National Football League

On the Mark: Please, not more Ocho

Published Aug. 4, 2009 11:00 p.m. ET

foxsports

To those who've logged onto "The Ocho Cinco Show," my position obligates me to render swift and merciless judgment:

TWIT OR TWEET?

It seems the NFL's top Twitter lover Chad Ochocinco himself caught wind of Mark Kriegel's column. Here's what No. 85 had to tweet:

"Mark Kriegel you're an idiot, you want a Lil fame I'll help, because your story today sucked just like you did in school!!!"

"Mark Kriegel you can come work for me, you're wasting away as a writer for foxsports,from me and my followers you get a Child Please!!!"

"Please read article on foxsports.com, this is how you know there's nothing going on in the world, when enjoying yourself and yo job is wrong"

"I can help you make a name for yourself Kriegel, you can't beat em join, you'll never beat me at this, come join, pay raise to!! Straight up"

You guys are even bigger losers than your boy, Ocho.

Worse still, I'm forced to include myself among your ranks. Acting on a tip from Alex Marvez, our football maven, that Ocho was revealing privileged information belonging to the Cincinnati Bengals football club, I clicked on the former Chad Johnson's production on Ustream. I learned that Ocho has Lil' Wayne's number on his phone, that he vowed to keep tweeting through training camp and that he plans to begin his boxing career after the season in Miami.

I was forced to watch as he asked Bengals rookie Rey Maualuga what girl he would not break up with, even if she had cheated on him.

Maualuga's excruciating struggle for an answer might tell you something about the value of a USC education. But it was also enough to remind your correspondent of his many limitations.

At this point in my career, there are some humiliations I should no longer tolerate. Listening to "The Ocho Cinco Show" is among them. Still, these chump ballplayers who think they're fabulous and interesting — who believe their personal minutiae has actual merit — despite never having won a thing, point to a larger problem.

Back in the '90s — "the olden days" as my daughter refers to them — the standard for pathological narcissism among ballplayers was set by Dennis Rodman. In May 1997, he dressed in drag, got on a Harley and led a procession down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. I considered it a watershed event, a new high-water mark for shamelessness in self-promotion, and a sign that there were no more taboos left in sports.