Mr. Showtime Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I guess some guys don't want the fun spoiled... Willie Harris' career in television is on hold for the time being. The White Sox second baseman appeared in Part 3 of a week-long ESPN special, "Sex & Sports: Adoring Fans." The show aired Tuesday, with Harris one of a handful of single athletes discussing topics ranging from dating opportunities to the dangers of having sex while on road trips. Harris, who detailed accounts of women lurking in hotel bars after games, didn't think he made any comments that could have angered teammates. He was wrong. Wednesday, several teammates confronted Harris about the interview, not so much for what he said as much as for choosing to discuss a topic that's supposed to "stay in the clubhouse." "Some guys talked to me," Harris said. "It wasn't like I named names, but I guess there's some unwritten rule that talking about a topic like that is a no-win situation." Harris wasn't the first choice for the interview. ESPN was trying to get Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle (who's also single) to appear, but Buehrle passed the opportunity to Harris. "They asked me questions and I answered them," Harris said. "They wanted to know about women on the road, so that's what I talked about. "If guys are upset about what I said, I have no problem talking to them about it. If that's the case, they shouldn't have had a young player do the interview. Young guys don't know any better sometimes. I'm not going to worry about it, though. It wasn't a big deal for me." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I guess some guys don't want the fun spoiled... :headshake Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Showtime Posted March 4, 2004 Author Share Posted March 4, 2004 :headshake Oh common. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Oh common. The headshake was meant for Willie.. not you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Showtime Posted March 4, 2004 Author Share Posted March 4, 2004 The headshake was meant for Willie.. not you. Oh. Carry on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RibbieRubarb Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Thank God ESPN didn't interview Neal Cotts or Steff's cover would be blown... no pun intended... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Thank God ESPN didn't interview Neal Cotts or Steff's cover would be blown... no pun intended... Neal knows what is and is not acceptable information to release to the press... He went to ISU for Pete's sakes... Just look at Heather as an example of how crazy those kids are over there.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quade36 Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 in chicago we say feather his ruffle Good ol Steve Fuller!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rex Hudler Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I think what made the things Willie said worse is how they were presented. His comments, in and of themselves, weren't that big of a deal. But they were presented right next to football and basketball players talking about women coming to their hotel room door just for sex and how easy it is to score. Add in a woman who said she had slept with 20 or so athletes over the years and how easy it was and that some were married and it makes Willie's comments a little more potent based on the perception when combined with the other interviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSteve Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Maybe Willie shouldn't have said it...but who would confront him on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Maybe Willie shouldn't have said it...but who would confront him on this? Everyone.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Prawn Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I didn't hear/read the interview. What was the big to-do about what he said? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkokieSox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I didn't hear/read the interview. What was the big to-do about what he said? All the married players are not caught up. They told their wives that they're the Sox and no girls have any interest in spending time outside their hotel rooms on road trips. Nice job Willie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSteve Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Everyone.... I didn't mean so much like that, my bad. What would you say if you were Willie, and someone confronted you about all of the wild sex that goes on? I would look at the person like he's a fool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upnorthsox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I think y'all are forgetting why there's an unwritten rule for s*** like this, it's simply that nothing good can become of it(and to a lesser point, it only drawing attention to yourself at the expense of others). Two examples: You're at the company party sitting at the table with your spouses and one of the single guys sits down and starts going on about how the office is one big f_ckfest and how half the people park at the Holiday Inn next door to save time after work. Whether you're doing it or not, don't you now have to deal with what he has said? Wouldn't you be pissed off at him? What happens the next time you have to work late? What if Willie had said that he was afraid to walk barefoot in the clubhouse because of syringes lying around, would that have been appropriate to state on TV? Haven't you implicated everyone by association? Should that be public fodder in any way, shape, or form? And who should be more pissed, the guys getting shot up or the guys who aren't? