You from Cincinnati?

[CarsonCity]

I found this to be a very accurate and good read from ESPN.com (who'd a thunk it?) on the city of Cincinnati. I can't really say I disagree with anything he said...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/sto...mp;lid=tab2pos1

Or, for those of you that don't feel like moving your mouse and clicking...

CINCINNATI -- There is no easy explanation for this place.

Cincinnati is a cocktail of contradictions, a town too conflicted for easy labeling. Its outside doesn't readily match its inside, making this a real-life Wisteria Lane: What looks like quintessentially normal America seems to have a ragingly weird undercurrent sluicing through it.

It is famously conservative and proudly prudish, yet it launched the porn career of Larry Flynt and once elected Jerry Springer as its mayor. (Springer later ran for governor, and part of his campaign was a TV ad wherein he admitted paying for a hooker -- with a check.)

It counts among its most famous women residents both Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Marge Schott, who once referred to two African-American Cincinnati Reds as "my million-dollar n------."

It has been called bigoted, segregated and racially regressive, yet what other downtown has a nonprofit hip-hop youth performance center next door to the city ballet? B-boys and ballerinas pass on the sidewalk, one group walking in from the jagged surrounding neighborhood and the other popping out of BMWs from the 'burbs.

It is either America's southernmost Midwestern city or its most Midwestern Southern city, sitting a river's width to the north of the Mason-Dixon Line. One thing it definitely isn't: in step with the rest of Ohio.

It just might be the strangest city in Flyover America.

"I can't explain why it is the way it is," says Cincinnati Enquirer sports columnist Paul Daugherty. "I don't know why we attract eccentrics."

Daugherty moved here from New York in 1988 and has rarely been without column fodder. That's because the cultural inconsistencies in identity cross over to sports as well.

Cincinnati places a premium on propriety and civility, yet fiercely champions the dishonest (Pete Rose) and the profane (Bob Huggins).

It is part of a legendary football state, yet its biggest collegiate sporting event every year is the Xavier-Cincinnati basketball game.

And it is a place with a low crime rate -- except among its pro football players, who lead the National Football League by a wide margin in recent arrests.

Heading into an NFL draft that has put unprecedented emphasis on "character issues," the Cincinnati Bengals' draft decisions could be more closely scrutinized than any team's. That's what happens when you're dogged by a dirty reputation harder to shake than gum on your shoe.

"One of the ways we're trying to clean this up is through the draft -- drafting good-character guys," says Cincinnati running back Rudi Johnson. "If that means passing some guys up, so be it. We've already learned that doing it the other way didn't work out in our favor."

Doing it the other way, Cincinnati drafted guys such as Chris Henry, Odell Thurman, Frostee Rucker and A.J. Nicholson. Every one of them came with a character red flag that was ignored, and all of them have been arrested since they joined the Bengals.

That hasn't played well on Wisteria Lane. Cincinnati is the oldest of baseball towns, but it is passionate about its NFL team, too. Passionate enough to be pissed off by the run of bad behavior.

"It's an old German Catholic city, where you behaved properly and went to Mass," says Howard Wilkinson, a 25-year Enquirer political writer. "People here over the years have looked to sports stars with great reverence; and when you mess up, people are disappointed. The only one who seems to get a pass is Rose.

"It's kind of an old-fashioned place. I think that's had a big impact on how people look at the Bengals now. It's embarrassing, and people don't like that around here."

There have been 13 Bengals busts since Jan. 1, 2006; and even though it's been nearly four months since the last player got nailed, the wife of a former player has stepped in to fill the crime-blotter void. According to the Enquirer, 51-year-old Jeni Lee Dinkel, wife of former Bengals linebacker Tom Dinkel, entered a not guilty plea last week to charges of having sex with an underage boy in suburban Cincinnati.

Combine that with the eight-game suspension handed out by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to serial Bengals miscreant Henry this month, and you have a sordid story that never seems to stop.

"It comes up in every interview I do," Johnson, the running back, says wearily.

It comes up daily on the streets, too.

A tale of two cities

In the middle of a forbidding urban neighborhood sits an incongruous athletic oasis.

It's the football stadium at Taft High School, a thoroughly modern edifice with high-quality artificial turf surrounded by an all-weather track. Many of the schools in the Cincinnati Public League play their games here. On a perfect spring afternoon last week, the Taft Senators were having track practice.

