Can we honestly watch Vick on television, dressed in the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, without imagining what it must have been like for those frightened dogs that he either drowned or tortured to death by electrocution?
Apparently we can. At least that’s the message we’ve sent during Vick’s much-ballyhooed return this season to the National Football League.
Network TV has lined up for interviews, and heavily promoted Vick, hoping to generate higher ratings. Newspapers and web pages have filled their notebooks with Vick propaganda in an effort to increase readership. And we the sports fan have lapped it all up with the enthusiasm of — excuse the reference — a hungry dog at dinner time.
This Sunday, sports’ most notorious figure, will step out into the sunshine at Qualcomm Stadium when the Chargers host Philadelphia. Other than a few PETA types sprinkled throughout the area, will anybody care?
If we were throwing a massive party to celebrate the idea of economic recovery in San Diego and Bernie Madoff showed up, would we be as welcoming?
Many have said — me included — that Vick has served his penance and suffered enough, both financially and personally. He has paid his debt to society, seemingly showed remorse for what he did…and as a result, should be allowed to try and put back together the pieces of his broken career.
All true. (Except perhaps the remorse part, because one wonders if Vick will ever truly understand how horrific the acts were that he committed).
What surprises me, however, is the ease with which the convicted dog-torturer has been allowed to blend back in. There were a feeble few in the City of Brotherly Love who protested when Vick was originally signed, and there were a handful more dissenters on the scene when he started to play in games.
At Vick’s first preseason appearance in Philly there were actually more fans that stood to give him an ovation (what could have possibly been going through the minds of these Einsteins?) than there were who showed their distaste.
Now that the Eagles are midway through their first Vick campaign — perhaps mostly because he hardly ever plays — his presence on the sidelines or on the field barely creates even a ripple.
Whatever happened to the anger and disgust we all felt when the Vick saga first began? Whatever happened to the fans who said they would never again accept the notion of this ghoul frolicking on our fields of play?
Whatever happened to the big corporations and smaller businesses who said they would pull any and all advertising support to the league or the team that signed him were he ever allowed to return? Has a single company asked out of its NFL commitment because Vick is once again a player? Has somebody like Budweiser pulled its ads from Eagles games? Has even somebody like Purina Dog Chow done it?
And what about here locally where Vick will earn his paycheck this weekend? Anybody out there not going to this game because of his presence? Anybody going to ask that their financial support for the Chargers be suspended one game so as to make their displeasure known?
Maybe our nationwide forgiveness for Vick is a good thing, after all. If we held in contempt forever every person or friend who ever made a misstep, we would have nobody left to share a drink with after work or a relative remaining to share with us a Thanksgiving turkey.
It’s never good to hold a grudge. But isn’t it interesting that — here in San Diego — we all still maintain a lot more hatred for the quarterback the Chargers faced last week than we do for the quarterback the Bolts will welcome to town this week?
Ask any player, and you’ll probably get a response similar to this one: “What he did before has no bearing on the job we have to prepare for Sunday. We’re playing the Philadelphia Eagles, not Michael Vick.”
Ask most fans, and they’re more likely to tell you that Vick’s arrival here adds intrigue to Sunday’s contest…rather than telling you that his presence still disgusts them. In fact, I’m sure there will be many who enter the stadium a bit earlier than normal just to get a glimpse of him in the pregame warmups.
It’s just the way that it is. What I don’t quite understand, though, is why.
– Ello –
