When activism becomes the obligation of the well-known…

The flurry of racial controversy surrounding a recent New York Post cartoon — a cartoon which appeared to many to allude in an offensive manner to President Barack Obama — has now migrated to the sports world. In today’s New York Times, columnist William Rhoden makes the connection, criticizing the silence of black professional athletes in days following its publication.

To conclude the piece, Rhoden offers an anecdote focused on New York Knicks guard Nate Robinson. Rhoden apparently confronted Robinson on the issue of the cartoon, and Robinson, after denying that he had even heard of the cartoon in question, offered a simple explanation for his lack of opinion: basketball was his gig, said Robinson; “It’s what I do best. It’s what I know.” Everything else, he admitted, was simply beyond his expertise.

Rhoden’s follow-up to this anecdote is terse and smug, dripping with self-righteous understatement. His analysis of Robinson’s answer ends the column: “See no evil. Speak no evil. That’s one way to get through a career unscathed.” 

The piece, to my eye, reflects this vague and simplistic social condemnation in more ways than one. First and foremost, Rhoden’s dismissal of athletes who fail to speak of this racial consciousness rests on a basic premise that turns his argument upside-down. In a country with a Constitutional right to free speech, he argues, players should not shy from voicing their opinions for fear of roiling the waters of their fanbases. But look, the thing about free speech is that it inherently allows for the publishing of offensive New York Post cartoons in the first place. What would Rhoden have these athletes do? Call for the firing of the cartoonist? Boycott the Post? And wouldn’t these actions be a violation of this free speech that Rhoden so casually and one-sidedly employs?

Secondly, the Nate Robinson anecdote, used by Rhoden to illustrate the callous apathy of athletes, suggests to me something entirely different: humility. What is so terrible about a man who has recognized his ignorance? Is it wrong that he refuses to comment on an issue about which he has little knowledge? Would anyone be well served by Robinson opining on something he knows nothing about?

Of course, it isn’t as simple as all that, and I know too little of Robinson to completely let him off the hook. Indeed, I have little respect for those whose incuriosity spits in the face of opportunity. But to recognize one’s limitations as well as strengths, to know oneself and one’s failings; these are traits fully deserving of my respect. They are traits that William Rhoden might be well-served to adopt.

And the Devils (two different kinds of them!) are cackling in their dens…

My Sunday night:

5:45-7:45 (mst) – Duke defeats Wake Forest 101-91…

8:00-10:00 – Arizona State defeats Arizona 70-68

Being passionate followers of both Wake Forest and Arizona, let’s just say it was a hell of a one-two punch. And to make matters worse, each was defeated by their archrivals, who also happen to be the two teams I despise most in college basketball, Duke and ASU. So while the sun might be shining in Arizona, there’s been a dark cloud hovering over me all day.

Update: $#$@ *^&%!!!! Just stumbled across this maddening video, via Deadspin. Don’t watch it if you’re a Wake fan. It is, I will say, helpful for those who don’t know how officiating works in Cameron Indoor: 

Red stitches, sunflower seeds and the double play…

Yesterday marked one of 2009’s most important turning points: the baseball season, for me, has officially begun. Yes, spring training has been in full swing for weeks now; yes, Alex Rodriguez is all over the news. But until I climbed the stairs of Arizona’s Frank Sancet Stadium and saw the beautiful green of a ballfield, I’d been somewhat removed from it all.  

I have always thought that there is something truly sublime about opening night. The game is rarely well-played; often fielding errors and walks define the evening. But there’s a certain energy that courses through everyone involved. For the players, it marks the reward that follows weeks of tedious preparation. For fans, the season’s potential is stretched out before them, and their team is a clean slate. Above all, a sort of restless excitement permeates everything, a feeling unique to the season’s beginning. Leather gloves pop with a particular enthusiasm; pitches hum with a little more movement than in the games that follow.

