GoodRecovery

Mistakes happen. The important thing is what one does next. Thomas Boswell, sports columnist for the Washington Post newspaper, comments entertainingly and wisely about a recent post-hockey-game fight (or should that be "post-hockey-fight game"?! (^_^)) between a local team owner and a fan. Both sides have apologized; nobody plans to file a complaint with the police or a civil lawsuit. Boswell concludes his essay:

[They] may not be proud of their behavior last Sunday. But, since then, they've conducted themselves about as well as you can once you've made a mess of things. Everybody acts like a fool sometimes but it's what you do afterward that usually matters most. I hope my son would react as well.

(see also WorldSeriesLines (22 Jun 2002), HeartOfTheOrder (3 Jul 2002), SparkyAndSandy (24 Jul 2002), ... )

TopicLife - TopicLiterature - Datetag20040129

So this is their post-post-game reaction. True, Teddy has behaved much better after the fight, but the fight came after some bad behavior, so my question is just what is the acceptable time frame to clean up your act? If he had conducted himself better after the initial altercation during the game, then he wouldn't have gotten into a fight with the fan after the game. What if he hadn't conducted himself yet, but would do so tomorrow? Would that be good enough?

I like Boswell, and agree to some extent, but the concept of excusing bad behavior because one behaves better later just doesn't sit right with me. Yes, they did apologize, but we should still berate them for what they did! Why let them off the hook so easily? That's no fun. -- sprintbare http://www.sprintbare.com

(correlates: GibbonChapter11, 3 Comments on TboltMonkeysOnMyBack, GreatPicnic, ...)