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Thursday, July 27, 2006
Maturing Vick gets another lesson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
This is an undated photo of Falcons quarterback Michael Vick from the Web site MediaTakeOut.com. The site alleges that Vick is holding a marijuana blunt.
Flowery Branch — On the first day of training camp, the story is supposed to be about Michael Vick learning an offense. Instead, it’s about learning lessons. It’s about questions of his maturity and dedication and lifestyle.
Vick says he doesn’t want to look. But somebody shows him a picture from an Internet site that depicts him sitting in a car with a women the site claims is his girlfriend, while holding something in his left hand the site concludes is a marijuana joint.
“This ain’t the first time somebody had me on the Internet — that’s unbelievable man,” the Falcons quarterback said Thursday. “Y’all know me. Y’all know what I’m about. I ain’t never gonna do anything to put this team in jeopardy. This ain’t the first time somebody posted something on the Internet or lied on me. But I’m used to it and it’s something I’ve got to deal with it. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
There was a story on one sleazy football website, ProFootballTalk.com, which carried a link to another sleazy celebrity site, MediaTakeout.com, which carried a story and a picture claiming to be taken from the MySpace page of Vick’s girlfriend. Welcome to the media food pyramid of 2006.
Vick says what is pictured is him holding a cigar, not “smoking a blunt” (as stated in a MediaTakeout headline). But there’s the picture. Doctored or not, “blunt” or not, Vick has to realize that there is a reason some people will believe one thing even if he says another.
He said Thursday, “The majority of things I did three or four years ago, I don’t even do now. I try to stay out of harm’s way. But it seems like even when I try to do the right thing, I do the wrong thing.”
Perception. Reality. In celebrity life, they’re intertwined, and Vick somewhat set himself up for this. Last year there was the woman who claimed he gave her a sexually transmitted disease. She sued in a high-profile case. Vick denied it. But he settled out of court, and long after he was publicly lampooned.
A friend in Vick’s traveling party was caught taking a Rolex watch from an airport security checkpoint at Hartsfield, and Vick found his name connected with the theft. There was more guilt by association when Vick’s brother, Marcus, seemingly did everything possible to soil the family name at Virginia Tech. You can even go back a few years when the Falcons’ season unraveled after Vick’s broken leg — and some critics of the quarterback wondered aloud whether he was taking a little too long to come back.
It may not seem fair. But it’s where we are. It all goes in Vick’s public folder. And when both he and his football team are coming off mediocre seasons, people are going to be less inclined to dismiss attacks.
“I do smoke cigars sometimes when I’m relaxing,” he said. “I do have a beer sometimes, just like everybody else does. But it’s not about everybody else. It’s about me.
“I try to be [careful]. But when I try to be careful and stay out of people’s way so nobody can talk bad about me, it always backfires. I can’t win for losing. I try to be in a good mood and do the right thing. But it seems like there’s always something there to bring Mike Vick down.”
It can’t be easy to be so young with so much money and power, but know that you can’t be seen drinking a beer because somebody will figure you belong in a 12-step program. But this is what Vick signed up for. He is the Falcons’ lifeline. If he implodes, off the field or on, they implode, off the field or on.
We have heard a lot about how Vick was more dedicated than ever this off-season. He worked out. He studied game tape. He was just around more. “I feel like it’s more of an obligation for me to help the team where we need to go,” he said. “I’m the face of the franchise. I have to put in extra effort. I have to be here a little more than everybody else.”
Conclusion: This seems to be a quarterback maturing. The entire Falcons roster stunk it up in last season’s finale, a 44-11 loss to Carolina. But a remarkably candid Vick threw himself on a grenade in a USA Today story Wednesday, saying, “I didn’t go out and give it my all, which was disrespectful to my teammates, disrespectful to my coaches, myself and my family. I’ll never do that again.”
He reiterated those remarks Thursday, but considers it part of his growth process. “It’s good some things I experienced last season,” he said. “It only made me stronger.”
The lessons won’t stop. Some will be easier to deal with than others.
Permalink | Comments (132) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Ugly baseball on pretty day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Say this, it was a perfect day for baseball. The sun was bright. The blue sky was high. It was a fan kind of day, the kind of fan they give you at funeral homes. Everything about it took you back to spring training, the players brightly imaged against the grass-green background. Unfortunately, the Braves played like it.
