Yesterday, New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia announced that he was going to rehab for his addiction to alcohol and would miss the playoffs. Pretty much everyone applauded his choice. You’d have to be a real jerk, even by the standards of Yankees fans, to say that Sabathia should put off addressing his problem so he could pitch the postseason.
But wouldn’t it be great if someone did? I could refute the hell out of that argument. Virtually every person of sense would agree with me, and I could take the moral high ground while savoring that feeling of eviscerating someone else. And if no one of consequence actually says Sabathia should keep playing, I could still put a beating on that straw man:
Tom Hitchner has written a fine essay about this phenomenon and why it surely does no one any good. Central to his consideration is a peculiarity of the internet age: If you can’t find any professionals who are advancing a stupid argument, someone on Twitter is.