Doomsday is not nigh

Sporting News, The, June 11, 2001 by Dave Kindred

Sports as we know it are dead. Turn out the lights, the party's over. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says so. Dissenting from the court's 7-2 ruling that Casey Martin be allowed to ride a cart in professional golf tournaments, Scalia imagined the worst. There'll be, he wrote, an "Animal Farm determination that fairness and the ADA mean that everyone gets to play by individualized rules which will assure that no one's lack of ability ... will be a handicap."

Scalia's example: "One can envision the parents of a Little League player with attention deficit disorder trying to convince a judge that their son's disability makes it at least 25 percent more difficult to hit a pitched ball. If they are successful, the only thing that could prevent a court order giving the kid four strikes would be a judicial determination that, in baseball, three strikes are metaphysically necessary, which is quite absurd."

Scalia has company. Early in the Martin saga, the Libertarian Party asked, "What's next? Federally mandated stilts so ... midgets can play professional basketball? Should Roger Clemens be ordered by the court to throw slower fastballs to near-sighted hitters?"

The PGA Tour's offensive against Martin included a packet of 32 newspaper pieces, including a Boston Globe column attacking Martin for "stomping into court and demanding that the government give him what he wanted. This is worse than spitting at an umpire or choking a coach. Because of Martin, all of professional sports is now threatened by the Americans with Disabilities Act."

Whoa, folks. Take a chill pill. Too much fretting going on.

The Supreme Court decision is wonderful. Martin's disability is undeniable; a congenital circulatory defect in his right leg makes it painful for him to stand, let alone walk, and likely will lead to amputation. The court upheld an order for an accommodation (the cart) because it believed the PGA Tour's rule that competitors must walk could be changed without altering the event's fundamental nature (the ADA standard).

That standard will preclude the doomsday scenarios of the sky-is-falling crowd. The court was careful to say its opinion didn't change the fundamental nature of golf. "Pure chance," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, may have more to do with an elite golf tournament's result than any fatigue induced by walking.

So, Scalia and Clarence Thomas notwithstanding, the court's decision doesn't suggest four strikes rather than three, a minute to shoot rather than 24 seconds, first-and-8 rather than first-and-10. And while three strikes may not be "metaphysically necessary," 150 years of the role ought to persuade all but the most obdurate judge that it's fundamental to the game.

The court's opinion does no more than give a disabled athlete opportunity. The equivalent would be driving an outfielder from the dugout to center field, then leaving him there to do the real work on his own. No court would rule that a slow-footed soccer player be given a motor scooter, just as no court would order the basket lowered from 10 feet to 8 feet to accommodate vertically challenged players.

Yes, lawyers discovering this fresh, new territory will rush to the bar with ADA cases in all sports. If somewhere in this favored land there lives a disabled pole vaulter who has invented a jet-powered wheelchair with an F-16 ejection seat that will propel him over a 21-foot high bar, count on this: At that person's side, there'll soon be a lawyer.

Silly lawsuits will follow the Martin ruling just as silly lawsuits have followed other ADA precedents. Lawyers will ask courts for dispensation for their athletes/clients who suffer from hangovers, hangnails, imperfectly ground prescription glasses, bad cholesterol. Who knows? Maybe a Klansman will demand spring-powered shoes and an NBA job because he has congenital white-men-can't-jump disease.

So what?

If the cost of the Supreme Court's wisdom is the possibility of even more frivolous lawsuits in Litigation Nation, it's a bargain at twice the price.

Here, let's pause for a dissenting opinion from TSN reader Matt Thullen, an attorney who says professional leagues can defend themselves against frivolous lawsuits but local organizations can't.

"These organizations will face one of two equally unpleasant choices: 1) bend the rules as desired by the plaintiff--four strikes, a smaller goal, or whatever, or 2) spend scarce dollars defending themselves in court."

The attorney thinks local organizations will make accommodations, however silly, rather than go to court, where even victory will cost them the expense of litigation.

What we need, of course, is the kind of common sense that baseball umpires, of all people, have demonstrated. Thinking here of Jim Abbott. Often in the current debate, Abbott's name has come up. In 10 major league seasons, it's said, the pitcher born without a right hand asked no favors. He just brought great skill to the mound.

That he did, and he also asked for help. Other pitchers, working from the stretch, could hide the ball inside their glove. Abbott carried his glove on the stump of his right arm. That made it awkward to hide his grip on the ball. So instead of coming to the full stop demanded by a strict reading of baseball's rules, Abbott rolled the ball in his left hand until the moment he decided to throw it.