It’s not every day you get into a twitter battle with an NFL Hall of Famer…
A couple of very bizarre things happened in the sports world this past week. Top of that list was a New York Times report that revealed that none of Junior Seau’s family would be allowed to speak at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. For further information and depth to the story, check out Darren Smith’s interview with the NYT author, Ken Belson, here. Naturally, San Diego sports fans did not like this. I don’t like this. Junior wanted his daughter to speak, and some silly rule they’ve put in place is preventing her from doing that. Haven’t seen many people defending the decision of the NFL and the Hall of Fame on this one. Add Pro football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe to the list of the few that are…
As we all know, everybody’s got an opinion, and when you’re on twitter, you share that opinion. Shannon Sharpe is on twitter, and his opinion did not go over so well with San Diego sports fans. Humor me while I paint a picture for you. I’ve tried to screengrab and piece together this conversation for you. So, here we go.
Now, I’m buddies with Woodsy… and I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him call out Shannon Sharpe here. Not really my style (aside from previous run-ins with Hacksaw) to start name-calling folks that I don’t know on twitter, but whatever… I get it. This was Shannon’s response…
Woah, woah, woah. I believe that’s how the kids describe going from “zero to 100 real fast.” Granted, Woods did call him a not-so-kind word… but c’mon, you immediately just go to… “I just slept with your wife” talk? No, no, no. Not okay. I had to chime in. Shannon’s got to know better.
He responded very quickly.
Another quick response.
As you can see, that tweet confused me. I’ve since pondered it, and I think his point is just… “if you don’t say bad things about me, then we’re good.” Still not positive on the translation there. His response…
Now, he’s not wrong here. I did insert myself into a conversation between he and Woods. Nonetheless, I felt I was in the right and my line of questioning continued.
Do I follow his logic? Sure, on the surface level. I get it. You insult me. I insult you. Boom, take that! But, c’mon… how can you think that’s okay if you’re in Shannon Sharpe’s shoes? A stranger on twitter called you a bad word. You responded by saying you slept with his wife in a hotel room. Really?
Don’t get me wrong… I get it. I saw the responses he has to deal with on twitter because this exchange… he’s probably dealing with similar trolls daily. My timeline started showing up with people calling him marble mouth or horse face or whatever… that stuff sucks. He had an SNL skit mocking him. He’s frustrated. He’s fighting back. It’s tough.
There’s a bit of a double standard there, right? We as fans want celebrities and athletes to interact with us on social media. Then when they do respond, like Shannon Sharpe did, we throw up our hands saying “woah there big fella! chill out! you didn’t really mean that, right? what’s wrong with you? why are you responding to us chumps and making yourself look like an idiot? you trying to get fired? just shut up!”
Total double standard. But in this case, Shannon is fighting a losing battle. I’m using decency and morals to argue my case, and he’s using childish revenge and retaliation for justification.
After that tweet I sent him, no response. Nothing. Well, not nothing. There’s something. He blocked me. He blocked me and, from what I can tell, every San Diegan that commented on this exchange in any capacity.
I’d like to think that means I “won” that little twitter battle. Obviously, in this case, winning or losing isn’t what this is about. Just be better. I have to remind myself of that daily, because I’ve definitely fallen victim to this before. Retaliation and insults are rarely the answer, regardless of how justified you may feel. Don’t get wrapped up in the nonsense and say things you don’t mean and you’re going to regret. Will I ever make another mistake on social media? Yes. But you can be damn sure I’ll be trying not to. Hope Shannon Sharpe feels the same way.
Oh, last thing. Let Sydney speak.
-bp
[lobbed by the legendary, Mike Costa.]
Hey @LobShots can you please do a chronological blog about “The Day Shannon Attacked” on http://t.co/8bwlLOzOz2?
— Mike Costa (@costa1360) July 25, 2015
