Dusty Schmidt Apologizes for Comparing ‘Black Friday’ to 9/11
Poker pro Dusty "Leatherass" Schmidt has apologized for a thoughtless blog post he made last week comparing Black Friday, the U.S. crackdown last year on online poker, to the murder of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.
"I want to apologize to anyone I offended," Schmidt wrote in his latest blog post, made yesterday.
He then went on to explain away his earlier comments by saying he mistakenly made them because he was "rushing through a blog post and not taking my time."
Financial and domestic responsibilities also contributed to the faux pas, he said, writing: "If I had a bunch of free time this wouldn’t have happened, but trying to balance my career with being a good father and husband has really squeezed the amount of time I have lately."
Schmidt raised ire within and without the poker world last Thursday, April 5, 2012, when he wrote a blog for CardPlayer.com about online poker room America's Cardroom and said: "I was amazed to learn that they have a $250K guaranteed event on the first anniversary of Black Friday. April 15--NEVER FORGET! I say that like it is 9/11, since it kinda was in our world."
The comments outraged and offended many, including Card Player boss and fellow poker pro Barry Shulman, who several days after Schmidt's offensive blog post told Gambling911.com in an exclusive interview: "Dusty’s statement is utterly indefensible. To even think about comparing 9/11 to anything regarding poker seems like a perspective that only one who is very immature could espouse."
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A day after Gambling911.com broke the world exclusive story that Shulman had effectively called out his own employee and thrown him under the bus, Schmidt posted a new blog on CardPlayer.com titled "Followup to my last blog."
In that followup blog, posted Tuesday, April 10, 2012, Schmidt wrote: "I recently noticed a lot of outrage over my last blog post regarding the comment I made comparing Black Friday to 9/11. First off I want to apologize to anyone I offended...I should have just taken more time with my blog post because what I meant was not that it was comparable to 9/11, but that it is was, to poker players anyway, an unforgettable day in the same way that 9/11 was.
"I hope this makes some sense. I would hope no one would think that I actually think Black Friday was as bad as 9/11. Yeah, it was a shitty day in the life of any poker pro, but obviously in no way comparable to what happened on that fateful day in American history.
"For whatever it’s worth I am very sorry to anyone who I offended. Again, if I had just proofread my blog I would have realized that A) I probably just shouldn’t have mentioned it or B) if I did, at least take the time to explain a bit better what I meant.
"My remarks may have been perceived as immature to some people, but really it was just me rushing through a blog post and not taking my time to properly explain myself. If I had a bunch of free time this wouldn’t have happened, but trying to balance my career with being a good father and husband has really squeezed the amount of time I have lately."
So did Schmidt apologize all on his own because he realized he had said something dumb that hurt a lot of people?
Or was it because his boss, Shulman, made him?
Or perhaps it was Schmidt's book publisher who suggested it, fearing that sales of Schmidt's new book on poker would suffer because of the fallout?
There's no way to know for sure, but one thing is certain: people who are public figures in one realm should not comment publicly on topics they know nothing about in another realm.
Look at the trouble baseball manager Ozzie Guillen got into by talking about Cuban politics.
He shouldn't be talking about Castro and poker players shouldn't be talking about terrorism.
By Tom Somach
