Such a shame

Shame on you, Richard Sherman.

For apologizing.

I’m offended the Seahawk cornerback buckled and said he was sorry for his postgame antics.

That’s saying something because I don’t get offended easily.

Confused? That’s another thing. I’m easily confused.

But it takes a lot to offend me, and Sherman’s wild rant in his post game interview, seconds after his team defeated its arch rival San Francisco Sunday, didn’t rattle my sensibilities one bit.

“I’m the best corner in the game,” he screamed before taking a pot shot at an opposing player, after which he ran around making a choking sign around his throat.

It made me chuckle, I admit, but it was like one of those chuckles when you’re embarrassed for a friend for telling a bad joke in front of a crowd.

But it sure outraged a lot of people, and that’s where I get confused.

As a sports fan, I need a manuscript for when it’s OK to be outraged and when it’s not.

“Unprofessional, embarrassing, classless,” is what you heard a lot.

About a third of the way down in the comment section on a San Francisco 49ers blog I read the next day had its first Hitler reference, even.

But the unprofessional tag really leaves me scratching my head. I thought the rant was the product of being very excited for doing a job well, but I think I’m thinking too much.

“Yeah, well, I don’t react that way when I do my job,” an outraged fan screams, a comparison of professions which has always left me baffled, ever since it was invented 25 years ago, when a mid manager got depressingly drunk at a sports bar one afternoon.

As for me, I’ve never had 60,000 people scream for anything I’ve done, so I don’t know how I would react. But a lot of other people have, and I’m confused as to why I’m the only one without this experience.

Some ESPN personalities really let Sherman have it, too.

“Act like a professional,” they said, and words like that carry weight, because ESPN, according to itself, is the world wide leader in sports journalism, which you don’t achieve without being devoted to professionalism and ethics.

The journalist who interviewed Sherman, Erin Andrews, used to date a source of hers, David Wright, when she worked for ESPN. It wasn’t a conflict of interest, I don’t think, because it was at the time her career took off with promotion after promotion around the exact same time the video of her in her birthday suit leaked online.

And wasn’t ESPN the ones who made an award-winning documentary praising Reggie Miller for making the choking signal famous when the basketball guard did it against the Knicks?

I forget, but then again, maybe that signal meant something different back then, anyway.

All these things to keep track of, I can’t keep anything straight.

It completely slipped my mind to demand an apology when ESPN hired Ray Lewis, too. Had I remembered, I would have yelled at the company until my face was blue because I remember Lewis’s murder trial. But, then again, I liked Lewis’s dancing when he played, so maybe not.

Actually, maybe my mind just isn’t sharp enough to be outraged, and maybe Sherman should have apologized.

After all, I haven’t seen an athlete so hated since LeBron James agreed to make a TV show about his decision to sign a contract with a basketball team. It was a silly TV show, to be sure, and the James name calling lasted two years, which made me wrinkle my brow a bit, because I’ve never been outraged by anything scripted for television, ever.

But befuddled goes to bewildered the second I start thinking about the media praise Kobe Bryant received for being able to keep his concentration and play a basketball game the same day he was flying to California from a court in Colorado when he was facing his very serious charges.

Oh well.

Again, my mind’s probably not the steel trap required to keep such things straight.

So, on Super Bowl Sunday, when a player becomes very excited and celebrates for a job well done, I’ll just nod my head if people get angry.

I’ll keep quiet and go along with the outrage, though I won’t understand it, because, like the saying goes, it’s better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you’re a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

I think that’s how it goes, but maybe I’m twisting that up, too.

• Tom Hasslinger, managing editor, can be reached at 245-0427 or thasslinger@thegardenisland.com.