Legacy

When you hear the name Ty Cobb, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Is it one of the greatest hitters in major league history? Or is it redneck racist asshole?

Here's the weird thing. Both answers are correct.

 

Legacies are tricky. Catching a few minutes of "The Sports Reporters" on ESPN this morning, Kobe Bryant's career was discussed and it included a mention of his sexual assault case and how it impacted the public's perception of Bryant. It isn't something that can be factored into advanced metrics, of course, but it was noted (paraphrasing here) that after that incident he was no longer a lovable scamp with a cool name. The Black Mamba moniker was no longer a double entendre.

The New York Daily News recent piece digging deeper into Peyton Manning's sexual assault case from his college days has attracted a fair amount of attention east of the Connecticut River, in large part because of the context it adds to the recent HGH accusations and specifically the story that Charlie Sly recanted after his parents were visited by Peyton's paid goons. Did I say goons? I meant private investigators, of course.

Just as Ty Cobb was a great baseball player (whatever else we think of him), just as Kobe Bryant has established himself as one of the greatest to ever play in the NBA, Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Manning also has a history of carefully cultivating his public persona and monetizing his on field performance as a professional endorser of products numerous and varied, including electronics, automobiles, mediocre beer and shitty pizza. A squeaky clean and trustworthy image is, after all, essential to selling shitty pizza.

As disgusting as the details of the sexual assault accusations are, I can see the argument that this is the sort of thing someone as young and entitled as Manning was does. Who didn't do something stupid in college? Sure, I though "Animal House" was funny, too. And he's paid (several times) for his sins.

Ben Roethlisberger did far worse, am I right?

Ray Rice and Greg Hardy did much worse.

Here's the problem with those comps. "Not as bad as…" acknowledges that something bad did happen. And if you think a young man putting his junk on the head of a young woman (while she's doing her job, while she's trying to help you with a foot injury), if you think that's just a juvenile prank then I'm guessing you don't have a daughter.

Maybe the HGH story is complete trash, as Manning has characterized it. Still, it's hard for me to ignore the circumstantial evidence. Manning has not denied that shipments from the Guyer Institute were sent to his wife. Manning, two years after multiple neck surgeries and a year away from the game was able to author the single greatest statistical season in the history of the game. Two years after that it seemed that everything in his body was broken. This is the classic profile of the PED user: A sudden spike in performance followed by a precipitous decline triggered by injuries.

Mere coincidence?

Yes, I have an axe to grind. From my perspective, Tom Brady was convicted by the NFL on far flimsier circumstantial evidence; a few text messages from an October game referencing overinflated footballs while ignoring hard, scientific evidence that exonerated Brady and the Patriots. If you assume Brady destroyed his phone to hide evidence of his involvement in a conspiracy to deflate footballs then what do you make of Manning's efforts to smear his accuser in the sexual assault case or his sending his minions to intimidate his accuser in the HGH case?

Maybe the sexual assault and HGH stories are completely unrelated. Maybe Peyton was an entitled jerk in college who grew up to be a good family man, successful on and off the field, a man who never cheated the game or shilled for a product he didn't believe in. Maybe he honestly likes shitty pizza and he isn't one of the most facile liars who ever lived. Maybe, faced with the prospect that his career might be over, he didn't flinch, he didn't cut corners; he just spent more time in the gym.

Will any of this actually impact Peyton Manning's legacy? If I had to guess, I'd say no. Being well-liked matters. Look John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe compared to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. The lowest common denominator in both cases is marital infidelity and yet I think it's fair to say we have far different perceptions of those two men. It helps being a war hero, of course. It helps when you're screwing the sexiest woman alive rather than a moon-faced intern with a freezer full of Weight Watchers frozen dinners.

We as a society, as a sports-loving culture like Peyton Manning. He's worked hard the past twenty years to secure our good will. So, we want our sons to grow up to be him and our daughters to find a man as good and true as he. We want to believe whatever happened in college was nothing more than a "he said/she said" misunderstanding. We want to believe the HGH story is total garbage. If he'd had an affair with Scarlett Johansson we'd smirk and wink when our wives weren't in the room and quietly admit, yeah, I'd do her, too. Those are the excuses we make for our heroes when they succumb to their baser instincts.

Whatever.

I'm not buying that shitty pizza.