Mike Martin is one of the assistant coaches. He's also the head football coach at Taft. He's also a former Cincinnati Bengal, a wide receiver for seven seasons in the 1980s who led the NFL in punt returns in 1984.

In five years, Martin has rebuilt Taft football, literally from nothing. The 2001 season was canceled when just five players came out for the team. Since then, he has breathed life into the program and become a powerful, positive influence in his players' lives.

Martin expects to have one of his best teams this fall. He's also hoping he might have a volunteer assistant coach come work with his players -- a guy named Chris Henry, who won't have much to do during the first half of the 2007 NFL season.

Martin has floated the idea to the Bengals' front office about Henry working with Taft while he serves his suspension. Martin says head coach Marvin Lewis was very receptive to the idea. It remains to be seen how receptive Henry is. The Bengals have put him off-limits to the media while he's suspended.

Being around a quietly charismatic guy like Martin might help Henry, who has been arrested four times since Dec. 15, 2005, making him the honorary captain of Team Mug Shot. Being around Martin's players might help, too.

"My guys will keep it real with him," Martin says. "They won't pull any punches. They'll ask him about everything he's been doing. Maybe it'll be good for him to hear it from these guys -- remember where he came from, and see how privileged he is to be in the NFL.

"A lot of these guys want to get where [the Bengals] are. Just listening to their conversations, it's amazing to them that someone would want to throw away such an opportunity."

It should be noted that the majority of the Bengals have seized their opportunity and made a positive impact in the Cincinnati community. But the steady stream of problems has overshadowed those good deeds. And Martin's players aren't shy about saying what they think of the Bengals' legal embarrassments.

"They've been crazy," says Kenneth Trimble, a highly recruited strong safety.

"They're disappointing the fans," says cornerback Ronald Hicks.

"Why they act like that?" asks Ronald's brother, Keyonta Hicks, also a cornerback.

"Most of them," says Darryl Robinson, another corner, with a mixture of amusement and amazement, "act like we do."

From the mean streets to the office suites, the kids aren't the only ones wondering. Bengals alums such as Martin and Reggie Williams are chagrined by the behavior.

"As a Cincinnati Bengals lifetime player, I find myself continually besmirched," says 14-year Cincy linebacker Williams, who was the anti-Chris Henry in his day: an Ivy League grad so respected off the field that he successfully ran for city council. Today, Williams is vice president of Disney's Wide World of Sports, but that executive job has not insulated him from disparaging remarks about the Bengals' character.

"They come up out of the clear blue, at any time," Williams says. "It equally rivals that distasteful era when they weren't winning."

Conservative and uncomfortable

When it was founded in the 1700s on the northern banks of the Ohio River, Cincinnati quickly grew into what has been called America's first inland boomtown. It rapidly became a gateway to the untamed West.

Today, nobody calls this a boomtown. The metro area population is around 2 million, placing it in the top 25 nationally, and there are many major corporations located here. But its residents admit that Cincinnati is as likely to think small as it is to think big: resistant to change, wary of the outside world and happy within its own cultural cocoon.

"From the day I got here [from New York], I was totally struck by how much better this place is than our own people give it credit for," says nine-year Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski.

For comparison's sake to other cities, Cincinnatians might need to get out more. Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer says he has neighbors in his suburb whose idea of a vacation is to go downtown and stay in a hotel.

Not even the widespread passion for Ohio State football resonates much in Cincinnati -- the Enquirer doesn't have a Buckeyes beat writer.

And you can forget any kinship with the state's largest city, Cleveland, well to the north.

"Cleveland is an East Coast city," Daugherty says. "This is a Southern city. I'd say it has more in common with Louisville.

"I think Cincinnati is sort of an island unto itself, because it has nothing in common with the rest of the state."

Which seems to be fine with the locals.

"I don't really think of myself as an Ohioan," says Cincy native Tori Meeker, a bartender at the Rock Bottom Brewery downtown. "Cincinnati is very self-contained."

Cincinnati is almost its own nation-state, its life separated from Kentucky by the river and from the rest of Ohio by the I-275 beltway. Provincialism is fairly predictable.

"This is the only city in America where if they ask what school you went to, they don't mean college," says Cincinnati Bearcats basketball coach Mick Cronin, a Queen City native. "They mean high school."

