Well. It seems a lot of views have been expressed on "Shirtgate" since my previous post in this thread. I'm only going to quote Hambone's post (since his views seem to align most closely to my own and most of my response builds on his comments) but I'm really adddressing anyone who feels they "have a dog in this fight." I was reluctant to get too critical of Geroy here since there seemed to be rather little in the media about it, and let's face it, the media LOVES controversy. Surely they would have jumped all over this if it had any legs? So I did some poking around online.
Hambone wrote:Many seem to want to vilify him simply for wearing the colours of his employer on the night when the announcement came out. My gut feel is that Simon really was at the game first and foremost to act on behalf of the Riders with the announcement being more of a hastily planned thing that happened because Geroy just happened to be planning on being in the house. Usually when such announcements are to come down the team's media relations people send out a release at least a day in advance that there will be an announcement. In this case the advisement didn't come out until a few hours before the formal announcement. I think the Lions opted to make the announcement when they did only because they became aware Geroy was going to be there thus the opportunity for some photo ops. From what I recall when the pics were taken with Skulsky and Buono he was wearing a hoodie over top of his Rider polo shirt. It would've looked tacky for sure for him to be flying the Rider flag then but after that he's free to wear whatever turns his crank.
This is all quite plausible in terms of things coming together on this episode rather quickly. The earliest media report I noticed was around 12:30pm on gameday Friday when Ian McLetchie reported during a 1040 news update that an announcement (of a still-unspecified nature at that time, of course) would be made at 6:15pm that evening.
I checked bclions.com for any video content of the goings-on. Here's Skulsky's announcement:
http://www.bclions.com/video/index/id/97549
Simon never appears in this video, but Skulsky points to him somewhere off-camera to the viewer's right. Skulsky even got a bit tripped up in his words, mixing up for a moment whether it was the Ring of Honour or the Wall of Fame to which Geroy had been named. Perhaps this rather unrehearsed-sounding delivery — he doesn't even get around to mentioning the RoH until after a full minute and then some of rather unpolished rambling where he gave the date/opponent and plugged a sponsor — is an indication of just how quickly this came together.
Here's a shorter video from the event where we
do see Geroy:
http://www.bclions.com/video/index/id/97527
This is mostly a direct Q&A with the media in front of a multi-Lion-logo'ed backdrop, after his appearance with DS&WB at the podium (there's also a quick shot of that around 0:12). In both shots he's wearing a neutral grey zip-up hoodie (presumably over his Rider logo'ed shirt) as has already been mentioned. He reveals here that he only found out about the RoH nod yesterday (Thursday). He was in Toronto at that time for their game that night. The Argos even tweeted a picture of him talking to Chad Owens shortly before the game started, and he's wearing a fully green (almost certainly Rider) golf shirt, so he's presumably there in his Rider capacity:
If Geroy wanted to pull off a "d*ck move" he could have just worn this shirt to BCP. But from what I saw in other online sources (and I believe David also pointed this out) it seems he wore a white golf shirt with a Riders logo on it, which is certainly more discreet. Moreover, the fact that he was at the Argos game Thursday in his Rider capacity certainly makes it plausible that he came here the next day in like capacity.
In my digging around online, I found another interesting tweet that was posted Friday evening. It's not from anyone particularly notable, by all appearances just another rank-and-file Lions fan:
Nice to see @geroysimon at the #lions game today! Just a regular guy paying for parking... With bling #cfl #Riders pic.twitter.com/sf6mjpDe1u
Looks like the same grey hoodie he wore at the presser. But my main point here is: If Geroy had come here strictly as a Lions guest, doesn't it seem odd that they wouldn't arrange some transportation for him instead of making him drive to BCP himself? Or at least not put him in a spot where he has to go find parking and pay for it to boot? Surely, it would make more sense that he was here principally as a Rider employee (and thus likely paid for the parking on expense account).
Let's break down this photo a little more. Here we have Geroy taking a few moments from his busy day to let some fan of his old team — who just happened upon him in the parking lot — get a picture with him and try on his Grey Cup ring that he won somewhere else. Where does this rate on the spectrum of "d*ck moves"?
I think it's fair to say there was a rather unique set of circumstances surrounding this "Shirtgate" episode — which was by all appearances rather a hastily arranged event — to a sufficient extent that it would render any comparison to Yzerman or Montana or Crosby or whoever a rather moot exercise. Apples and oranges. Chalk and cheese.
One other comment: from some posts I've seen here, there seems to be some sort of "us vs them" angle getting played up between supposed supporters and haters of Geroy, which I find a little oversimplistic. Frankly I don't identify with either "camp". Why do we have to be one or the other? Can we not just examine a person's actions objectively on a case-by-case basis and let these observations guide our views? I don't find much fault on Geroy's part here. But you'd be fooling yourself if you thought I was rooting for him to win another GC last year. And I'd have to take a dim view to any Rider crests on his attire come July 25.
This discussion kind of reminds me the one I got into on here last year over John Tortorella's comments about the Grey Cup. I never cared too much for JT but I nonetheless tried to examine the context of what he had to say. Like this Shirtgate, the lack of a media feeding frenzy was an obvious red flag that there was more than meets the eye to what happened. In the final analysis I found his comments to be fairly anodyne when weighed against their context, even if not everyone else chose to take these considerations into account.
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.