That was the question I found myself asking while reading through the Times sports section in recent days. I understand that we are sort of between seasons here. The Super Bowl is over, baseball has yet to begin, the N.B.A. is slogging through its long wintry slog, and the N.H.L. — well, I’m afraid I just don’t pay attention, as don’t a great many U.S. sports fans.
So plainly, this is not a peak time of year for professional sports. But still: it is noteworthy how many of the articles in the paper have nothing to do with the games themselves, but rather the cheating that surrounds the games. Andy Pettitte apologizes to his teammates and Yankees fans for using HGH, and reveals that his friendship with Roger Clemens is strained … Clemens pulls out of an ESPN event so he doesn’t cause “a distraction” … there are drug-testing articles about Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, and Eric Gagne.
And that’s just baseball! You can also read about Bill Belichick‘s denial of taping opponents’ practices and the continuing tale of doping cyclists. There are a few N.B.A. articles, too (though nothing lately about refs’ gambling), and soccer (though nothing lately on match fixing), but by and large, the sports section that arrives each morning feels more like a cheating section.
Maybe, however, this is just how we like it. As much as we profess to like the games for the games’ sake, perhaps cheating is part of the appeal, a natural extension of sport that people condemn on moral grounds but secretly embrace as what makes sports most compelling. For all the talk of how cheating “destroys the integrity of the game,” maybe that’s not true at all? Perhaps cheating actually adds a layer of interest — a cat-and-mouse element, a detective-story element — that complements the game?
Also, we love to applaud cheaters who have confessed their ways. Pettitte, for instance, got a hero’s welcome for talking about his HGH mistakes; Clemens, meanwhile, with every further denial seems to be soaking up ill will like a sponge. (Given the reception Pettitte got, I do wonder if Clemens is rethinking his retrenchment strategy; perhaps he will come forward someday and claim that he himself “misremembered” using HGH or steroids.) Just as the theological concept of the Resurrection is so powerful (see Tyler Cowen‘s discussion here of the theology behind Freakonomics, a notion I find flattering, if exaggerated), and just as a harsh winter is followed by an insistent spring, I wonder if our interest in sport too springs eternal, not in spite of the cheating scandals, but because of them?
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I totally agree. As my friend once said, “Cheaters always win, if they don’t get caught, and winners don’t get caught cheating.” I believe that some other wise person once said that going outside the rules isn’t cheating, but merely changing the conditions of the test.
It boils down to what we learn as kids:
Cheating is good… (record sales, superstars, lots of money to be made)
Getting caught cheating is not good….
But in this day and age, apologies go too far and punishment not far enough. Pete Rose is formally banned for life, but drug users essentially walk… Left to the voters as to whether or not they are HOF worthy.
Odd that you would marginalize hockey, the one sport mentioned in this post that doesn’t share the others’ cheating troubles.
If you (and the rest of the sports-watching world) gave it a chance, you’d likely find the action captivating, and the players refreshingly human, even down-to-earth. Of course, all this may be due to the lower player salaries which are certainly caused by the smaller fan base..
So on second thought, go right ahead knocking on hockey. That way the tickets will remain affordable, and the players admirable.
Unless of course their last name is Jagr.
Cheating was clearly good for MLB in 1998. Since we’re pretty sure that McGwire was juicing and Sosa was probably juicing and corking, and we’re also pretty sure they saved the game from general disinterest (and don’t believe that Cal Ripkin breaking Lou Gehrig’s Most Boring Record in all of sports saved baseball, because without the 98 Yankees and Sosa and McGwire, no one would have noticed that Cal Ripken showed up for work everyday), clearly the cheating was better for baseball than the alternative (q.v. the National Hockey League’s sad corpse, now on Versus).
I’m unwilling to believe that hockey is free of steroids, HGH, greenies, or whatever junk folks in the NFL and MLB are taking. It’s a sport where large salaries are not unusual, where being stronger and faster would be an edge, and where the difference between being a big star and a marginal one are small and richly rewarded. Just cause they haven’t found it, Eli, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It might be that no one is looking.
While I cannot definitively say that cheating is bad for sports, I am quite sure that applauding cheaters-turned-confessors is not evidence of a latent admiration for cheaters and cheating. Can’t we applaud truth-and-reconciliation campaigns like South Africa’s while condemning the actions of those we forgive?
Maybe it’s the Yankee fan in me, but I respect the honesty of guys like Petitte and Giambi, who got caught and came clean, as opposed to guys like McGuire, who continued to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Cheating isn’t good for sports. It’s good for the sports media.
Any chance you have a New York media bias? In my paper this morning, the Lakers dominated the sports page. There were lesser articles on spring training (the players on local teams are converging in Florida and Arizona) and Tiger Woods. Tomorrow, I expect college basketball will take some of the Lakers space and the rest of the paper will be more or less the same. Obviously there will be steroid and cheating coverage when something new comes along, but the bulk of the coverage will continue to be games, trades and roster moves for the most part. When Barry Bonds gets his day in court, that will be front page news of course.
Controversy (and cheating) are good for sports in the same way that salt is good for food–a little makes it interesting but a lot is off-putting. Common sense, I’d think.
I find it funny that Hockey is so marginalized, and yet its the one pro sport that hasn’t been laid low with the sorts of crimes and allegations we see all the time in the other more popular sports.
Granted, there is cheating in hockey. The goalie can wear bigger pads, sticks can be modified, and I’m sure some people took unnamed substances.
However, Hockey has some self-correcting mechanisms for these sorts of offenses. If someone is a cheater or otherwise lacks honor, they can expect to be punished on the ice. The brutality of the sport has a purifying effect.
Also, I think the compensation level of Hockey is so much less that pure love of money in and of itself is not the motivator for as many of the players.
Hockey > Other, non Hockey sports.