The Curse of Plaxico Burress

There’s no such thing as real curses. But if people believe they’re real, then they can have an effect, especially in sports.

There’s the Curse of the Bambino, after the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth. It lasted from 1918 until 2004, when the Sox finally won the World Series again. (My conjecture is that the “curse” was “cancelled” when the Sox hired Bill James, the best baseball statistics guy, and people figured the team finally knew what it was doing.)

Then there’s the Curse of the Billy Goat against the Chicago Cubs, who haven’t won the World Series since 1908.

In pro football, there’s the Curse of Bobby Layne against the Detroit Lions. The legendary quarterback won three championships for the Lions in the 1950s, the last in 1958. When they traded him to the Pittsburgh Steelers, he said the Lions “would not win for 50 years.” Since then, they’ve won only a single playoff game, no championships. This year the Lions soon may be the first team to go 0-16.

Plaxico and the 2nd Amendment

Two weeks ago N.Y. Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg in a New York night club. The city’s evil government is charging him with the “crime” of illegal possession of a firearm. N.Y. City’s fascist Mayor Bloomberg insisted, according to Wikipedia:

that Burress be prosecuted to the fullest extent, saying that any punishment short of the minimum 3½ years for unlawful carrying of a handgun would be “a mockery of the law.”

The real mockery is Bloomberg himself, an elitist, insulated billionaire who has police guards protecting him; he also is so rich he can hire armed guards. He has no idea what life is really like in the city he misrules.

Giants now cursed

But worst of all was that the Giants’ management, which until now has been the class act of the NFL, suspended Burress without pay. Since then they’ve lost two games. Today they were pasted, 20-8, by Dallas, and couldn’t even score a touchdown. They no longer can be considered the league’s top team. Last February, they won the Super Bowl. Will the “Curse of Plaxico Burress”  prevent them from winning for 50 years?

What they should have done was keep him on the roster, even while awaiting his wound to heal. And they should have made an announcement something like:

We regret that our great player, Plaxico Burress, was injured. But it was an accident; no one else was hurt. We also will back him up 100% in the unjust prosecution of him for exercising his Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” to defend himself and his family. Mayor Bloomberg’s fascist outburst is to be deplored.

We also are bringing a $10 billion lawsuit against the mayor, the city of New York, and the state of New York for assaulting Mr.  Burress’ constitutional rights. This is America, not 1930s Nazi Germany, where Hitler’s 1938 gun-control law was a prelude to the worst barbarisms. Have we learned nothing from history?

We also would like to point to the research of gun scholar John Lott, who wrote:

While the massive size and strength of NFL players might make them seem like unlikely potential crime victims, their wealth and high public profile nonetheless make them particularly attractive targets for violent criminals. While “only” two players were murdered last year, that means a murder rate of 118 per 100,000 people, compared to 5.9 per 100,000 for the rest of the population. In other words, the rate for NFL players was 20 times higher than the average for the rest of the country. This is even higher than the most at risk segment of the population -– young black males between 18 and 24. It is even higher than the risk faced by police officers.

Last year, the Washington Redskins’ Sean Taylor was killed during a robbery at his house. The Denver Broncos’ defensive back Darrent Williams was killed outside a nightclub.

As Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber noted, “We are targets, we need to be aware of that everywhere we go.” Yet, the news coverage doesn’t engender much sympathy for Plaxico Burress.

So, what do many NFL players do when they realize that their physical strength does not give them enough protection from violent crime? The same thing that many other would-be victims do — they get guns. Well over 50 percent of NFL players are estimated to own guns, somewhat higher than the 45 percent of American adults who own guns.

I rooted for the underdog Giants in the last Super Bowl. No more.

Now they’re going to suffer the Curse of Plaxico Burress.