Quote:
Originally Posted by JTysver
Who cares. He doesn't have an obligation to anyone, nor does any player. I'd imagine if you can't walk a street anywhere without people bothering you, you'd become pretty surly also.
I have met him before. Nothing spectacular, and also nothing disheartening. He was just signing as a matter of business.
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I intensely disagree. He most assuredly does have an obligation to his fans. I understand the instance when you're being mobbed by well-wishers and you're exhausted after a game--you just want to get out of there.
However, when an athlete does a show, they are not being mobbed. Yeah, it is a business, but it IS different. These people standing in line paid that jerk's salary, and they like him, and have cheered for him for almost as long as they've lived. Then Willie turns around and acts like an asshole, rude to the hilt, ignoring people's kindness and compliments and hero-worship----and you have the temerity to suggest he does not owe those people a smile, a "hi", a "thanks for remembering me"? Those people have paid handsomely for that autograph and the privilege to meet Willie Mays. They most certainly were not just paying for that signature. It's the complete package of an autograph and a very brief, positive interaction with Willie. Then he goes and acts like as a jerk to these people and their children, taking the statue they've built in their minds of him, and sledgehammering it to smithereens.
I say, give Willie Mays a big swift kick in the ass, and keep on kicking him until he gets back on his plane. I know. The language is strong. The imagery is something you probably won't forget.
Neither will the people and their children whom Willie "murdered" at all those autograph sessions. He didn't do it to everybody, just plenty enough to earn a well-deserved rancid reputation, and put enough "dead little boys within" to overflow the largest graveyard in America.
---Brian Powell