Hearing an ugly side to athletes

Sporting News, The, May 14, 2001 by Jay Mariotti

Where are we, a European soccer stadium? What is this madness around us, some sort of sporting apocalypse, or maybe the movie Rollerball coming hauntingly to life? Here we thought these games involved a team against another team, an athlete against another athlete, a city against another city.

Not so. The new competition pits the paying customers against the athletes, an increasingly ugly battle waged almost daily, with so many slurs and objects being hurled that a nationwide warning seems necessary.

Duck!

If the crossfire continues, moats and shock fences might be next. Whether the problem is backlash over outrageous salaries, the inevitable onset of British-type hooliganism or just a few nut cases ruining the fun for everyone, something freaky is in the air. In recent days alone, we have seen everything from Metrodome rowdies heaving golf balls and metal strips at Chuck Knoblauch to a San Diego fan engaging in a heated argument with Dodgers general manager Kevin Malone, an incident that cost Malone his job. And those were merely the minor incidents. More troubling are ones that occur when an athlete, angered by taunting fans, takes the low road and resorts to narrow-minded slurs. Pathetically, such hatred is now commonplace.

Welcome to the latest sports menace. It's called the Bigot Club, a sick, little society of loosely educated athletes who disparage homosexuals, Jews, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, unwed mothers and anyone else they choose. It's a wicked game of one-upmanship, showdowns between mouthy fans who think they're entitled to vent and arrogant athletes who think they're above any negative vibes. How many jock-wearing ignorami have made abject fools of themselves? I've lost track.

Starting with John Rocker and continuing of late with Allen Iverson, Jason Williams, Julian Tavarez and Charlie Ward, the rash of irresponsible rants is out of control. Fly the freedom-of-speech flag if you must, but it wilts in a consumer setting. The last thing the sports industry needs, with so many fans already disgusted and turned off, are words from athletes insulting religion, color, creed and sexual orientation. Granted, some fans are jerks and need to adhere to a conduct code, if not spend a month in a cell. But that doesn't begin to justify why an athlete, usually pampered from birth, would respond with the most vicious trash-talk imaginable.

To protect their businesses, league commissioners have to be proactive in laying down punishment. Yet, too often they are lax. The most recent violator was Tavarez, the Chicago Cubs pitcher, who slammed San Francisco fans as "faggots" after they booed him. But baseball boss Bud Selig, whose heavy-handed stance in the Rocker saga represented some of his finest work, went mushy on Tavarez. He didn't issue a suspension and deferred to the Cubs, who criticized Tavarez, slapped him with a fine and pointed him toward the mound, where he kept his place in the rotation.

Instead of issuing a powerful statement, Selig and the Cubs ducked the crisis. The image of Wrigley Field, I know, smacks of frat-row hedonism: beer-soaked guys meeting halter-topped women. But all sorts of people enjoy the Cubs, including the world-famous Bleacher Creature named Jerry Pritikin, who called with three pieces of information.

One, he's gay. Two, he thinks Tavarez is a jerk. And three, he and 2,000 of his friends will convene at Wrigley on June 23, the eve of Gay Pride Day, to watch the game and invite Tavarez up to their section--not necessarily in that order. "The Cubs have a lot of gay fans," he says. "Let (Tavarez) come up and sit in the group of 2,000 and see if he feels comfortable. There's a new gay community center. Let's see him donate a few bucks in his honor."

Beyond the directly insulted parties, you wonder if there is enough outrage about these episodes. Bigotry runs rampant through America, and if sports leagues let evil comments slide with a slap on the wrist, they are shirking their duties. NBA commish David Stern has been negligent in disciplining offenders. He let Iverson off the hook for anti-gay and misogynistic lyrics in his CD, then fined him only $5,000 when he made a derogatory remark about gays to fans in Indiana. There was no penalty for Ward after his comments about Jews.

Williams, one of the league's few Caucasian hopes, has been especially flagrant in slurs toward Asian-Americans. He responded to one heckler, according to witnesses at a game, by calling him "a slant-eyed motherf--" and pretending to shoot him. "I'll shoot all you Asian motherf--," he allegedly said. "Do you remember the Vietnam War? I'll kill y'all like that. Just like Pearl Harbor."

Not only did Williams miss too many history classes, he has no due about life. He should have been suspended for a playoff series or two. Instead, he got off with a $15,000 fine and a lame apology. Was Stern protecting him for marketing reasons?

"We used to look at the box scores. Now we look at which athlete puts his golden foot in his mouth," Pritikin says. "Gays, Jews--maybe it'll be Martians next week."