It's the quiet ones that you never suspect.
If you asked who is the least likely on the Cleveland Indians to be involved in any sort of public situation unrelated to baseball, Grady Sizemore would probably the last person I'd think of.
Here is a superstar that seeks not to be a superstar. He strives for greatness on the field, but could do without the accolades and attention that comes with it. He doesn't seek out endorsements and if he does have any, they aren't big time sponsors.
In fact I can't really think of anything the guy promotes outside of his charities or things related to the Cleveland Indians. While I'm sure there is something that he endorses, it isn't well known because you aren't overcome with the thought of "Ah Yeah, Grady Sizemore, he does the 5-Hour Energy commercials that I hate."
So consider me absolutely shocked that Sizemore snapped pictures of himself in all his glory for his girlfriend.
Who, by the way, is a former Playboy playmate and has appeared on reality shows like The Girls Next Door. Consider this another shocking element. The fact that Grady Sizemore did what he did is one thing, but who he's dating is completely opposite in terms of his general persona.
Maybe we really don't know Grady Sizemore.
He's a quiet competitor that hasn't really taken an interest in being a vocal leader on the team. If he wasn't so talented, he'd be just another face in the crowd and easily forgettable because, that's his whole goal.
Team first, attention not even second, I'm not important.
So Sizemore snaps a few pictures of himself to send to his girlfriend. No big deal, as I'll assume he did some of this in-season and he was on the road and since Brittany Binger is no doubt involved in some sort of work at a different location, they probably don't see each other much.
But the minute Grady Sizemore snapped a few more pictures of himself, in which he was barely clothed, if clothed at all, he went from sending a few pictures of himself to his girlfriend, to becoming a dumb teenager who decides "sexting" is cool.
Yet, Sizemore isn't a dumb teenager and he isn't advocating sexting—he's an accomplished adult male and he isn't sending these pictures to the entire freshman class.
But people will equate him to that, especially in this day and age.
Quite frankly, when I saw the first link to this story as it broke, I assumed it for a joke. To me it was a spam link on twitter getting people to click.
When I finally did find out that Sizemore did indeed bare his goods via iPhone, I actually laughed as if it were a joke.
For one, I realized that I really do not know Grady Sizemore. I may think I have a general sketch of his personality, but even that has been trashed since Monday. I know he took those pictures with the intent of only one person seeing them, but just the fact that they did it is rather eye-opening.
And not because he placed a cup of tea in front of his, err...region?
If you want me to be really honest about what I thought when I saw the news of what Sizemore had did, then I will.
I'll be a pig and admit I didn't immediately feel sorry for Grady's privacy being violated, because that is what happened. But I did think of this as not only a good thing for the Indians organization, but also Grady Sizemore.
Public relations experts will tell you that a situation like this, where Sizemore legally and morally did nothing wrong what so ever, can be spun into a huge positive for that person, and some will even try to.
I even read somewhere that if this particular person who was being quoted was Sizemore's representative, he would already be looking into endorsement deals and public service announcements about sending information over the internet and all sorts of things that could help sky rocket his career and persona.
By a show of virtual hands, how many of you knew about Paris Hilton before it was released that she had a sex tape?
Sure, she was semi-famous in some circles and that helped edge out the fact that she had a sex tape going around, but the large majority of people in the world might have guessed she was related to the family who owned the Hilton chain of hotels, but I sure as hell didn't know for sure, so I doubt many did.
How many people outside Cleveland and and baseball circles knew who Grady Sizemore was a few days ago?
How many do now? I'm willing to bet a lot more.
But alas, Grady Sizemore is no Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. He is not looking to spin this into a reality show or perhaps an endorsement deal with Hanes underwear, which is downright genius. No, he has no interest in profiting from this.
In fact, while I don't know Grady Sizemore and while my sketch of him is in the garbage, I can tell that he’s legitimately embarrassed by this situation. In a way he's more of Erin Andrews than Paris Hilton. Sure he did what he did knowingly, but did he want this in the public eye?
Going off my previous sketch, no. Going off the fact that he's making every effort in the world to get those pictures taken down, no.
So while our sketches of Grady Sizemore and who his might have been a little wrong, there is one thing for sure.
Grady Sizemore is still one of the best center fielders in all of baseball. So it doesn't matter if he took a few nude photographs of himself for his girlfriend, who I never pictured him to be with.
He's still a good baseball player and come the fifth of April, he'll still be trotting out to the diamond to give it his all.
And that's really all that matters.
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