Understand the Misunderstood

Michael Vick is misunderstood

I know I am certainly going to raise a few eyebrows. After all, defending popular culture's latest villian will put me in the same territory as O.J. fans.

Its o.k.

I feel if I thoroughly explain my position you can at least identify with some key points.

For one, Mike Vick is an athlete that engages in the most brutal team sport in the history of man not counting the gladiators and war. It is not a stretch for him to have a little less pity for those engaged in battle. If you have ever played football beyond the sandlot you can attest to the violence of the game. Actually there are some pretty brutal injuries on the sandlot too.

Football is a fight without weapons, a gang rumble with pads and whistles. It is also a multi-billion dollar enterprise at its height in popularity in a country fighting a war. Once again the ongoing theme here is brutality; football is a bloodsport played by noble men pitfighting is also a bloodsport and the dogs in the pit are no less noble.

That is the view of the warrior. Fight to win.

The dogs thrown on the scrapheap, dead, half dead or suffering are terrible casualties. In my mundane world it is unfathomable to even think about a regular dog disposal method.

How do you think an NFL general manager decides what to do with a useless player who sacrificed his body and future health to win a few extra games and play a few extra snaps. They are discarded,symbolically, in the same way. There are plenty of guys who played football that probably would have lived a lot longer had they not played the game.

I won't even get into the growing popularity of mixed martial arts. When the UFC first came out it was equal in brutality to any pitbull fight. They had to pass legislation to prevent death.

These are people fighting!! Two men , eager to get it on. The first one to lose consiousness or tap out loses. Sounds just like a pitbull fight.

Boxing has the same rules, two men ,eager to fight, the loser taps out or loses conscience.

Pitbulls, like or not, have been bred for a few hundred years to do what they do: pull down cattle and fight. They like to do both. They actually like it. I have seen dogs after a fight with a light in their eyes that can only be triumph.They gain a wisdom through victory, answers to problems you never would want to solve.

It is the same for the forty year old boxer who relies on his wits more than his speed, all his knowledge acquired at the expense of his lower left jaw. Then he loses. Its over.

Over for good.

Vick sees himself in everyone one of those losses; he knows some day he will be thrown on the scrap heap. When he can't run as fast when he can't throw as far they will throw him away just like a pitbull that's to old to scratch(fight).

I'm pretty sure Mike has one or two dogs that he has retired.

Now they are studs.