RUSH: Chad Ochocinco of the Cincinnati Bengals has been fined $25,000 for two violations: possessing an electronic device, i.e., a BlackBerry or an iPhone, and posting messages on Twitter during a preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles on August the 20th. There’s an NFL rule, no Twittering 90 minutes prior to a game and during a game. It’s a preseason game, Chad Ochocinco, number 85 for the Cincinnati Bengals was tweeting before the game. It’s a real rule. At 9:53 p.m. he tweeted: ‘Man Im sick of getting hit like that , its the damn preseason [expletive]! 1day I’m gone jump up and start throwing hay makers, #Tylenolplease.’ He tweeted: ‘I’ve been fined by the league a substantial amount of money for tweeting, 1st time twitter hasn’t made me money but cost me money,’ he wrote. He apologized and said he won’t do it again. ‘Dear NFL I apologize for tweeting during the
One thing about sports, do you remember when Dusty Baker I think was the general manager of the Giants, was a playoff game and his little five-year-old was a bat guy and nearly got creamed picking up a bat when the opposing team was about to score on a bang-bang play at the plate. The kid could have been creamed. One of the Giants players had to scoop the kid up and get him out of the way during a live baseball game. Now, the football field and the baseball field are a stage, and what goes on there has to have some mystique to it. Believe me, folks, one of the major reasons for the success of the National Football League is they have been able to create a huge mystique, an almost superhuman image about its players. Injuries to these guys are treated as state secrets. It’s as though these players are never seen by anybody except on the field. They don’t have normal lives. They’re never seen in the grocery store limping after a practice in which they might have tweaked an ACL or something.
It has been the most amazing thing for me to watch as a media figure and somebody who understands this. It has been fascinating to watch the success the National Football League has had in creating this aura of mystique around the people who play the game. And part of that mystique is making sure the players do not portray themselves as common, ordinary, everyday people. They’re special. They’re supposed to be special. And if they start tweeting from the sideline it’s essentially giving up the game, giving up the ghost. It’s essentially removing the curtain, taking the mask away from what people don’t know. You’re always more interested in what you don’t know than what you do know. And if what you don’t know about somebody is what keeps you interested in them, and then you learn something about them that you really wish you didn’t know, they lose a little luster in your eyes. That’s what the league is concerned about.
It is why, folks, you wouldn’t believe the numbers of people in this audience who are obsessed with information about members of my staff. Nothing is known about Snerdley, other than occasionally what he says as the Official Obama Criticizer. But beyond that, he’s this mythical — he’s there, exists, but who is Snerdley? You wouldn’t believe how many people want to know about the staff. Well, of course it’s always better if you don’t know because everybody’s human and everybody has failings. So I understand why the league wants to keep Chad Ochocinco and his gang not tweeting on the sideline. You know, tweet after the game, but on the sideline, that’s just taking the mystique away. So I understand. But Chad’s got a little Rush bombast in him, (imitating Chad) ‘Okay, you just cost me two Bugatti payments here, league. I apologize. I won’t do it again.’ I don’t think I’ve ever run into anybody who enjoys being fined any more than Chad Ochocinco does. He’s turned fines into an art form.
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RUSH: Speaking of that, I never thought that I would ever hear about an NFL player tweeting. Talk about the feminization of America. I never thought I’d hear about an NFL player tweeting. Did you, Brian? Do you think Mike Alstott would tweet?