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Ray Rice, Ray Lewis and the absurdity of the NFL
New York Post ^ | 09/11/2014 | PHIL MUSHNICK

Posted on 09/15/2014 6:25:09 AM PDT by safetysign

“Shocking Video!!!” This week the news and sports media, on behalf of those who need help with two plus two, revealed there are two kinds of domestic violence: The not-too-bad, the kind described only in words and a cost-you-only-two-games video of a woman being dragged from an elevator, and … The shocking, throw-the-bum-out kind, as seen in this week’s inside-the-elevator, what-happened-in-Atlantic City-didn’t-quite-stay-there Ray Rice video. Some of us, however, know better than to be shocked by common sense. After all, how else did the soon-to-be Mrs. Rice, as seen months ago in the first surveillance video, become unconscious, left for Mr. Rice to drag her from the elevator, if she hadn’t been cold-cocked — admittedly — by the other person in the elevator?

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abuse; baltimoreravens; murder; nfl; raylewis; rayrice
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I almost puked when I saw murderer Ray Lewis on ESPN Sunday morning pontificating on what should happen to Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice. Will ESPN hire O.J. Simpson when he gets out of prison?
1 posted on 09/15/2014 6:25:09 AM PDT by safetysign
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To: safetysign

Lewis said in a comment last week that he was mentoring Ray Rice. I almost blew my cola out my nose.


2 posted on 09/15/2014 6:27:00 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: safetysign

If I enjoyed professional sports, I would not have been able to get rid of television in 1997...


3 posted on 09/15/2014 6:27:31 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: safetysign

Kind of like Whoopi Goldberg and her “rape-rape” nonsense.


4 posted on 09/15/2014 6:29:52 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: safetysign

The NFL has become a circus with the game itself being reduced to a sideshow. I’m done with this sordid spectacle.


5 posted on 09/15/2014 6:32:33 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: safetysign; Impy; NFHale; Bender2; sickoflibs

“Will ESPN hire O.J. Simpson when he gets out of prison?”

Can they mike him up from the inside? They’ve probably already looked into it.


6 posted on 09/15/2014 6:32:38 AM PDT by GOPsterinMA (I'm with Steve McQueen: I live my life for myself and answer to nobody.)
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To: safetysign

It is annoying and tiresome to hear the hypocritical rants of these sports and network commentators. They are making a huge amount of money off these young men who are employed to perform violent acts and take punishment. Why would any rational person be shocked, just shocked, that they would also be violent in their private lives. These phonies are vying for the “Most Politically Correct Hypocrite” award.


7 posted on 09/15/2014 6:33:43 AM PDT by allendale
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To: Resolute Conservative

Its not mentoring at all. Its more like advising him on ways to use PR and other tactics to minimize personal damage and put the scandal behind him. The only thing that really matters to them is getting back on the money train.


8 posted on 09/15/2014 6:35:37 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: safetysign

I finally watched the videos.

Too low-res and blurred to be sure, but I’m not sure he punched her at all. She attacked him soon after they got in the elevator, he backed up, she pursued and made another try at hitting him.

Then he swung at her. When he did, her head and body jerked violently to the left, not back, as one would expect from a punch.

I suppose he could have thrown a roundhouse punch that caught her on the side of the head, creating the movement shown, but it looks more consistent to me with a solid slap rather than a punch. It’s notable that there’s no blood to be seen in the aftermath, on the floor or on either of their clothes. A solid punch from a guy this big and I’d expect some bleeding.

It also looks like she may have hit her head on the steel rail after being slapped/punched.

I also find it more than a little bizarre that nobody is commenting on the obvious fact that SHE started the domestic violence and HE ended it. This is simply not an example of the stereotypical notion of “domestic violence,” where the evil man corners the helpless and utterly innocent woman and beats the snot out of her with sadistic glee.