As I sat in my bleacher seat, dutifully filling out my scorecard (sadly, a diminishing tradition, judging from the perplexed looks I received from my fellow fans), I happily soaked up these feelings, ready once more to settle into the comforts of baseball. Steroids and $25 million contracts be damned, the game has returned!

Update: Here’s another thoughtful ode to the baseball season’s beginning — from the excellent Arizona Desert Lamp — which I’d forgotten to link to earlier.

The secret, unknown, intangible value of Shane Battier…

Breaking news: the selfless, underappreciated, exceedingly intelligent, master-of-the-intangibles former Duke Blue Devil Shane Battier is still worth talking about!

Yes, Battier has once again reared his head, this time in the form of Michael Lewis’ recent NY Times Magazine feature, which has generated an enormous amount of internet buzz. Lewis’ thesis seems to go something like this: Shane Battier is a unique NBA player. Because he is a smart enough defender to put scouting reports to good use. And he doesn’t have much in the way of athletic ability. But somehow, due to a Moneyball-esque, super-secret statistical outlook that Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey has developed but will not disclose, Battier is worthy of a feature-length article by an exceptional writer in one of the country’s most prestigious magazines.

Ok, so maybe I’m a little skeptical. In fact, I’m a lot skeptical, and those of you who have already taken into account my built-in Duke bias can guess that Battier was not my favorite player while in college. But what this piece misses, to my eye, is a quite bare and obvious fact: Battier is an exceptional athlete, scorer, shooter, and defender, and has been throughout his career. Lest we forget, Lewis reminds us (and then conveniently ignores) that Battier was the nation’s best high school basketball player, was recruited to play at a prestigious basketball university, led that university to a national championship, was named the Naismith college basketball player of the year, and was selected sixth overall in the NBA draft. In all areas Battier’s statistics were exceptional; this was in large part the reason for his success. So it seems convenient that in the latter stages of a career defined by exceptional statistics — the stages in which those statistics no longer measure up to competition — Battier is excused by his now-turned “nearly invisible” strengths.

Moreover, Lewis refers to Morey’s statistical justification for Battier with what strikes me as an unearned reverence. What the hell is it about the Rockets’ system that is so intriguing? This is a team that hasn’t made it past the first round of the playoffs in recent memory. Sure, they’re competitive, and in a punishing Western Conference that is to be commended. But wouldn’t Lewis’ praise of Battier — that he has a “magical ability” to make his teams win — be more legitimate if his teams actually, well, win a bit more often?

What class looks like:

In this era of Bud Selig and George Mitchell, it’s often easy to forget that sometimes the people that matter most – those at the very heart of the steroid issue – are the ones most able to address it with dignity, perspective, and humility.

Enter Hank Aaron.

Few men have more reason to detest Barry Bonds than Aaron. Long before Aaron’s all-time home run record was in the sights of the Giants’ slugger, allegations of Bonds’ steroid usage were rampant. But Bonds persisted as the rumors escalated, pounding balls into McCovey Cove at unprecedented rates. Finally, when it had become clear that the allegations were all but certain truths, a monster Bonds home run into AT&T Park’s centerfield stands broke Aaron’s hallowed record of 755 home runs, drawing the ire of a nation in the midst of anti-steroid fervor.

Given all this, one would hardly have held it against Aaron had he come out against Bonds’ ascendancy in the record books. He would not have been considered bitter, but just in the defense of his achievements, carried out over the course of a long, superb, and consistently clean career.

But this is not the road Aaron has taken. Immediately after the Bonds home run lifted him above Aaron’s career mark, Aaron recorded a gracious commendation of Bonds’ achievement. In the months since, despite the continuing saga of Bonds’ alleged perjury, Bud Selig’s pathetic pandering (read: congressional inquisition), and a massive public outcry, Aaron has maintained support for Bonds’ place in the record books.  

