Today’s little heart tugger from the Super Bowl is about . . . well, it is about spit.
You know spit. The epoxy of glory. The resin of union. The bond of determination.
That spit.
I am standing just to the side of Bill Romanowski, a Denver linebacker, a first-time Pro Bowl linebacker after 10 years, and while I am still not comfortable with my angle, it is better than being in Romanowski’s face.
San Francisco receiver J.J. Stokes got in Romanowski’s face. The rest is Monday night history.
Romanowski clears his throat. I flinch.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’ve taken some hits on this thing. Worst one was some writer talking about my son being the spitting image of me.”
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I smile.
“That’s not funny,” Romanowski says.
I move back.
Romanowski has joined that short list of notorious spitters, a list a little longer than serial biters, a list much longer than coach-chokers but one that goes back to Ty Cobb, to John L. Sullivan, at least to Ted Williams (“the Splendid Spitter,” Red Smith called him) and just before Romanowski, Roberto Alomar of the Orioles.
“I’ve been spit on six or seven times myself,” Romanowski says. “Never thought anything of it.”
Alomar spit on an umpire. The umpire wiped if off. Big fuss. Alomar apologized. Alomar was suspend by and by.
Romanowski spit on another player. Stokes wiped it off. Big fuss. Romanowski was fined. The Broncos had a team meeting. Differences were aired. The Broncos realized they loved one another.
The 49ers lost to Green Bay. And here the Broncos are at the Super Bowl.
All because of spit.
“The thing had a chance to blossom into a big, big deal,” says quarterback John Elway. “People tried to make it into a racial thing. Bill apologized. You have to accept the apology. He’s a teammate.”
An apology was made to Stokes as well, through that modern athletic conduit, the sports agent. Stokes and Romanowski have the same agent.
“I called my agent and he said J.J. had moved on,” Romanowski says.
Out of spitting range, one assumes.
Isn’t that just the warmest story? Fused by spit. Well, who hasn’t used spit as glue?
“Helped clear the air,” says Romanowski’s teammate, Shannon Sharpe.
Now that would be a new use for spit, clearing the air, even in an aerosol.
This was a bigger fuss than when Romanowski broke Carolina quarterback Kerry Collins’ jaw in two places by spearing him with his helmet, a cheap shot the league ruled and fined Romanowski $75,000, not cheap at all.
That one was only football. This one was race.
Stokes is black, Romanowski is white. A couple of Romanowski’s teammates, Sharpe and Willie Green, pointed this out to him.
“I didn’t spit into a black face,” Romanowski says. “I spit into a face.”
That, dear Brutus, makes all the difference.
“If my brother’s wrong, he’s wrong,” Sharpe says.
An underrated adhesive, spit. Discussion of who was right and who was wrong, who owed whom an apology, whether the fine was enough or wasn’t, if the Broncos were all on the same page, all of it came out of the meeting on spit.
“It probably brought us together,” Romanowski says.
“We didn’t want a little thing to tear us apart,” says coach Mike Shanahan.
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Little? It looked pretty substantial to me. And Romanowski can’t be faulted for his accuracy. He had a pretty good aim, as well. Right through Stokes’ face mask.
Had it been glancing spit or wind-blown spit or some dry-mouthed excuse for spit, nothing more would have been made of it. And maybe the Broncos don’t sweep the road all the way to San Diego.
“It made us a better football team,” Shanahan says.
Talk about your great expectorations.