This morning a chick calls into WTAM and says something like "I was telling a guy I work with that an American soldier can't just join the Iranian army because he feels like it. I mean, our country might end up going to war with Iran someday.... but LeBron James doesn't understand that that is exactly what he would be doing if he leaves Cleveland because sooner or later he's going to have to play the Cavs!" Uh huh. Planet?
Here's my choice for silliest tweet listed in the HuffPo piece: "lebron james is a coward and should get nothing but misery. cleveland forever hates you, i know i do." Oh, yeah, moving to Miami is really cowardly. Would have been real brave to stay in Cleveland, yup. So we should wish him misery--that seems to be the proper respons to cowardice. It reminds me of the line in "King of Comedy" where the crazy lady shouts at Jerry Lewis's late-show host character: "I hope you get CANCER! You should only get CANCER!!" when he won't talk to her friend on a pay phone.
Question: has any sports figure ever done this before? In history?? Left the team he played for to play for another team? Is LeBron James the VERY FIRST SPORTS FIGURE TO EVER DO THIS?!
I remember the main message people took from LeBron wearing a Yankees cap to the 2007 ALDS Cleveland vs. New York game was that "Oh, maybe LeBron wants to play for NYC." No, the main message to take home was that he doesn't care about Clevelanders. Then tonight what was his big line? "I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James." I've been right all along. The guy is good, he's professional, he makes a lot of money... good for him. Maybe someday he'll get some class and much needed work on those verbal skills. And maybe someday Cleveland sports fans will get some freaking self-respect back....
If you really thought this guy was some kind of Messiah, then I've got some of Lassie's dog-shit to sell to you.
At least he only said he was doing what was best for him, and not that God told him to do it, like Reggie White did when he left the Eagles to go win Brett Favre a Super Bowl.
ReplyDeleteYes, and people should really value that honesty. And part of my point is that he has been like that all along and no one should have expected any different. All the dreams of the guy being a stick-around-the-hometown type were wishful thinking not based on any fact. Jim Gilbert is reinforcing this sort of fantasy by his "promise" to fans that the Cavs will win the championship before LeBron.
ReplyDeleteThe strangest thing was the local media here in ny wouldn't shut up about it either, they wanted to stoke the idea that he might be coming to the Knicks. A realtor was on saying he looked at apartments.... And they started an interview with ny's genius governor discussing it for 20 minutes (because what else should a governor of a bankrupt state be thinking about?!)
ReplyDeleteYou two might not realize it, but there is a HUGE larger than life mural right in downtown Cleveland of that Nike ad picture I included of James as "touchdown Jesus". It is really idolatrous and would inflate anyone's ego. I mean, he's probably 50 feet tall in the picture. Now of course everyone is talking about how to deface it like scorned 13-year-old girls.
ReplyDeleteOzymandias (Shelley):
ReplyDeleteI met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Yes! That's amazing--I was thinking of that poem as well. I forgot that Shelley wrote it tho'.
ReplyDeleteI was just talking to a basketball fan I know who's just laughing about the whole LeBron think--he's from NYC. His main irritation is how much LeBron's mom, Gloria James, is involved in all of this. But here's his quote "He's gonna need bodyguards if he wants to come back to Cleveland."
He also said that the mural downtown will be replaced by one of the entire Cavs pantheon. You know the saying "There's no 'I' in 'pantheon'."
Dumb question: Who doesn't make a job switch because it's best for him/her?
ReplyDeleteoh, oh, can we talk about dreher's inane post on suburbia today?!?! it's golden. he looooves suburbia now, but he doesn't think it's utopia, because he doesn't believe in utopia. why is he not embarrassed?
ReplyDeleteKathleen, great idea. It is ridiculous. You could make hay out of almost any sentence. "But we cannot afford to live in a New Urbanist enclave." Cubeland Mystic and I were always pointing this out a few years ago, it's really a "no, duh" situation that Dreher finally gets it.
ReplyDeleteBut... think you can do me a favor and put the post up, Kathleen? You are a blog contributor and I'm getting ready to take my kids to Toy Story 3. When I get back, my vision will be whacked from the 3D glasses, plus I'll be jumping off things pretending I'm Buzz Lightyear until my wife points at the couch.
BTW, I *loved* the A-Team, which was as much a cartoon as Toy Story, but still rokked azz.
I'm on the road back to Ohio, will have to post Sunday or Monday...
ReplyDeleteEh maybe I can do tonight If not too fried!
ReplyDeleteDon't sweat it, I'll do it. I just got around to reading the whole thing. I might as well have written it around 7 years ago minus the "effluvia", of course.
ReplyDelete