Come on already, Jim Brown

Let me start off by saying I've never been a big fan of Jim Brown. Sure, he's the greatest Brown of all time, arguably the greatest running back of all time, and quite probably the greatest athlete Cleveland has ever seen. I love watching footage of him slashing his way through defenses, running between, past and through very large men as if they were little children. I'm glad he played for our team, even though I'm not old enough to remember it.

And I also give him his due for his acting work. He was fantastic in The Dirty Dozen, and I loved his scenes with Isaac Hayes in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Nor do I deny he is doing positive things with gangs in Cleveland and L.A., through the Amer-I-Can program.

All that said, I think the guy's kind of full of it. He sees himself as a role model -- and to be sure, many others do too -- but let's not forget he's been accused of throwing a woman off a balcony, threatening to snap his wife's neck, and raping another woman. In fairness, he was never convicted of any of those crimes, but I have a hard time believing a man accused of three acts of violence against women has never committed a violent act against a woman. If he has done that, I can't imagine why anyone would care about his opinion on anything. And he does have his opinions, and will share them with anybody who will put a microphone in front of his face, all the while wearing that ridiculous hat-thing.

But none of this has anything much to do with the reason for today's post. Today's post has to do with Brown's recent lawsuit against EA Sports for using his likeness in a video game. Taken from the Bloomberg.com story:

The character, part of the "Real Old School Teams and Players'' series, is a muscular, African-American running back wearing the number 32 jersey who is featured in the game's "All Brown's Team,'' Brown said in a complaint filed yesterday in state court in New York.

Brown, who wore number 32 for the Cleveland Browns, said in the complaint that he "never signed away any rights that would allow his likeness to be used.''

Professional athletes now typically sign agreements allowing the use of their names and likenesses, according to the complaint. Brown said in the complaint that, when he played football, "The NFL had league wide policy that players shall have no lawyers or agents when negotiating compensation. Video games were not invented yet and no union to obtain rights from existed.''

Professional athletes DO sign agreements that allow their names and faces to be used ON THE FRONT OF THE BOX. I have a very hard time believing EA Sports got signatures from every NFL player to put them in Madden 2008. That would be a pretty steep burden to impose.

Regardless, I'm sure EA Sports is doing irreparable damage to Jim Brown's reputation by allowing video gamers to maneuver a computer image that looks like him up and down a computer-generated field substitute. But maybe he'll feel better if he throws the game off a balcony.