Pavano v. Morrissey

This argument is in the interest of justice.

I have volunteered to represent Carl Pavano.

Michael Morrissey’s case is stated in his new book: The Pride And The Pressure: A Season Inside The New York Yankee Fishbowl.

I realize the evidence is stacked against my client. There are the injuries and the poor decisions and even some unflattering testimony from teammates.

Carl is certainly guilty of mistakes and of being human. But he is not guilty of all the accusations in this book.

Morrissey begins Chapter Fourteen: Pavano, with a clubhouse story from mid-February 2006. It revolves around a joke Pavano made about Dick Cheney’s infamous hunting accident where he blasted his friend with a shotgun after apparently mistaking him for a quail.

While reading a newspaper, Pavano said, “What’s this country coming to when there’s such a furor over congressmen shooting citizens?”

“You idiot,” former teammate Tanyon Sturtze laughed. “He’s the vice president.”

“I knew that,” Pavano said.

Morrissey tells this story to try and embarrass Pavano and offers, “Pavano revealed himself as a fool.”

What does this little anecdote really tell us? Nothing.

Maybe it proves that Pavano didn’t know Cheney is the vice president or maybe it proves Sturtze and Morrissey didn’t know he was a congressman.

Morrissey also writes, “Nobody around the Yankees pegged Pavano as an intellectual. He’d never attended college and spent his off-field life dating gorgeous women and/or driving fast cars (a combination that would end his 2006 season), so he wasn’t exactly someone with high-minded pursuits.”

This statement says more about Morrissey than it does Pavano.

A person’s intelligence isn’t tied to a college degree. Education – like all things in the country – is roped tightly to economics: rich people can afford to go to college and poor people can’t. The Bronx is the poorest borough in New York City and the people who live there have the lowest level of education. Simple.

In his book, Morrissey took a few quotes, stories and unsubstantiated innuendo and dropped a blanket indictment on Carl Pavano’s character.

There could be some truth, but there is certainly no justice.