Sports Is An Escape

Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Non-sports fans generally hate sports. They buy into the stereotypes.

Sports fans stridently defend our games.

But there are certain behaviors that can't -- can not  -- be defended.

Add Cody Parkey to the latest of a bad list.

Parkey, if you don't know, doinked a 43-yard field goal at the end of yesterday's Bears/Eagles playoff game in Chicago. Inaccurate as he has been, the twenty-six-year-old kicker not only hit the upright, but then it dropped down onto the crossbar where, with the right bounce, could have won the game for the Bears. Instead, the Eagles took the victory, and the trolls took to Twitter to threaten the kicker with death.

Forgetting the so-so performance of the Bears defense. Forgetting letting Golden Tate catch a touchdown on fourth and goal. Forgetting other missed opportunities.

No, Cody Parkey deserve death threats and more. Like this:

Cody Parkey broke @barstoolcarl's brainhttps://t.co/12CURevwCr pic.twitter.com/zIRzJZt6zi

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 7, 2019

Yup. Classy.

You see, football is a team game. So is baseball, hockey, basketball, soccer, and so on.

So let's ignore everything else about the Bears performance against the Eagles and put it all on Cody Parkey.

The same happened with Bill Buckner. Scott Norwood. Patrick Stefan, Mike Torres, Tony Romo, Leon "Bull" Durham, Joe Pisarcik, Jackie Smith, Steve Smith (hockey), Ernest Byner, Chris Webber, Andres Escobar, Fred Snodgrass, Fred Merkle, and Ralph Branca. (have fun on Google with some of these!).

Among many others.

Just think about Buckner. He's out there on bad knees. He has a defensive replacement waiting to replace him, but his manager leaves Buckner in. Yet that doesn't even slightly tell the story of Mookie Wilson's "little roller up along first" that got "BEHIND THE BAG!" (Vin Scully, of course).

We could start with Roger Clemens leaving after seven innings. We could hand some blame to Calvin Schiraldi (actually, a lot of blame to him). Then there's dynamic duo of Bob Stanley and Rich Gedman, and the wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score.

But yes, let's blame Bill Bucker, who hit .311 with 18 HRs and 102 RBIs in 1986.

Let's run Bill Buckner out of Boston. Which he was, for a time.

Thankfully Twitter wasn't around for most of those events, or Steve Bartman, who was wrongly blamed for a human reaction -- reaching for a foul ball.

But Twitter is around for Cody Parkey, and Wikipedia is easy to edit.

(Please excuse language below)

And then these delights, courtesy of Fanbuzz.com (again, please excuse language):

Yup, because Code Parkey, 26, wanted to miss.

He wanted to piss Chicago off.

Get a grip, folks.

There's blame to go around.