The city basically has two factions to it: the gritty, working-class West Side and the more affluent East Side. Cronin describes the difference in terms of youth sports.

"On the West Side, they play to win," he says. "On the East Side, everyone gets to participate."

Pete Rose is the ultimate West Sider -- the hometown tough guy who made it big. You do that, and the headfirst slides count more with your constituency than the years of lying about betting on baseball. A recent reader poll in the weekly magazine CityBeat said Rose is still the favorite athlete in Cincinnati.

"We're homers," Cronin says, "which explains our affinity for Pete Rose. If the people in this town could vote for Pete to get into the Hall of Fame, he'd get in unanimously."

Similar affection has been extended to another famed-but-flawed hard-ass, Huggins. Certainly, Huggins' winning percentage dictated most of his popularity, but his unpretentious, combative style played well here, too.

"He was perceived as a blue-collar man of the people," Dougherty says. "We love our white-bread, Chris Sabo, Cris Collinsworth, shut-up-and-play, dirty-shirt heroes."

Don't underestimate the "white-bread" part of that quote. Cincinnati has championed several minority sports heroes: Oscar Robertson, Anthony Munoz, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, among others. But it's probably easier to be Carson Palmer in this town than T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

In terms of demographics and lifestyle, this is a long way from New York, Miami, San Francisco and even Atlanta.

There are a lot of adjectives tossed around about Cincinnati: family-friendly, affordable and safe, to name a few. But one word that comes out of every mouth, without fail:

Conservative.

The last time Hamilton County voted Democratic for president was 1964, when the unappealing alternative was Barry Goldwater. The bigfoot AM radio station in town, WLW, is a fire-breathing bastion of right-wing oratory. The personality page on its Web site features 14 white males, led by the divisive Bill Cunningham, who last week ridiculed the emotional, multicultural memorial gathering at Virginia Tech in the wake of the mass murder there.

Cunningham ripped the fact that the first speaker was "some Muslim dude," followed by a Buddhist.

"Was there a Hindu?" he asked on the air. "Did they have a Hindu, too?" Later he lamented the lack of "mainstream, normal stuff."

"It's multiculturalism run amok," Cunningham railed. " … It's sad, but it's the way college campuses operate today."

Multiculturalism wasn't real big with Schott -- another Cincinnati native. She was generous with her money and kept Reds baseball affordable for the common folks, but the old German woman was off the charts with her political incorrectness.

Upon her death, Daugherty wrote, "She was Archie Bunker for real, at a time when Archie Bunker was no longer acceptable."

So you wonder how comfortable the city of Bill Cunningham and Marge Schott is for a clubhouse full of affluent, young African-American football players. Race relations historically have been troubled here, though they have calmed considerably after the small-scale riots of 2001 to protest what many in the black community believed to be brutal treatment at the hands of white cops.

"I live up north [of the city], and there are plenty of times I will be followed home [by police]," says Martin, who is black. "One time a guy pulled me over and asked if I'd been drinking. I said, 'Why? Did I do anything wrong?'"

Martin says the cop told him he was swerving. Martin responded that he avoided a pothole, never even leaving his lane.

"You don't have anything to do tonight, do you?" Martin says he told the cop. "He just started laughing and walked back to his car."

So: Are the Bengals who have been arrested for DUI, marijuana possession and other charges being targeted by cops who might let them go in other cities?

"It's more on the person's responsibility, not on the city at all," Johnson says.

He lists all the ways the police and the Bengals front office have tried to help the players avoid trouble: a meeting with the chief; e-mails advising where sobriety checkpoints will be set up; free limousine service from owner Mike Brown.

"What else do you want guys to do?" Johnson says. "How much can they do for you? At some point, you've got to take personal responsibility."

Which brings us back to Chris Henry.

"Across-the-board condemnation"

The feel-good story of the year in Major League Baseball is Josh Hamilton, the 25-year-old Reds rookie. Hamilton has become a fixture in the Cincinnati lineup and a local fan favorite after he missed nearly four full seasons because of drug addiction.

Hamilton's suspensions from baseball -- which did not happen on the Reds' watch, or in detriment to the organization -- dwarf the half-season suspension levied against Henry.

So why the radically divergent attitudes in the city? Why is the white baseball player embraced and the black football player scorned?

