The Dirty Bird

I’ve delayed talking about this story because I was hoping something significant would happen to change my mind regarding the situation. But I think realized over the weekend that nothing short of revelation from heaven is going to alter my perspective, so why postpone the inevitable. Before I continue however, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to establish a few things. I believe there are only two-and-a-half sports in North America; football and hockey, with basketball making up the half. I’m sorry, but golf is not a sport, it’s a game. Baseball is a game. Barely. Tennis might be a sport, but who cares? What’s relevant to this story is that I am a fan of professional football. I have DirecTV Sunday Ticket. Not so I can follow my favorite team every week, but so I can follow ALL the teams every week. I play fantasy football. This season I will field three teams in three different leagues. I am also a dog owner – or canine caretaker if you prefer. I have two spry young Jack Russell Terrier mixes who are very much part of my family. Oh, and I’m black. I’m sorry, that last part just slipped out. I don’t know why I said that. It shouldn’t have anything to do with anything, right?

For the past several weeks the face of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been plastered all over the news. Following months of investigation he found himself indicted and last week pleaded not guilty to federal criminal conspiracy and animal cruelty charges relating to an illegal dog-fighting ring he was allegedly involved in. Unfortunately for Mr. Vick, one of his alleged co-conspirators has already rolled on him, and the mountain of evidence collected by the FBI seems to grow larger every day. Now I understand that the federal government regularly screws up a lot of things. But federal prosecutions are not one of them. Vick is not dealing with the Duke lacrosse prosecutor, or some backwater country bumpkin sheriff and judge somewhere in southern Georgia. When the federal government comes after you with both barrels, they don’t often miss.

So it was sad to see the lack of seriousness with which Vick, and several other NFL players handled this. Watching a great talent like Clinton Portis dismiss dog-fighting as routine, normal and acceptable in an ESPN interview while his overpaid goofball lineman Chris Samuels giggled alongside him like a schoolgirl with a crush was not only disturbing, it was disgusting. There’s nothing funny about soaking a dog in water and electrocuting it to death. There’s nothing manly about forcing two animals into a pit and forcing them to claw and tear and bite until one maims or kills the other. What kind of a man takes something totally dependent on you for food shelter and companionship and turns it into a killing machine, then murders it the moment it falls out of favor? You want to be a man? Get yourself in a ring with another man compensating for the same thing you are and go at it. Don’t project your inadequacy onto a dog.

Fortunately, the National Football League – and Vick’s sponsors took these charges more seriously than he did. Nike has pulled his entire line of apparel, Reebok has frozen all sales of his jersey, and the league has barred him from appearing at training camp. And with the trial slated for mid to late November, I’d be surprised if he plays a game this season. I feel sorry for the Atlanta Falcons organization. It’s unfair that their entire season may be lost due to this development. (That Matt Schaub Trade isn’t looking so great now, is it?) But sometimes the only way to get through to some people is to hit them in the only place it truly hurts – the wallet. I realize there are people, “fans” supporting Vick, talking about how it would be wrong to suspend him from the league and rescind his sponsorships, screaming about due process and innocent until proven guilty. This has NOTHING to do with due process. If on my way home from work tomorrow I run over a kid twelve times in a parking lot and find the story plastered all over the news the next day when I arrive at work, I would expect my boss to at the VERY LEAST suspend me from my job until the situation had been resolved. His business doesn’t need that kind of publicity. And please don’t trot out the tired old line about how Vick is the victim of a discriminatory system set up to target him because of his race. Michael Vick, and Chris Henry, and Tank Johnson, and Pacman Jones are victims of their own bad choices, nothing else. They didn’t need any help from the system.

Being a football fan I have several player jerseys hanging in my closet. One is a red Falcons #7, another is a white Broncos #26. As a dog owner, if this trial turns out the way I think it will, those two jerseys will find their way out of the closet and into the sleeping crates of my dogs, whom I’m sure will find the soft breathable material quite comfortable to sleep on. As a football fan I wish Vick the best of luck and I sincerely hope he wasn’t involved. But as a dog owner, I hope he’s got a good lawyer. He can always take comfort in knowing that whatever happens to him as a result of this trial will be as painful, as gruesome or as inhumane as what happened to those dogs.