The Out Route

Here's an odd one: a heckler with heart.

Hooman Hamzehloui, an Orlando Magic season-ticket holder, has issued an apology to Dikembe Mutombo after being ejected for calling Mutombo a monkey while heckling the incoherent big man.

Part of the letter reads:

I would like to take a moment of your time to offer a complete and unconditional apology for my poor behavior, and in particular, my poor choice of words last Thursday night while attending the Houston-Orlando basketball game. I am by no means a racist, and if you only knew me better you would never begin to have those thoughts. What I am guilty of is poor judgment in the use of words while doing what I do to many of the visiting team's players, 'heckle them.'

The man also wishes to apologize to Mutombo in person and will donate $5,000 to a charity of choice, which I guess is a pretty meaningful act of contrition. Live and let live, I suppose.

My favorite part of the story, though, is that Hamzehloui (who should know what it's like to get heckled with a name like that) noted he didn't know that using the term "monkey" was bad. Hey! It's the old Ozzie Guillen defense! The clueless foreigner unfamiliar with American culture and slang excuse! America: land of the beautiful.