"This is a totally different deal," Daugherty says. "One guy admitted he messed up and is trying to change his life. The other guy has not showed any remorse.

"We like to knock people down and then pick them up. That's what's happening with Josh Hamilton. They perceive him, rightly or wrongly, to be contrite about what he did.

"There is across-the-board condemnation of Chris."

That's unfair, according to Katie, a dancer at The Foxx gentleman's club in Covington, Ky.

In a puritanical purge in the 1970s, Cincinnati shoved most of the porn outlets across the river into northern Kentucky. They've stayed there. Covington has cleaned up its image and actually has turned its waterfront into a more vibrant area than Cincinnati's, but it still has the gentleman's clubs on its street corners.

And according to its employees, The Foxx is a place Chris Henry has been known to frequent.

"I know Chris," Katie says. "I walk into Chris' house, take my shoes off, get in his refrigerator.

"Chris doesn't have any alcohol in his house. Chris doesn't smoke weed. I just think he's involved with some of the wrong people."

Katie says she met Henry at The Foxx. Cindy, another dancer, says she hasn't seen Henry in her three weeks working there, but was told by a bouncer that the wide receiver tried to come in last week and was turned away at the door for his own good.

On the night Chris Henry allegedly was sent home from The Foxx, fireworks were erupting from Great American Ballpark. They thumped and echoed over the Ohio River in traditional celebration of a Reds victory.

Viewed from the Kentucky side of the river, the smoke from the fireworks formed a hazy halo over the illuminated stadium.

Just down the riverfront at darkened Paul Brown Stadium, there are no halos in sight.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.

[GregCook]

I don't think Cincy is all that difficult to understand. It has world class companies with GE & PG to bring in people from everywhere(high brow), it used to have world class smut and lesser angels in Newport, KY(does it still?). Those two bookends cover alot of ground.

If you want weird, come here. We can debate if transgender surgery should be a city "benefit"; if marijuana should be over the counter; if bums have the right to pee where they please; if hundreds of city employees(Oakland) should get $200K/yr paychecks when the city can't pay for books or teachers for its schools. Or prevent crime.

Cincy is alright.

[Section 310]

Wow, that was a good article.

I grew up in Cincinnati but went to college outside of the city and have lived outside the area for several years. I think Cincinnati is a product of the Kentucky/Tennessee migration north after WWII. You had a bunch of down-home, God-fearing families coming into the Tri-State for jobs at P&G, GM, etc. The civility and sense of civic responsibility is more akin to the South than cities on the East Coast. Most everyone in the area can point to family roots that stretch back to Kentucky or Tennessee.

Take Cleveland for example...most who settled there came via gritty NY. It has a different "feel"...more Italian "in your face...I'm tougher than youse all." The prevailing attitude seems to be every man for himself. Even Chicago has a warmer, more friendly feel.

[HairOnFire]

Hamilton's suspensions from baseball -- which did not happen on the Reds' watch, or in detriment to the organization -- dwarf the half-season suspension levied against Henry.

So why the radically divergent attitudes in the city? Why is the white baseball player embraced and the black football player scorned?

"This is a totally different deal," Daugherty says. "One guy admitted he messed up and is trying to change his life. The other guy has not showed any remorse.

Hamilton may define what it means to be a slow learner. He messed up as badly as anyone could year after year after year before finally getting his act together, and only then after wasting the prime of his career and the chance to earn millions of dollars. As for admitting his mistakes, what else could he do? He simply wasn't going to get one more last chance if he didn't. So how surprising is it that a conservative city with a losing baseball team desperate for talent would quickly embrace a white athlete whose transgressions happened elsewhere?

Meanwhile, Chris Henry's claims that he's trying to learn from his mistakes and put them behind him fall on deaf white ears....in part because of a turn-signal violation that must have seemed strangely familiar to Mike Martin.

[CarsonCity]

Meanwhile, Chris Henry's claims that he's trying to learn from his mistakes and put them behind him fall on deaf white ears....in part because of a turn-signal violation that must have seemed strangely familiar to Mike Martin.

Well, in fairness, Hamilton's been clean and sober for about 16 months now. If Henry goes that long without any incidents with the law, he'll start to get the benefit of the doubt as well. Driving under a suspended license (no matter how he got caught doing so) doesn't exactly help his cause.

