How often do you see this?

[Bill Glasheen]

What is the value of an apology?

Some consider it a virtue; some consider it vice.

There's this whole "liberal guilt" think that goes on that frankly sickens me. In the recent first 2008 Democratic debates, some (Edwards in particular) were falling all over themselves to "apologize" for their vote pertaining to the war in Iraq. Somehow they were supposed to have known that the intelligence was bad, right? And if you don't now apologize, you aren't a true Democrat, right? Frankly my view of Hillary went way up when she stuck by her guns and said she made the best decision with the available information. Of all the people debating, she appeared to be one of the few with "a set." Go figure...

On the flip side, some people are just plain stubborn, insecure, and combative. They never would consider saying "Gee, I really hosed that one!" They resort to attacking the character of others rather than admit that {gasp} they were wrong. I do know there is a Republican and even a male macho thing about this. Never apologize! Never admit you are wrong! Don't give "them" any ammo!

I believe there's common sense somewhere in the middle.

What I do find interesting in life is that some people who claim others have "thin skin" or are the quickest to demand an apology are the last to give one. Oye! And yes, it looks as bad as it is.

I remember giving my oldest son a life lesson one day about failure and going forward with it. I told him about Cy Young award winner Johann Santana, and how he approaches the game of baseball. In one of his best years, he'd have an occasional bad day. He'd come into the locker room after the game and tell a reporter "Boy I really stunk today, didn't I?" How refreshing! As I told my son, it's the first step towards dusting yourself off and giving a stellar performance the next time around.

Well this thread was prompted by a series of events around Barry Bonds and Curt Schilling. In case you live in a cave and/or don't care about baseball, Barry Bonds (today) is within 10 home runs of breaking Hank Aaron's lifetime home run record. That's all fine and good, except that:

• Barry Bonds mysteriously got a lot bigger late in his life. Even his head grew a few hat sizes. We can only suspect.
• Some of Barry's trainers and associates are now doing jail time (Balco case) for not fessing up to what they know about performance enhancement use in baseball.
• It's worth mentioning that Barry is an amazing athlete, but not a very likeable guy. Drug-aided or not, he's not everyone's cup of tea.

Well many sports writers, Hank Aaron, and even the Commissioner of Baseball have been less than kind in their remarks about Barry as he approaches the record. The general consensus is that he "cheated" to get where he is.

The facts are sketchy - so far.

So here comes Curt "never without a word" Schilling commenting on Barry Bonds in an 8:30 AM interview on WEEI radio in Boston. When asked if people should hold their collective noses about Barry breaking "the record", Curt said that Barry ADMITTED that he used steroids, cheated on his wife, and cheated on his taxes.

Oye!

People suspect a lot of things. And there are a lot of unsavory people out there. But some things just shouldn't be said. They particularly shouldn't be said when you are on the tail end of telling the press to "get the facts right" concerning a certain bloody sock during the 2004 ALCS and World Series. If you're going to be shrill when people question you, you'd better be ready for "incoming" when YOU shoot your mouth off without the facts.

And boy did it come in!

Within a day though, the following was posted on Curt's own blog.

Everyone has days and events in life they’d love to push the rewind button on, yesterday was one of those days. Regardless of my opinions, thoughts and beliefs on anything Barry Bonds it was absolutely irresponsible and wrong to say what I did. I don’t think it’s within anyone’s right to say the things I said yesterday and affect other peoples lives in that way.

I’d love to tell you I was ambushed, misquoted, misinterpreted, something other than what it was, but I wasn’t.

***

The rest of the Public Apology can be found on 38pitches.

Well... Curt did HAVE to say what he said because the entire sports world got on him. Even sportwriters who hate Bonds got on Curt because he did what he did the wrong way. And Terry Francona himself (the manager) told Curt to tone the comments down. I'm thinking the management was doing a little damage control on this one. Red Sox Nation is a franchise, after all...

Still, that's a remarkable apology. And I find the public comments that come after them to be interesting.

The one from "Manny Ramirez" is particularly funny.

- Bill

[jorvik]

I particularly hate the apologies for slavery..from folks like tony b.liar......my family had nothing to do with that. We were either in a croft in Ireland or somewhere up a Scottish mountain when all the slavery happened .heck some of the blacks in africa were involved.but we never were

[Mary S]

From Bull Durham....

Crash Davis: It's time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time."
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.
Crash Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.

Sometimes athletes should just stop talking and play the game....

The rose goes in the front big guy.....

[IJ]

And what if your family had been involved, jorvick? Does that make you responsible? Of course not... in South Africa, where rich whites were reaping the benefits of racism minutes, weeks and years after the offical end of apartheid, saying that you personally didn't do anything wrong doesn't quite cut it, but in the USA, long after slavery has ended, that doesn't follow. I fail to see how someone who's black has any claim on the nation's holdings just because there was slavery long ago, because that would have us giving to Johnnie Cochran and Oprah and not to the dirt poor white people of appalachia, etc. Makes no sense to me... why can't charity without guilt be enough? And why is there no understanding of where slaves for trade came from (eg, who helped with the capturing).

I guess this would undermine a lot of the guilt-heritability that forms a basic concept of the world's major religions, which may be why it's hung on so long, but we haven't identified a guilt-locus in the human genome project just yet.