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RSS icon Comments on Should the Mariners Be Charged with Manslaughter?

1

how about charging the mariners w/ being greedy grown men who hit a ball w/ a stick all the while charging us millions of dollars when that money could go to better causes.

Posted by smokingun | September 12, 2007 10:08 AM
2

Yes, I agree, if Judas Priest can be charged for murder so can these horrendous M's. At the very least malicious felony charges should be filed against that tool Mike Hargrove for abonding ship just cuz he was a wee depressed.

Jokes aside, I think this was the worst choke job ive seen in a while. I mean they were in the playoffs and the Angels come to town and pimp them and then they drop 8 or 9 in a row. I was looking forward to at least a wild card.

Posted by SeMe | September 12, 2007 10:10 AM
3

Tobias sacrificed himself to teach the M's a lesson in nonsuckery [sic]. Baseball fans should praise him. With a little touch of magic--instead of Angels in the outfield or some gay shit--suicide can do just about anything!

We'll see. Next season. Maybe. I won't. I don't watch baseball. Or sports. Go Bears.

Posted by Mr. Poe | September 12, 2007 10:11 AM
4

Abandoning.

Posted by SeMe | September 12, 2007 10:11 AM
5

The curse of the Tobino?

Posted by that's the truth, Ruth | September 12, 2007 10:21 AM
6

maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but is this supposed to be funny? This guy killed himself. Suicide isn't funny. He was obviously a troubled person, and no, unless the Mariners walked over to the Aurora bridge and actually pushed him then they are not guilty of anything, other than just playing bad baseball this week.

Posted by duncan | September 12, 2007 10:34 AM
7

I think that if his happiness was so dependent on the outcome of a game, his life was so pathetic that he might have made the right decision.

Posted by Gitai | September 12, 2007 10:37 AM
8

@1 - just a guess, but did you get beat up by jocks a lot in high school?

Posted by Hernandez | September 12, 2007 10:38 AM
9

1. Like Nintendo wouldn't just cash that excess money out for themselves if they didn't blow it on the team. Silly you, being such an idealist.

Posted by Gomez | September 12, 2007 10:44 AM
10

bad baseball this week? Try this MONTH. they havent stopped losing since the Angels swept them. Hargrove is responsible for this man's death!

Tobias should have stuck around for the Huskies, though he sounds like he was a depressed cat. But the Huskies are off the hook this year!! After stomping Boise State they are looking promising.

Posted by SeMe | September 12, 2007 10:45 AM
11

Maybe we should all pitch in and send Chris Crocker some M's hats and jerseys.

Posted by Clint | September 12, 2007 11:26 AM
12

Nobody makes you kill yourself. That's why it's called "killing yourself." I have no sympathy for people who commit suicide.

Posted by Jason Josephes | September 12, 2007 11:32 AM
13

so the guy thinks many people should not talk or base their lives on the antics of Paris Hillton. He thinks it is ridiculous but then turns around and bases his life on the progress of the Mariners. A baseball team. A form of entertainment.
He was unstable many people get upset over teams that do not do well. They do not go out and kill themselves.

Posted by -B- | September 12, 2007 11:36 AM
14

Suicide is so often used as a premise for jokes on this blog. I wish it wasn't. But I know the people who use it as such probably lack first hand experience in the pain caused by suicide. While I wish the mockery would cease, I also hope it's a pain they never do experience because it's searing and endless and causes unbelievable despair.

Posted by zxs | September 12, 2007 11:46 AM
15

Don't charge the Mariners with manslaughter, charge Jeff Weaver.

Posted by jzilla | September 12, 2007 11:51 AM
16

#14

Shut up. Everybody has been bothered with at least 20 suicides. That's why we find it so funny.

Posted by Horse | September 12, 2007 11:57 AM
17

Re: 6 & 14: After killing someone else, killing yourself is the worst thing a person can do.

If my light mockery of existent suicides can prevent even one future suicide ("I'd really like to kill myself, but I don't want some dick making fun of me in the newspaper when I'm gone"), it's worth it.

Posted by David Schmader | September 12, 2007 11:59 AM
18

“Most days it feels/seems that most people are mindless fucking sheep,” wrote Allen in his MySpace blog on June 15....

At least he got it... too bad he ain't around to join the anti-sheeple campaign!

Posted by Sheeple Shepard | September 12, 2007 12:05 PM
19

6 and 14. Get over yourselves, just like the people who offed themselves should've gotten over themselves, instead of offing themselves.

Posted by Gomez | September 12, 2007 12:43 PM
20

A-fuckin'-men.

Posted by Mr. Poe | September 12, 2007 12:55 PM
21

You should be ashamed of yourself. This man's trajic life and death being made fodder for your blog humor is dispicable.
Oh yeah...the "if I can save one life with my sick sense of humor" excuse is pretty lame.

Posted by e.j. | September 12, 2007 1:02 PM
22

Trajic!

Posted by sic | September 12, 2007 1:11 PM
23

Pretty macabre entry, feel for the guy. BUT...

#2 has a great point. If this were 1987 and he was found with journal entries full of Priest lyrics, Al Gore's wife would have them the band in front of a grand jury by weeks end. But baseball is normal, so obviously it'd be silly to consider that.

