Admitting a Mistake

Yesterday I opened my gamil inbox and saw this email waiting for me from a reader named Boston City:

I was just curious as to what you think about Big Ben now, concerning what you wrote in your blog that you wrote over a year ago about a 31 year old Casino Hostess, who you think made up a story about Rothlisberger raping her. Now that a 20 year old college girl is accusing him of rape, and that several witnesses said his private security, who were offduty cops, would not allow them access to their friend. Also, that Ben paid off the owners of the bar to make the security tapes from that night disappear. All the evidence points to you looking like an assclown, in my estimation, and jumping to a conclusion before you had all the facts.

These athletes spend MILLIONS of dollars, giving the money to private detectives and PR firms to make the victim look like the criminal. The truth is, if you have money, you can not only get away with rape, but even if its on video, you can buy people off. Hell, even R Kelly got off, and he is on video f*cking a 13 year old!

Looking back on it now I don't know why I defended Roethlisberger.  I even prefaced the original article by saying that I hate him and am in no way a fan of hs or the Pittsburgh Steelers.  If anything I probably should have celebrated what transpired and used it as ammunition to fuel my sports hate for him instead of defending him and saying the girl was a liar.

But hindsight is 20/20 and its easy to say that I should have known Roethlisberger was lying now that we learned about the 2nd rapey incident involving "Big Ben."  Now it has come out that not only is Roethlisberger a rapist but he is also rude, arrogant and a bad tipper.  Sports Illustrated ran a piece about him after the 2nd incident occurred that shed light on his attitude and behavior in public and it was anything but flattering.  

Here is an excerpt:

A man who agreed to be identified only by his first name, Craig, says that a few weeks before the Milledgeville incident, he overheard Roethlisberger making lewd comments to a pregnant waitress at a Pittsburgh T.G.I. Friday's. The waitress, when asked last week, recalled Roethlisberger's saying such things as, "Did your boyfriend forget to pull out?"

he says Big Ben will whine about team selection, talk mean-spirited trash and flex his biceps when he makes a good play. He despairs when he sees Roethlisberger blow off attempts by older Steelers, such as Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, to give him advice.

So we know that Roethlisberger is a giant asshole.  He treats women poorly, thinks he is above paying for drinks, won't take advice from SuperBowl winnings quarterbacks and also whines about little things like what the teams will be at a pick up baseball game. Basically the guy is a giant walking douche.

So I admit I was wrong on that one.  I defended one of the biggest pricks in sports and chose to disparage some poor random girl who was only trying to get justice after being wronged.  I am willing to admit this.

Having said that I still feel like a majority of the people that accuse athletes of transgressions are simply looking to get rich by exploiting the fact that athletes are public figures and can't afford to have their reputations damaged.  In this sense I think Roethlisberger is the exception and not the rule. 

For instance I will go to my grave believing that Kobe Bryant didn't lay a finger on that girl in Colorado.  Nothing short of his testimony to the contrary or indisputable video evidence will convince me otherwise. That is partly because I am a huge Kobe Bryant fan but I also know a lot about Kobe as a person (well as much as anyone can know from reading interviews and watching his documentary) and he just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do something like that.  Dude only cares about winning NBA Championships and cementing his name in basketball history.  

But the main reason I side with athletes in cases like this is because I find it hard to believe that so many of them can be rapists who prey on women.  Maybe I am naive in thinking this way but I don't associate with anyone that is a rapist nor have I even heard stories of friends of mine knowing rapists so I find it difficult to believe that these guys who get paid millions of dollars would just go around raping women.  But that might just be me.

I know Albert Pujols won't even get on an elevator with just a woman for fear of being accused of something. That may sound crazy but in reality look what can happen should an athlete get mixed up with someone who wants to make some quick money.  It is a serious issue for athletes these days as wrong place wrong time can lead to a serious mess that could possibly ruin their lives.

In summation I would just like to once again admit I was wrong.  I made the classic blogger mistake that discredits the blogospehere as a whole, I wrote a snap judgment without having all the facts.  But I realize now that Ben Roethlisberger is not worth defending and that he is indeed a rapist who on multiple occasions has sexually assaulted women.  Sorry Boston City.

Best to finish with a quote:

"I stuck my d*ck in this game like a rapist, they call me Slim Roethlisberger" - Eminem.

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