Just another day at Lake Buena Vista, except it was July and the temperature at Turner Field was 92 degrees — at the coolest — and the Braves were 11-1/2 games out of first place in the NL East. It was no reflection on the Braves pitcher, little known to all of us. Jason Schiell was just doing his duty, answering an emergency among the starters. He’s a Georgian, born in Savannah, now living in Guyton, which makes him an almost neighbor of Macay McBride.
Schiell is average size, about six feet, 180 pounds, and wears his baseball trousers knicker-length, a compact fellow with a compact delivery. He has been around the block and this is his second tour with the Braves, coming after two seasons in drydock while his arm recovered from surgery. He was another one the Braves had located pitching in one of those independent leagues, the Somerset (Mass.) Patriots in the Atlantic League. His first performance in St. Louis had been adequate. Now he faced the Marlins, who are looking over the Braves’ shoulder.
If there had been no second inning, Schiell would have had a lovely day. His first inning was perfect, then Cody Ross, a crusty little guy who can hit — two homers the first night — singled, Josh Willingham singled him home and the most unlikely thing happened next. Matt Treanor, the backup catcher who hits a home run about every Leap Year, drove one into the left-field stands, scoring two runs, and neither the Braves nor their 34,498 guests knew it, but their day was over.
Oscar Villarreal was Schiell’s successor, and no worse fate could have befallen a reliever. Ross, the rascal, singled again. Jeremy Hermida, the lad from Wheeler High, singled behind him, and comedy hour was next. Treanor again, and this time he hit into what should have been a forceout, but Wilson Betemit — any way you pronounce it — bobbled it, Edgar Renteria and Marcus Giles got mixed up around second base, and frankly it wasn’t easy to see what happened next, but the bases were loaded, then the pitcher, Scott Olsen, dropped a blooper into center field, Dan Uggla doubled, and when the inning was over, the Fish had scored three more times.
It was a terrible way to turn a lovely day for baseball into a catastrophe. At this stage of the season, losing is no way to go, and this one was especially damaging. The Marlins left town just a half-game behind the Braves, who’d lost the series on their own grass, two games to one, and only a barrage of home runs had salvaged the game they won.
Funny thing, during intermissions a film of “bloopers” was flashed onto the monstrous screen above center field, car crashes, human calamity and that sort of stuff, which seemed rather awkward intermission fare, considering that the Braves were putting on a blooper show of their own.
There is a segment of the population that feasts on daytime baseball. Looks forward to a game under the sun. This was one of those days, miserably hot to expose oneself to the blistering sun, and what they got for it was a bumbling disappointment. The Braves have reached a point of the season at which defeat is not tolerable, if indeed, they do harbor any shred of a hope of making the playoffs. Next chapter, down to the nuts and bolts. The Mets are coming to town with a comfortable hold on first place in the NL East. It’s a little premature to be saying “this is it,” but say this: Losing becomes more disastrous with each passing day, and this was one of those days.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Heckling the Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The many helpful publicists at Atlanta Spirit LLC keep sending me e-mails about Marvin Williams and his MVP performance in the rookie league. Apparently they’re hoping I’ll change my ignorant mind and decide Williams was a great draft pick after all. Sorry, but I haven’t yet.
Williams lit up the rookie league, which may or may not mean something. (I once saw the illustrious Jonathan Bender light up a similar league at Life University. He’s now out of the NBA.) At roughly the same time, Chris Paul was auditioning for the U.S. national team and impressing the Hawks’ Joe Johnson so much that Johnson conceded choosing Williams over Paul was a mistake.
Paul and Johnson together would have put the Hawks near the playoffs last season, and I’m not sure the addition of Shelden Williams and Speedy Claxton and the subtraction of Al Harrington — and the presumed blossoming of M. Williams, lest we forget — will do as much next season.
About Claxton: The Hawks just paid $25 million to a free agent who was the backup to the guy they coulda/shoulda taken in the first place. (Paul, duh.) Somebody tell me again how this operation expects to be taken seriously.
Somebody? Anybody?
Permalink | Comments (59) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
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