Posted by Dougsf | September 12, 2007 1:13 PM
24

Re: the folks up in arms about my "sick sense of humor": Lest we forget, the suicide in question made a name for himself collecting the art work of serial killers. Clearly, he had an appreciation for the macabre.

Posted by David Schmader | September 12, 2007 1:21 PM
25

@21

Not as lame as you are, you buttface.

Posted by Jerry Connor Falaffel Joy Buns | September 12, 2007 1:21 PM
26

No, no -- it's Not as lame you are, you *dillhole*.

Posted by kid icarus | September 12, 2007 2:27 PM
27

David, you have a long career of doing great work that I've followed since Letters to Axl. You had a lot of heart back then.

But is suicide prevention really what you were after here? Or just an interesting glimpse into a troubled mind? Personally, I think suicides should receive much broader coverage in news outlets. The classic thinking has always been that reporting on, say, Aurora Bridge jumpers would lead to more jumpers. But many in the mental health field feel that comprehensive coverage of reasons and consequences could save lives.

#16 - if you've been personally connected to 20 suicides (not "bothered" but really connected), please get counseling and accept my condolences even as you tell me to shut up.
#19...what?

Posted by zxs | September 12, 2007 2:45 PM
28

@19, get over yoursself.

Posted by duncan | September 12, 2007 3:10 PM
29

What the fuck? My mom died of colon cancer, that doesn't keep me from making cancer jokes.

Posted by Ben | September 12, 2007 3:42 PM
30

@17: I hear ya. Makes sense to me.

@28: yourself (one 's')

Posted by duncan | September 12, 2007 3:43 PM
31


@12 that's nice, I have no sympathy for you, hahaha and then you die.

Posted by come again? | September 12, 2007 4:06 PM
32

To the people complaining about David's sense of humor, have you ever read his column? This kind of thing is his bread and butter. And black humor, while not everyone's cup of tea, is a way to put distance between yourself and tragic circumstances and make the sadness and ultimate futility of life more comprehensible.

Posted by Lark Hawk | September 12, 2007 4:12 PM
33

Black humor is very much my thing, and Schmader usually excels at it.  This is merely black, though.  Humor, not so much.

That said, Schmader's defense @17 is well taken.  Those of us commenting are not the target audience.

Posted by lostboy | September 12, 2007 6:26 PM
34

@29...my mother also died of cancer. I might joke about it and my family might laugh. But if someone else made a joke about my mother's death, particularly a stranger, I'd find it in really poor taste.
My brother committed suicide. No one jokes about it. Especially the people who knew him. And if someone used it for humor purposes in their blog I'd punch them in the face.

Posted by e.j. | September 12, 2007 9:10 PM
35

After reading the Last Days column last week outlining Toby's fragile state being indelibly tied to the health of the Mariners, I felt a kinship with Toby because the quality of my life is likewise attached to the health of the M’s. You see, I sell programs at the games on a commission basis.

Before the August 27 game against LA, the M’s were a mere 2 games behind the Angels and leading the Wild Card race. By the end of the fateful Cleveland game on 8/30 (one of the ugliest losses in years) we were sporting a six-game losing streak, 5½ games behind LAA and had lost our Wild Card spot to the dreaded Yankees. No wonder Toby gave up on life – I hadn’t been so depressed since Bush stole the 2004 election!

I made about $30 an hour selling programs at the first sell-out LA game and that had dwindled to about $15 by the time we got swept. This week, after the M’s returned carrying the burden of losing 14 of their last 16 games, I’ve averaged about $5 an hour selling to a small disgruntled crowd that has given up on any post season run and basically can really give a flying fuck about reading a program, even if the program I sell – The Grand Salami – is in competition to the “official” program, and loaded with scalding critique and barbs directed toward M’s management and detailing the M’s late season collapse. “Read about it?” fans retort, “I watched. The fucking collapse!”

The M’s basically screwed all of us, but they screwed Toby the hardest. I visited Toby's MySpace page and learned that like me, he was a Deadhead. Now I'm wondering if I knew the guy and wish I had a picture so I’d know. No one is making of fun of this and I thank David for sharing about Toby and pointing the finger at the M’s. May Bill Bavasi rot in hell.

Tickets for the rest of the season will be pretty much free – there were hundreds of unused tix appearing at the gates for the A’s series. So come on down and nab a free (or near free) ticket and buy a program from me. I am the fat guy selling outside the Center Field gate.

Ben”Jammin”

Posted by Hot Tipper Ben | September 13, 2007 1:25 AM
36

Hey #14, isn't the first hand pain caused by suicide usually over pretty quickly?

The guy killed himself over a baseball team, mocking him is only right.

Posted by PdxRitchie | September 13, 2007 3:49 AM
37

Not that anyone's reading this string any more but hello #36. I guess you could argue that the first hand is the person committing the act and those left to grieve/cope/shriek are, in fact, second hand. But you could also argue that the unbearable pain felt by the deceased actually mutates and transfers to those left behind.
And if you knew one goddamn thing about suicide, you would know it wasn't any goddamn baseball team that killed him.

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38

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