Not accepting responsibility goes back a long way:

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3.12, 13, ESV)

And we saw it again in game 1 of the National League’s Division Series with Ronald Acuna, the Atlanta Braves center fielder, not running hard after he hit a long fly ball, reducing a double into a single. Speaking through a translator, Acuna insisted, “I mean, I was trying to give my best effort and those are those things that just kind of get away from you.”

No, they don’t “just kind of get away from you.” You didn’t hustle. (To his credit he played harder in the next game while saying things like, “That shouldn’t have happened,” rather than “I should have run harder.”) Acuna’s reaction reminds me of Todd Bertuzzi’s attack on Steve Moore back in 2004, described this way:

With Moore ignoring him, Bertuzzi grabbed Moore’s jersey from behind and punched him in the jaw, then deliberately slammed Moore’s head into the ice as the pair fell…Moore was taken to a hospital where he was treated for three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a grade-three concussion, vertebral ligament damage, stretching of the brachial plexus nerves, and facial lacerations.

Later, Bertuzzi said: “For the kids that watch this game, I’m truly sorry. I don’t play the game that way. And I’m not a mean-spirited person.”

Actually, you do play the game that way: we have the video to prove it!

Accepting responsibility for our actions is the first step toward correcting them, isn’t it? When teaching my sons to play ball, I would say, “OK, next time, let’s do it this way.” Response: “I did do it that way!” “No, if you had done it that way, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” (Exodus 32.22 – 24, ESV, emphasis mine)

I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down. You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. (Psalm 51.3, 4, MSG)