers fan? Absolutely not.

If that's the greeting America heaps on him, though, the moral of Manny's story will be clear to every one of us:

It's time to grow some cool hair. Immediately.

So, Stark is upset by the lesson potentially being learned here and the message being sent. Yet, I wish he would be a little more reflective of these kinds of things when he discusses Andy Pettitte. Now, in fairness, when Andy Pettitte was admitting his performance-enhancing drug use, Stark did say that Pettitte doesn’t deserve to be excused and that Pettitte must deal with harsh consequences for having taken the drugs. Stark also, though, in comparing Pettitte to Rodney Harrison of the NFL, to show his indignation about how Harrison was not being treated more harshly for use of a performance-enhancing drug, wrote of Pettitte:

… he'll deserve his inevitable trip to principal Selig's office. He'll deserve whatever boos he hears on Opening Day, and on every road trip for the rest of his life. He'll deserve whatever price he has to pay for this.

But that doesn't mean we can't put his offense in perspective, judged against the more heinous and selfish offenses of others, judged against the context of his career.

I can’t disagree with Stark for saying we need to put these offenses into context, but I would ask Stark to reconsider his suggestion about how heinous and selfish Pettitte’s offenses were. In particular, for as much as Ramirez as flawed, at least he’s not claimed to lead some kind of pure life, nor has he profited by offering such a characterization of himself. Pettitte, on the other hand, in 2005, published a book claiming exactly that. The book, titled Strike Zone: Targeting A Life Of Integrity & Purity, is marketed with the following statement:

While life as a big league baseball player has brought Andy Pettitte fame and accolades, it has also brought with it temptation. However, Andy learned to deal with temptation long before he donned his first major league uniform. While still a teenager, Andy committed himself to Christ and a life of purity. With his target identified early on, he has been able to hit the strikezone throughout his life.

While Ramirez is not free of responsibility for his actions, it seems to me the far more heinous and selfish context here is to profit off claims to living a “pure” life when one is doing anything but. Stark seems upset that the moral of the Ramirez story would be that everybody will love you and welcome you back if you grow your hair long and have a goofy, happy-go-lucky persona like Ramirez. Yet, Stark’s treatment of Pettitte would have us fall victim to what might be an even worse moral: It’s time to claim status as a born-again Christian and write a book about how to live a morally upstanding, “pure” life, even if you don’t in reality live the life you’re preaching.

Sorry, Jayson, but to me that’s the worse context and the worse moral.