Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Mark Buehrle & A Tale Of Two Concepts


Mark Buehrle has been my favorite White Sox player for a while now.  I have been the biggest advocate for him to remain the Opening Day starter each season.  I can quote all of his statistics, and have based some of my life off what he brings to the Sox.  The #56 is very important in my life.  56 was the page number of a short White Sox quotes book that stated: "When your heart says one thing and your mother says another, go with your heart."  

That statement is important between my wife and I for personal reasons.  I have also based some of my email addresses on Buehrle's name.  I called in to work so I could watch his 2005 World Series start, and I skipped a college class to watch his playoff start in 2008.  I possess over 80 Mark Buehrle cards.  I have his framed picture hanging up in my house.

All of that said, he recently made some controversial remarks.  Opening up about the Michael Vick situation in an interview posted on mlb.com briefly, he stated that he and his wife Jamie watched Eagles games this year wishing Vick would get hurt.  He said: "I know it’s bad to say, but … everything you’ve done to these dogs, something bad needs to happen to these guys."

The powers at be at mlb.com decided that it was not the kind of quote or story that should be posted to the site, and took it down.  I cannot defend this statement.  No one should ever wish harm on anyone, regardless of what they do.  That's not only bad karma, it's basically a classless thing to say.  Up to this point, he had been one of the nicest, most mild mannered guys I have ever seen in MLB.  He had caused little or no controversy in his career.  This is really out of character for him, but that doesn't excuse him.  He said it, and it was wrong.

Buehrle and his wife are big time dog lovers.  They own dogs, and they run a charity that supports dogs.  He even paid the medical bills for a dog that was shot by an arrow near his home in Missouri.  You can't let your emotions get the best of you sometimes, and you should definitely try to let your ego sort between your id and super-ego as Freud would state.  Buehrle definitely let his id come out, completely unfiltered.  MLB.com was right to take down the story because of the quote.

Another question is raised by many over this topic: How can Mark Buehrle say this about Michael Vick, when he is an avid hunter who hunts for sport??  Mark has gone on several hunting trips for animals ranging from deer and bears, to squirrel and fox.  Above is a photo of Buehrle standing next to his 2007 Ford F-650 Dominator.  His truck he says is not for cruising around Chicago, but to be used for hunting trips.  He apparently needed a really big truck to haul all of his carcasses from his hunting excursions.  

He went on one such bear hunting trip in 2007 along with teammates Jim Thome, AJ Pierzynski and Jermaine Dye.  Mark was the only one of the group to make a kill; hitting a bear at 20 yards with an arrow.  According to Mark's own re-telling of the story for a mlb.com article, the bear was hit and scrambled about 30 yards away before succumbing to it's fate.  Mark told mlb.com that he planned to mount its head on a wall in his house, and make its claws into a necklace.

Many people will tell you there is a vast difference between hunting and killing dogs in dog fighting rings.  Is there a lot of difference though?  This is not a PeTA rant that will denounce hunting as completely evil and illegal in every facet.  Lets put politics aside for a moment and just think about the concept of a hunter telling a dog fighter that what they do is wrong.  In hunting and dog fighting alike, an animal is hurt by a human against its will until it dies.  To put it that cut and dry, they are one in the same idea.  

There are subtle differences, such as the fact that some hunters can kill a deer with a "kill shot" which instantly puts it down.  Most hunters, though, cannot and you literally follow the trail of blood through the woods to locate the corpse.  Most dogs which are killed outside of the ring in dog fighting situations, are tortured.  It was stated that Michael Vick himself was involved personally in the murder of pit bulls with such tactics as electrocution.  However, in the same way these hunters will say there's a drastic difference between hunting and dog fighting, I would argue that there is a drastic difference between hunting for food and hunting for sport.  I would venture to say that the bear was not on a walk in the park the last 30 yards of its life.

I do not condone dog fighting in the least and Michael Vick is a vile person.  I am not saying Mark Buehrle is a vile person for hunting deer and other animals that live out in the wild.  It's legal in the United States, and some deer hunting is necessary to prevent over-population.  We don't exactly have a pride of lions out there hunting deer down for us.  We would have a lot more car accidents related to deer, with certainly higher mortality rates due to the fact.  I have lived in Arkansas and West Virginia, and both states have been in the top five in the US the last two years for car accident claims related to deer.  Many states have laws that limit how many tags a person can buy in a season to hunt and kill deer.

However, if you hunt for sport --- killing animals such as bear, deer, fox, rabbits and squirrel, and take these animals to a taxidermy business to be mounted or stuffed --- then you really can't speak out on other animal killings just because the animals being killed are domesticated and often kept as pets.  It seems hypocritical, and until he no longer hunts animals he has no intentions of using for food, he should really just keep quiet on the matter.  Sorry Mark, I just can't defend this one.  You lost a little respect from one of your biggest fans with this unprovoked outburst.

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