TERRY MOSHER
RAY RICE
Have you ever wondered like I have why guys like Ray McDonald who because of their athletic ability stand to make millions and live the life of luxury that we only can dream about and yet can’t keep it together?
If you, or me, have a sports-related contract that would ensure we could live in comfort for the rest of our lives, we certainly would be careful about our personal life and not threaten that contract.
Right?
But the list of football players goes on and on who just can’t stay out of trouble – McDonald, Ray Rice, Quincy Enunwa, Jonathan Dwyer, Greg Hardy, and Adrian Peterson , A.J. Jefferson, Dez Bryant, Robert Reynolds, and Red Smith are just a few lately who have been accused of domestic violence
What gives with these guys?
I could go on with a list of guys who have gotten into serious off-field problems in other sports, but you get the central idea here; guys just can’t resist being themselves and don’t think of the possible consequences of their actions.
You would think that the chance to make millions would stop these guys from doing stupid things. But I guess you can’t rein in a wild horse with a basket of carrots and automatically believe that will change the horse’s demeanor. Once a wild horse, always a wild horse.
But it still baffles me how gifted athletes can do this to themselves. I would like to think if somebody is paying me millions to play a sport that I would walk a straight and true line in my personal life. Some guys, though, just don’t get it.
Why, for example, would a guy as gifted as Alex Rodriguez do something as stupid as take PEDs and tarnish his exceptional ability to catch, throw and hit a little white ball?
When A-Rod was with the Mariners and teaming with Ken Griffey Jr. to provide an awesome 1-2 punch at the plate and above average defensive ability in the field, I wrote that Griffey would break Hank Aaron’s career home run total 755 and then A-Rod would break Griffey’s record.
As it turned out, Griffey’s path to the Aaron record was impeded by injuries during the time he played for Cincinnati and he left the game with 630 home runs. Still impressive, but certainly not what I thought he would do.
Then along comes A-Rod and he screws it up for himself by taking PEDs and while he has managed to blast 664 home runs, he didn’t help himself by being suspended from the game last season for using chemicals.
So A-Rod continues to play the game, but there is a black cloud that hangs over his head which will likely prevent him from being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. We will likely never know for sure how long he was on PEDs because as we have discovered A-Rod flirts with the truth.
If you are following me, you realize like I do that these guys have character defects that overwhelms good decision-making. I’ve seen the same things with local high school athletes. They seem to have all what it takes to be successful, but something in their DNA does them in and they go off the grid, so to speak.
The bottom line is that we are all flawed. Sometimes the flaw is so big that it prevents us from achieving what others predict for us.
When I think this way, I go back to Mariners’ baseball history and remember the times when the team would trade for a pitcher whose statistics would suggest he is just a step below a journeyman hurler, but the team says they have detected a flaw in his mechanics and once they correct that he will be a valuable addition to the pitching staff.
Never happens.
You are what your history says you are. A pitcher with a career ERA of 6 who gives up as many walks as strikeouts is not going to suddenly turn into Cy Young. He is what he is.
I’m still more than a bit puzzled why a guy who is on a contract that pays him millions to play a sport he really is good at will go home and punch out his wife or girlfriend. No man should be doing that to a woman, no matter what the status of the man’s salary. So what are these guys thinking when they start to deliver a punch, as a video clearly shows Rice did to his then girlfriend (now wife)?
As bad as this stuff is, my mind goes to the Middle East where people with ISIS don’t just deliver punches but death by various means, including beheading, and not just to men, but to innocent women and children.
What gives with that?
Summing it all up is too much for me, but I would suggest we are the most violent beings on Earth. That should not, though, give any of us license to bully and beat anybody just because we can. And people with ISIS who think they are doing their murderous rampage with the grace of their God, are not human. They are the scumbags of our planet and not worthily to breathe the same air as we do.
Enough.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.