9 posted on 09/15/2014 6:38:12 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins most of the battles. Reality wins ALL the wars.)
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To: safetysign
ESPN is the most worthless network on television. Blathering, barely literate halfwits spouting off on subjects they know nothing about.

Case in point, Skip Bayless, the most clueless analyst on TV, was criticizing the Dallas Mavericks defense. Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, was on the show. He asked Bayless what defensive scheme Dallas was playing that he had a problem with. Bayless could not name it. Cuban then took the next few minutes to school/insult Bayless on the finer points of the Dallas defensive scheme.

10 posted on 09/15/2014 6:40:02 AM PDT by nonliberal (Sent from a payphone in a whorehouse in Mexico.)
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To: Resolute Conservative

Lewis lied to the police. Victim’s blood found in his car. RL clothes never found.

Plead down to probation in agreement to testify against two others.

Two others had charges dropped.

Ray Lewis has street named after him and is now ‘role model’ on ESPN ....


11 posted on 09/15/2014 6:40:16 AM PDT by TexasGator
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To: cuban leaf

Let’s put it into a nutshell....the NFL says that a quarter of all their players will end up with brain issues later in life...the majority of broken records in professional baseball were made by steroid-freaks...the boxing world is run by mafia...the NBA is hiring out immature kids who say they can play basketball but are more like two-year guys who are up-and-out...the pro baseball owners make themselves into idiots by doing a seven-to-ten year contract, where the player is unmotivated by year four and no one “fire” the guy...and pro-hockey has never come back from it’s one-year of strike.

About a decade ago, I lost respect for most all sports. It wasn’t just one or two. Baseball and it’s records and financial stability are a joke. Football (especially the NCAA) cannot be considered a sport anymore. The NBA might able to retrieve some of it’s glory....but only by dumping ten of the current NBA teams and requiring all players to complete four years of college before arriving at the pro’s.

Somewhere in the midst of this darkness...I still have this memory of Larry Bird pulling rabbits out of a hat, and displaying some type of motivation that was thought to be extinct. Yeah, I hold out for some fantasy episode of Alice in Wonderland...where a wonder-kid from some midwest university arrives, and displays plain old-fashioned talent, and wants more out of the whole team, than of himself.


12 posted on 09/15/2014 6:41:32 AM PDT by pepsionice
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To: Sherman Logan

” but I’m not sure he punched her at all.”

Get real. He punched her. He even said he did. Go back to watching your heros Ray Lewis and Aaron Hernandez ...


13 posted on 09/15/2014 6:41:56 AM PDT by TexasGator
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To: Sherman Logan

All good points, and pretty much what I saw on the video. I think the prosecutor would have a tough time getting a conviction. She also could have been drunk.

I have a problem with the NFL, NBA, or anybody else doling out punishments without any due process, but plenty of sensationalism in the press. In the case of Donald Sterling, the recording of his conversation was illegal.


14 posted on 09/15/2014 6:45:47 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: pepsionice

1972, the year I graduated from high school, was the year of the Baseball strike. It ended my interest in professional sports for the rest of my life. Well, A certain movie helped. The movie was really only a bit of a comical punctuation mark to the decision though. I consider sports to be something you DO, not something you WATCH. But that’s just me.

BTW, the movie was Rollerball.


15 posted on 09/15/2014 6:45:54 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: safetysign
Ray Lewis:(Wiki)

Murder Trial

Following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta on January 31, 2000, a fight broke out between Lewis and his companions and another group of people, resulting in the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and two companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were questioned by Atlanta police, and 11 days later the three men were indicted on murder and aggravated-assault charges. The fight occurred about 200 yards from the Cobalt Lounge at 265 East Paces Ferry Road in the Buckhead Village neighborhood about two miles north of downtown Atlanta where Lewis had been celebrating.[41][42] The white suit Lewis was wearing the night of the killings has never been found. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard alleged the blood-stained suit was dumped in a garbage bin outside a fast food restaurant.[43] A knife found at the scene did not have any fingerprints or DNA. Lewis subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier in Super Bowl week from a Sports Authority where Lewis had been signing autographs.[42][44] Baker's blood was found inside of Lewis's limousine.[45]

