Plenty of excuses that are not excuses

What? Me worry?

In light of the really well written article about Yasiel Puig's harrowing escape from Cuba (those are some awesome illustrations btw, reminds me a lot of GTA), everyone at ESPN has been falling over themselves to tell the world about how they're not making excuses for Puig's behavior but rather how his upbringing in Cuba and escape from there helps explain his behavior, like being late for batting practice and reckless driving.

I'm not trying to make this into some big expose about how horrible of a person Puig is but rather make this into a thing about how ESPN actually is using it as an excuse.


Like racism, anytime you start a sentence with, "I'm not trying to make excuses for the guy..." What follows will almost invariably be an excuse for the guy.

It's just frustrating to hear talk show after talk show act high and mighty about the saga while dismissing any sort of bad behavior as, "Well he grew up in COMMUNIST CUBA and was smuggled into the UNITED STATES THAT BASTION OF DEMOCRACY AND GREATNESS OH AND SOMEONE THREATENED TO CHOP HIS ARM OFF". I'm sure it comes across as me downplaying all that way and I don't mean it to (which is ironic because that's what I'm accusing ESPN of but I don't care).

I'm bothered by how they make Cuba out to sound, as if it is on the same level as Somalia which isn't the case at all. According to the Human Development Index it is listed as 'high'. But if you listen to the way ESPN talks about it you'd think it was South Sudan. (I'm aware of the ridiculousness of getting any sort of information like this from ESPN).

The bottom line is there are hundreds of players in baseball and other sports who have come from really bad backgrounds and much worse off countries than Cuba and you don't see ESPN writing a full page multi-page article about them, so why Puig? Because he's a fantastic talent and poor saps like me can't get enough of his shenanigans. It is possible that the way Puig acts isn't because of Cuba but rather he just gets into trouble because he knows no one can punish him and he has an excellent crutch to fall back on.