For Plaxico Burress, not much sympathy around the Big Apple
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We don’t know all the details of the Plaxico Burress episode over the weekend in a Manhattan night club. Don’t know exactly why he was carrying a gun; don’t know whether his career with the New York Giants, or for that matter, the NFL, is over; don’t know for certain whether he’s going to serve time on the gun charge; don’t know whether he’s as intellectually challenged as such an incident might indicate he could be.
What we do know is that it would be hard for an athlete to serve up fodder for sports columnists around the country, and particularly in New York, that would be any richer. High-profile athlete in a major news center, known for troublesome behavior, risking his career and more in a late-night club shooting incident. Super Bowl hero to the abyss.
Needless to say, the reaction hasn’t been entirely sympathetic.
From Bob Glauber in Newsday, in a column under the headline, ‘Good Riddance, Plaxico’:
‘This team has always been about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and Burress’ absence will test that maxim. And even if the Giants don’t end up achieving their goal of a rare Super Bowl repeat, they’re still better off as a result of yesterday’s decision. They are a far better team without Burress.’
Mike Lupica of the Daily News, in a column headlined, ‘Plaxico Burress behavior gives Giants ammo’:
‘The gun didn’t even do this to him. He did it to himself.’
Harvey Araton in the New York Times chimed in as well in a column under the heading, ‘More Losers Than One in This Sorry Saga’:
‘I can’t help but wonder why a man would work so hard to self-destruct at the pinnacle of success and with the financial reward that goes with it. Happiness, it seems, was not the money after all, but a warm gun.’
And, of course, the incident has been custom tailored for tabloid headlines:
New York Post: ‘PL-AXED.’
New York Daily News: ‘THE $27M BULLET.’
Newsday: ‘OUT PATTERN.’