This magnanimity is born of humility, and comes from a man who understands the price of baseball immortality. In 1974, leading up to the home run that sealed his name in baseball lore, Aaron’s family received numerous death threats from those who saw Babe Ruth’s career as divine (and many more from those who didn’t want a black man in the record books, period). Aaron himself has stated that his pursuit of Ruth’s record (which, actually, is just a way of saying that Aaron kept playing the game, and playing it well) was a trying time, and that the date of his historic home run – April 8, 1974 – was the moment that “led up to turning me off on baseball.”

But in a deeper sense, Aaron’s grace in the face of a stumbling national pasttime reflects a nuanced perspective of a game that has always, always been flawed. Why not render every statistic recorded before 1947 illegitimate, some ask, when entire populations of talented and legendary Negro League players were relegated to obscurity? Why should we not examine and disqualify those whose amphetamine usage in the ’60s and ’70s quite literally propelled them into the record books? And how can we ignore the effects of extending the regular season in 1961, which added eight games and 30-40 at-bats, forever giving modern-day players the edge over those who competed in the preceding decades?

Simply put, in a sport whose numerical records often become the game’s golden calf, there will always be an asterisk. The numbers matter, but what matters more is how we view the men behind the numbers. For Hank Aaron, whose treatment of Bonds defies the reactionary nature of our times, the most important record – the memory of his legend, made more golden with time – will always be etched into baseball’s living memory.

Wildcat resurrection

Heads up, college basketball fans: Arizona has returned. A Wildcat team that was once 11-8 has, after a thrilling 83-76 win over USC Thursday night, extended their improbable winning streak to six in a row, moving to 17-8 overall and a respectable 7-5 in Pac 10 Conference play. But in a year that has seen the abrupt resignation of a Tucson basketball legend, the emergence of an interim head coach (who last year worked as an Arizona State radio announcer), and the departure of a top-tier freshman recruit, the story goes beyond the numbers.

But U of A fans such as myself are not the only ones who are proclaiming the good news. Indeed, as CBS reporter Gary Parrish notes, the ‘Cats story is beginning to gain traction nation-wide. Well, maybe not quite yet (it’s still early!), but for a team who weeks ago was mired in uninspired play, having just fallen to 2-5 in conference and poised to lose to Houston, the sudden turnaround has been nothing short of uplifting. It looks like the moment of truth thus far in the season came during the second half of that Houston game, when Houston player Aubrey Coleman stepped on Chase Budinger’s face, igniting Arizona to a remarkable comeback victory. Since that game, we haven’t looked back, and the fervor surrounding the streak is gaining strength. I was at the McKale Center last night, and I can honestly attest that the excitement surrounding the team is unprecedented for my three years in Tucson.  

The angle of Parrish’s article focuses on the man who seems to be behind it all: interim coach Russ Pennell. Parrish is right to praise him. The team got off to a terrible start, largely due to the understandable and sudden disconnect between coaching staff and players, and as Parrish says, it would have been easy, even rational, to write Pennell off. But suddenly, without warning, Arizona started to play good defense. The Wildcats have implemented a full-court zone press, for one thing, which has left teams scrambling to match the speed of Budinger, Nic Wise, freshman Kyle Fogg (who’s play has come together, not coincidentally, during the past six games), and the lanky athleticism of Jordan Hill. But most important of all, I think, is a consistency of play which I haven’t seen since I’ve lived in Tucson. Each Wildcat team I’ve rooted for, no matter how talented, would seem to just disappear for at least five minutes of each game. For the past three weeks, however, the passion and focus have been there throughout every game the ‘Cats have played. Whether or not Pennell is the direct cause, his coaching has allowed the steadiness to maintain. Rumor surrounding the future head coaching position are swirling, and none of them involve Pennell’s name. But who cares! Right now, he’s our man; right now, the Wildcats are on fire.

Update: Arizona handles no. 6 UCLA 84-72! The ‘Cats move to 18-8, 8-5, and the winning streak extends to seven games!