[bengalsfansince68]

I have been searching some sites looking for what drugs Hamilton was involved with. Most everything I have read has said he violated the drug policy but none said what or why. The impression I got was that he may have been hooked on some manner of pain pill after being involved in a traffic accident involving a truck. Anybody know what the situation was?

By the way Mr. HOF, injecting race into a discussion of Hamilton and Henry's completely different situations is despicable at best, sir!

Sorry, that irritates me.

[Stripes]

That was a dumb article, IMO. To think of a city as contradictory based on comparisons between hundreds of thousands of citizens and about 80 professional athletes (actually about 10 of them) is pretty absurd.

[Spain]

No beach, it is unihabitable.

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

it used to have world class smut and lesser angels in Newport, KY(does it still?).

I wish. As it is my place of birth, I am embarassed - absolutely embarassed - to report that it has taken advantage of Hamilton Co.'s inertia to engage in a massive gentrification program, replacing all of the smut bars and corner watering holes with yuppie restaurants and the like. Now it has outdoor malls, an excellent aquarium, a theater, and an IMAX.

Total disgrace.

[agreen_112]

What a great read! I agree with the writer on this one. Cincy in way too conservative but has some wild qualities like Larry Flynt, Bob Huggins and Pete Rose (All Time Hit King!!!)... I really hope Henry gets to work with Taft High School, I think that will really help a lot of those kids and Henry... I hate cincy sometimes, but wouldn't move for anything! I love this town, I love the Reds, I love the Bengals, and I love Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce, lol.

I love the part about the stripper that's friends with Henry. That is freaking awesome! Way to go Chris!!! I'm going to Foxx's from now on myself.

[muelleaw1]

I have been searching some sites looking for what drugs Hamilton was involved with. Most everything I have read has said he violated the drug policy but none said what or why. The impression I got was that he may have been hooked on some manner of pain pill after being involved in a traffic accident involving a truck. Anybody know what the situation was?

By the way Mr. HOF, injecting race into a discussion of Hamilton and Henry's completely different situations is despicable at best, sir!

Sorry, that irritates me.

I know that Hamilton was addicted to crack from an ESPN article. I will try to post the article discussing it, but I am positive it was crack.

I have been searching some sites looking for what drugs Hamilton was involved with. Most everything I have read has said he violated the drug policy but none said what or why. The impression I got was that he may have been hooked on some manner of pain pill after being involved in a traffic accident involving a truck. Anybody know what the situation was?

By the way Mr. HOF, injecting race into a discussion of Hamilton and Henry's completely different situations is despicable at best, sir!

Sorry, that irritates me.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al...ton-cover_x.htm

[DesperateDerelict]

I, too, think it's a well-written and thought-provoking article. As many sociologists will attest, repression and intolerence breed the knee-jerk reactions of rebellion and flamboyance. Do I think local cops do more profiling than in other cities in America - Absolutely! Did the players bring this on themselves? Again, absolutely!

Will this impact the Bengal's draft? Well, if Eric Wright is available in the 2nd, or Barnes from FIU is available in the 4th, we'll (unfortunately) pass on them - even though they would be steals. However, it will be great to get through a season of football without so much energy being expended on criminal mischief by a select few. It will take longer than a year to live this rep down - especially with the animosity between Goodell and Mikey Brown. But it's something that needs to happen, and happen now.

Who-Dey? Hence forward, it had better not be the local law enforcement!!!

[The PatternMaster]

it used to have world class smut and lesser angels in Newport, KY(does it still?).

I wish. As it is my place of birth, I am embarassed - absolutely embarassed - to report that it has taken advantage of Hamilton Co.'s inertia to engage in a massive gentrification program, replacing all of the smut bars and corner watering holes with yuppie restaurants and the like. Now it has outdoor malls, an excellent aquarium, a theater, and an IMAX.

Total disgrace.

good article

[HairOnFire]

By the way Mr. HOF, injecting race into a discussion of Hamilton and Henry's completely different situations is despicable at best, sir!

Sorry, that irritates me.

Well, I'm sure your opinion about what irritates you will be interesting to others. Me, not so much.

