Simple question: if you are a linebacker and cleanly sack the opposing team’s quarterback, what do you do when he’s on the ground?
a, Reach out and help him up.
b. Celebrate your accomplishment by dancing around his prone body.
I recently posed that question to a millennial who I know to be thoroughly kind, decent and fair. His answer: you dance around the humiliated quarterback in order to intimidate him further and make him more nervous (and more likely to make a mistake) next time. Moreover, if a clean hit results in an injury to the quarterback, all the better since he will be out of commission for a few games, giving the sacker’s team an advantage.
I was absolutely flabbergasted. Sportsmanship may not be dead, but it’s clearly on life support.
In baseball, much has been made lately about bat flips, home run admiration and celebrations in general. Jorge Ortiz wrote a truly cringeworthy piece on USA Today where he tried to frame the issue around racial and ethnic “cultural differences.” Left-handed pitcher C.J. Nitkowski, a former 19-year major leaguer, answered Ortiz with a much more thoughtful piece on Fox Sports. Nitkowski’s point: major leaguers have always determined what constitutes poor sportsmanship amongst themselves, and clashes have occurred since the game began. From his article:
I mostly discount the racial component of Jorge’s piece. Players take issue with other players all the time, regardless of where they were born. The numbers cited in that column are pure coincidence.
I agree with Nitkowski, and am offended by Ortiz’s (and many others’) patronizing attitude toward African-Americans and Latinos in sport, dismissing their particular sportsmanship transgressions as somehow related to their culture or background, as succinctly expressed in this quote from Dan Le Batard’s daily sports talk show (helpfully provided by the aforementioned millennial):
"cultures do funerals differently, weddings differently, dance differently, live differently so it makes sense they would play baseball differently too."
Racial, ethnic and cultural diversity enriches, strengthens and vastly improves any environment, whether a sport, an industry or a nation. Yet cultural differences can be daunting. No doubt, a so-called Jazz Funeral in New Orleans differs vastly from an Orthodox Jewish funeral in Brooklyn. But, does Le Batard suggest that it would be OK for a New Orleanian attending an orthodox funeral to pull out a trumpet and belt out “When the Saints Go Marching In” because of his different culture?
Of course not. You respect the culture of the wedding you attend, regardless of your own culture. Likewise, you respect the culture, traditions and unwritten rules of Major League Baseball, which have evolved for over 140 years, gradually incorporating elements from the different cultures represented in the game, and will continue to do so.
The underlying issue, though, is not about cultural differences, or unwritten rules. It is about sportsmanship. Sportsmanship transcends culture. Showing someone up is poor sportsmanship, period. Taunting someone is poor sportsmanship, period. Helping up an opponent is good sportsmanship, period.
Acts of good sportsmanship rise above the artificial construct of sport and into the realm of reality. By helping your opponent up after knocking him down, you are saying, “You are my adversary, but not my enemy. Under the rules of this game, I knocked you down. Under the rules of our common humanity, I’ll help you up.” My millennial friend would argue that acts of humanity in sport denote weakness, that they lessen your chance of winning future contests. And millions of dollars hang in the balance.
Oh, well, allow me to retort. Magnanimous acts are marks of strength and maturity. Dancing around a fallen opponent, admiring a home run and flipping your bat are nothing but childish braggadocio. Sorry, Dan, culture is not relevant here. These are universal truths. To imply otherwise, to use someone’s culture as an excuse for his poor sportsmanship, is condescending and insulting.
By taunting, intimidating and/or humiliating fellow human beings, be it in sport or anywhere else, we are not winning. We are losing. Our humanity.
