It doesn’t seem possible that Brett Favre could get more national exposure. But here we go …
Those of us who work in the mainstream media have been wondering when the Brett Favre sexting allegations would become a mainstream story. That day has arrived.
It became OK to run with the story as soon as the NFL said Friday that it was looking into the allegations reported by Deadspin. That’s the Gawker Media sports blog that frequently straddles (and tramples) the fine line between irreverence and bad taste.
That story, reported by Deadspin for the first time in early August, hit home on Thursday. There, in my e-mail, was a note from Deadspin editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio. “Can we have a phone conversation? Por favor.”
We’d exchanged e-mails about Favre before. Nothing that salacious, though.
In mid-August, one of Deadspin’s tipsters said he’d ridden an elevator with Favre at a hotel in a Twin Cities suburb, after Favre finally reported to the Minnesota Vikings. My wife, who was staying at the same hotel at the same time, shot down the tip. Good story if true, she said. People with condos at the top of the hotel, like Favre, use other elevators. The guest elevators don’t go all the way to the top. The tipster’s elevator may not have gone all the way to the top.
Anyhow, Daulerio was doing his legwork on Thursday, checking with some of his Favre sources to try to confirm a detail in the latest chapter of the sexting story. Is Favre a fan of David Bowie, he wanted to know. Sorry, man. Couldn’t begin to tell you.
I know Favre only from a distance. I’ve never met him. Yet I probably know a little more about him than most folks. In the newsroom, and in a small town like Green Bay, you hear bits and pieces of what is seen and heard in the locker room, on the practice field and on the golf course … but never reported.
So, did Favre sexually harass sideline reporter Jenn Sterger and two massage therapists while he was with the New York Jets two years ago?
Others, especially the NFL, can examine the evidence obtained by Deadspin. There’s no interest on my part in inspecting what is alleged to be The Gunslinger’s part.
I can say Brett Favre’s hands are bigger than mine.
I know this because I have put my right hand in a plaster cast of his right hand. It was an exhibit at a children’s museum we visited when our son was little.
There’s a thought. This might be a job for Cynthia Plaster Caster, recovering groupie.
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