Boston Herald Columnist Compares Doing Business With LeBron James To Dealing in Blood Diamonds
By Ty Duffy
Tomase had strong words.
"Doesn’t matter. He’s only slightly more respected than Tiger Woods and Charlie Sheen, and for a Boston club to join forces with him defies reason. I hear there’s good money in blood diamonds, too. What’s next? Cage Nancy Kerrigan at Gate C and let Tonya Harding club her before every game? Ditch victory anthem “Dirty Water” for the “Super Bowl Shuffle”? Rechristen the bullpens the Montreal Canadiens penalty boxes?"
LeBron James’ move to Miami was unpopular. Cleveland feels he’s a traitor. Does this make him personally analogous to a serial adulterer or a deranged, egomaniacal drug addict? Perhaps, we can leave some room for hyperbole, but doing business with LeBron is like trading in blood diamonds? Really? LeBron toasting his own magnificence is comparable to fomenting horrific conflict in Africa?
A Boston club dealing with LeBron “defies reason,” yet Tomase gives the reason in the preceding paragraph.
"The deal will undoubtedly benefit all sides financially. James is a constellation. He’s a megastar. He’s one of the greatest pure athletes in history."
I could see Cleveland fans being upset if this was the Browns’ ownership, but why would this be a call to arms for Boston fans? The Heat and Celtics are Eastern Conference foes. Is it the memory of LeBron’s epic self-destruction against Boston last spring or his failure to win all three times this season that is especially painful? He’s not “Peyton Manning or A-Rod.”
Probably, this is because he’s an avowed Yankees fan. How could John Henry do business with someone who dared affiliate himself with the Yankees in public? Maybe because he did himself. He once owned part of the Yankees. Henry invested in a marketing company. That marketing company just landed one of the premier athletes in the world. How did John Henry become a billionaire? By not having the frenetic sensibility of the sports fan only existent in a columnist’s rhetorical flourish.
Fenway Sports Group’s business deal with LeBron James may be a cataclysm of douchebaggery, a collision of sports fan lightning rods, but it’s nothing scandalous. Ridiculously wealthy people team up with other ridiculously wealthy people to become more ridiculously wealthy. They are also ridiculously wealthy enough that public opinion, contrived or natural, is irrelevant. The only tangible disasters created by this nontroversy are Tomase’s reactionary column, the next 24 hours of Boston sports radio and Jim Rome’s impending “burn” about LeBron being Anti-American for investing in soccer.
[Photo via Getty]