The Cost of Free Speech

by

Pete Croatto

Since the June debut of Grantland, Bill Simmons’ dream website merging sports and pop culture, many big names have made appearances, including Colson Whitehead and Chuck Klosterman. Paul Shirley has not.

In 2005, Simmons, then merely a massively popular ESPN.com columnist, raved about Shirley’s blog for NBA.com, where the Phoenix Suns benchwarmer shared his shrewd observations on being a professional basketball player. Two years later, Shirley wrote a marvelous book, Can I Keep My Jersey?, about his life as a well-traveled “basketball vagabond.” Untouched by the athlete’s lifestyle—Klosterman, in the book’s introduction, observed that Shirley had not drunk the Kool-Aid—the author offered a different side of mid-twenties ennui. Some of us work in retail or in an office, wondering how much potential we’re squandering. Shirley was just like that only he was playing ball in Spain or Yakima, Washington, wondering when the next gig would come. Both ways you’re living paycheck to paycheck and with a healthy amount of self-doubt.

Shirley had the support of Simmons and Klosterman, so how could the big man not crack Grantland’s starting line-up? Go back to last January, right after Haiti was ravaged by the giant earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. Shirley shared his thoughts about the disaster on flipcollective.com. Two passages garnered national attention for all the wrong reasons.

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

Later in the piece, Shirley wrote a mock letter to the victims from “the rest of the world.”

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Shirley was quickly fired from ESPN.com, where he had blogged since 2005. The PR folks at the Worldwide Leader offered this rationale: “The views he expressed on another site of course do not at all reflect our company’s views on the Haiti relief efforts.” Well, that's a relief.

I think that’s a good explanation as to why Shirley is currently adrift from the ESPN universe, which includes Grantland. Now that the raw indignation over the doomed comments has subsided, a troubling logic emerges. Yes, what Shirley wrote was tasteless, insensitive, and mean, but that he got dismissed for it should give every professional writer serious pause. The man was fired for doing his job.

Shirley, who’s not playing pro ball right now, had the misfortune of being a dissenting voice on an issue that united the world. Maybe he didn’t express his thoughts in the best way, but it wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t right. It was his opinion, and for ESPN, a journalistic enterprise, to punish him is unconstitutional. (And dumb. It wasn’t like it was a government mandate to read Shirley’s column. The Internet is a big space with lots of opinions and limitless freedom. Click elsewhere. Or read a book. Or go for a walk.) ESPN cared more about image than the First Amendment, a galling compromise that no one called the company on. Ditto that Shirley got fired for writing something on another site. There’s no way this would have occurred if the controversy involved a superstar like Chris Berman, Stuart Scott, or even Simmons, the crown jewel in the company’s web front. Firing Shirley, a part-timer, was marketing strategy, plain sand simple.

The bluntness was not a stance Shirley reserved just for Haiti. That harsh honesty defines Can I Keep My Jersey? as the author expresses his indifference toward teammates, questions the passion of fans, and admits to zoning out during strategy-packed time outs. (Shirley prefers the Kiss Cam.) That attitude also contributes to a lack of diplomacy on par with his future comments. Examples:

• On getting help from a friendly airline employee: “I had only one bag, so the nice homo (I write that not as an insult but as a descriptive noun, as he was quite gay) at the ticket counter…”
• On trying to fly to Russia: “When I arrived at the Aeroflot desk in New York after an hour of waiting in a dot-filled line that smelled like a boiled combination of sweat and feces, I was greeted with, ‘Passport and ticket, please.’ (Is the fact that Indian people smell so terrible off-limits? It need not be; I believe our only help of solving this global problem is by attacking it head-on.)”
• On religion, his nemesis: “The religious have done some great things over the years. Without religion, many a native people would have gone wanting for subjugation and oppression. Without religion, hundreds if not thousands of young boys would have been forced to endure a tragic life free from molestation by a trusted priest. Without religion, millions of AIDS viruses would go homeless, left to die on the inside of a third-world condom."

Shirley’s dismissal points to a larger problem at ESPN: Image rules. Maybe that’s why there’s such uniformity, whether it’s in-your-face cranks (Jim Rome begat Skip Bayless who begat Colin Cowherd) or anchors whose smoothness is now an anodyne (Bob Ley begat Mike Tirico who begat Mike Greenberg). Is it possible for writers to represent a company and be themselves? Shirley already had that question answered for him. He won’t be the last writer who is unable to speak for himself.

Books mentioned in this column:
Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond by Paul Shirley (Villard, 2008)

Pete Croatto’s essays, criticism, and humor writing have appeared in MAD, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, AMC Filmcritic.com, and the (Newark) Star-Ledger. He also reviews movies for ICON and The Weekender, and maintains a movie blog. A longtime Mets fan, Pete currently lives in Bucks County, PA, which is Phillies territory. Pray for him. Contact Pete.