And that's true because I didn't inject race into the discussion. It was already there. The article asks point blank the question about how a white player with a long history of serious drug abuse can be embraced so completely by a conservative fanbase when the exact opposite is true of Henry. I responded by pointing out how long Hamilton has been on the road to recovery...a journey that Henry has just begun. I also pointed out the fact that Cincinnati wasn't linked to Hamilton's downfall so its only natural that it's far quicker to forgive a player whose constant drug abuse embarrassed and disappointed a different fanbase. As for Red fans, they simply don't care about Hamilton's past. In fact, they know that without Hamilton's fall from grace and repeated failures to get clean Hamilton never plays for Cincy at all.

Thus, in the most northern of southern cities in America it becomes the feel-good story of the year.

[HairOnFire]

Well, in fairness, Hamilton's been clean and sober for about 16 months now. If Henry goes that long without any incidents with the law, he'll start to get the benefit of the doubt as well.

But Hamilton didn't get clean and sober for more than four years, and only then after using every drug on the street, smoking crack like it was cigarettes, and repeatedly attempting suicide. Those are his own words, right? So in Hamilton's example you're seeing the end of the struggle, not the start.

And on that point it's abundantly clear that the fine citizens of Cincinnati have almost no interest in seeing if Chris Henry can turn his life around. They want no part of a feel-good story like Cris Carter's. They simply can't be bothered. All they're interested in is an end to their own misplaced feelings of embarrassment. Well, that and seeing that severe punishment is dealt. Because in this example the fine folks of River City want to see a career ended, not salvaged.

For some reason you've all decided that this feel-good story needs a completely different ending. And since that outcome is the exact opposite of Hamilton's you shouldn't be surprised when the writer of the article wonders aloud if it might have something to do with the color of skin.

[derekshank]

Well, in fairness, Hamilton's been clean and sober for about 16 months now. If Henry goes that long without any incidents with the law, he'll start to get the benefit of the doubt as well.

But Hamilton didn't get clean and sober for more than four years, and only then after using every drug on the street, smoking crack like it was cigarettes, and repeatedly attempting suicide. Those are his own words, right? So in Hamilton's example you're seeing the end of the struggle, not the start.

And on that point it's abundantly clear that the fine citizens of Cincinnati have almost no interest in seeing if Chris Henry can turn his life around. They want no part of a feel-good story like Cris Carter's. They simply can't be bothered. All they're interested in is an end to their own misplaced feelings of embarrassment. Well, that and seeing that severe punishment is dealt. Because in this example the fine folks of River City want to see a career ended, not salvaged.

For some reason you've all decided that this feel-good story needs a completely different ending. And since that outcome is the exact opposite of Hamilton's you shouldn't be surprised when the writer of the article wonders aloud if it might have something to do with the color of skin.

Very fair points all around. I might not make as many connections to skin color (although I don't deny it could be a factor) as much as how much the national media has singled out the Bengals as their example of what is wrong with the NFL.

The point is, the reason Bengals fans are ready to give up on Chris Henry is because it is directly effecting the success of the team (8-game suspension) and because the media makes them feel guilty about rooting for him. If he would in fact turn it around and become a feel-good story, fans would embrace him... but remember, Cris Carter had to leave Philly for his story to become "feel-good."

All of that to say, the reaction you hear from most fans has absolutely nothing to do with moral or ethical outrage. It has everything to do with wins/losses and how the media reacts to the story as it unfolds.

[bengalsfansince68]

Thanks for the link Andy. I have been wondering about that guy since the start of the baseball season, the article explains a lot.

Mr. Hair, often when conversing in this cyber world, one party or both, misread what was typed. I started to read that article until I discovered how interminably long it was and of not much real interest to me, so I skipped it and read what the guys here were saying. I am sorry that I suggested that you injected the racial overtones on this, but reading that post still makes me think you embraced the idea. On subsequent posts it strikes me that maybe you don't.

My point all through this Chris Henry, Odell saga was that these guys are playmakers and you have to give them both the chance to mature and become both players and men. After reading the article that Andy provided, it would seem that Josh was farther down the sewer than CH and Odell combined. I have been saying all along that people often F-up and learn from their mistakes and go on to live up to their potential. I have no doubt that if Hamilton had lived his addiction as a Bengal, he would have been every bit as villified and demonized as Chris and Odell have been on this and other boards. Many, many here have completely discounted the possibility of Chris and Odell straightening out their lives, but Josh Hamilton is living proof that it is possible.

