the two sides to Marvin Harrison

Well, at least he's a better shot than Plax.

 

I liked this article on Marvin.  It sort of touched on the medias part in this.

http://talkingpointfreesports.com/article.aspx?s=2000&su=0&a=101030&t=Marvin_Harrison%3f__Say_it_isn%27t_so...

 

This sort of touches on what the Salon writer, in the article about the baseball HOF vote, was writing about sports media's seemingly inherent laziness.

 

Media's part in ... what?

 

creating another lazy, bullshit image about an athlete.

 

I think that's selective. Perhaps the ESPN's of the world have bob-knobbed Harrison, but he's been criticized in Indy for several years now for being a prick. Rightfully so, too.

 

I think the biggest thing to realize is that a player's actions on the field and in the locker room around the media really only truly indicate the player's actions on the field and in the locker room around media.

There's nothing that guarantees a guy who does orchestrated look-at-me celebrations in the end zone doesn't love his wife, his kids, his momma and his doggies. There's nothing that guarantees the guy who hits the home run, puts his head down and runs around the bases isn't smacking his wife around, ignoring his children, not talking to his momma and kicking his doggie.

We can base hunches on the private actions of a player, but we'd all be wise not to wax poetically about stuff we don't really know. (And spending a day with a guy away from the locker room and field doesn't form enough of a basis to do so, either. All you can write about is spending a day with that player.)

 

One of the cooler things I've heard was Harrison saying he wanted to make a recliner and couch from the footballs he's amassed. I still want to do something like that with my 15-year-old T-shirts.

 

Second that. Nice touch.