God, Please Save These Troubled States

The Orange County Register ran a sports column from Mark Whicker this Monday, which imagined that Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned in a tent in Phillip Garrido's backyard, had missed out on 18 years of sports in Southern California. (She's from Northern California, for the record.) The article quickly spread across Twitter and Facebook and Whicker posted an apology for the piece last night. I'm here to inform you, if it wasn't obvious already, that Whicker's apology is a lie.

If you haven't seen Whicker's article, be prepared. It's dripping with a kind of unattached insanity I haven't seen in a long time. The general idea: Dugard's been gone for 18 years and Whicker uses this to elaborate, list-style, on a varied assortment of things that have happened in Southern California sports since then, as if this is the most pertinent thing in her life.

Some highlights:

• It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page.
  
  Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year.

Trust me, Mark, more than just box scores were not available to her.

• She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey.
  Now, that's deprivation.

No, I assure you she was deprived of much more than the ability to demonstrate her masculinity through sports.

• Can you imagine? Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped and stashed in Phillip Garrido's backyard. She was 29 when she escaped. Penitentiary inmates at least get an hour of TV a day. Dugard was cut off from everything but the elements.

I just....no comment. Holy shit.

As we move on to his list, it gets even worse:

• Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire.

Are. You. Fucking. Serious.

• I know you've had trouble digesting all this so far, but they also built a basketball arena at USC. Honest to God.

What the.....

• For the most part, fans have stopped doing The Wave.

??????????????? Where do you live?

• You disappeared a couple of months before John Daly came into our lives at the '91 PGA. Who's John Daly? Never mind.

She didn't "disappear." She was kidnapped.

But here's the "best" part. The final line of the column:

• Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.

You insensitive scumbag. SHE WAS KIDNAPPED, RAPED, AND HELD CAPTIVE FOR 18 YEARS. HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?

You can read Whicker's apology for the article right here. And that's where this gets even more interesting.

I decided to take advantage of Whicker's public email to write him and express my extreme distaste for his column. I waited an hour or so after reading it precisely so I wouldn't write something as harsh as this very entry.

Below, you can read our brief conversation:

He has not responded to me since.

Whicker's "apology" and this email shifts the blame from himself and onto the reader. It's our fault that we misread his article and clearly, there is something wrong with our sanity because he hasn't written anything that could be considered offensive. It's also interesting to note that not once does Whicker actually apologize to Jaycee Dugard for using her tragedy to write an attempt at a humorous sports column.

Most importantly, his email to me seems to demonstrate that this "apology" was forced and is, in no way, genuine at all.

Mark Whicker is a liar and he's just attempting to save his ass now.