Johnny Manziel, Firing Away

Don’t Mind My Poolside Manners

"All right, that's it you annoying little autograph seeker!"

Observation: ESPN and Jim Basquil need to lay off the how’s-this-for-a-story sauce.

Consider the opening line in the video accompanying this article: “JOHNny ManZIEL, harASSED by a FAN at the AT&T Byron Nelson Golf Tournament.”

Seriously? All that emphasis because someone was bothering someone next to a pool? So what if one of the someones was a professional quarterback? Is this really a reason to put on a striped shirt-striped tie combo and get all worked up?

Jimmy baby, save your serotonin for the part about what color his girlfriend’s bikini was.

A close and properly journalistic look at the situation, however, is worth a peek. That, my friends, is why we are here.

“FIRST, the HIGH lights.”

Incredibly, Jimmy B. starts off by giving only half the story. "(Cleveland) Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel threw a water bottle at a badgering fan,” he says.

 

~~ Jim! Pay attention! He threw TWO water bottles at TWO people! ISn’t THAT a BETter STORY?! What the hell did they teach you up there at SUNY-Oswego anyway?

Next, a statement from on-the-scene officer James McClellan: “There was no evidence that Manziel was "intoxicated or even had been drinking."

 

~~ For anyone not paying close attention to the life and times of Johnny Manziel, there’s a clue about his character.

Someone from the Cleveland Browns, Johhny B. Sober’s employer, reminds us all that “Manziel should not be held responsible for obnoxious fans who approach him aggressively.”

 

~~ True. But he should be held responsible for his reactions to them. Or do those rules not apply to 22-year-old multi-millionaires?

 

I call myself 'Johnny Money' so I do this with my hands a lot. And sometimes I throw things because I'm Johnny Money.

“And NOW, the BACK story.”

In the incident referred to in the headline, Johnny Man-shell was poolside at the Four Seasons on the golf course grounds where “a kid had been asking [Manziel] for a couple hours for his autograph, and he wouldn't give it to him.”

 

I think we can all agree both Johnny and this kid could use a little change of strategy.

 

It’s also possible that the kid just wanted to know how to spell “Manziel” which is normally pronounced man-ZELL unless someone has had a few in which case it becomes ‘man-un-zjehlw’ (according to a close friend of the lush).

Soon the kid, frustrated because staying at the Four Seasons on a golf course during a popular and star-studded golf tournament isn’t enough for him, started “badgering” poor John. Then John, unable to find a pen to write his god damn name so the kid would leave him alone, grabbed the nearest water bottle and chucked that at the kid instead.

 

This, Manziel’s friend tells us, came after another person who has yet to read ‘How To Win Friends & Influence People’ started heckling and grabbing at the former Heisman Trophy winner and recent rehab graduate out on the golf course. Then too Johnny M. was caught without his quill and had to resort to what comes naturally to him: throwing something at someone and missing badly.

'Honestly, I don't know where all the talk comes from.
Just because I call myself Johnny Money...'

Later the fan showed up to heckle him again, outside the golf course as Manziel and some friends who, amazingly, were waiting for a ride from an Uber driver. Guess they blew too much cash at the poolside bar and couldn’t spring for a real cab.

Oh, stop with the drinking comments.

What? Too sarcastic? Consider the words of our friend Officer McClellan, who explained that “the police cooperate with the charities involved in the tournament, so they try if possible to avoid arrests with drunk or disorderly fans.” Or former Heisman Trophy winners, he conveniently neglects to add.

 

“Why THIS ALL PerTAINS to ME.”

I’m one of those people who doesn’t keep up with Johnny Manziel. For starters, I’ve got three kids, I don’t have time to stay tuned to someone in Cleveland. And my kids throw enough stuff at me, I don’t need a guy from Cleveland chucking things at me too.

But I can understand what the guy is going through.

Manute Bol in his early novelty days.

While I’ve never been a professional athlete like Johnny Manziel, I have been a novelty like, say, Manute Bol. I know how it is, having lived in Japan, to have kids come up to me and badger me with “Hello! Hello! Hello!” for no reason other than to be able to tell their friends later that they spoke to Manute Bol.

 

They don’t care about me, they don’t give a thought to how sick I am of being adored, they just come up and say “Hello! Hello! Hello!” like I’m supposed to be happy for them and their impending conversations back home.

 

It was fun at first I guess. Not so much after ten years of it.

I’ve also been through another side of celebrity: the never-ending train of attention. Cycling through the backcountry of Southeast Asia I was constantly bombarded with the welcoming cries of a million little kids, standing there on the side of the dirt road, or squatting and playing in their dirt yards, or yelling out from places I couldn’t see but probably consisted of dirt. Mile after mile, kid after kid after dirt-stained kid, “Hello! Hallo! Sabaidee!” It was crazy. It was beautiful. I wished they would flipping shut up.

But I never threw my water bottle at any of them.

"The UPshot"

I can’t liken my experiences to Johnny Misspell’s. No one knows my name. No one on the street knows anything about me except that I’m a strange color. No one knows how much I suck at throwing a football. No one knows how I finished in the Heisman voting. No one knows my rehab history, or that my girlfriend’s bikini is yellow.

The only other thing me and Johnny Manziel share is how many people mispronounce our last names.

I don't know how he deals with it, but I swear the next person who calls me KAY-toe is getting a water bottle in the head.