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I understand that being incensed by animal abuse and people abuse are not mutually exclusive, but can we show some perspective? It sucks that he hurt the cute wittle puppies. He's being punished for it. Maybe he's not being punished enough, but I doubt we'll ever see him in the NFL again.
AND NOW DONOVAN MCNABB IS THE BEST BLACK QUATERBACK IN THE LEAGUE. YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!!
(Go Sox.)
Now I live near Cleveland, and TV coverage has forced me to stop following my beloved 9ers. All that airs are Browns and Bengals games. Great choice there. I get the occasional Steelers game, but who the hell wants to be a fan of Pennsylvania sports?
That last was a joke -- I've actually rather liked the Eagles for a very practical reason. A friend game me an Eagles Starter cap for my eighth birthday, and a jersey the following year. They've been my backup team.
Another good way to choose your favorite team is based on your family. I could easily be a fan of the Jets, Yankees, and Islanders. I am not, because my family was not. Having your family all root for the same team is a good thing. I don't know if there is any causation here, but my immediate family is much closer to our relatives that root for the same sports teams.
Another acceptable reason to like a sports team over another is perhaps you like the logo. My sister, for example, kind of likes the Pittsburgh Penguins because she likes the penguin. Nothing wrong with that.
Liking a particular sports team based on merit is what we call being a front-runner. I remember in elementary school, there would be kids who were always fans of whatever team was doing really well. Cowboys won a couple of Super Bowls in the early 90's, and every kid was suddenly wearing the jersey. Then the Chicago Bulls won a few championships, and everyone was wearing a Bull's hat. When you are a front-runner, you don't actually have allegiance to the team, you just want to be a winner. A real fan supports their team through thick and thin. Chicago Cubs fans, for example, are quite respectable in this regard.
Also, being a front-runner cheats yourself out of some of the joy in sports. Victory becomes a lot less sweet when you get used to it. When you win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 50+ years, and you've been with the team the whole time, that is where the joy of being a sports fan comes from.
Merit doesn't always equal winner. I liked the Utah Jazz for many, many years because they were the underdogs. I thought Stockton, this short white punk, should be getting his ass wiped all over the court. He didn't. That really appealed to me.
When the Rangers and Bruins were dominating the NHL, I defected to the Candiens. When they won, it was more due to Roy's skills in the goal, not brute strength or size. The Canadiens were not big scorers in the 90s. They won through strategy. Merit.
Why do people hate Vick soooo goddamn much? I remember an episode of The Big Picture in which Moviebob basically crucified the NFL over letting Vick play again, and I just listened to the song "History's greatest assholes" by MC Lars in which Vick is mentioned. Now what he did was seriously fucked up, but the guy also went to prison and served his time for the crime he did plus losing all his endorsement deals and almost his career over it. And it's also not like the guy wasn't surrounded by poverty and crime which kind of breeds this sort of behavior.
Now, I'm not saying he should be exonerated. He did something illegal and the punishment was deserved. What I don't get is him being essentially pariahed afterward in addition to that. It just seems that the vitriol he gets far outweighs what he actually deserves. Maybe it's just that people have much more sympathy with dogs than with humans, but I've heard of athletes who have done much worse and get far less of a reputation for it. Dany Heatley comes to mind.
If I owned a business would I hire someone who was found guilty of misdemeanors or felonies who had served out their penalties? I would be lying if I said it wouldn't give me second thoughts, but it wouldn't be an automatic disqualifier. But to be a professional athlete, a supposed role model, I think being clear of all felonies is not too much to ask. You shouldn't be a pariah in all of society, but you should definitely be banned from playing in the NFL or any other major league sport. If you are a thief, who went to jail and served your time, you should be allowed to have a job again, but probably not a job at a bank. Same idea.
More than the criminal players themselves, I blame the teams that continue to sign criminals to their rosters. It's one thing to have someone on your team and then let them go when they get in trouble (Plaxico Burress, Aaron Hernandez). It's another thing entirely to seemingly intentionally fill your roster with awful human beings like the Eagles always do, or the Bengals did some years back. Let's not forget the worst offender, the Urban Meyer Florida college football teams.
I'm also reminded of the old joke that seems to get recycled with new team names every few years: What do you call a group of 11 Dallas Cowboys/Cincinatti Bengals/Philadelphia Eagles? A police line-up.
As I said, a thief, no matter how reformed, should never be permitted to work in a bank. A felon, no matter how reformed, should not be in any position to be a role model to anybody, let alone a major celebrity. Too often we are doing the opposite and people who act immorally and commit crimes get their fame boosted. That is not a good thing.
That being said, through watching Korean TV I've seen the exact opposite problem. There you'll have celebrities who do basically nothing wrong get severely punished. There are major celebrities who committed minor offences like gambling, messing up their taxes, smoking some weed, and been out of work for years.
If you think Michael Vick is bad, consider Park Bom.
http://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/blog/2014/07/01/2ne1-park-bom-drug-scandal-explained
TL;DR: KPop star had legitimate prescription for medication in the USA. That drug was illegal in Korea because it is an amphetamine. She tried to get some delivered from the US, but got caught by customs. They let her off because of common sense. Multiple years later the media dredged up this old news. She immediately had to quit the TV show she was on and stopped appearing in Korea. Other than a couple concerts outside the country, we haven't seen her since.
"I had a good job, a good life, up until the day where I got drunk and beat up that innocent man. I lost everything after that... had to go to jail... lost my freedom, my income, almost my physical life... and once I got out, it took me years to get some semblance of my old life back together again. Take it from me, don't do anything stupid that could get you thrown into jail. It's not worth it."