What the Hell Does Rant Mean?

I was listening to ESPN Radio on the way home from a trip to NE Ohio this weekend and Colin Cowherd (that gorgeous stack of pancakes to the right) was doing his usually enjoyable show and, as I do from time to time, I decided to listen in and I joined the show midway through a "discussion", and I use the word very loosely, about the Michael Vick dogfight "story", and I use that word very, very loosely. Colin Cowherd, who is no slouch himself when it comes to making sure his opinion is the be all end all (and I usually agree with a lot of what he says), wanted to make sure that everyone listening knew that he thought that Michael Vick and anyone else involved with dogfighting of any kind were, to steal a phrase that one of the callers in most likely stole from somewhere else, oxygen-stealers. There was no other point that could be made. These people deserved to be hung up and put on display as the most despicable people in the human race. And I agree.

But isn't there ANYTHING else worth talking about in the world right now?

To me, this is like the Duke Lacrosse scandal of last year (and I'd like to thank Jed for turning me around on this one). That was not a sports story. That kind of thing should have been covered in the Metro section of the local paper. But ESPN decided, in their infinite and crowd-displeasing wisdom, that Roger Cossack needed a few extra appearances on Sportscenter, so they brought him in to do commentary and a rape claim went from the Metro section to the Front Page in no time. A legal story was all of the sudden a sports story and all of the sudden, rape allegations against college students were being treated like, and given equal airtime as, the Red Sox winning the series in 2004. The same is happening now with Vick. Dogfighting didn't start and end with Mike Vick, but now that we have a very recognizable face for it, ESPN and their people (read: Cowherd) can now defame the practice and participants as if it were breaking news. Put it in perspective: A dogfighting ring was just broken up outside of Columbus and Michael Vick probably wasn't even involved. Says the Worldwide Leader: snore.

Look, I am an animal lover, particularly dogs, and I'm not saying it is good or that Vick doesn't deserve some kind of punishment for this dogfighting business that was literally in his backyard, but in the grand scheme of things, aren't there more important things or worse things? Colin Cowherd remarked that, and I'm paraphrasing, it is sick (SICK) that people subject their kids to things like this and it ruins people and that there are FBI studies that say people involved in dogfighting statistically are more likely to commit violent crime. All because two animals who walk on four legs and have brains the size of peanuts fight. Hmmm...

PacMan Jones and his crew pour money on an exotic dance floor and then shoot a bouncer, paralyzing him. Chris Henry has more substance abuse violations than games played. And, my favorite, guns don't kill people, but maybe Tank Johnson's arsenal will.

So the crux of my argument is that Cowherd should have shut the fuck up. It isn't like he was really begging for stories that day. It was Memorial Day weekend! There were two races, 7 away-team series sweeps, a killer basketball game in Cleveland, a playoff in golf and, if nothing else, a Cheese Race. And aside from that, all I'm trying to say is that if the focus of a sports show wants to veer off the field, then maybe the hierarchy should begin with people putting other PEOPLE in danger, and end with people putting ANIMALS in danger.

Rant over.

Also, Need4Sheed has been removed from the sidebar because they're morons. And so are their commenters. The comments on the recap of game 3, which I'm sure Paul will cover later today here (aside to Paul: right??) complained about NBA.com making LeBron's dunk over Rasheed Wallace the #1 play of the night or whatever, with the defense of the comments being that Sheed didn't actually jump up and try to defend the dunk. So, what, are you calling your player, the namesake of the blog on which you're posting, lazy? Sheed went up to play D. He did. And he failed. If the Cavs can go ahead and win this series, that is what I call the turning point and I will gladly turn the screen shot of that bad ass dunk into a life-size poster. I hate Detroit fans.