Let’s talk gamesmanship and sportsmanship.
In sports, competitors are always looking for an edge. This discussion involves legal advantages, not cheating. That is a full discussion for a future column.
Gamesmanship, or creating an advantage, is the psychological warfare employed to win a game without technically cheating. I am not talking about sending a goose on the field to disrupt play – OK, that was a real goose during the Dodgers-Padres playoff game – but I can see rally geese in the Padres’ future. True gamesmanship can involve such things as embellishing – now a penalty in hockey – to make a hit or an action seem worse than it really was, or deliberately falling after being tackled to try to earn a penalty, or trapping a puck against the boards to waste time in a tight hockey game.
You can trash talk an opponent, rile your crowd up, taunt with style ala Muhammad Ali, but you can’t provoke an opponent into an action. However, in a football game against the Baltimore Colts, Detroit Lions Hall of Fame defensive tackle Alex Karras tweaked the opposing lineman’s nose through his facemask twice and was threatened that if Karras did it again, the lineman would destroy him. Karras alerted the official and faked a tweak and the lineman broke ranks and chased Karras, thus getting a 15-yard penalty. But, when another Alex, Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, shouted “Ha, I got it” at Blue Jays infielders during a pop fly that subsequently dropped, that is wrong.
You can get under a guy’s skin and disrupt his procedure, but sometimes it goes too far. While within the rules, in a recent MLB playoff game between the Mets and the Padres, San Diego hitters repeatedly called time during their at bats to distract and slow down New York pitcher Chris Bassitt. The umpires kept allowing it, and perhaps they should not have, as it was a distraction, and calling time is a courtesy, not a given by umpires. With next year’s pitch clock, this won’t be an issue. The gamesmanship worked as the Pads touched the Mets for six runs.
Then, opposing Mets manager Buck Showalter lobbied the umpires to check Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove, who was working on a one-hit shutout and whose ears were shiny, for a foreign substance in the sixth inning. The umpires examined Musgrove’s hat and glove and rubbed his ears. They found nothing and let Musgrove, who looked annoyed, continue pitching. Fans, however, chanted “cheater, cheater,” as Musgrove pitched. Gamesmanship or bad sportsmanship?
Gaining an advantage is one thing, but bad sportsmanship is another.
What do you think? Is anything under the rules fair game, or can it be carried too far? Let me know how you feel at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com.
