With 6 million or so sports blogs to choose from, we all have to get a little creative now and then to keep the ladies readers pleased and coming back for more, so it doesn’t ever surprise me when another site uses a misleading headline to get a few more clicks. Hell, I do it plenty, but I also trust that enough people know not to take it too seriously, because we’re closer to the Onion than we are ESPN. And even when I get something wrong – a stupid little stat or a misspelled name or misconstrued legal jargon – I still take the time to fix or clarify it.
With that mini-rant out of the way, if someone emailed me a photo of Miami Heat stars Dwyane Wade and LeBron James wearing t-shirts that depict Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, especially in the wake of Ozzie Guillen’s admission of love, I’d probably take a few minutes to check and see if it’s real. Unfortunately, one blogger, who professes to be the “world’s most popular”, which I assume is recognized in the same category as World’s Best Kisser and No. 1 Dad, doesn’t share that philosophy and ran the above image yesterday without bothering to check if it was real, leading to some mighty fine racism in his comments section.
I make no secret that I dislike Wade and James for their perceived arrogance, but this photo jumped out at me because I immediately remembered it from an event that we featured back in September – Nickelodeon’s Worldwide Day of Play, featuring Michelle Obama, Chris Paul, Wade and James. And no, Wade and James were not wearing Castro shirts.
I reached out to this blogger about his error, but he’s running with it nonetheless. I just hope his site isn’t the World’s Most Popular among Heat lawyers.
