There’s a lot to dislike about Tom Brady, the seemingly perfect chiselled-by-God-himself New England Patriots quarterback, who is headed into yet another Super Bowl this weekend. I know this and I’m not even a football fan (I prefer to watch sports where the game is in play for more than 11 minutes). Brady is not only an alleged cheater — see “Deflategate” — he is a personal friend of U.S. President Donald Trump. He is annoyingly handsome, he is married to a supermodel and, as Adrienne LaFrance writes in the Atlantic, he appears to be “some kind of football-savant Benjamin Button who ages in reverse and physically cannot stop winning.” In other words, if you enjoy begrudging the success of others, Tom Brady’s your man. But this week, I learned that contrary to popular opinion outside of Boston, there’s actually a lot like to like about the guy. Read more:Tom Brady, Patriots rally in fourth to reach Super Bowl againFor example, the quarterback managed to do something recently that so few people in the public eye do these days. He forgave a person who offended him. That person is a 24-year-old Boston radio host named Alex Reimer, who made an inexcusably unkind remark about Brady’s 5-year-old daughter on the radio last week. Here’s what happened: while opining about a new documentary featuring Brady, Reimer referred to the quarterback’s daughter, Vivian, who appears in the film, as “an annoying little pissant.” Understandably, outrage ensued from Patriots fans and Brady himself. (I mean, honestly, what kind of adult picks on a 5-year-old?) This week, the football player, a regular guest on the radio station that employs Reimer, criticized the host for his comments and suggested he might cut ties with the station. The station in turn apologized to Brady and suspended Reimer. But here’s where things get interesting — where they diverge from the typical narrative of c ...
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