Friday, April 6, 2007

2:30 am Isn’t Time for Autographs

(Boulder-CO) Sometimes the best places to be in the wee hours of the night are Taco Bells, convenience stores, and grocery stores because the things, and people, that you might encounter are surely going to give you a story to remember in the morning. Or in the case of Brandon Herrera, a beating. You may be asking yourself why this is on The Nugg Doctor, but it is my unfortunate duty to link Carmelo Anthony to the whole fiasco that went down on March 18th, at a 7-Eleven store in southwest Denver.

The story goes that Carmelo and a friend hit up the corner store around 2:30am where 19-year-old Herrera asked the Nuggets forward for his autograph. Carmelo allegedly turned down the opportunity to make the young man’s day and Herrera then called Anthony a “punk” and started an argument which was ended when the person with Anthony, described in the report as the athlete's friend, “punched, pushed, and slammed” Herrera to the floor, the Denver Police report said.

Police spokesman Sonny Jackson today identified the suspect as Racheed Craig. Furthermore, Anthony "was not involved" in the assault, Jackson said.

I guess Carmelo Anthony doesn’t have to sign anything that he doesn’t want to sign because that is his prerogative, but shouldn’t something as easy as scribbling your name and making a fan happy be water off a duck’s back? Regardless, shouldn’t ’Melo and his friend be able to at least just grab whatever item they stopped off for without making it more of a big deal than it needed to be, autograph or no autograph? I mean, once again it should be water off a duck’s back whether Brandon Herrera thinks Carmelo is a punk!

Call me crazy, but I just don’t understand why Carmelo can’t shake some of these loose strings that always seem to drag his name into territory that it doesn’t need to be. I understand that Carmelo is just as not responsible for his friend's actions as I am, but it doesn’t look good for the young athlete’s image anyway you slice it. Oh well, sigh, at least I received my Carmelo Anthony autograph, via the mail, on one of his sneakers for doing a press release for Toyota One-on-One. Maybe he will take a card out of Bill Russell’s deck and not sign autographs in the future making mine that much more rare and valuable!

2 comments:

aeneas said...

Well I dont't think that that is the whole story. Besides that I must admit that writing an autograph isn't that much effort. But on the other hand there are not too many stories about Melo similar to this one and I guess there have to be days, hours and minutes where you just do not want to sign anything. And also I think the way that guy reacted to Melo not wanting to give him an autograph the guy didn't deserve one anyway.

Unknown said...

Nugg Doctor, I know this story is a few days old, but I have not been able to frequent your site the last few days and this is the first I heard of this incident.

I will say this. You are absolutely right that the easy thing would just have been for Melo to sign the paper, but at 2:30 in the morning, would you be in the mood to be signing autographs??? I mean come on, Melo does that sort of thing day in and day out and it is about time that people leave em alone.

I think it is ridiculous that anybody wants an autograph anyhow, how cares that Melo is famous? He is just like you and me.

And trust me, that would piss me off also if I turned down a fan's request for an autograph and they start throwing insults.

Anyhow, your right either way, it is another negative hit on Melo's rep, but I am sorry, I really think that fans are way too obsessed with this crap.