Wednesday, July 19
By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com
Let's be absolutely clear on one point, before they take Carl Everett's ball-driving license away, send him into anger-management counseling and force him to begin reading Leo Buscaglia on the side, consider this: It wasn't his fault.
|  | | Umpire Ronald Kulpa caught a bit of heat from Carl Everett for, get this, enforcing a baseball rule. |
Oh, treating home-plate umpire Ron Kulpa like a Smackdown opponent?
Sure, that was Everett's fault -- he goes to the Big House for that one. You
will never win that argument in this corner -- never, ever, ever, ever -- by
going on about this incompetent umpire or that blown call or attitude or
anything close to it.
The umpires have a ridiculously difficult job, they are scrutinized at critical junctures in ways that often exceed the microscopic treatment given to players making 50 times what they do, nobody holds up signs saying, "Love Ya Blue!" while they're walking off the field ... in short, we're with them. There's no excuse for getting physical with an ump unless it's a bar-brawl that clearly involves both parties.
So, we all can agree, Everett was totally wrong there. And acting like a world-class fool before, during and after the fracas -- he's on the hook for all of that, too.
But assuming that baseball rules don't apply to him, which Everett
clearly assumed while standing so far across the batter's box that he could
have tapped the first-base coach with the end of his bat? Innocent!
Innocent by reason of ludicrous example.
Say what you want about the rest of this case, but no one can blame Everett for essentially doing whatever he liked in the batter's box. The "rules" -- in baseball, basketball and any other major, TV-driven, star-powered sport -- just no longer make a whit of difference.
Carl Everett saw the chalk-mark that denotes the closest toward the
plate that a batter may stand, and he thought, "Cool. Let me just scuff
this out and I can really dig in." It never even occurred to the man that
his batting stance was utterly illegal.
And why? Well, obviously, because illegal is in. Seen the
three-second rule enforced in the NBA lately? Of course you haven't. On
every play down the court, an NBA official could call Shaquille O'Neal for
an offensive foul -- or the folks guarding O'Neal for defensive fouls. At
some point, you can almost see the ref just give up. He's supposed to
enforce the rules? He can barely see the rules with all that humanity
pounding around the boards.
The rules, in pro sports, have come to be considered hopelessly
anachronistic. Referring to them is now regarded as an act of pure
optimism. Greg Maddux throws a ball that misses the "black" of the plate
by, let's say, a solid 6 inches, and he is given the strike. Why? Because
Maddux often has thrown strikes in the past? What tortured manner of logic
is this?
Officials and umpires play their role here, to be sure. Whereas a
tidy few rules used to fall into the area of the judgment call, you can now
find people arguing -- sincerely, mind you -- over the enforcement of just
about any law on the sports books. There may be no ambiguity about the rule
itself, but whether or not the man chooses even to notice a violation of it
is another question altogether.
It's sort of like jaywalking, or bludgeoning the quarterback after
he has released a pass, or cheating on a diet. If you go 96 mph in a 45
zone but don't get a ticket, did you break the law?
Carl Everett stepped into the batter's box the other day and undoubtedly just assumed he could keep on doing what he always does, which is what half the batters in the major leagues do, which is to make the thing his personal playpen. Ron Kulpa called him on it (sure, sure, the Mets tipped him off), warned Everett repeatedly, warned him demonstratively, and still Everett failed to take the hint.
And why should he? Everett, like most of us, has spent most of his ESPN-viewing life
watching Michael Jordan take five giant steps through the lane en route to a monster slam dunk. If Everett hits the ball out of the park, who gives a rip about the rules, right?
Exactly.
Scouting around
They throw the phrase around in golf now, "pulling a Van de
Velde," to denote some abysmal crash and burn by a guy in the late stages of
a tournament. But to see how Jean Van de Velde has dealt with his
heartbreaking collapse in last year's British Open is actually to enjoy an
object lesson in why elite athletes are who they are in the first place.
Far from crushed, Van de Velde has moved right along with his career,
revisiting the Carnoustie disaster with great aplomb, continuing to play
top-level golf. His endorsement opportunities, oddly, have multiplied, not
dwindled.
The truth is, Van de Velde is going great, he strikes you as the
epitome of grace, and, deep down, he doesn't really seem to mind being part
of British Open lore. Maybe we should all be so unlucky.
You can certainly understand why the Reds would be telling 11-time All-Star shortstop Barry Larkin, here in July, that they won't be re-signing him next season. After all, Larkin's only batting .327 and contributing his usual leadership to a team that has won seven of its last 10 games in a desperate attempt to climb back into the National League Central race despite getting a .238 effort out of Ken Griffey Jr., and ... and ... what were we talking about again?
Raiders owner Al Davis has been going after the Denver Broncos for cooking their books and trying to circumvent the salary cap, prompting Broncos owner Pat Bowlen to say that Davis is just bitter because his team can't beat Denver. But if that were the case, judging off the past 15 years, Davis would be bitter toward just about every team in the NFL, filing spurious lawsuit after frivolous claim, undoing his own legacy as a man
committed above all to winning, and ... and ... what were we talking about again?
Absolutely beautiful summation from Michael Jordan, after playing a three-hole golf exhibition with Nancy Lopez, Laura Davies and Michelle McGann at the U.S. Women's Open: "I am still hooked on golf, but I've also come to the realization that I'm a hack. I would play it every single day -- that's how much I love the game. Even though I am a hack, I still love to play."
Two things about that: One, Jordan is no hack golfer; but two, he
just spoke to the hearts of millions of weekend warriors everywhere. The
great thing about sports, even if you're Jordan, is that you don't have to
perform at the world-class level to fall in love with them.
All together, now: Lucky for us.
Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a Web site at http://www.sacbee.com/.
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