Fuck.

I guess it was only a matter of time before my luck finally ran out. And that time was today.

The commissioner just handed down his ruling… I’m suspended for the entire season, with a reevaluation of my future with the league sometime before next year. Even then, they may decide against reinstating me and nullify my contract and essentially, my career. His reasoning was that, despite my declared innocence and lack of jail time, my actions (both past and present) have damaged the league’s reputation. Essentially, he said he’s done with my shit.

In the past, I would take this out on the nearest wall or bottle of whiskey, but I’m not even mad. I’m not angry. I’m not hateful. I have no ill will towards the commissioner or his decision. I’m just so fucking numb.

In the end, I did this to myself. My irresponsible behavior continuously fucks up every good thing I have in life. First, it almost ruined my marriage and now, it may have just cost me the second dearest thing to my heart; football. I legitimately don’t know if I will ever be able to play the sport that I love ever again. And that scares the shit out of me.

I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. Without being a complete fucking cliché, something’s got to give. And I think that something is me.

REDACTED.

Thanks to the work of my crack legal team, I was able to settle my case out of court. It wasn't cheap, but we managed to write a check big enough to shut that fucker up. It may have also required a few greased palms ;) hahaha.


Now, onto the meeting with the commissioner and the league's disciplinary committee.


The following post was edited by the legal team of Mr. Blake Sawyer to fit the gag order that was included in the plaintiff's settlement.

Judgement day.

"We walk toward desire,
Hand and hand through fields of fire,
With only love to light the way,
On the road to judgement day..." ~ "Judgement Day" by Whitesnake

Ha! Bet you thought I'd go with the "Judgement Day" by Iron Maiden, didn't you? Curveball!

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. This isn't a time to joke around, or quote shitty songs by even shittier hair metal bands. This is the most important week in my life, the events of which could forever change my future.

I'm talking about the trial. I've briefly alluded to the incident that lead to my suspension, and in reality that's more than I'm even allowed to be talking about (as per my lawyer). But while I cannot talk about the events that occurred to land me in this predicament, I can reveal what I'm up against. There was both a criminal and a civil trial, but obviously I already faced my criminal trial (seeing as that's the only reason I'm writing in this stupid thing to begin with) and was found (relatively) innocent. But what I still haven't faced is the civil suit. In the civil case, I'm being sued for over $2.5 million; an outrageous number for the mythical "pain and suffering" claim.

Now, the money isn't what I'm worried about. Granted, I have lost some of my sponsorships since this all unraveled, but 2.5 mil is a weekend's work for me. No, what I'm worried about is that once this whole trial is cleared up, then the league is going to officially determine the length of my suspension. As of right now, the term "indefinite" is being applied to it, but the commissioner has told my manager that it can be turned into "infinite" if I'm found guilty.

Fuck.

My sanctuary.

I don't know if you could tell from my last few posts, but I've been going a little stir crazy lately. My wife's gone, I essentially can't go to work, and that means I can't be with any of my friends. It's just me and Precious, and frankly I think she's getting sick of listening to me talk.

So today, I decided to go to the one place in which I am completely in control. My sanctuary. The gym.

As I posted earlier, I had to find a new gym recently as per the stipulation of my suspension that banned me from all team and league facilities. This meant no more world class trainers, no more top of the line equipment, and most importantly, no more whirlpools (I really miss the whirlpools). Instead, now I have work out with the unwashed masses, "working in" sets with other people and waiting for an open treadmill. And don't get me started on the amount of old dude ass I have to see in the one working sauna. 

People always ask me if "the field is my home", or if I "live for gameday". But the fact is, I don't. I live for the gym. I'm at home in the gym. When I'm on the field, I'm unpredictable. I don't know what I'll do or what I'm capable of (and I think my track record of fines speaks to that...). I can lash out in any direction, and often it's just the nearest person to me that feels my wrath. But in the gym, now that's a different story. In the gym, it's just me and the weights.

With Anthrax, Megadeath or the like blasting in my headphones, I am isolated from the outside world. I approach the weight and address it formally, although the kindness is a front. We both know my intentions aren't pure. As my gloved hands grip the steel, I take a sharp, deep breath, trying to shock my body as if I'd just dove into an ice cold lake. The next breath is slower, more precise, as I visualize the end product that I'm trying to build. A better me. A perfect me. One final breath, where I close my eyes on the inhale, and on the exhale I open them, facing my reflection in the mirror in front of me. But before I have time to even recognize my own face, I explode, triggering a series of muscle contractions, some of which I didn't know existed. I let out a guttural scream, announcing my dominance to the world around me. As I put the weight down, my face becomes flush like a satisfied lover... Which is exactly what I am.

That feeling. That release. It's what I live for. 

Glory days.

Still alone. Still bored. Still watching Kourtney and Kim.

But I figured since I’m alone, I might as well try and do something productive. I realized in one of my earlier posts, I stopped talking about my past before I got to the best part. My glory days. College.

After rising to prominence as one of the top high school football players in Ohio, I had college recruiters swarming me, looking for my signature. Of course, there was only ever one school that I was going to commit to. Ohio State. And luckily, they were interested (of course they were), and granted me a four-year scholarship. Growing up, going to an Ohio State football game was one of the few luxuries my father afforded me. The Horseshoe was about the closest thing to a church I ever stepped foot in. All of the greatest memories from my childhood took place in that stadium. Eddie George shedding tackles in ’95. Breaking the losing streak against Michigan in 1998. The undefeated season in 2002. Hell, the first time I ever got laid was at a Metallica concert that came through there in ’03.

