I always try to put myself in the shoes of others. I imagine what it’s like to drive a Bentley without a license and have more Chihuahuas than brain cells or what it must be like to be Carrot Top. By doing so I find myself sympathizing with those that initially I can?t understand.
Here is a post from a Timed Finals article http://www.timedfinals.com/10082007/in-my-mind-its-time-to-get-tough-on-doping/ on an issue that I have weighed in on from time to time over the years: CHEATERS IN SPORT.
Comment by Laughable: “Gary Hall is a disgrace. He speaks of money and the like, and yet his grandfather was a huge scam artist. Hey Gary, how much of that money got stuffed away to support your millionaire lifestyle in Miami??”
I have decided to play a detective in trying to out the secret identity of the mystery poster.
Judging from this Laughable’s post I gather that he (and he is probably a he) is an intelligent man, probably educated in one of America’s finer high schools or England, at least for some period of time. He must be referring to my maternal grandfather, Charles H. Keating. His familiarity with my family history demonstrated through the mention of my grandfather proves that he either has heard less educated people talk about my grandfather and has the ability to repeat what he has heard or he has a selective ability to read.
This second possibility seems likely because he has computer access and enough common sense to find and post on the Timed Finals website. We can assume that he has read the original article and has posted a response that utilizes a shifty technique used in advanced debate. This is where a person will throw in something that has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic, distracting the flow of logical discourse. I assume that he is capable of Googling a thing or two but not enough to research the fact that charges against my grandfather were dismissed, something a name search would have cleared up. Or is it possible that he knew the facts and wanted to plant a psychological land mine by insisting that my grandfather was a scam artist knowing that if he only insisted strong enough that it would make it so?
Judging by the brevity of his response I conclude that he is either a very busy man with limited time to surf the internet at his day job or has a limited vocabulary and came close to running out of words.
I don’t know. It’s a tough case really. Obviously, there is an interest in doping for him to open the article in the first place. Given my strong stance against cheaters, he opposes me and therefore is for doping.
He calls me out, “Gary”. It’s as if he knows me. If he did know me he would know that I live in Miami Beach though, not Miami. I wonder if his reference to my millionaire lifestyle is a reference to the millions of dollars that I have raised for charity? Or maybe it could be the millions of dollars that my grandfather, my father, and I have contributed to the sport of swimming over the years? Either way he must know that I have won ten Olympic medals and have earned some money by doing so. Medals can’t be bought. They are earned. But he wants it to seem like I am one of those lucky sperm, inheritance kids.
A celebrity told me a long time ago that you can never truly be considered a celebrity until people that you have never met before hate you.
Laughable is someone that I have never met before. He hates me?
It’s Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds is Laughable.
Barry has finished off what was left of baseball. “America’s Pastime” is honor-less. He cheated and stole from innocent, clean athletes that don’t take steroids robbing them of opportunities worth millions of dollars. His only punishment is an asterisk? He turns the justice system on it’s ear. But, in addition to all of this bad stuff, Barry Bonds has confirmed me as a celebrity and for this I think that I can find it in my heart to forgive him.
I have tried to put myself in his shoes (which are two sizes bigger than five years ago) to understand but I can’t. Perhaps that will remain the difference between a cheater and a clean athlete, something I can’t understand.
Who cares? I’m a celebrity!
Laughable, I forgive you.
Gary Hall Jr.
can be reached at info@theraceclub.net
