The Goat Pen

aTm wrote:

THE SCENE in the parking lot of the Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas has devolved into an extended documentary on the perils of celebrity. There's a betting slip on the loose worth $80,000, earned on the merits of the Miami Heat's first-half performance about two hours earlier on this Friday night, and the quest to find it has everything but a circus-music soundtrack.

It's not about the money. Really, it's not. Floyd Mayweather Jr. bets a lot, both in frequency and amount, and this betting slip is not extraordinary in any way. Just the night before, he lost $50,000 on the first half of the Thunder-Lakers game before doubling down on his beloved Thunder and winning $100,000 in the second half. This is a man who later that night will put on a pair of pants he hadn't worn in a while and pull four grand out of a pocket the way you or I might find a five in the dryer. Trust me: Eighty grand won't change his life.


Mayweather is standing next to his sleek four-door black Mercedes, one of the more sedate of his roughly two dozen cars, and is wondering out loud how many people he might have to fire over this debacle. A few leggy, extravagantly dressed women watch laconically, waiting to follow the champ to dinner. Curtis Jackson, publicly known as 50 Cent, sits in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, watching the events unfold with passing interest. Several members of Mayweather's loosely defined payroll are shuffling about in an unreserved panic, particularly those who were at one time in possession of the bag, the slip's last known residence.

The bag is important. The bag -- or The Bag, more like -- is a small leather duffel home to Mayweather's walking-around cash and gambling slips. Everyone must know where The Bag is at all times, for it is not unusual for the spirit to strike Mayweather and cause him to ask, with no warning, "Where my bag at?" The chain of custody is stricter than most evidence rooms...

...But back to the scene at hand. Because right now -- with the trunk open and the car doors flung wide and a now-silent Mayweather choosing to direct search operations with nothing more than a glare -- is as good a time as any to ask a few important questions: What are we to make of Floyd Mayweather Jr.? What should we see when we see him? Is he to be denounced for his singular brand of narcissism, ego and greed, or praised for his clear-eyed ability to maximize his worth in the sports marketplace? Can you do both?