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkokieSox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Harris shouldn't have said anything, but he should have been told. They wanted Buerhle to do this special and he designated it to Willie. He's basically a rookie, and if there is an unwritten rule, people should have made it clear. He obviously didn't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Harris shouldn't have said anything, but he should have been told. They wanted Buerhle to do this special and he designated it to Willie. He's basically a rookie, and if there is an unwritten rule, people should have made it clear. He obviously didn't know. They learn that crap in the minors. Hopefully it'll just go away and not cause any longstanding issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Yeah, do we want players that won't help teammates commit adultry while on the road? Where is the team spirit in that? Willie dude if we loose some games because a starter can't release some tension with a crack whore on the road I'm gonna be pissed. . . Foul Play For Many NBA Stars Marriage Is No Slam Dunk Aug. 8 —In his brilliant career, 24-year-old basketball star Kobe Bryant has done lots of things most NBA players have never done. Now as he fights charges of sexual assault, he has admitted doing something that one woman speculates nearly every NBA player has done or at least thought about: Cheat on his wife. "I don't think there's a single faithful man in the NBA. And if he is out there, then his wife has a very short leash on him," according to Tami Anderson. An exaggeration? Sure. But Anderson is talking from her own experience and pain. The Kobe Bryant case has focused attention on the sexual exploits — real and alleged — of professional athletes while on the road. How do ballplayers deal with the enormous temptations they face while away from home? "I knew there were groupies, but I didn't pay much attention to them," says Angela Wilder, who, like Tami, was once married to an NBA star. "I was kind of like Seabiscuit, you know, I was the Seabiscuit NBA wife and I just kept those blinders on," said Wilder. Anderson and Wilder — both beautiful and intelligent women — found out the hard way that for professional athletes, life on the road can be an open invitation to stray. "Everybody's fair game. With this lifestyle, it's bound to happen," Anderson said. The lifestyle of an NBA star means a lot of time away from home, and temptation lurks inside each hotel lobby and at every nearby bar or club. 'Play Ball, Get Laid, Sleep In' Elizabeth Kaye has seen the dance between athletes and their female admirers. A veteran journalist who wrote the book Ain't No Tomorrow: Kobe, Shaq, and the Making of a Lakers Dynasty, Kaye says there's a motto that summarizes the NBA life in six easy words. "Play ball, get laid, sleep in." And Kaye says the players have a certain type of woman they like. "Just make it easy and be pretty and compliant and shut up about it, basically," she said. Big-time sports figures have always attracted their share of good-humored, if over-eager, women. But the underside of the sports-groupie scene can be blatant and exploitative. Lynda Huey, a lover and confidante of the late Wilt Chamberlain, says she understands the mindset. Chamberlain, the 7-foot-tall NBA great, scored as frequently off the court as he did on it. In one memoir, the never-married Chamberlain boasted that he'd had sex with more than 20,000 women. Huey says, "It was exciting and I look at it now and see that it was destructive to me. It didn't allow me to form intimate relationships." Now a highly-regarded physical therapist in Los Angeles, Huey is at work on a new autobiography. According to Huey, "Wilt got stuck in that lifestyle, the on-the-road lifestyle. Given a chance to have a real relationship with someone, he would decide no, I have to go be the legend again, and have my seven women over the next month." Charges and No Apology Unlike Huey, Wilder thought she had formed a real relationship with her NBA husband. In the early 1980s, she was a sunny, stunning cheerleader at the University of North Carolina who fell in love with basketball star James Worthy. "He was the ball player, I was the varsity cheerleader and we were in heaven," Wilder said. When James turned pro and became a Laker, Wilder moved to Los Angeles with him. They were married in 1984. They had, she thought, a blissful life of love, family, and contentment. Then came the day her life was transformed. Worthy was arrested in 1990 and charged with soliciting a prostitute. Wilder says she can't recall how Worthy apologized to her. "I really have a very fuzzy memory about ever hearing, 'I'm sorry.' What sticks out in my mind is him saying, 'I've put myself in a very bad situation,' which I think speaks to the level of narcissism that often exists in the world of these men," she said. The Groupies Tami Anderson thought she understood the world of celebrity: she starred on the second season of the MTV series The Real World before falling in love with Kenny Anderson, who was then playing for the New Jersey Nets. But her first trip on the road with him proved to be quite a revelation. "There'd be women waiting in the lobby awfully surprised to see me. But there'd be at least 30 girls, just camped out waiting for the bus to arrive — I mean just skimpily dressed, you know: miniskirts, halter tops, you know, cleavage — for days," she said. Anderson assumed her husband was faithful, but at first she says she was careful not to inquire too much about his life on the road. She said, "It's like, if I ask you, you may tell me the truth. And it's something I'm not ready to hear." When the couple went out to dinner one night, however, Anderson says she got to wondering if she might not be the only woman in her husband's life. "The maitre d' walked over to us and said, 'Oh, it's so good to see you again. I'm so glad that you're here.' It was a restaurant that I had never been in," she said. One year later, they separated and eventually divorced. When Players Are Players Anderson has penned a screenplay