January 27, 2004

Tangential subject: what I've never understood is, why is it considered "sportsmanship" to not play your hardest once a game becomes a blowout? Let me give an example. Take baseball: fool commentators often talk about "respecting the game". I flash back to 2002, Mike Cameron of the Seattle Mariners has hit 4 homeruns in 4 at-bats through just the first 5 innings in Chicago. No player in history has hit 5 HR in a single game; Cameron is on another planet, homering twice in the first inning, and the next two times he comes up in the 3rd and the 5th. He comes up to the plate in the 7th, Mariners are blowing out the Sox 13-3 or something ridiculous. On a 3-0 count the pitcher grooves one right down the middle, which is what most pitchers do in that situation. With an easy chance at history, Cameron takes the pitch instead of swinging away, and walks on the next pitch, ball 4. Many pundits, include the usually sensible Rob Neyer, praise him for this one move, sacrificing a chance to be alone in the record books in order to "uphold the game" or some such blather. But that's what I don't get- if you as a hitter think you are going to get a pitch to hit, much less nail over the fence- swing!!! Somehow, it's not "respecting the game" or "showing up your opponent" to swing for the fences at that point. But I ask, why? It seems it's even more disrespectful of your opponent to say "You're so bad and we're so good, we aren't going to even try anymore!" Not swinging at pitches is, in my mind, almost like a right-handed hitter walking up to the plate and batting left-handed in a blow out: both seem to suggest anything but sportsmanship. Often, the 3-0 fastball down the middle is fair game, but some bizarre notion of "sportsmanship" says you don't swing away at that pitch in a blowout. That's all crap. Blowout or no blowout, why should the players of MCC let down for a minute- everyone knows that in sports, injuries happen when you get complacent, and competitors lose that "edge" when they start phoning it in for the tail ends of games. Why shouldn't they fulfill the principles of competition and never take an opponent for granted, never get lazy, never get complacent, and never get cocky- and make no mistake, taking trick shots or only shooting beyond the arc is cocky, it's arrogant, it's insulting.

posted by hincandenza at 01:26 AM on January 28, 2004

Hal, agreed 100% and then some. This MCC team has come under fire for their lastest win. Yet, they only had eight players available to play. For an administrator to tell a coach that only three pointers will do ends up hurting the team. I find that once you lose your edge, it flows into the next game and can quite possibly ruin your season. Also, playing like this, I think, leads to injuries. When you aren't focused on the game is what leads to injuries. I have to check this team out just to see if they are this good or if the teams they are playing are just bad.

posted by jasonspaceman at 07:02 AM on January 28, 2004