Steroids: NFL and MLB comparisons

There’s a new post up from SI writer Andrew Perloff which poses some hypotheses as to why positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs are front-page scandals in baseball but are barely newsworthy in the NFL. Many of his theories are sharp, including the distinction between Bud Selig’s atrocious (and previously nonexistant) testing policies, as compared to the NFL’s efficient methods of testing and punishment. Stuff like this disillusions fans, and itself makes each new steroid revelation a bigger story. 

I would add that these days, pretty much everybody has accepted that football players are about as physically advanced as human beings get. Even with drugs, how many pounds of muscle can a 320-lb. lineman who already runs a 4.5 second forty-yard dash gain? One of the charms of baseball has always been than fat, slovenly men like David Wells can occasionally succeed, which in the NFL is unambiguously impossible. So on some level, conversation surrounding the physical capabilities of NFL players is irrelevant. In baseball, a game that more heavily rewards natural gifts and hand-eye coordination, physical strength isn’t automatically a given for elite players. 

But one sentence awakened some self-righteous indignation:

When it comes down to it, baseball is a contest between a hitter and a pitcher. 

Well, at least Perloff does his best to avoid a gross over-simplification. Sure, it’s true that when Alfonso Soriano hits a 3-2 fastball 430 feet onto Sheffield Avenue, baseball can be boiled down to just “a contest between a hitter and a pitcher.” But let’s not forget the pitch before, which was caught by the pitcher’s catcher, and called a strike by the home plate umpire, and was seen by 40,000 excited Chicago fans. Or perhaps we might consider the at-bat before Soriano’s, in which Ryan Theriot lined a single over a leaping first basemen, which was then retrieved by the rightfielder and thrown in to the second baseman. And after Soriano’s home run – which plated Theriot’s run, too – the manager of the opposing team might jog out to the mound, having consulted his coaching staff on the strategy they wish to enact against the Cubs’ on-deck hitter, Aramis Ramirez. After all that, repeated for nine innings, times 162 games, times over 30 teams, plus post-season play, it really all does boil down to two people, doesn’t it?  

 

Some thoughts on A-Rod, drugs, Selig, etc.

Chalk up another huge name on George Mitchell’s ever-growing list of blackballed MLB superstars.

The biggest story of the weekend — the revelation that Alex Rodriguez, Yankee third baseman and baseball’s iconic poster-boy, tested positive for steroids in 2003 — has, to put it mildly, roiled the waters of our national pasttime. The largely shared attitude seems to be that this is just another step down the dark, drug-addled path baseball has taken in recent years. With each new secret revealed, these naysayers maintain, the integrity of the game erodes a little more. And now, with one of the game’s brightest faces tainted, is anyone “clean” anymore? Are there any ballplayers left who have resisted the forbidden fruits of performance-enhancing drugs? This weekend, the sentiment seemed to boil down to this: if we can’t trust A-Rod — one of the few supposedly “clean” superstars — then hell we can’t trust anbody! 

Let me say that I am fully in line with the philosophy of the anti-drug movement in sports. I watch baseball because I love the sport itself, manifested in human form –the quick turn of a double play, a perfectly placed drag bunt, the beauty of a well-timed hit-and-run, the gentle ebb and flow of a nine-inning game, unrestrained by time. All of these things are beholden to nothing but the strictures of a few basic rules and the limitations of the human body. And it is this fact — the fact that these men are human beings, forever striving to attain the elusive forms of metaphysical and physical perfection found in their game — which continually humbles me and reminds me of the blessed and dogged nature of life. 

Because of this, I can’t help but conclude that performance-enhancing drugs are one step down the path towards the dehumanization of sports. If the nature of this quest for perfection is in some way facilitated by non-human means, then there is an element of what I love about the game that is necessarily lost. I am not a Cubs fan because I enjoy watching robots play a game; I am a fan because I am awed by the natural gifts, hard work, and human solidarity I find in Cub players, in Chicago, and in my fellow fans.

