What do you do when it looks increasingly likely your favorite team will skip town? Well, I’ve been eating ice cream and playing Xbox, but I’d probably be doing that anyway.
Actually, tonight I stumbled upon Wikipedia’s article on Saints owner Tom Benson and decided I’d add a long section on the relocation controversy. A glance at the talk page told me I wasn’t the first with that idea. A Wikipedia admin left this message: “Despite any person’s views on the rumors about Tom Benson moving the Saints permanantly out of New Orleans, POV attacks and slander without credible third party evidence will not be tolerated!”
See, Wikipedia is an amazing exhibit of what mass numbers of humans can do when they pool their individual expertise. It’s also a place where anonymous people edit the George W. Bush article to include several instances of the word “NAZI” and smirk at their rapier‐like wit; and where administrators are constantly reverting those sophomoric changes and constantly rolling their eyes at internet fuckwads.
After I made my neutral‐point‐of‐view contribution to the article, I started perusing the “Tom Benson” article’s revision history. Aha! So this is what you do when your team might leave you: you engage in pointless edit wars!
The assembled quotes below were my favorite additions to the article. Nearly all were made by anonymous users. All were removed almost instantly, meaning their authors spent time and energy shouting into the wind. The only people who heard their cries were neutral parties.
One of the edits references Saints guard Kendyl Jacox, who mentioned to the New Orleans Times‐Picayune that he doesn’t like having to play four games in Baton Rouge, since the team’s headquarters are currently in San Antonio. Said Jacox: “Right now, we don’t even know if we’re going to leave Saturday or Sunday morning for the first game in Baton Rouge because of the hotel situation. What kind of shit is that? That’s no way to play. But those are the cards we were dealt.”
These are in rough chronological order. I’ve edited for grammar and spelling; I’ve also added italicized commentary to selected items. Underlines denote additions to existing text.
- Tom Benson (a.k.a. Satan) is the owner of the New Orleans Saints NFL team. (The very next revision surrounded the word “Satan” in brackets in order to link it to Wikipedia’s article on Satan.)
- It is a shame that some in Louisiana would prefer resources to be expended for the Superdome instead of the many 9th Ward homes and businesses. Perhaps a cleansing of the most corrupt and worthless local government would be the best place to start the reconstruction.(This was presumably written by a San Antonio denizen, one who doesn’t realize that the Superdome’s insurance policy would likely cover any renovation of the stadium. Not that Wikipedia vandals are the sort to engage in reasoned debate.)
- Mr. Benson has refused public comment on the situation, and has said he will make a statement and let his intention be known after the current season. But it is obvious that he is trying to squeeze the last bit of money out of the New Orleans area prior to announcing relocation to San Antonio after the season.
- Since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005, he relocated team operations to San Antonio, Texas and has subsequently been known to fire employees who desire the Saints team to return to New Orleans as soon as possible.
- Benson is a resident of San Antonio, Texas and a complete slimeball.
- The Saints have used the Alamodome in San Antonio as their base of operations for the 2005 season, and the Alamodome could be used permanently when Benson can screw over and piss off enough people to let him move the Saints to San Antonio. It remains to be seen what the long term plans of Tom Benson are after moving to San Antonio. After a few seasons of crappy management, subpar play, and continual play‐off freeze outs the fans in San Antonio will no longer support Mr. Benson and his organization. Like a typical slime‐bag Mr. Benson has refused public comment on the situation, and has said he will make a statement and let his intention be known after the current season. Instead of squashing what the Benson camp claims are rumors and not based on fact, Benson allows people to talk only responding with a comment along the lines of how he has not come out and said anything about moving to San Antonio. Tom is not well respected by memebers in the NFL community or among fans of the NFL product.
- If the Saints were to move to San Antonio, a new training facility would have to be built very close to the stadium for Saints player Kendyl Jacox because he hates to travel far. A better place for it would be next to the table where the lousy athletes sit for their daily troughing. Tacos will be served.