(Me at said Metallica show, with said first lay)

Of course, not all of my memories are as a fan. I played for the Buckeyes from 2005-2008. Over the course of that time, we went undefeated against Michigan, won four-straight Big 10 Championships as well as attended four-straight bowl games… Those fucking bowl games. Getting embarrassed by Florida in ’07 was one thing, but we had those pricks from LSU. 2008 should have been our year! And it would have been if that piece of shit didn’t eject me midway through the 2^nd quarter. That shit still haunts my dreams today.

Whatever. So I graduated from OSU and immediately went into the 2009 Draft. There, I was a first round choice (obviously), selected by Kansas City. You hear a lot of professional athletes talking about playing sports as “their dream”. Egomaniacs. My biggest dreams as a child was my old man dying, me getting his life insurance policy, and moving Cincinnati to open a car dealership. Cars have always been my real passion.

(One of my babies)

So there you have it. You’re now effectively caught up on the life of Blake Sawyer. And look, that killed… FUCK. Only 20 minutes? God damnit. 

Struggling.

Struggling.

I’ve spent the past three days curled up in bed, doing nothing but watching reruns of “Kourtney & Kim Take New York”.

Maria’s gone. She got the job, so she has to be in LA for the next two weeks, doing table reads and promotional stuff. My teammates are gone too; a three week road trip means that I’m completely alone. Just me, the Kardashians, and my new puppy, Precious.

Isn’t she adorable? I went out and bought her yesterday to help fight the crippling loneliness that I’ve been facing. I never noticed it before, but I’m an extremely dependent person. I guess that’s one of the reasons I’ve always been so involved in sports. When you’re on a team, you build a strong community in the locker room that sort of becomes your pseudo-family. Now that that’s been taken away from me, and add in the fact that Maria’s gone, I really don’t know what to do.

But at least I have Precious. She’s been a bit of a hassle to train (the piss stains on my new carpet can attest to that), but I lover her all the same. Huh… I wonder if Maria is allergic to dogs?

Maria.

Her family is from Uruguay, but moved to America when she was 3. She is well known for winning Miss America as the representative from Missouri, and now she is moving on to acting.

I met Maria a few days after I was drafted to Kansas City. As the new “face of the franchise”, the Missouri Tourism Committee thought I would be perfect for their new ad campaign. There was me, along with one of each of the top young stars from each of the local pro teams, Kansas City’s own Don Cheadle, and Maria.

Maria was the toast of the city, even before her beauty made her world famous. As a child, she found herself in the national spotlight after winning the first ever-televised National Spelling Bee. From there, she went on to play field hockey for the University of Missouri, leading the team to a National Title (something even I couldn’t do at OSU). It wasn’t until after she graduated with her Bachelor’s in Theater and History that she was noticed by a talent agency, and thrown onto the pageantry circuit.

Me and Maria hit it off right at the photo shoot. Even the cameraman was enthralled with us, telling us how natural we looked in the photos he took of us together. You know, it’s pretty strange going on your first date, only to see a billboard of the two of you hanging above the restaurant. Anyway, our chemistry continued away from the cameras, and one date quickly became multiple. Things couldn’t have been better.

That is until I went and fucked it up. See, towards the end of my rookie season I blew out my knee, and was sidelined for the rest of the year. I was crushed as I not only established myself as a starter, but we had also worked our way into the Wild Card race. Sure enough, once I went down things started to fall to shit, and we eventually finished third in the division. I took things pretty hard, and one night after mixing my pain pills with a bottle of whiskey, I started a fight with Maria. I blacked out for most of it, but what I can tell you is what you probably already know. I was charged with domestic violence.

What followed was months of begging, crying and drinking. I damn near got cut from my contract because of the shape I was in at the beginning of the following year’s training camp. In the end, she took me back. But I couldn’t begin to tell you why.

I almost died.

You gain a new perspective on life when you’re in a plane, cruising at 35,000 feet above the ground, and suddenly begin to plummet to your death.

As I mentioned in my last post, me and the wife… I just realized I never mentioned her name. Wow, I’m a shithead. Her name is Maria. Maria Ana Suarez-Sawyer.

Anyway, we were headed out to LA so she could read for a part on a new TV show. We were in a good mood as we boarded at Kansas City International, and everything was smooth through takeoff. Maria was asleep and I was watching a movie when, somewhere over New Mexico, we hit bad turbulence. Like, really bad. I mean, I fly all the time for games, appearances, etc. but I’ve never hit turbulence this bad.

Maria immediately woke up. “Honey, what’s going on?!” I couldn’t forget the fear in her voice if I tried. I think what made it worse was that I was just as scared, and there was nothing I could do to help either of us. As she grabbed onto my arm, the cabin pressure dropped as we began to free fall from the sky. When the oxygen masks dropped, I was sure that I was going to die. I could already hear the “sad SportsCenter music” playing as they announced my death on ESPN. I’m sure Maria would have gotten a piece on Good Morning America, or something.

We must have only been a few thousand feet off the ground when the pilot finally began to regain control and level off the flight. The new few minutes are hazy. I think I blacked out. But I know we eventually made it to Albuquerque, where we made our emergency landing. I don’t know why I’m admitting this, but when we touched down, I cried. I balled. It was the first time I had cried in 5 years. I buried my face in my wife’s shirt and I wept like a small child.

An experience like that changes a man.

New gym.

(The only reason I’m writing about this is because I got a call last night that it was “unacceptable” that I haven’t posted in a week.)

With my league suspension being applied to “all team activities”, today I had to go out and find a new gym. It took a few stops, but I think I found a solid place to get my swell on for the next few weeks.

Won’t get to use it for a few days though, as I have to fly out to Los Angeles with the wife tomorrow for a television read. Now that she’s done with the beauty pageant circuit, my babe wants to become an actress. She will too. I swear that girl is the most talented person I’ve ever met in my life, and I hang out with fucking professional athletes! Oh, and did I mention that she’s a total smokeshow? Winning!