There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.
-- Coach Finstock from the major motion picture, Teen Wolf
I’m not into absolutes. After all, the grey areas are much more interesting. However, there are a few pearls of wisdom – little guidelines if you will – that I undoubtedly will pass along to my sons.
The easy place to start is with Coach Finstock’s words to Michael J. Fox’s character, Scotty, the so-named “Teen Wolf.” Sleep, as we all have learned, is so much more important to one’s health than food. And I’ll wager that it’s probably a really good idea not to play cards with a guy who has the first name of a city as well as a woman with a tattoo of a dagger.
Getting involved? Hey, to each their own.
But it goes without saying that those people generally are much more comfortable with pain than the average dude on the street. Hey, we all know that parents are giving kids goofy names these days, and we also know that self-mutilation is trendy as all get out. But there is nothing about a man named Blaine or a chick with a tramp stamp that strikes fear into my heart. A insomniac named Frisco and a woman with a homemade tattoo of a knife made with a penknife, well, I steer clear.
It just makes sense.
I’ve taken those rules from Coach Finstock and added a few to them over the years. Hang around with pro athletes for a decade in Philadelphia and eyes open a bit. It’s not quite like being in a war, but it’s kind of like being on the fringes of a really big fight. Sometimes, by accident, a stray punch or a thrown chair has a way of bloodying the nose or blackening an eye.
Hey, it happens.
So speaking of blackened eye(s), three-time Opening Day starting pitcher Brett Myers is apparently walking around with a honey of a shiner these days. Word is he got it from falling out of his wife’s Escalade after an evening out drinking and listening to music at a bar in Jacksonville, Fla. That’s the story for now, anyway. When the black eye was first reported, Brett told the Phillies brass that he got nailed by an errant throw from his four-year old son, Kolt.
That one was a doozy, but it seemed to be the most feasible. Having seen Kolt in action around the ballpark and the clubhouse before and after games, the kid has a helluva of right arm. When the genetics fairy touched young Kolt, they gave the kid his dad’s fastball, but let’s hope they gave him better reading ability or ability to judge a situation better than his old man, too.
Anyway, the story is Brett tripped on some of the kid’s toys when exiting the obnoxious, gas guzzling behemoth. However, according to a report from Dave Murphy over there at High Cheese, there was a fight at the bar/restaurant Myers and his wife were hanging out in. Moreover, Brett and his wife Kim were right in the middle of it, too. The cops showed up though there was no police report and the witnesses all seem to be telling the same story.
Yet despite the black eye, the acknowledgment of a fight, the police presence, the Phillies and Myers are sticking with the fell-out-of-the-Escalade bit. In a text message from general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., the official line appears to be that they are standing behind their guy:
“As has been published and from what Brett has told me, he was not part of an altercation that occurred at the establishment where he was.”
Reading between the lines there it sounds like it’s all on Brett. Smartly, the “witnesses” also are telling the same stories and since there is no police report, looks like all we have is a black eye from an ill-fated exit from a tacky car.
So let’s get back to Teen Wolf for a second:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHmXIkFPN8&hl=en&fs=1&]
Let’s add one more caveat to Coach Finstock’s advice… don’t get into a bar fight across the state from the ballpark where you are scheduled to do a rehab assignment the next day. Also, don’t do this in a contract year, and especially don’t get involved in an “altercation” just four years after an arrest where the prosecutors want you to plead guilty to assault and battery, serve two years’ probation, enter a program for spousal abusers and undergo an outpatient alcohol abuse evaluation.
Follow those rules and everything else is cream cheese.