When I was younger, I always rooted exclusively for my favorite professional sports teams; the Knicks, Jets, Yankees, and Rangers (from Connecticut). Yet, over the years I've also found myself rooting for individual players, and these players are far from selected at random. It's rooting for the idolized who are at or were at the top of their craft, but some of them seem to have more haters than supporters.
Alex Rodriguez is the first name that comes to my mind. I am biased, but the attention he gets for being far past his prime is a tad absurd. He also has one of the largest contracts in baseball – which he's far from earned – and is associated with taking steroids. What I'm saying is, I understand the hatred but I don't know. I still respect the guy. He apologized and took responsibility for his actions, so why not forgive him? This is a nation of second chances, and to see him still going yard while being booed by entire ballparks is somewhat admirable.
Lebron James is next and now I know I'm losing supporters. He's already one of the greatest players to ever play the game and he just turned 30. He had his debacle in going to Miami and how he dealt with the whole “decision" situation, but the man is still growing as a person. Could he have dealt with the situation better? Sure. Yet, all the money earned from the interview went to charity, so how much can you blame him? Sure, ESPN has a daily field day with pretty much anything he does, but can you blame Lebron for that? He's spoken of and discussed about so much because he is great. So, go ahead and change the channel next time they talk about Lebron no longer wearing a headband and I probably will as well, but don't hate the player, hate the game.
This last name is my hardest to justify because he has a bad history of arrests and has possibly the largest ego in sports. Yet Floyd “Money" Mayweather at the age of 38 is still undefeated in the ring. After just winning what people have proclaimed as the “fight of the century," Floyd is still almost universally hated. In his own country he was booed prior to the fight against Manny Pacquiao and Twitter had a 67-33 percent prediction by fans in favor of Pacquiao to win the fight, even though Floyd was the heavy favorite. Mayweather was basically portrayed as a villain prior to the fight and Pacquiao was shown to be this great underdog story. Now, I'm not saying he's a good guy or that he deserves praise, but again respect the man's greatness. There are excuses after every fight over how he won. The man is 47-0, after fighting Pacquiao he's fought every major contender thrown in the ring against him. As far as I'm concerned he can call himself whatever he wants and throw money around all day, as long as he's undefeated, he deserves to remain the face of boxing.
