Sports is all about pointspreads and posturing and overpaid pinheads. We all know that.
Any game, yours, mine, scuffles to survive the petty cynicism of those who play it, those who own it, those who use it. And then, every once in a while, we are reminded of why any of us bother.
Who would ever have thought that a simple layup would have stirred as much national dialogue as did the one made by Connecticut’s Nykesha Sales?
Or, concurrently coincidental, the petition by golfer Casey Martin to play the world’s laziest game from a cart?
These innocuous and particular issues touch us in the same place, in our demand to know the game is on the level.
It is not so much to ask, and it is all that keeps sports from turning into vaudeville. Or pro wrestling. Same thing.
We can put up with anything as long as the essential precept of trust is safe. We will suffer all the Spurriers and Steinbrenners, the Rodmans and Tysons, the Deions and Riddicks, the Belles and Sprewells, the Knights and Ditkas.
Sports is the great salve of society’s sores.
We can look at O.J. Simpson and say, “Yeah, sure, but you should have seen him in the open field.”
It is reassuring that arguments for and against Sales being allowed an uncontested shot find the same antecedents, that Denny McLain grooved a ball for Mickey Mantle, that Gordie Howe skated a shift in a minor league hockey game, that the L.A. Clippers let David Robinson score 71 in the last game of the season to beat Shaquille O’Neal for the scoring title, that Rick Pitino let injured star Derek Anderson shoot free throws in last year’s NCAA championship game.
These things are easily recalled because they broke the same faith when they happened as did the Sales layup.
Pick a side. The wonderful thing about sports is that opposite points can be made from the same example.
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If Bill Veeck can send vertically challenged Eddie Gaedel to the plate, why shouldn’t Sales be allowed her moment?
A nice gesture is a handshake before or after the game. Gimmicks are goofy mascots and Dick Vitale. None belongs within the game itself.
All the discussion has been to the great benefit of women’s sports, for it means that what women college basketball players do matters. It confirms that most valuable of conditions, that someone is watching.
As for Martin, the nearly lame golfer who went to court in order to ride between shots, his court-mandated accommodation is the most objectionable interference in sports since a judge let Tonya Harding skate in the Olympics.
Everybody walks or everybody rides. How much more complicated should it be than that? Level playing field, remember?
Is Martin’s handicap so severe that even with a cart he is still at a disadvantage to golfers who must walk? It does not matter.
Arnold Palmer is against it, and that is good enough for me. Here’s a man just back from cancer and if he could qualify for the U.S. Open, Palmer would gratefully walk every hole.
Of the absurd defenses of Martin’s right to be convenienced one of the silliest is comparing him to the designated hitter in baseball, unless the argument helps get rid of the DH.
Never mind all the examples available in golf–from Jack Nicklaus’ bad back to Ken Venturi’s heat exhaustion–here are three in baseball.
Bo Jackson played baseball with a plastic hip, Pete Gray played with one arm, Jim Abbott with one hand and none asked for any accommodation. Even Gaedel had to stand in the box and face the pitcher.
And here are some others. Muggsy Bogues is too short to play professional basketball, but he does not ask for room. Warren Moon is too old to play quarterback, but he does not ask for relief.
Andre Agassi is too distracted to play his best tennis, yet he does not ask for sympathy, although I suppose there must be a judge somewhere who would indulge them all if they asked.