Dear Friends,

Whether it's torturing a dog or shooting a deer with
a high powered rifle, it's all the same to me. One man
will be going to jail, to be sentenced on Monday after
just announcing a plea deal. Another animal killer is
America's hero. A third killed a woman and served 90
days, and continues to play pro football. Today's
enclosed sports column contains interesting perspectives:

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Morning Rush

By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports

The franchise quarterback just had suffered the most crushing
defeat of his career, and he needed to get away from it all.
So the peeved passer headed to the backwoods of Mississippi,
where he cleared his head by killing a defenseless animal.

Sorry, PETA, but the gun-toting quarterback in question was not
Michael Vick. In fact, it was Peyton Manning, whose aim with a
hunting rifle apparently is as true as it is with the ol' pigskin.

In January 2003, a couple of days after the Indianapolis Colts'
41-0 playoff annihilation by the New York Jets, Manning went to
a 12,000-acre spread in central Mississippi owned by a family
friend and got his mind right. As he told me later that year,

"You're out there hunting for deer and ducks, just you and your
gun. It's peaceful and totally quiet, no cell phones or anything
like that. It's a good detox, the type of thing that gets your
batteries recharged."

In other words: Bad news, Bambi.

This is not meant to be a shot at Manning, one of the sports
world's good guys and, in fairness, one of the many NFL players
who enjoys such recreational pursuits. There are plenty of reasons
his behavior should not be compared to the alleged doings of the
Train Wreck That Is Michael Vick, beginning with the fact that
it was legal.

Some also would argue that it is more humane to put a bullet
through an unsuspecting deer than to end the life of a canine
in any of the hideous ways that the exiled Atlanta Falcons
quarterback and his co-defendants are accused – though I'm not
necessarily sure the eight-point buck with the 18-inch spread
that Manning had mounted on the wall of his Indy home would see
it that way.

The larger point is that, as much as we're tempted to react to
the federal indictment of Vick as though it contained the most
heinous accusations against a football player since O.J. Simpson's,
there's a whole lot of hypocrisy here.

For one thing, animals are put to death on a continuous basis, as
I was just telling one of my fellow pet-lovers at a neighborhood
barbecue while wiping away the hamburger grease that had dripped
onto my suede Pumas.

It also must be noted – and I am not defending the sick behavior
of anyone whom a jury decides has committed an offense such as
electrocuting a pit bull – that there are NFL players who've been
charged with having committed deplorable crimes against actual
human beings. Some of them even have been convicted, yet most of
us manage to let it go when they do good things for the home team
or emerge as value picks in the fantasy draft.

During my recent training camp travels, I stood in the St. Louis
Rams' practice bubble watching 10th-year defensive end Leonard
Little hone his impressive pass-rushing skills. The workout, which
had been moved inside because of concerns about the hellacious heat,
was closed to the public, but I didn't see any picketers outside.

To jog your memory, Little was the player who in 1998 drove home
after celebrating his birthday, ran a red light in downtown St.
Louis and caused a collision that killed another motorist,
47-year-old Susan Gutweiler. A breath test measured his blood-alcohol
level at 0.19 percent, nearly twice the legal limit, and he
eventually
pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and spent 90 days in jail.
When he returned to the Rams after an eight-game NFL suspension,
Mothers Against Drunk Driving protested outside a Rams game, but
few people outside St. Louis seemed to notice, and Little went on
to become one of the league's premier pass rushers.

It's a horrible story, but it might have contained at least a
slightly redemptive touch had Little assuaged his guilt by urging
others never to make the same mistake. He could have become a vocal
and visible spokesman for consuming alcohol responsibly. He could
have used his platform as a star athlete to try to save the lives
of future drunk-driving victims.

Instead, Little drank and drove again. In 2004, Little was arrested
for driving while intoxicated after being pulled over in Ladue, Mo.,
for speeding at 3:44 a.m. The arresting officer's affidavit stated
that Little had "bloodshot, watery eyes and emitted an odor of
alcohol;" that he had "attempted and failed three sobriety tests;"
and that the player had "admitted to drinking alcoholic beverages."

Little, charged with a felony for driving while intoxicated as a
persistent offender, later was acquitted after his lawyer convinced
a jury that the arresting officer hadn't followed proper procedures
in conducting the field-sobriety tests. Though another officer
testified that he had administered a breath-alcohol test at the
scene which showed that Little's blood-alcohol content was nearly
double the legal limit of .08 percent, the test was inadmissible
under Missouri law because of the unreliability of portable
equipment. (After arriving at the police station, Little had
refused to take a second breath-alcohol test.)

In other words, Little triumphed in court thanks to the legal
equivalent of the Tuck Rule – only with a far more subdued
reaction by the offended party (in this case, anyone with a
brain and/or a conscience) than that displayed by Raider Nation.

I always thought that MADD, which tried to draw attention to
the case, was a robust, publicity-savvy advocacy group. But,
apparently, PETA is the big leagues, and MADD is rookie ball.
Then again, everyone, from the anti-war movement to the salty
pseudoscientists trying to convince us that global warming is
a hoax, is a lightweight compared to PETA.

I'm not mad at MADD; I'm simply pointing out that Little – and,
for that matter, plenty of other NFL players whose behavior has
been unconscionable – is allowed to ply his trade without getting
shouted down by the masses.

Meanwhile, Vick, a man with no prior criminal record who has not
yet been tried or convicted, is the NFL's version of TB on a plane.
Falcons owner Arthur Blank was ready to suspend his franchise
quarterback before commissioner Roger Goodell intervened and
banished Vick from training camp, with no resistance from the NFL
Players Association, which is supposed to represent Vick's
interests. Now Goodell is preparing to shelve Vick for the entire
2007 season. The fallen star may never play another NFL down.

The biggest reason this is happening so quickly, prematurely and
intensely is because of us. We're the angry mob shouting for
justice, albeit via Internet chat rooms and sports-talk radio;
ultimately, we're the ones empowering Goodell to act, with PETA
doing the bulk of the legwork.

The allegations against Vick and the resulting outcry are
tarnishing the brand, and Goodell, the owners who employ him and
the companies which supply the league's ad revenues are highly
aware of the stakes. Meanwhile, in terms of public reproach, other
players are getting away with … well, crimes like involuntary
manslaughter.

This is not meant to be flippant or to suggest a value judgment
in any way, but it could be argued that right now, an NFL player
would be less stressed about going on trial for domestic abuse
than he would for dogfighting.

I can't predict whether another NFL player will follow Vick into
court, but I can tell you that he's not the only one caught up in
the animal-fighting culture. One of the league's best role models,
New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister, concedes that
the problem is more widespread than some outsiders may believe.

"If you look at the big picture, cockfighting just got banned
in Louisiana," he said last Thursday. "That helps put all of
this in perspective."

When I asked McAllister, a native of tiny Lena, Miss., if he
ever had been invited to a dogfight, he laughed and said,
"Come on, I'm from the country."

Now think about this: There is a player on an NFL roster with
an image of two dogs fighting tattooed on his lower back. If
PETA figures out who he is, this could add new meaning to the
term "bad ink."

For what it's worth, the player in question is from the South,
but his name is not Michael Vick.

If that disappoints you, take heart: It's not Peyton Manning,
either.

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The above column was written by Michael Silver, Yahoo Sports

Robert Cohen
i4crob@...