The hatred directed at Chris and Odell has less to do with their race and far more to do with the self-righteous attitudes of many sanctimonious individuals.

[HairOnFire]

All of that to say, the reaction you hear from most fans has absolutely nothing to do with moral or ethical outrage. It has everything to do with wins/losses and how the media reacts to the story as it unfolds.

There it is. The media decides which stories to feature and which to ignore. They decide which player trangressions are to be treated with outrage and which will be offered with an excuse. And perhaps just as important, they're the beast that Roger "Call me Daddy" Goodell is trying to appease with his image-is-everything grandstanding.

Thus we have the outlaw Bengals. Nevermind the fact that the image is almost completely built upon a little booze and weed instead of firearms and the all too familiar practice of punching the wife.

Finally, how funny is it that Goodell's latest threat to fine someone is related to his desire to protect college players who were honest about their use of marijuana? Apparently the act of smoking weed doesn't make you a bad person, but getting caught is another story.

[bengalsfansince68]

"There it is. The media decides which stories to feature and which to ignore."

Exactly why the masses bought into Mr. Bush's war of choice and re-elected the worst president of my lifetime.

Sorry, I could not resist.

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

And on that point it's abundantly clear that the fine citizens of Cincinnati have almost no interest in seeing if Chris Henry can turn his life around. They want no part of a feel-good story like Cris Carter's. They simply can't be bothered. All they're interested in is an end to their own misplaced feelings of embarrassment. Well, that and seeing that severe punishment is dealt. Because in this example the fine folks of River City want to see a career ended, not salvaged.

For some reason you've all decided that this feel-good story needs a completely different ending. And since that outcome is the exact opposite of Hamilton's you shouldn't be surprised when the writer of the article wonders aloud if it might have something to do with the color of skin.

Horse caca. Henry needs to first indicate that he has absolutely any interest in turning his life around, something he has had ample opportunity to do and repeatedly failed at. When (more like "if") that happens, I predict that the city will embrace him. More to the point, forget your Chris Carter example - Cincinnati fans don't want any part of a feel-bad story like Dwight Gooden's. Or Steve Howe's, to ensure that race doesn't become part of this.

As far as the writer, he has some seriously selective amnesia when it comes to his reporting. He claims that Huggins was embraced because he was white despite being a "bad boy." Not that accurate - his *teams*, consisting largely of black athletes, were the bad boys and were accepted by much of the city. Even if they punched police horses.

Is Pete Rose accepted by Cincinnati? I think "pitied" would be closer to the truth, given his situation. He's pathetic. He's been reduced to signing autographs across the street from the HOF. Nobody thinks he's a great guy. But as a kid who was born and raised in Cincinnati (and according to my grandfather, was a punk even as a kid), it's not the city's place to accept him or not - he's part of the city. Like it or not.

As far as the city's response, I'm just not seeing an apples-to-apples comparison of black athlete vs. white athlete where they're both unrepentant losers from another town, same relative ability level, and the white guy is accepted and the black guy not. Seems more like Pat Forde needed to sell some papers.

[HairOnFire]

I started to read that article until I discovered how interminably long it was and of not much real interest to me, so I skipped it and read what the guys here were saying. I am sorry that I suggested that you injected the racial overtones on this, but reading that post still makes me think you embraced the idea. On subsequent posts it strikes me that maybe you don't.

So you didn't even read the article, but still felt compelled to claim I acted in a despical manner in my response? Well, I'm starting to get the feeling that you and I are going to have problems.

Bring it!!!!

As for the issue of race, I'd say I didn't so much embrace the idea but found no reason to avoid it. After all, the writer describes Cincinnati as a southern city for a reason, mentions the recent race riots for a reason, describes Cincy as a city comfortable within it's cocoon for a reason, and included the bit about Mike Martin being pulled over for "driving while black" for a reason. He further concluded that not only was Cincinnati out of step with the state of Ohio but also the nation. Did you think he was talking about fashion trends?

Quite frankly, I can't understand how anyone could ignore the issue of race while reading that article. That said, I think it's just one more ingredient added to the mix that includes a national media that still embraces the Bengals as a familiar punchline, and a local media that is largely incompetent. (Daugherty) Finally, add to the mix a local populace that is so conservative that it finds reasons for moral outrage everywhere and you end up with city just begging to be laughed at and a national press all too willing to oblige.

