"Your eyes are like oceans on a faraway star."
Earlier this week, we checked in with our With Leather political correspondent, Dick Tughard, to find out if any professional athletes had been grumbling about President Barack Obama’s sudden support for same sex marriage. Sure enough, professional boxer and Filipino congressman Manny Pacquiao was the first to step forward and stomp his feet in disgust.
OR DID HE???
Yesterday, we had a pretty great discussion about the young Texas Rangers fan who cried when Mitch Moreland tossed a ball into the stands and it was caught by a couple that spent the next 10 minutes taking photos of each other with that ball. Now we actually have a couple updates to that story – of which the moral was kids need to learn early that nobody likes a crybaby – that make it so much better.
For starters, the male half of the couple that ended up with the ball is Sean Leonard, the Deputy Director of Finance for the city of Southlake, Texas. He was at the game with his fiancé, Shannon Moore (well done, bro), and he now claims that he was completely oblivious to the crying child and what was happening around him. In fact, he actually demanded an apology from New York Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay, who was rather critical of the couple for not giving the ball to the child.
“My fiance Shannon and I were honestly unaware of the situation of the little boy sitting next to us last night since we were so caught up in the excited and moment of being at our first Ranger’s baseball game together,” Sean Leonard wrote in a statement posted by WFAA.
As for Kay, Leonard said, “He took an event and sensationalized it, threw it out there, never checked or validated the facts.” (Via USA Today)
Ugh. That statement makes me hate that I’ve defended this guy.
According to this ‘bag, the couple actually offered the ball to the child once they realized what happened, but the Rangers had already given a new ball to the child, who will soon start crying every time he wants something, because people just taught him that it gets him what he wants.
Fortunately, the toddler’s parents might try to dissuade him from developing this habit. Cameron Shore’s parents took the tot on the Today show to talk about their newsworthy ordeal, and – excuse me if I come across as a little happy about this – they actually admitted that they will use this experience to teach their child that crying won’t get him everything. There is actually hope for parenting in America.
Wait, no there’s not.
Yesterday, we joined voices and became a single Arien Nation in support of Arien O’Connell, the fastest runner at Nike’s Women’s Marathon who was denied victory because she didn’t declare herself “elite.” Nike then:
“At this point,” Nike media relations manager Tanya Lopez said Monday, “we’ve declared our winner.”
Nike now:
Nike recognizes Arien O’Connell as a winner in last weekend’s Nike Women’s Marathon completing the full race in 2:55:11… Arien will receive the same recognition and prize, including a Tiffany & Co. trophy, the full marathon elite group winner received…
Learning from the unique experience in this year’s race, Nike has decided today to eliminate the elite running group from future Nike Women’s Marathons. Next year, all runners will run in the same group and all will be eligible to win.
And all because of our righteous indignation at Nike for sucking. Well, not really “our.” That credit goes to Half-Fast and the weirdos who care about running. I was really just in it to be part of the pissed-off mob. I hardly ever get to use my pitchfork these days.
