Yesterday, ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio started floating rumors that there was a police investigation regarding Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger peeing on a golf course. Really. Rather than check with police or the golf course in question, Florio took a few emails as sources and related the troubled Roethlisberger peeing on a golf course to the troubled Mike Vick potentially being involved in a shooting at his birthday party earlier this summer. See the connection?
We’re talking about a guy who spent time in jail on dogfighting and interstate gambling charges possibly orchestrating the shooting of one of his co-defendants, and comparing it to someone that has never been charged, let alone convicted of a crime peeing on a golf course. Only the police “investigated,” found no one to be in the wrong, discussed it with the course and let everyone know that it might’ve been someone else in Big Ben’s golf foursome who was so evil to…pee on a golf course.
PFT has its useful moments, but this is just absolute crap. At a slow sports news times such as this when we’re making big productions out of NBA free agents picking new teams to pass the time before real sports news comes back with a full clip, Florio knew he could get some media recognition with a new “allegation” against the headline-grabbing Roethlisberger. And he did. When I see WPXI reporting on potential Ben wrongdoings based on a PFT report which itself is based on email “sources” with no confirmation from the police or golf course, then you know that someone is really reaching.
So I made a tag cloud with Tagxedo using the text from Florio’s 2 articles (!) on this non-story. I may have added one word of my own.
Florio, this video’s for you.
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