Philip Hughes Voodoo Dolls: Crossing the Line?

A lot of mixed emotions over the last couple of days. Beers and normalcy in Tempe, Arizona. Bailey's and chaos in Hollywood, California.

As I once again embrace the West Coast only to get nostalgic for Mets baseball and the East Coast I have found myself engaged in some abnormally heavy thought.

I sat on the plane, it was a short flight, but still there are a million things that can go wrong. I was pretty sure there were no terrorist suspects on the flight. I think I was the only person under 65 on the flight. And takeoff sounded pretty clean. So, on a scale of 1-10 I felt as good as I ever do when I am on a plane. I was a 3.

I tried to delve into "Men at Work", apparently a must-read for all baseball fans and students of the game. 30 pages later I realized I had captured very little. I was too worried about my imminent death and the news story that would awake my parents and make them regret ever supporting my candidacy for business school.

I turned to the Sports Illustrated that I had already read cover to cover on my way to Phoenix when I spotted a little blurb about the Yankees' budding superstar Philip Hughes.

Yankee fans won't shut up about this kid. Not only is he supposed to be great but he also serves as the key cog in the Yankees' return to the philopsophy of building from within, like they did in the mid 90's.

Yankee fans have been trained to love this kid over the last couple of years and now we as Mets fans are finally being subjected to all the hype. I got upset, but at least I wasn't thinking about all the things that could go wrong at 30,000 feet.

I kept reading. Plus this, plus that. Great makeup. Yada Yada Yada. I got it. This dude is good.

So then another thought came through my mind and I havent been able to elude it for the last 48 hours. I thought to myself for a second, what would happen if this guy just blew out his arm and never got good? It would hurt the Yankees and their fans which in turn would make me happy. Which led to my moral dilemma... is this ok?

As diehard sports fans are we allowed to root for serious (non life-threatening, more career-ending) injury on another player? When we watch games we pray that the other team makes a mistake. We cheer and high five when our opponent makes a mental error, a moment which can result in lifelong psychological dysfunction. Yet we are not blamed for this.

Is it really that different to want someone to break their leg instead of them making a mistake that might lead them to go crazy, have a sex change and kidnap Dan Marino? (Yep, watched Ace Ventura today).

I assume the answer to this question is "No." It is wrong to wish bad upon someone else. But isn't it bad to boo at them or curse at them or hope they make mistakes? Sports fandom is very much two-sided. We root for our team to win but we also root for the other team to lose.

Now assume that Phillip Hughes has a $50,000,000 insurance policy on his pitching arm? Now is it ok? Now the guy is set for life, he can take care of his family and live an otherwise amazing life. He just won't be able to pitch for the Yankees and become a star in baseball. Sounds like about 6 billion other people, no?

I'm curious to know your guys thoughts on this one. I really don't know what I am supposed to think. What I do know is that today is Tuesday, which means it is time for Two-A-Days, perhaps the greatest show to hit our airwaves since a good man from Polk High School once scored 4 touchdowns in one game.

VCD,

Sip