Ted Bundy, MVP

I just learned that Michael Vick will be starting for the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm sure that for any Eagles fan that likes animals for any reason other than cooking, it must be an uncomfortable moment. What do you do if he has a good game? Light applause? A simple acknowledgment of his good game and then rapidly moving to talking about some other player on the Eagles that had nearly as many great moments that same game?

Part of the problem is that we idolize players who have athetlic talent. Rather than concluding that they're good at football if nothing else, we conclude the opposite - that they're just better people and it's their inherent moral worth that makes them good at poster. The narrative goes that they practice harder, want it more, have greater will power and just have more heart than you or I and it ignores any contributions that genetics, instruction, opportunity or flat-out luck might have played.

When people found out that Michael Vick was busy participating in the execution of dogs in his dog fighting ring, people jumped all over themselves in various hyperbolic attempts to exculpate Vick. Just about every excuse in the sports yearbook was pulled out - he didn't know what was going on, it wasn't him what did it, clearly there were other players somewhere in the NFL doing something worse, he was being harassed for being successful and black, dog fighting is a cultural thing where Vick comes from. That might have fooled a few people, but sports fans found out that dog lovers are just as motivated as drunk guys wearing paint on their bare chests and Vick got sent to prison.

Vick has done his time. He's clear of any legal penalties, but as the owner of pets, there's nothing good about the guy. So how do you root for someone like that? Maybe we should ask San Francisco Giants fans about Bonds.

You know what Ted Bundy's biggest problem was? He couldn't throw a football in a perfect spiral for sixty yards. If he could, people would have been naming their kids after him.