called The Players' Wives. Wilder, who is writing a book, wonders how an NBA husband with a new family might rationalize his infidelity. He might think along these lines, she said: "I'm not getting it at home like I was getting it before I put the ring on the finger. So I'm just going to go out here and get it, where I don't have to be attached. You know: clean, take care of my business and be done with it." But, she added, "As we see it's not that simple." The way Wilder sees it, it's a husband's responsibility to remain true, not a wife's duty to keep him in line. She doesn't subscribe to Tami's feeling that most NBA husbands need to be on a short leash to keep them from straying. In fact Wilder says, "You might as well have a dog, if that's the case, because you need to put a leash on a dog and make sure it's not around other dogs when it's in heat." Wilder does feel there are faithful husbands in the NBA and disagrees with Anderson's feeling that "all men are dogs." Kenny Anderson and James Worthy declined to comment for 20/20's report. On a Leash? Some basketball fans feel that no NBA player is on a tighter leash than Doug Christie of the Sacramento Kings. His wife, Jackie Christie, says she's lived with the fears and doubts of other NBA wives. She says, "You will always feel some thought in the back of your mind. You're constantly reading about and seeing it and wondering, 'Could that happen to me?'" So for the Christies, constant togetherness helps make love last. During the basketball season, Jackie leaves the couple's three children with her mother and goes on the road with Doug. She's in his room, on his flight, at his side, nearly 24/7. But Doug says he wouldn't stray, even if Jackie weren't with him. "That comes a dime a dozen. I was there, I did that, I saw it all and the good thing is that it shows me what I don't want to do," he said. Before every game, Doug has a hand-written message of love — poetry, or a perhaps a drawing — delivered from the locker room and waiting for Jackie as she picks up her ticket. And even during the game itself, they stay connected. In fact, he's signaled "I Love You" to Jackie more than 60 times in a single game. It may cut against the grain of sports' macho culture, but Doug says he and Jackie simply want to be together as much as possible. Doug says, "We try to have fun in every single thing that we do. If I was to go out to a strip club, I'd take my wife with me. … That's the type of relationship that we're trying to have." Some say that that type of relationship is too close for comfort. One sports columnist has written that a Doug Christie jersey is the perfect gag gift at a bachelor party. But the couple shrug off the doubters. And Doug doesn't mind when he hears other guys say things like "he's whipped." "If you could feel as good as I feel to be whipped, you'd be whipped, too." It certainly feels better than getting sued — as Kenny Anderson has been, by a woman who claims they had an affair while he was still married. Tami Anderson says her husband would give her expensive gifts — including cars — whenever he treated her badly. After they divorced, she traded in the cars and bought herself a Hummer — with a license plate chosen in Kenny's honor. It reads: "HIS CASH." "It's just a tribute to Kenny, because it was his cash," Anderson says. "And I thank you very much. I'm riding in style. Thank you." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkokieSox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 They learn that crap in the minors. Hopefully it'll just go away and not cause any longstanding issues. Apparently he missed that day they talked about it. Regardless though, this is really not a big deal. They talked to him, and that is that. No more should come of it. If this is the biggest problem we deal with in ST, we should be in good shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Regardless though, this is really not a big deal. They talked to him, and that is that. No more should come of it. Yea.. ummm... isn't that what I just said..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkokieSox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Yea.. ummm... isn't that what I just said..? Lol, is it a crime to reiterate. Besides you said hopefully, which isn't a prediction either way. I said I don't think anything more will come of it, and that's more of a prediction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steff Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Lol, is it a crime to reiterate. Besides you said hopefully, which isn't a prediction either way. I said I don't think anything more will come of it, and that's more of a prediction. Looking for where it was called a crime.... Hmm..uggghh.. Nope. Can't find that part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwsox Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I guess some guys don't want the fun spoiled... Mr. S., I have never thought of Willie Harris as colorful. Now that you have named him "Pimp Willie" I have a nickname I can use on my scorecards! Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlaSoxxJim Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 Mr. S., I have never thought of Willie Harris as colorful. Now that you have named him "Pimp Willie" I have a nickname I can use on my scorecards! Thank you! "Willie the Pimp" is a great song sung by Captain Beefheart (and with some sweet electric violin by Sugarcane Harris) on Frank Zappa's monumental Hot Rats album from way back when. Do you think if we got a copy to your old friend Nancy she's start playing it when Willie comes to the plate this year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted March 5, 2004 Share Posted March 5, 2004 Or Willie the Wimp by Stevie Ray Vaughn Could they get him a Caddilac to take him to the batters box? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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