Two weeks into the trial Lewis's attorneys, Don Samuel and Ed Garland, negotiated a plea agreement with the District Attorney where the murder charges against Lewis were dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Oakley and Sweeting,[46] and his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice.[12] Lewis admitted he gave a misleading statement to police on the morning after the killings (initially telling them that he was not at the scene).[47] Superior Court Judge Alice D. Bonner sentenced Lewis to 12 months' probation. One year in prison is the maximum sentence for a first-time offender,[48] and the immediate probation was the judge's decision. He was also fined $250,000 by the NFL, which was believed to be the highest fine levied against an NFL player for an infraction not involving substance abuse.[49] Under the terms of the sentence, Lewis could not use drugs or alcohol during the duration of the probation.

Oakley and Sweeting were acquitted of the charges in June 2000.[50][51] No other suspects have ever been arrested for the crime.

The following year, Lewis was named Super Bowl XXXV MVP. However, the signature phrase "I'm going to Disney World!" was given instead to quarterback Trent Dilfer.[4]

On April 29, 2004, Lewis reached a settlement with four-year-old India Lollar, born months after the death of her father Richard, pre-empting a scheduled civil proceeding. Lewis also reached an undisclosed settlement with Baker's family.[50]

During a taped pre-game interview with Shannon Sharpe that aired on CBS before Super Bowl XLVII, Sharpe told Lewis that the families of the slain men find it difficult to see Lewis be idolized by millions of fans, believing he knows more about the killings than he shared.[52] “What would you like to say to the families?” Sharpe asked. Lewis said: "God has never made a mistake. That’s just who He is, you see.... To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He don’t use people who commits anything like that for His glory.”[53]

16 posted on 09/15/2014 6:48:16 AM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: Sherman Logan
I also find it more than a little bizarre that nobody is commenting on the obvious fact that SHE started the domestic violence and HE ended it.

A 212 pound professional football player in top physical shape honed by an exercise regimen including weight training knocks out a 115 pound drunk woman with his fist. Is that proportional to the threat posed by this woman? Get real.

17 posted on 09/15/2014 6:49:09 AM PDT by kabar
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To: nonliberal

ESPN is the most worthless network on television. Blathering, barely literate halfwits spouting off on subjects they know nothing about.


My only exposure to professional sports is in bars and restaurants (I’m in a bar band so I see some of this stuff while setting up).

What is comical is that during the course of a meal, I’ll see the exact same play replayed seven or ten times. The shows are like “The View” for men.

I confess that the only sports threads I EVER get into on FR are the ones not about the games themselves, but the policical and cultural background stuff. I couldn’ care less about the actual games or who wins or loses.

All that said, since we moved to Kentucky we really enjoy watching Louisville Bats Games. $5 parking, $11 seats three rows up from the third base dugout. It’s a lot of fun and, just like with so many other activities in this area, we feel almost literally like we’ve stepped into a time machine and gone back many decades - In a very good way.


18 posted on 09/15/2014 6:50:51 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: safetysign

Really? They brought out Ray Lewis?!?

Reminds me of Ted Kennedy during the Clarence Thomas hearings.


19 posted on 09/15/2014 6:51:28 AM PDT by lacrew
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To: safetysign
"He pleaded guilty to obstructing the investigation of a double homicide! He paid off the victims’ families! He claims he has no idea what happened to his bloodied white suit in which he fled the murder scene! Eyewitnesses recanted! Does that mean zilch to those who can think logically, responsibly?"

Correct. The lives that were lost meant nothing to the NFL or ESPN. One would have to think logically and responsibly and kick Lewis out of the league.

20 posted on 09/15/2014 6:52:16 AM PDT by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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