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In the world of sports, it’s forgive and for fun
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The Orioles, shown here at a recent spring training practice, and the rest of the Major League Baseball likely will be forgiven for performance-enhancing drug scandals by the public, which still loves America’s national pastime, according to Frank Deford. — AP
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Everybody always talks about what a forgiving people we Americans are, but we probably forgive sports faster even than anything else. In the immortal word of that great American hero, Roger Clemens, who, in his red-white-and-blue Congressional defense, proved once again that patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel: we misremember.
Curiously, though, first we are always so quick to postulate that some passing scandal will be the death of a sport. We should have learned by now sports are pretty bulletproof, but every time a sport suffers a setback, here come the pallbearers. Do you remember, for example, just last summer, when one rotten NBA referee was caught giving inside advice to gamblers? My gracious, to hear the talk then, this one rogue ref would surely be the death of the league, if not indeed of all of basketball.
Ho hum. The NBA has carried on quite as before. How quickly we misremember.
And for all the talk about how steroids have damaged baseball, the sport has never been more prosperous. Drugs? What drugs? Praise the Lord and raise the ticket prices.
Indeed, it is hardly America alone that is so quick to forgive and forget with sport. The soccer scandals that were revealed in Italy rose to the very top of the major league there, with both personalities and ethics alike. After a slight pause to punish the offenders and to bewail the horror of it all, the great game was right back on track. Forza Italia!
The Olympics were a veritable grease trap of corruption for many years, but it seems that every major city in the world remains anxious to host them — and damn the cost. This summer’s Beijing games already are awash in ugliness. Theexpectation is athletes and spectators alike will be gasping at air so foul it would lay low like every proverbial canary in the coal mine. Steven Spielberg has just resigned his role as an artistic adviser to the Games, protesting China’s nefarious connection with Darfur. A clutch of world notables including eight Nobel Prize winners have added their dissenting voices. But, be assured, when the Olympics begin at eight o’clock on August 8th — tripling the Chinese lucky number — the whole lucky world will be frosted over with cries of brotherhood and good will.
I suspect that sports are so unbreakable because, as much as anything, they offer hope -- perennially. If there is one sentiment, one slogan, that best explains our love of sport, it is the venerable: wait’ll next year!
Where else in this veil of tears does hope truly spring eternal? So, in good times we relax with games and in bad times, we escape into them. Either way, they are a jolly refuge.
So don’t worry about baseball. Until and unless he is indicted for perjury, we have already misremembered Roger Clemens. In Florida and Arizona, the pitchers and catchers are chucking the hardball about, and all we care about is that that next year we waited for has surely begun again.
Frank Deford’s column also appears as commentary Wednesdays on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He can be reached at flamegarden@aol.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
10:21 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 24, 2008 re: "Presidential game plan: Obama’s bid rooted to the rise of the black athlete"
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4:20 PM MST on Thu., Jul. 3, 2008
re: "Hope springs eternal for Baltimore’s Phelps"
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2:48 PM MST on Tue., Apr. 15, 2008
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8:01 AM MST on Fri., Oct. 5, 2007
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5:41 PM MST on Mon., Sep. 10, 2007
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6:05 PM MST on Fri., Aug. 17, 2007
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Examiner Reader said:
Dude, come into the 21st century and leave your old white guy racist beliefs behind. Are you friggin' serious? Nah, you gotta be kidding. Some old fart like you? Geez!
2 agree | 1 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
your chauvanistic gilman background shows. what about hoff she is from baltimore too. you seem to dismiss the williams as unamerican---perhaps because they are women also
2 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
This is quite possibly the stupidest article I've read in a while. Frank, was press time five minutes away when you coined this piece?
9 agree | 8 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Great article; agree with it entirely. The Olympics have lost their prestige, and this year in Beijing, the IOC will recognize this reality when it sees the declining interest from worldwide audiences. And indeed, let's ask the athletes to skip the opening ceremonies and demand that President Bush boycott the games altogether; it's his job to speak diplomatically with action.
7 agree | 9 disagree
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Brian O'Rourke said:
Alas, poor Billick...we knew him well!
128 agree | 131 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
this so called legal system will destroy a thousand white men to destroy one black man. if they want him bad enough. and they do. racism is more clandestine and senister in this country than anywhere else in the world. we black men are considered a threat and always have been. but the table is taking a slow turn. but don't worry we'll show you some love. obviously something you know nothing about.
149 agree | 166 disagree
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avid reader said:
Angelos would not listen to anyone who made sense about making baseball interesting again in Baltimore.
189 agree | 165 disagree
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Michael said:
Football was named after the length of the ball, one foot. It has nothing to do with using your feet. And no one cares about soccer anyway. You could change its name to kickball. Oh, and basketball will be bounceball. And change tennis to racketball, racketball to wallball, and golf to metalstickball. Hey, volleyball. Theres one you can keep. Some people will search high and low to find something to complain about. Isn't there real sports news in D.C. that you can write about.
311 agree | 293 disagree
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Ron Redmerski said:
No way was this supposed to happen. Not like this, anyway. Four years ago when the ACC decided to expand, the prevailing thought on Tobacco Road was that the SEC had some competition. Finally. A 12 team super conference that included two Florida schools and, arguably, New England’s top athletic program. The talent-rich, fertile Newport Beach/Hampton recruiting areas were going to help the ACC yield top five football programs like Pez dispensers spit out candy. Well, if yesterday was any indication of how far the ACC has come, we won’t be eating Elvis Pez any time soon. Losing to an underrated East Carolina team is one thing (not to mention struggling with UAB, a program beaten by Michigan State 55-12 the week prior), but getting run over, completely throttled, by LSU and Oklahoma is quite another. The aforementioned powers made quick and decisive work of Virginia Tech and Miami (and that’s saying it nicely), respectively, the two programs that had John Swofford and the ACC bras
315 agree | 335 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Frank Deford's editorial on tall tales: Best athletes seem to rise Growth hormones does wonders ask my 16 year old son who is on them for medical reasons due to cancer treatment as a baby! If an adult or even a child is using them and they shouldn't be who knows what problems they may have down the road.
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Examiner Reader said:
Reminds me of the old line about horseracing as the sport of kings. But you never saw any kings @the $2 window.
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