I'm Peter King and Your Not

It got better the following week, when he shared two e-mails calling him a douchebag and he defended himself...

From the E-Mailbag

Quite a few of you were offended by the story in last week's column about me throwing my weight around to get a foul ball at a spring training game. Brian Howie of New York takes me to task for having "swindled some little kid into believing he had the True Ball, even though you have a job that will give you ample opportunities to get another one for yourself in the future. Karma, my friend, Karma." That, and a good variety of football stuff, fill the e-mail bag this week.

YOU'LL GET YOURS SOME DAY, KING. From Sean Griffin of Washington, D.C.: "Let me see if I've got this right. You, Peter King, fabulously wealthy sportswriter, used your prestige and fame to push your way into a closed-access area so you could get a foul ball. Then you lied to a 7-year-old kid so you could keep the foul ball. Then you brag in your web column about how you cheated this 7-year-old kid out of a foul ball, so all of your readers can share in the joy of your wonderful life. Gee, how heartwarming. It's just too bad you couldn't have published this piece closer to the holiday season -- peace on earth, good will toward men, and screw you kid, I got my foul ball, so there."

Wow. The anger. The rage. I introduced myself to a guard and asked if I could get a foul ball. I walked to get the foul ball. A 7-year-old boy passed through the same gate, without permission, as the guard called after him to come back. I picked up the ball I thought was hit by Miguel Tejada. The kid picked up the ball he thought was hit by Tejada. I'm supposed to convince this kid who snuck through the gate that he doesn't have the right ball and give him mine? I had permission to get the ball I got. The 7-year-old boy stole his. And I "cheated" him out of the ball? I can see how you'd be offended that I tried to make the kid feel good by telling him he had the real ball, because I told what I believed to be a lie, even though it was not a malicious one. Maybe that's wrong. But is it right to be somewhere you shouldn't be and, technically, to possess stolen property?

 

And two weeks later (I had a vague memory of it not going away)

From the E-mailbag

Surprise! More mail about the Miguel Tejada foul ball. I'm going to let it go this week, but I will give you a chance to bash the living tar out of me before I do.

IT'S STILL INCREDIBLE THAT YOU DIDN'T GIVE THE KID THE FOUL BALL. From Carlos Sires of Coral Gables, Fla.: "First, the disclaimer. You are one of my favorite sportswriters and I read your online and magazine columns every week. It's ironic that I write you for the first time taking you to task on a non-football item -- your justification for having taken the ball and not giving it to a kid. There are a lot of questions I could ask, including why you were let into the restricted area, while the kid was not; and why you think the usher/guard had the authority to allow you to take team property. But the real question is not one of laws or regulations, but of doing the right thing. I read your initial column on this and, apparently like many of your readers, thought you did the wrong thing. The right thing would have been to give the kid the ball. You don't need it. You can get as many as you want, probably autographed to boot. The kid did nothing criminal, unless you are going to characterize as criminals the thousands of kids who through the decades have jumped fences to retrieve stolen property hit into restricted areas that only famous sportswriters can get into via the permission of a gate guard. I just wonder why, despite all the technicalities you can cite in your favor, you just did not have it in you to turn around and lob the kid the ball."

There's more.

YOU ARE A CLASSLESS, CLUELESS, SELFISH LOUT. From Chris Boyle of Los Angeles: "Despite your keen football insight, which we actually appreciate, you have never been more clueless than you are now. So let's see if we can get through to you this time. Seven-year-old boys who sneak through gates to get a foul ball at spring training aren't possessing stolen property. They're being 7-year-old boys at spring training. Middle-aged star football writers who make a point of telling everyone that they're star football writers are egotistical and self-indulgent. When a middle-aged star football writer, one who could quite easily call Miguel Tejada himself and get a signed ball, dupes a kid and then boasts about the greatness of it all, it plays rather poorly. The icing on the cake, though, is that not only do you feel the need to defend your actions (thus legitimizing our criticisms), but you do so by characterizing the kid as a delinquent. Utterly classless. When you cannot see how pushing your weight around at spring training might be a distasteful way to beat a 7-year-old, it's time for some self-assessment."

And ...

ONE MORE. From Greg of Dallas: "It's childish to justify your actions. You can almost be guaranteed that the classmates at this kid's school have taken the opportunity to inflict some type of juvenile abuse on him for not getting the right ball. You had no duty to give the kid the ball, but to act as if you had some legal right based on the guard's clearly discriminatory decision to permit a public figure rather than a kid onto the field shows, at the least, a lack of judgment. Of course, you could have originally told the story without including the kid and your supposedly correct determination of which was actually Tejada's ball. That would have been the best decision."

To Carlos and Chris and Greg, and to my editor's doorman in Manhattan, and to the hundred or so others who have written similar letters whacking me upside the head until I am unconscious, I would like to say thank you for reading and thank you for taking the time to write and thank you for being passionate. I know how you feel. I suppose this will paint me as more of an ogre than before, but my opinion of the incident has not changed. And so I am going to, with all due respect to you and the others, move on.