In short, there's a perfectly good reason the San Diego Criminal Chargers and the Chicago Barely Legals aren't put under the same microscope as the Bengals. Their fans simply wouldn't react in the same knee-jerk fashion as the cocoon dwellers.

[HairOnFire]

Horse caca. Henry needs to first indicate that he has absolutely any interest in turning his life around, something he has had ample opportunity to do and repeatedly failed at. When (more like "if") that happens, I predict that the city will embrace him.

Henry recently said everything you'd want to hear him say about accepting blame, making better choices in the future, and hoping that people would allow him to move forward while putting his past actions behind him.

Of course nobody listened to what he said because he also claimed that his biggest critics weren't true fans. And that little mistep became the soundbite that was played over and over again....triggering another wave of anger from the pious that reached a fever pitch when the news broke that Henry had fallen prey to the devil in the form of a turn-signal violation and unbuckled seatbelt. Frankly, in my opinion that crime wave rivaled the one where he made the mistake of buying a teeneage hooker a drink.

Because there's nothing quite as heinous as being a bad influence on a hooker, ehhh?

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

Horse caca. Henry needs to first indicate that he has absolutely any interest in turning his life around, something he has had ample opportunity to do and repeatedly failed at. When (more like "if") that happens, I predict that the city will embrace him.

Henry recently said everything you'd want to hear him say about accepting blame, making better choices in the future, and hoping that people would allow him to move forward while putting his past actions behind him.

Of course nobody listened to what he said because he also claimed that his biggest critics weren't true fans. And that little mistep became the soundbite that was played over and over again....triggering another wave of anger from the pious that reached a fever pitch when the news broke that Henry had fallen prey to the devil in the form of a turn-signal violation and unbuckled seatbelt. Frankly, in my opinion that crime wave rivaled the one where he made the mistake of buying a teeneage hooker a drink.

Because there's nothing quite as heinous as being a bad influence on a hooker, ehhh?

Link for Henry's contrition that wasn't written by a publicist? I've missed that but would love to be proven incorrect.

Nice spin on that last part - providing alcohol to an underage girl in a hotel room rented with your credit card isn't something to laugh at, unless statutory rape is on your comedy routine. He's lucky they can't prove that anything else went on in that room - my memory of college days isn't that hazy, I have a fair idea of what hotel rooms are usually rented for.

You're not Henry's defense attorney are you? I mean seriously, you've cued up everything but the water works - you've got racism, wrong place/wrong time, "I didn't know she was 16" - what's next, the bloody glove doesn't fit?

[HairOnFire]

Link for Henry's contrition that wasn't written by a publicist? I've missed that but would love to be proven incorrect.

Well, consider it done. Henry's contrition was made in a telephone interview with the NFL Network and an audio clip was on their website for several days. It may still be available if you look for it. Regardless, several posters commented on his remarks on this very board.

Frankly, I have no delusions that listening to it would change your opinion about Henry, and I mentioned it only to counter Daugherty's claim that Henry hadn't shown any remorse. He has. But again, I felt his actions were derailed when he slipped up and claimed that those who didn't support him weren't true fans. Fair or not that was enough to drown out the apology...so I guess he'll have to apologize again and again until the Paul Daugherty's of the world are finally satisfied.

If it were me I wouldn't bother.

[HairOnFire]

Nice spin on that last part - providing alcohol to an underage girl in a hotel room rented with your credit card isn't something to laugh at, unless statutory rape is on your comedy routine.

As long as you agree to pay her, and only perform the acts that have been negotiated, well...can you actually rape a hooker if she consents?

And as for the charge of statutory rape, we're still talking about a hooker, right? So I'm hard pressed to imagine a more victimless crime.

That leaves the matter of providing an underage girl with alcohol. In theory this is a bad thing, right? But again, this isn't an innocent girl who wandered away from a 4-H gathering that we're talking about. We're talking about a hooker who willingly sells her body for money. So are you suggesting that by giving her a drink or two that Henry was leading this girl astray?

I'd say he was just being a gentleman.

You're not Henry's defense attorney are you?

Recently I've been accused of being Mike Browns younger brother, and even his gay lover. It was also suggested that I might be Hobson in disquise. And now I'm accused of being Chris Henry's attorney.

Whatever. I'll add it to the list.