Dez Bryant can curse at off-duty police officers as much as he wants.

Look, the Dallas Cowboys are one of my favorite foils. I heap Texas-steer-sides of beefy condescension on that blue star and all who support it. I burn offerings to the sports gods to strike down every blue chip Dallas prospect with Fibromyalgia.
I'm no fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Nor am I a fan of Dez Bryant, who I've derided in this blog before.

So it is with a heavy heart that I bring you this news. Dez Bryant does not deserve recent criticism leveled at him by the press and Neon Deion Sanders.

Dez was shopping at some undoubtedly garish Dallas area mall this past weekend and got hit with a warning for criminal trespass. What actually happened at the mall is not entirely clear, but the consensus story so far is that Bryant was asked to pull up his low-riding pants by an off-duty police officer (or officers), and Bryant responded to the request with a profanity-laced tirade. One or both of these off-duty police officers slapped Bryant with the criminal trespass warning for "creating a scene."

Let's go over this in slow motion. Dez Bryant is sporting some saggy shorts. It's a misguided, lame, and antagonistic fashion statement. It's tacky, but not against the law. An OFF DUTY police officer tells Bryant to pull up his pants. Wait, let's pause the tape.

What the hell business is it of this off-duty police officer's how Bryant dresses? The officer is not acting in any official capacity ("off-duty"). There is no official capacity to this encounter; it's one citizen telling another citizen that he doesn't agree with a perfectly legal fashion statement.

We don't know how politely the officer asked Bryant to adjust his waistline, so we don't know how reasonable Bryant's tirade was. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that Bryant's outburst was understandable, because I'd assume:

1. That the off-duty police officer was white
2. That wearing one's pants low enough to reveal one's boxers is an urban (read: black) fashion trend
3. That the off-duty police officer was racist
4. That the off-duty police officer wanted to display authority over a wealthy young black man
5. That the off-duty police officer was abusing his power as a lawman and acting outside his capacity

In other words, the officer was fucking with Bryant, and Bryant didn't take kindly to that. This, in my scenario, led to:

1. The off-duty police officer feeling that his authority was challenged
2. The off-duty police officer re-establishing his authority by issuing a citation

And all of this culminated in a news sensation, feeding the white media's need to read stories about misbehaving young, wealthy black athletes. Because the white media are uncomfortable with wealthy young black men, and want to be reassured that rich, misbehaving black people can be put in their place.

Sound about right? It might not be. But it probably is. And, even if it isn't, it's probably close. Because there is no way that an off-duty police officer discreetly walked up to Bryant and initiated polite conversation about fashion.

Bryant could have responded differently, absolutely. But you know what? It takes two to "create a scene." And, in this case, centuries of racial discord.

Also, will someone please pass along this article about saggy shorts, written by my favorite Jazz Critic Stanley Crouch, to Dez?

****3/29 Update: ESPN is reporting that Dez Bryant is being sued for over $850,000 by two separate Jewelers who claim that Dez owes them money for jewelry, tickets to sporting events, and loans. These suits are unrelated to his altercation at the mall. I bring you this update to let you know that the Dallas Cowboys, and all their players, suck. *****

Baseball Hyperbole As It Relates to Nat'l Tragedy (sort of)

You know what happened. If you don’t, and don’t care about the great American pastime, please fuck off. If you do care, but don’t know, watch this:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8616789

Look, I don’t want to make a bad thing worse by harping on it, but this seems like madness. Armando Galarraga isn’t a great pitcher – he isn’t even a good pitcher on some nights – but he had his one moment of glory last night. And it was taken away from him by an awful call.

Does this mean Bud Selig better employ instant replay in the very next game? I don’t know. On the one hand, this seems like the perfect argument for such things. A decisive, easy-to-correct call that was tremendously important for the teams involved. But on the other hand… that won’t really help this situation, will it? I don’t see the powers-that-be granting Galarraga the perfect game after the fact. So who would this proposed instant-replay amendment help? The next guy to pitch a perfect game that gets robbed? Yeah, maybe. Whenever that happens again (actually, the way pitchers are hurling perfectos this year, it might be sooner than I think).

It just doesn’t feel like enough. Like slavery reparations given to people who were never treated like cattle.* In one way it feels like an insult to the people who actually did the suffering; in another, it feels like an empty, token gesture. Like not enough.

What it comes down to is how we grieve, I guess. Do you really grab hold of those bad feelings, almost relishing them, weeping and flailing in your Old Testament sackcloth and ashes? A real gnashing-the-teeth kind of sadness? Or do you go all 9/11 and indignant? Writing country-western songs about putting a boot in someone’s ass and turning a desert into a glass parking lot?**

For me, I can see both sides of this coin. The former seems wiser to me, the kind of grief that knows that even a call reversal wouldn’t help much. The moment is gone. And rules changes that make replay more prevalent might not ever help a situation like this.

But I also know how it feels to be wronged and want revenge. I’m the king of plotting the demise of people who’ve cut me off on the highway or stolen my beautiful, 52” television. My tweet/Facebook status immediately after the call: FUCK JIM JOYCE. I joined an FB group of a similar name, even, which I am now regretting as I write this.

In the end, though, it was great theater. It’s just too bad it had to come at the expense of a pitcher who will probably never come close to that again.

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*Note: No, you can’t compare the two. Except that you kind of can. I’m not making light. I’m just noting a feeling of similarity I have in my gut.

**Note: Dear Lord, am I bombastic and full of hyperbole or what? It’s certainly ridiculous to compare the tragedy of 9/11 with a blown call in a goddamn baseball game. I’d never make that straight comparison. But the reactions to the latter seem, to me, like a microcosm (a smaller, infinitely less significant microcosm) of the former.