Having said all that, I would like to make an additional point or two regarding A-Rod, the Mitchell Report, and the integrity of baseball:

1). In absolutely no way has baseball become “robots playing a game.” When I wrote that performance-enhancing drugs were a step down that path, I meant exactly that: one step; the drugs artificially enhance muscles, speed recovery time from injury, and offer other benefits of that nature. What they don’t do is help players hit a Tim Lincecum fastball. We’re still a long ways from the bottom of that slippery slope, and I have serious issues with people who have jumped on the self-righteous ‘boycott baseball’ bandwagon for these reasons. [Rant Warning: I blame much of this on George Mitchell’s congressional grandstanding, which was, in a way, a repudiation of the constitutional preclusion of ex post facto law. Mitchell has publically flogged and beaten many of baseball’s most important stars, picking and choosing his targets based on visibility, and his condemnations have effectively eliminated any nuanced discussion on the matter.]            

2). We should also keep in mind that because of the self-interested ignorance and neglect of Bud Selig — who, by the way, made $18.5 million last year — no effective policy against steroid usage existed back in 2003. Put into context, this means that Selig, after having turned a blind eye on the problem for 15 years (essentially allowing drug usage to thrive anabated), commisioned the very same Mitchell report that villified the players he tacitly allowed to dope up. In short, A-Rod was doping because nobody was stopping him, and before the League had banned it, and Selig, when it became a matter of convenience, has now attempted to seize the moral high ground against him. Draw your own conclusions, but mine involve an irrational desire to buy tar and feathers and drive to Bud’s league office…      

Ok, this is starting to look more like a poorly structured column than a blog entry, and as I’ve put off my homework for too long already, I think I’ll call it quits for the moment. More later, though…

People might pick up on this one…

Progress, for which the Athlete is enduringly grateful:

For those of you without a title, look no further than “Internet enthusiast.”

Well, I’m considering Penn State, Miami, North Carolina, USC, OSU, Texas, and probably a few more schools too…

For far too many people, today will be filled with non-stop television coverage of Signing Day, the day that high school seniors declare which colleges they will attend football factories will craft them into NFL superstars. To be sure, Singing Day has been significant for as long as university sports programs have been lucrative. The change in recent years has been the extension of this significance to include fans. For weeks, ESPN has proudly been announcing its multiple hours of coverage of the event, consisting, essentially, of young men signing a piece of paper, donning their chosen school’s paraphernalia, and then, I guess, returning to their high school cafeteria. Conventional wisdom now dictates that we should care a great deal who goes to what school, on the assumption that the more top-150-ranked players a school signs, the better that school’s future teams will be. 

This prompts me to ask some questions: 1) How can we possibly know with any accuracy the effect these boys will have on college teams? 2) Once they are playing for these teams, does anyone care to recall the player’s perceived “value” back when they were in high school? 3) How on Earth can anyone create a successful ranking system for kids often not yet 18 years old? Deadspin, per usual, is on top of it:

No one really knows how any of these kids are going to do in college, or whether one recruiting class is better than another. (That’s why they give you so many scholarships, because they know that half your choices will be bad ones.) How big is the difference, really, between the No. 3 RB and No. 8 RB and who says the top middle linebacker from the state of Pennsylvania is really the top? And it doesn’t matter anyway, because as soon as they enroll everyone forgets about them and where they were “ranked” by some scouting service no one understands.  

In truth, the fervor surrounding Signing Day reminds me of why I hate 95% of what’s become of sports opinion journalism: it just doesn’t matter. The kids will play, their teams will win or lose, and all of it will happen regardless of what ‘experts’ get paid to predict. Give me hard facts and box scores any day. After that, I’ll stick to loving games and seasons while they are happening.

Update: If you’re interesting in a more high-brow examination of the efficacy of predicting NFL success, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker piece, written last December, which creates a parallel between sports scouting and our education system.