Only chaos exists in the vacuum of Vick
In at least one important way, Michael Vick is just like the Mob -- when you think you're out, he drags you back in.
The plea bargain that was going to take him and the charges surrounding the infamous dog-fighting enterprise into stasis for the next 12 to 18 months was apparently in some jeopardy earlier this week. Which is to say, Vick didn't want to cop to the gambling or the dog killing parts of the indictment, which happen to be (A) the charge most likely to get him suspended beyond his logical career arc, and (B) the charge most likely to leave him wallowing in infamy.
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| Has the public already gotten its fill of the Vick story? (US Presswire) |
Already, the Tim Donaghy story is apparently extending itself into reports that other NBA referees gambled, although there is no indication yet that any of them followed Donaghy's lead and manipulated games they worked. But the Vick story has obliterated that, and all the other stories/talking points/train wrecks of the summer -- Chris Benoit, Family Annihilator; Don Imus, Women's Hoop Fan; Barry Bonds, Record Eater; Kobe Bryant, Ex-Laker In Training ... even benign stories of regular old sports, like Texas putting a 39-spot on Baltimore in a double-header, all must bow before the endless stream of Vick News.
And yes, we should have known this wasn't going to go away quietly. Legal experts across the fruited plain expressed wonderment at the speed of resolution from arrest to indictment to plea. There was almost no time for hysterical media bloviating on all sides of the issue.
Well, that's a lie. The talk was loud, hit all America's hot buttons and raw nerves all at once, and because it was in a fairly compressed amount of time, it took on a relentlessness that the Imus story could never hope to approach. So industriously did the media machine keep the story at a nice white-hot temperature, that we were getting analysis from such diverse elements as Stephon Marbury (related by being a player), Denny McLain (related by having spent time in the jug) and every dog owner this side of Betty White.
This was, for punditocrats and transom-peekers everywhere, the gift that kept on giving.
Except for one problem. I think America may have already shot its bolt.
Just as the Bonds story ran out of steam before he hit the finish line of 756 because it takes so long to hit that many homers, the Vick story has been pretty well picked over. Hate him, love him, find some sort of unsteady middle ground -- whatever your position, you've said it, you're holding it, and you're not moving off it.
Indeed, had it gone to trial, and the judge been mad enough to let TV cameras in the room, it could have started to brush up against the watershed sports/crime story of the last 50 years, the O.J. Simpson trial. Not because the crimes or circumstances surrounding it are in any way comparable, but the morbid hyper-fascination of our 24/7/52 say-it-with-shrieks news cycle will give it a lasting power it probably doesn't deserve.
Plus, while a Vick trial would have been a better way to find the truth than the test for witches (if they float, they're witches, and must die; if they drown, they're innocent), nothing good could have come of a Vick trial for the rest of us. While Simpson served up some bizarre L.A.-style entertainment and emitted a few household names for your next strip-Trivial Pursuit tournament, it ultimately tore open more gashes in the body politic than it healed.
And at the risk of saying I enjoy an extended public tire fire as much as anyone else, I don't know if we were up for another juridical spectacle like the Simpson trial, which pretty well brought out the worst in nearly everyone it touched.
As they say, you can only order what's on the menu, but at least now, it looks as if we won't have to deal with Michael Vick as the chat-show blue plate special well into the holiday shopping season.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
